Skip to Main Content

Pride Month Resources

History

 

Pride Rainbow

Credit: Jason Leung

Community & Culture

Black LGBTQ Lives Matter Protest Sign

Credit: Clay Banks – Woman holds up sign at the Black Lives Matter protest in Washington DC 6/6/2020 (IG: @clay.banks)

Amplifying Trans Voices

Articles

Key Figures

  • Angelica Ross – From the board room, to film sets, to the White House, Angelica Ross is a leading figure of success and strength in the movement for trans and racial equality. Named, “1st Foot Soldier of the Year” in 2015 by Melissa Harris Perry, Angelica Is the founder of TransTech Social Enterprises, a company that empowers trans and gender nonconforming people through on-the-job training in leadership and workplace skills. Angelica has toured nationally, speaking her powerful mission into action with business leaders, educators, and the President of the United States.
  • Audre Lorde – A self-described “black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet,” Audre Lorde dedicated both her life and her creative talent to confronting and addressing injustices of racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia. Her experiences with teaching and pedagogy—as well as her place as a Black, queer woman in white academia—went on to inform her life and work. Indeed, Lorde’s contributions to feminist theory, critical race studies, and queer theory intertwine her personal experiences with broader political aims.
  • Bayard Rustin – Bayard Rustin was a civil rights organizer and activist, best known for his work as adviser to Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1950s and ’60s. Combining non-violent resistance with organizational skills, he was a key adviser to Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1960s. While King spoke as the face of the civil rights movement, Bayard Rustin stood behind the scenes, an indispensable force within the movement. He was, a man whose life was shaped by the very prejudices the movement fought against, not only because of his race, but also because he was gay. Rustin would spend his life fighting for the rights of others, even while facing discrimination of his own. Though he was arrested several times for his own civil disobedience and open homosexuality, he continued to fight for equality. (https://www.biography.com/) (https://www.history.com/)
  • Billie Jean King – American tennis great Billie Jean King broke down barriers by pushing for equal prize money for women and becoming one of the first well-known openly gay athletes. Billie Jean King became the top-ranked women’s tennis player by 1967. In 1973, she formed the Women’s Tennis Association and famously defeated Bobby Riggs in the “Battle of the Sexes.” The first prominent female athlete to admit her homosexuality, King continued her work as an influential social activist after retiring from tennis.
  • Derrick Gordon – Derrick Gordon became the first openly gay Division I men’s basketball player to compete in a collegiate game. Gordon said he gained confidence by seeing an NBA team sign Jason Collins, who became the league’s first openly gay player when he joined the Brooklyn Nets earlier this year.“I want to be myself,” Gordon said in the interview televised on ESPN. “I don’t want to hide and be someone I’m not.”
  • Edith Windsor – Edith Windsor came to represent, more than any other person, the stunning success of the gay-rights movement over the past decade. She was, for those of us in the L.G.B.T. community, our Rosa Parks. She was a hero almost without detractors; she was often blunt, but she personified courage, which is what it took for a gay person to bring a public legal claim for equality. Her 2013 Supreme Court case was not about gay marriage directly—it was about the interplay of state and federal law as it related to marriage. But, after it was decided in her favor, declaring the federal Defense of Marriage Act (doma)—which barred federal recognition of legally valid same-sex marriages—unconstitutional, it set the Court on an unstoppable path toward its landmark ruling two years later, declaring a nationwide right to same-sex marriage equality.
  • George Takei – George Takei is best known for his portrayal of Mr. Sulu in the acclaimed television and film series Star Trek. He’s an actor, social justice activist, social media mega-power, New York Times bestselling author, originated the role of Sam Kimura and Ojii-Chan in the Broadway musical Allegiance, and subject of To Be Takei, a documentary on his life and career. With the outbreak of World War II, Los Angeles, California-born Takei and his family were placed behind the barbed-wire enclosures of United States internment camps along with 120,000 other Japanese Americans. Inspired by this difficult chapter of American history, Takei developed the Broadway musical Allegiance, an epic story of love, family and heroism.
  • Harvey Milk – Harvey Milk, was a visionary civil and human rights leader who became one of the first openly gay elected officials in the United States when he won a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977. Milk’s unprecedented loud and unapologetic proclamation of his authenticity as an openly gay candidate for public office, and his subsequent election gave never before experienced hope to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) people everywhere at a time when the community was encountering widespread hostility and discrimination. His remarkable career was tragically cut short when he was assassinated nearly a year after taking office.
  • James Baldwin – James Baldwin was an essayist, playwright, novelist and voice of the American civil rights movement known for works including ‘Notes of a Native Son,’ ‘The Fire Next Time’ and ‘Go Tell It on the Mountain.’ Baldwin was open about his homosexuality and relationships with both men and women. Yet he believed that the focus on rigid categories was just a way of limiting freedom and that human sexuality is more fluid and less binary than often expressed in the U.S. Love between men was also explored in a later Baldwin novel Just Above My Head (1978). The author would also use his work to explore interracial relationships, another controversial topic for the times.
