This has been a weird week (heck, it’s been a surreal year!). But today is Pride Day. A day when ordinarily I and my husband would be walking from the hotel where we had been attending Locus Awards Weekend the previous two days, and we’d watch the Pride Parade, then walk to the Pride Festival. But this year everything (including sci fi conventions) has moved on line, so that we can avoid gathering in large groups and causing more spikes of the pandemic.

But it is still Pride Day, even if we’re all social distancing and meeting virtually. It’s a day to commemorate the time that a bunch of queers got fed up with police brutality and decided to fight back.

It was the night that Marsha P. Johnson hurled a shot glass at a cop when they began their usual routine of lining up everyone in the gay bar, then singling out all the trans and gender-non-conforming people to arrest. Marsha wasn’t the only trans person of color to fight back that night, and she wasn’t the only one to keep fighting for queer rights, helping to found several of the organizations who took the fight to both the streets and the halls of government. When you hoist that rainbow flag, remember to thank those trans women of color who started it all.

Pride Day Links:

Corporations disappointed they won’t be able to commodify queer culture this year .

Every year Joe Jervis at Joe.My.God.com reposted the complete text of the very condescending story that the New York Daily News ran shortly after the original Stonewall uprising. I think it’s good to remember how people saw (and many still do) our community and concerns: LGBTQ History: “The Foot Wore A Spiked Heel”.

Gill Foundation Pledges $250K To Protect Stonewall Inn.

LGBTQ people have been marching every June for 50 years.

Marsha P Johnson’s home town petitions to erect statue of her to replace Christopher Columbus.

President Barack Obama Celebrates LGBTQ+ Equality (Clip) | Logo TV:

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Black Trans Lives Matter | Full Frontal on TBS:

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The Kinsey Sicks: The Sound of Sirens (Simon & Garfunkel Parody):

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Show Me Your Pride – By Miss Coco Peru – OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO:

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This Is Me | Boston Gay Men’s Chorus:

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