Please be aware this section of the guide is under construction and more content will be added to this in order to reflect the materials that were displayed during the 2023 Pride Month Display. Thanks for your understanding and patience!
Pride Month is an annual event to honor the Stonewall Riots, which started on June 28th in 1969 in Manhattan, New York. This uprising is a monumental moment in LGBTQIA+ history in the United States. At this time, same-sex relationships were illegal in New York. It was also illegal to serve alcohol to people who were known to solicit same-sex engagements. People in the queer community depended on gay bars and clubs for community building and potential relationships. However, police officers would intentionally raid gay bars and clubs and shut them down. The raiding of the Stonewall Inn, a gay club located Greenwich Village, triggered riots that lasted for several weeks, sparking the Gay Rights Movement in the United States and across the world. New York City held a march to commemorate the first anniversary of the riots in 1970. In the following years, cities all over the country held marches to celebrate “Gay Pride Day” on the last Sunday of June. It was a march to demonstrate a continued support of the cause for rights for the LGBTQIA+ community. As the march expanded its locations, days, and forms of demonstration, “Gay Pride Day” became what we know today as Pride Month.
Right here in Syracuse, the Central New York Pride Parade and Festival will be held! Pride Month festivals are wonderful to participate in; there are costumes and makeup, rainbow flags everywhere, drag shows, food, and music. However, it is crucial to remember that this celebration is rooted in activism; it’s about making our society a better place for queer folks, and we still have some work to do.
On campus, Syracuse University Libraries is also celebrating Pride Month by sharing some of our queer and queer studies collections with the university community! You might notice that our cover photo for this book display is the updated Progressive Pride flag, which has recently included new colors to acknowledge that the LGBTQIA+ community is an intersectional one, and when we advocate for queer rights, we have to keep in mind the people in this community who are also affected by their intersecting identities. The books and movies we have curated for this display focus on transgender narratives and histories because of the egregious attack on the transgender community by leaders within our federal government. Transgender lives matter. They are worthy of respect, love, and welcoming communities. We must acknowledge the violence and blatant discrimination they face and learn how to stop these acts of hate. Please take the time to read our selected works and learn from the other resources we include on this guide. We have also included memoirs, documentaries, and academic works that analyze the struggles the LGBTQIA+ community still faces.
Photograph used in header image is from "Series II.H Professional Paper, Audiovisual, Photographic and Digital Materials and Artifacts. 1950-2005: Slides: Drag, Harlem and Miscellaneous." The Allan Berube Papers, Gale, 1958. Archives of Sexuality and Gender
Currently there are approximately 500 anti-LGBTQ bills circulating throughout the U.S. government, including a number of bills targeting the trans community. As responsible allies to the LGBTQIA+ community, we must move beyond only educating through great resources we find in libraries and advocate for those who are being targeted. If you would like to speak out against these anti-LGBTQ bills, we encourage you to call your representatives and advocate for fair and rightful treatment of the LGBTQIA+ community. Below are resources to help you with this process: