Events include a Community Conversation at the Main Library that asks the question, “Is it still revolutionary to be openly queer?” The activist group Queer Nation once proclaimed that “every day you wake up alive, relatively happy, and a functioning human being, you are committing a rebellious act.
With this in mind, we’re hosting a series of events and exhibits to honor the milestones of Cincinnati Pride and Stonewall 50. These are all actions that can be taken year-round. Pride shouldn’t be something we celebrate and recognize just in June.
It's a chance to volunteer with local grassroots organizations, speak up and support LGBTQ+ rights, and educate yourself and those around you. It’s an opportunity to listen to, hire, and pay people in the LGBTQ+ community. We're marching in the Cincinnati Pride Parade, opens a new window Saturday, June 22, and we’ll also have a booth at the festival as well.īut Pride is more than a parade. We couldn’t be more excited to commemorate the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex, asexual, nonbinary, two-spirit, gender nonconforming, pansexual people of our communities and staff along with their allies. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion, opens a new window, which makes this Pride month all the more special. Activists also want to shine a light on the contributions of lesser-known trans women of color, gay and lesbian youth experiencing homelessness, trans men, and others who rose up that fateful night.įrom left to right: Stormé DeLarveri, Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, Sylvia Rivera, Marsha P. After the uprising, the movement launched into a nationwide, radical grassroots effort.Īs Chrysanthemum Tran duly points out in their article on, opens a new window, “To attribute the Stonewall riots to a singular person erases the efforts of countless people who put their lives on the line for LGBTQ+ liberation.” It's important to recognize the role certain individuals played at Stonewall and the unwavering commitment to the fight for liberation they had throughout their lives. Up until this point it had been made up of small fractured groups. The rebellion was a catalyst that launched the large scale LGBTQ+ liberation movement of the following decades. Despite this recognition within the LGBTQ+ community, they are still overlooked by a vast majority of American history texts. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, and Stormé DeLarveri are widely considered to be the godmothers of the LGBTQ+ liberation movement for the role they played in the Stonewall Rebellion and the movement they ignited in its the aftermath. Tired of being brutalized and harassed for being themselves, a near-daily occurrence, those at Stonewall that night, many of them trans women of color, rose up and fought back. The Stonewall Inn was one of a small number of bars that welcomed openly queer people during this time period and was targeted by police because of it. On June 28, 1969, in the early morning hours, NYPD officers raided the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, a neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City.
This blog post was originally published on June 13, 2019