  • James Obergefell – Jim Obergefell is the plaintiff in the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. A Cincinnati resident, Obergefell married John Arthur in Maryland in 2013. Arthur was terminally ill with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease), and Obergefell filed a lawsuit to force their home state of Ohio to recognize him as the surviving spouse on Arthur’s death certificate. The couple alleged that the state’s governor, John Kasich, was discriminating against same-sex couples who were legally married out of state. In 2015 the Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges that state bans on same-sex marriage were unconstitutional, thus requiring all 50 states and U.S. territories to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.“Today’s ruling from the Supreme Court affirms what millions across the country already know to be true in our hearts,” Obergefell said upon learning the verdict, “that our love is equal.” President Barack Obama called the decision a “victory for America.”
  • Kye Allums – Kye Allums was the first openly transgender person to play NCAA Division I sports when he played college basketball for the George Washington University women’s team. Allums continues to advocate for the transgender community through public speaking engagements and mentorship of LGBTQ youth. He travels around the country to different high schools and colleges sharing his story, giving advice on confronting bullies and educating the public about transgender issues. Additionally, he started a project called “I Am Enough” that encourages the LGBTQ community to submit their stories so others struggling with similar issues won’t feel so alone.
  • Lana Wachowski and Lilly Wachowski – Lana Wachowski and her sister Lilly Wachowski, also known as the Wachowskis, are the duo behind such ground-breaking movies as The Matrix (1999) and Cloud Atlas (2012). In 2012, during interviews for Cloud Atlas and in her acceptance speech for the Human Rights Campaign’s Visibility Award, Lana spoke about her experience of being a transgender woman, sacrificing her much cherished anonymity out of a sense of responsibility. Lana is known to be extremely well-read, loves comic books and exploring ideas of imaginary worlds, and was inspired by Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) in creating Cloud Atlas.
  • Laverne Cox – Laverne Cox is a three time Emmy-nominated actress, Emmy winning documentary film producer and a prominent equal rights advocate. Laverne’s groundbreaking role of Sophia Burset in the critically acclaimed Netflix original series “Orange is The New Black” brought her to the attention of diverse audiences all over the world. This role lead to Laverne becoming the first openly transgender actress to be nominated for a Primetime acting Emmy.An artist and an advocate with an empowering message of moving beyond gender expectations to live more authentically, Laverne is the first openly transgender person to appear on the covers of TIME Magazine, Cosmopolitan magazine and Essence magazines among others. She was named one of Glamour magazine’s 2014 Women of the Year. Laverne also proudly holds two SAG Awards… winning them with her Orange Is The New Black cast mates.
  • Lil Nas X – Montero Lamar Hill (born April 9, 1999), known by his stage name Lil Nas X (/nɑːz/ NAHZ), is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, and media personality. Nas X is also the first openly LGBTQ Black artist to win a Country Music Association award. Time named him as one of the 25 most influential people on the Internet in 2019,[9] and he was named on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in 2020.
  • Lynn Conway – Lynn Conway is Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Emerita University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. After studying physics at MIT and earning her BS (62) and MSEE (63) at Columbia University’s School of Engineering and Applied Science, Lynn joined IBM Research in Yorktown Heights, NY. While working on IBM’s Advanced Computing Systems project she made foundational contributions to computer architecture. Sadly, IBM fired Lynn as she underwent gender transition in 1968. A gritty survivor, Lynn started her career all over again as a contract programmer in a covert new identity. Advancing rapidly, she soon became a computer architect at Memorex Corporation, but also began decades of living in fear of being ‘outed’ and losing her career again. Recruited by Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) in 1973, Lynn invented scalable design rules for VLSI chip design, became principal author of the seminal Mead-Conway text Introduction to VLSI Systems, and in 1978, while serving as a Visiting Associate Professor of EECS at M.I.T., pioneered the teaching of these new methods.
  • Marsha P. Johnson – Marsha P. Johnson was an African American transgender women who was an LGBTQ rights activist and an outspoken advocate for trans people of color. Marsha was an activist, self-identified drag queen, performer, and survivor. She spearheaded the Stonewall uprising in 1969 and along with Sylvia Rivera, she later established the Street Transvestite (now Transgender) Action Revolutionaries (STAR), a group committed to helping homeless transgender youth in New York. Marsha went by “BLACK Marsha” before settling on Marsha P. Johnson. The “P” stood for “Pay It No Mind,” which is what Marsha would say in response to questions about her gender. It is the consideration of who “BLACK Marsha” was that inspired The Marsha P. Johnson Institute. (https://www.biography.com/activist/marsha-p-johnson)
  • Miss Major – Miss Major is a Black, transgender activist who has fought for over fifty years to create a better world for her trans/gender nonconforming community. Major is a veteran of the infamous Stonewall Riots, a former sex worker, and a survivor of Dannemora Prison and Bellevue Hospital’s “queen tank.” Her global legacy of activism is rooted in her own experiences, and she continues her work to uplift transgender women of color, particularly those who have survived incarceration and police brutality.
  • Silvia Rivera – Sylvia Rivera was a Latina-American drag queen who became one of the most radical gay and transgender activists of the 1960s and 70s. As co-founder of the Gay Liberation Front, Rivera was known for participating in the Stonewall Riots of 1969 and establishing the political organization STAR (Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries) with Marsha P. Johnson.  Sylvia was a tireless advocate for all those who have been marginalized as the “gay rights” movement has mainstreamed. Sylvia fought hard against the exclusion of transgender people from the Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act in New York, and was a loud and persistent voice for the rights of people of color and low-income queers and trans people.
Pride Month Supporter Holding Rainbow Flag

Photo by Max Böhme on Unsplash

Videos

Resources