Today is the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, which was the beginning LGBTQ liberation movement. Marsha P. Johnson, a Black transgender woman, is credited as the one who sparked the 1969 Stonewall riot when she threw a shot glass during a police raid of the Stonewall bar.
LGBTQ Pride Month is a time to celebrate the work and lives of all those in the LGBTQ community. While there have been huge strides for the community as a whole, many people are dismissed or omitted from the larger conversation from the big screen, media outlets, and in politics.
Outrageous! Figurines Of White Cherub Crushing Head Of Black Angel Removed From Dollar Store
Even for the average person in the LGBTQ community, the fight for civil rights is a long journey. You can still be fired for being LGBT in 17 states. LGBTQ youth experience higher rates of suicide. The Trevor Project reports, “LGB youth are almost five times as likely to have attempted suicide compared to heterosexual youth” and “LGB youth who come from highly rejecting families are 8.4 times as likely to have attempted suicide as LGB peers who reported no or low levels of family rejection.”
In addition, a report from the Human Rights Campaign said that 2018 was the second consecutive year that more than two-dozen members of the transgender community were known to have been killed. At least 26 transgender people were killed in 2018, the majority of them Black transgender women. Since 2013, there have been 128 killings of transgender people, of whom 80 percent were people of color.
To celebrate Pride, here are folks who are living their life out and proud with no apologies.
