By: Heather Shea, Director
While Pride is typically celebrated in June to commemorate the 1969 Stonewall riots –more on that below– at MSU, we celebrate Pride in April, given that most students are away from East Lansing in June. Pride provides us all with an opportunity to reflect upon the history that sparked the modern gay rights movement in the United States and also celebrate the joy of being unapologetically oneself on campus and in the larger East Lansing Community.
Pride month is about affirming and celebrating the visibility of the LGBTQIA2S+ population. Today, over 50 years after the beginning of the modern gay rights movement, LGBTQIA2S+ people are still fighting for basic recognition/rights amidst anti-trans legislation in Texas and the “don’t say gay” bill in Florida (if you don’t know what we’re talking about, see this story).
This past Saturday, in my other role as the Interim Director of the Gender and Sexuality Campus Center (GSCC), I had the opportunity to help decorate for and then host the Enchanted Forest Pride Prom 2022. For LGBTQIA2S+ students, attending their high school prom might not have been an option. COVID cancellations aside, traditional high school prom events often exclusively celebrate cisgender heterosexuality. For some, MSU’s Pride Prom is the first opportunity they’ve had to dress the way they want to dress or dance with the person who they want to dance with. And, over 200 people attended!
As we reflect and celebrate Pride, we also recognize the continued Black lives being lost to police brutality. We in W*SS and at MSU are committed to serving as a place to discuss and share resources for activism, racial justice, and social change. When we think of leaders at the front lines of Stonewall like Marsha P. Johnson, a Black transgender woman fighting for freedom of expression of her identities, we have to consider how we can channel our pride into the Black Lives Matter movement and protests. We can view our collective liberation through an intersectional lens, considering race, gender, sexuality, and all identities in conjunction.
We pause and recognize this current moment amid the larger movement. We celebrate those individuals and groups who fought and are fighting to allow freedom of expression. The first Pride parade was the Stonewall Riots. The Stonewall Riots took place from June 28, 1969 through July 3, 1969. The riots occurred in response to a police raid of the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in Greenwich Village. The most notable rioters were transgender rights activists Marsha P Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, amongst many others. To read more about the Stonewall Riots, click here.
Learn more about PRIDE month (whenever you celebrate it!)
Check out this virtual Stonewall Monument: https://stonewallforever.org/
Consider donating to organizations like The Trevor Project, the Human Rights Campaign, or many other organizations!
Provide financial support to the Gender and Sexuality Campus Center through supporting their initiatives like their Unconditional Love Fund.
Make sure your email signature has your pronouns, and we suggest adding a link to click on to learn more about pronouns if they aren’t familiar, or want to be further educated. Here is a link from the GSCC that we in WSS use to encourage all to learn more about pronouns: https://gscc.msu.edu/education/pronouns.html
Happy Pride, Spartans!
Interested in sharing your own "Thought Of The Day" or TOTD? Email us at wss@msu.edu.
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