My first Gay Pride, in New York City, just happened to coincide with the event’s 25-year anniversary. It was 1994, and the entire city exploded in wild jubilation during that last weekend in June.
Still, as I marched with my posse past the famed Stonewall Inn on Christopher Street in the West Village that Sunday — the site of the “gay liberation” kickoff of 1969 due to an uprising-turned-six-day-melee that became known as the Stonewall riots — I had just the slightest inkling of how its existence was inextricably linked to mine. From that day forward, as I got more enmeshed in the community, I quickly and hungrily learned — not only facts about the riots (more on that, below) and the beautiful reverberations, still being felt today, but also about something more nuanced: the resilient spirit that runs through the heart of LGBTQ culture.
Although my understanding grew (and keeps on growing) through personal experience, here’s what those new to the scene need to know about Pride…