Dear Center Community,
Today begins Pride Month! June is a celebration in our LGBTQ community - to reflect on our past, celebrate how far we’ve come, and acknowledge how far we still have to go. June commemorates how our movement began, with the 1969 Stonewall riots when police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay club in Greenwich Village in NYC, and the LGBTQ community fought back against police harassment, ongoing raids, and the violence perpetrated on our community. Among the many leaders of the six-days of riots were Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, a Black transgender woman and a Latinx transgender woman, who along with drag queens and many others, demanded freedom and equality for our community, the freedom to gather as openly LGBTQ people without fear. These riots are considered the critical pivotal moment in the movement to outlaw discrimination against LGBTQ people.
Since then, the LGBTQ community has
fought for their rights and equal justice, including the founding of the first national gay rights organization, the removal of homosexuality from the America Psychiatric Organization’s list of mental illnesses, the election of Harvey Milk and now hundreds of elected LGBTQ officials throughout the country, the national March on Washington, the strides for gay and transgender people in the military, and more.
We have made tremendous progress, but the work continues so that all LGBTQ people - especially our Black, Brown, and transgender communities - are provided equal rights, access to opportunity, and freedom from violence and discrimination. We have seen that elections matter - in how our community is treated, and in the laws that are proposed and passed. We uplift that “Since entering office,
the Biden administration has made history by taking immediate and meaningful actions to strengthen the rights and improve the lives of LGBTQ people across the country. Such actions are critical to addressing discrimination and the resulting disparities that LGBTQ people encounter in employment, health, education, and housing, among other areas.”
At
The Center, we celebrate Pride every day. We are proud to work with coalitions, civic leaders, community-based organizations, and members of the community to advance fundamental freedoms such as the right to marry, police oversight and accountability for safe and secure communities for all, equal treatment at the workplace, and safe, and affirming schools for LGBTQ-identified youth and the children of LGBTQ-headed families. The Center is proud to provide targeted programs and services to the full diversity of the San Diego LGBTQ community, including lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, transgender, nonbinary, immigrant, and HIV communities to the betterment of our entire San Diego region. We believe that every LGBTQ community member should be welcomed, supported and valued with engagement opportunities, essential support, and critical services.
Today and this month, we pause to remember and celebrate and then, as always, we get back to work to build a future that is equitable and just for the entire LGBTQ community.