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June is recognized as Pride Month in Canada and around the world. It is an opportunity to celebrate sexual diversity, promote equal rights, and build awareness of the challenges faced by the LGBTQ2S+ community.
Northumberland County and he Municipality of Trent Hills has proclaimed June as "Pride Month"

​​A BRIEF HISTORY OF PRIDE MONTH

June, 2021, marks the 56th anniversary of Pride days (and now, month) celebrated globally.  Sadly, of course, this year, COVID-19 has restricted events everywhere but alternative celebrations have taken Global Pride online on June 27, with over 1,500 Pride communities virtually participating. ( see:  https://www.globalpride2020.org/ )
 
There had existed a gay rights movement in the United States since the 1940s, but it did not gain traction until after what is now called the Stonewall riots of 1969.  The U.S. Library of Congress provides a rich and detailed description of events (the whole text is well worth reading https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/june-28/ ) :
 
“In 1969, the Stonewall Inn was one of the most popular gay bars in New York City.  Throughout the state, it was illegal to serve alcohol to a gay person until 1966External, and in 1969, homosexuality was still considered a criminal offense. This led many gay establishments to operate sans liquor license, providing an open door for raids and police brutality. The Stonewall Inn was owned by the mafia, and as long as they continued to make a profit, they cared very little about what happened to their clientele. The police raids on gay bars and spaces was not isolated to the East and West coasts, but was a phenomenon happening across the U.S. during this time.”
 
During the early hours of June 28, 1969, the NYC police department raided the Stonewall Inn. Such raids up until then had been routine, but this time, the gay community had collectively had enough.  By the evening of June 28, thousands of protestors took to the streets at the Stonewall Inn to oppose the laws and the police brutality that commonly followed such raids.

​A year later…

“The first Pride march was held on June 28 1970, on the one year anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising. Primary sources provide detailed information about how this first Pride march was planned, and the reasons why activists felt so strongly that it should exist. To get planning underway, activists formed the Christopher Street Liberation Day Committee. From the outset, the committee defined it’s aim of holding a massive march at the culmination of a Gay Pride Week (June 22-28).
This, the very first U.S. Gay Pride Week and March, was meant to give the community a chance to gather together to, “…commemorate the Christopher Street Uprisings of last summer in which thousands of homosexuals went to the streets to demonstrate against centuries of abuse….from government hostility to employment and housing discrimination, Mafia control of Gay bars, and anti-Homosexual laws” (Christopher Street Liberation Day Committee FliersExternal, University of Connecticut).  Since then, LGBTQ+ people have continued to gather together in June to march with Pride.
The Stonewall Inn has now been designated as a National Historic Landmark.”

​Pride in Canada

Legislation introduced in 1967 by the-then Justice Minister, Pierre Trudeau, finally passed after he became Prime Minister in 1968.  Bill C-150 decriminalized same sex sexual activity and was passed in 1969 and, significantly, received Royal Assent on June 27, 1969, just a day prior to the Stonewall raid!
 
Pierre Trudeau famously remarked at the time, “there is no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation.”
 
The first gay rights protest in Canada occurred in August of 1971, and was attended by a small group of 100 people from mainly Ottawa, Montreal and Toronto.  They presented to the government a list of demands for equal rights and protections.
 
Pride Week began to emerge in the summer of 1973, with events being held in various Canadian cities (Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Vancouver, Saskatoon and Winnipeg) including art festivals, educational materials, dances, picnics and rallies.  
 
This website provides a comprehensive list of events during the progress as well as the setbacks of the LGBQT movement in the 1970s and 1980s:   ( https://www.queerevents.ca/canada/pride/history )
 
But then, Canada had its own “Stonewall” experience in 1981. 
 
Late evening on February 5, the Toronto Police Department’s “Morality Squad”, armed with crowbars and sledgehammers, raided four gay bath houses under the name “Operation Soap”.  It was a shocking and brutal raid, with the arrest of some 300 men.  The arrested men were detained for many hours and humiliated, verbally and physically mistreated, with at least one shocking report of a police officer who declared he wished to gas the detainees in an effort to “annihilate” them. 
 
But, the LGBQT community had had enough.  The following evening, on February 6, 1981, over 3,000 people from both the gay community and its allies, took to the streets in a massive protest that ended first at the Toronto 52 Division station, then at the Provincial Legislature. 
 
The raid on the four bath houses in Toronto is considered to be the galvanizing event of the Canadian gay rights movement.
 
In the years since, significant progress has occurred in changing societal attitudes towards the LGBQT+ communities, including the right to marry and other extensive legal rights.
 
These days, the lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, transgender plus communities celebrate the gaining of legal rights, social and self-acceptance, considerable achievements and extreme pride, with a host of Pride festivals and parades across the world.

Happy 56th Pride Anniversary!

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