Pride Month
I teamed up with OUT at DISH, an LGBTQ+ resource group, to create posters, digital banners, and long-form blog posts for Pride Month. The purpose of this campaign was to promote the Pride Parade and encourage participation and to educate people on various aspects of the LGBTQ+ community. Each week focused on a different topic: History, Injustices, Allyship, Community, and Equality.
June is Pride Month
Pride Month is celebrated in June to commemorate the 1969 Stonewall riots in Manhattan. Most historians consider this uprising to be the birth of the modern LGBTQ+ movement.
On June 28, 1969, police raided the Stonewall Inn, a popular gathering place for gay men, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people. At this point, many gay clubs had already been targeted by police and forced to close, and the Stonewall raid sparked a riot among bar patrons and local sympathizers.
Up until this point, those who witnessed LGBTQ+ people getting harassed by police largely stood by passively. But that morning at the Stonewall Inn, the crowd joined the patrons in reacting, forcing the police to barricade themselves in the bar to await backup. Riots continued for the next four days, with hundreds of people joining in, and the Stonewall riots provided the spark that ignited the gay rights movement in the United States.
Learn more about the history of Pride Month at:
https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2019/06/28/50-years-stonewall-lgbtq-history.
Injustices Faced by the LGBTQ+ Community
June is Pride Month and each week, we’re highlighting a different topic to help educate and further the conversation around LGBTQ+ equality. This week focuses on injustices faced by LGBTQ+ people.
The majority of LGBTQ+ Americans say they have experienced some form of harassment or discrimination due to their sexual orientation or gender identity, according to a report by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and National Public Radio. These include slurs (57 percent), threats or harassment (57 percent) or acts of violence (51 percent).
Beyond individual aggressions, at least 20% of the 489 adults surveyed said they have experienced institutional discrimination, such as while applying for a job (20 percent), buying or renting a home (22 percent) or applying to colleges (20 percent).
Separately, a nationally representative survey from the College of American Pathologists (CAP) conducted in 2017 shed light on the discrimination LGBTQ+ people face in health-care settings.
For example, 29 percent of transgender respondents said that a doctor or other health-care provider refused to see them because of their actual or perceived gender identity. Twenty-three percent said a doctor or other health-care provider intentionally misgendered them or used the wrong name.
These eye-opening statistics show that while we have made tremendous strides in the fight for equality, there is still much progress to be made. We hope that you will continue to fight for LGBTQ+ rights with us, through education, conversation, participating in events such as Pride Parade and more.
Learn more about injustices LGBTQ+ people face here: https://www.hrc.org/resources/topic/hate-crimes.
Learn more about how you can be an ally here:
Be an Ally to the LGBTQ+ Community
June is Pride Month and each week, we’re highlighting a different topic to help educate and further the conversation around LGBTQ+ equality. This week focuses on being an ally.
Allies have had a significant impact on the fight for LGBTQ+ equality. Anyone has the ability to be an ally, and because an ally might have more privilege than their LGBTQ+ peers, they are especially powerful voices alongside marginalized ones.
This doesn’t mean that you fully understand how it feels to go through the struggles of your LGBTQ+ peers. Rather, it means you still choose to take on their struggle as your own and to stand up for them, despite not 100% understanding what they’re going through.
As an ally, remember to keep an open mind, be aware of your implicit biases, educate yourself about the history of the LGBTQ+ struggle and help amplify the voices of those without your privilege.
You can continue to fight for LGBTQ+ equality through policies, conversations, participation in events such as Pride Parade and more.
Explore how else you can be an ally at the links below:
The LGBTQ+ Community
June is Pride Month, and each week we’re highlighting a different topic to help educate and further the conversation around LGBTQ+ equality. This week focuses on the LGBQT+ community.
The initialism “LGBTQ” stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer or Questioning, while the “+” is intended to also include people who are:
Agender
Ally
Asexual
Bigender
Gender Queer
Gender Variant
Intersex
Pangender
Pansexual
Transsexual
2/Two-Spirit
At the same time, not all people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender necessarily consider themselves part of the LGBTQ community.
Those who do identify as members of the community are united by a shared culture and social movements, and generally celebrate pride, diversity, authenticity and sexuality. The community also includes LGBTQ+ subcultures and organizations, such as employee groups, student groups or rights organizations.
Having a community that you can be a part of and know you are supported by is an important part of life for all of us, but especially for those who have been or are marginalized. It can make all the difference in the world knowing that you have a resource group at work or at school, or that you have people there for you during the process of coming out, for example. The community can become a second or chosen family for many, and we appreciate the support of the entire LGBTQ+ community here at DISH.
Learn more about LGBTQ+ community here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_community
LGBTQ+ Equality
June is Pride month and each week, we’re highlighting a different topic to help educate and further the conversation about the LGBTQ+ community. This week focuses on LGBTQ+ equality.
There are many laws that a lot of us don’t even think about on a day-to-day basis that the LGBTQ+ community is still fighting for equality on. Below are just a handful of examples of such laws:
Parenting laws, such as surrogacy laws or laws permitting discrimination in adoption or foster placement
Non-discrimination laws, such as in employment, housing or education
Hate crime and criminal justice laws, such as mandatory reporting of hate crimes statistics or the elimination of the “gay panic defense”
Youth laws to address LGBTQ+ youth homelessness or laws that restrict inclusion of LGBTQ+ topics in schools
Health and safety laws, such as healthcare coverage for transgender people or name and gender marker updates on identification documents
Beyond laws and policies, we can continue to fight for LGBTQ+ equality from a cultural or social perspective, help break the stigma associated with being an LGBTQ+ person and address other issues that disproportionately affect the LGBTQ+ community, like homelessness or mental disease.
For more information on what you can do, visit:
https://www.hrc.org/explore/topic/state-advocacy
https://www.hrc.org/resources/2019-state-equality-index-view-your-states-scorecard