On June 28, 1969, the New York Police Department raided the Stonewall Inn, a LGBTQ club in Greenwich Village in Manhattan. The patrons, tired of being unfairly targeted, revolted against the police. The crowd began throwing bottles as police forcibly arrested and hauled people into the street. The protest continued throughout the neighborhood and sparked additional protests for six days. The event is known today as the Stonewall Uprising and became a catalyst for the gay rights movement worldwide.
The first Pride marches took place in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Chicago a year later to commemorate the Stonewall uprising. Explore the interactive dots on the timeline below to learn more about important milestones that have been reached.
Brenda Howard, a pioneering bisexual activist, organized a committee to hold the first pride parade on June 28, 1970. Parade supporters marched from Greenwich Village to Central Park in honor of the Stonewall Uprising.
In 1973, based on more current research, the American Psychiatric Association board of directors removed homosexuality from the official mental illness list in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). It was replaced with a new diagnosis in 1980--ego-dystonic homosexuality. Homosexuality was completely removed from the DSM in 1986.
In April of 2000, Vermont became the first state in the country to give same-sex couples the right to enter into civil unions — legal partnerships which would grant those couples the same rights and benefits as those in legal marriages.
In October of 2009, the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act was signed into law by President Obama. The act was named after Matthew Shepard who was murdered because he was gay, and James Byrd Jr. who was murdered because he was black. The new law expanded previous hate crime legislation to officially categorize crimes motivated by actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability as hate crimes.
In September of 2011, President Obama repealed the anti-gay, discriminatory “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, which prevented openly gay Americans from serving in the U.S. armed forces.
In June of 2013, the Supreme Court ruled that the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, was unconstitutional. DOMA had defined marriage as a union between one man and one woman. Ruling that act unconstitutional paved the way for legal same-sex marriage.
On June 26, 2015, the Supreme Court officially declared same-sex marriage a Constitutional right nationwide, meaning that all states must allow Americans to marry, regardless of their gender or sexual orientation. 2015 also saw President Obama call for an end to conversion therapy after the suicide death of Leelah Alcorn a transgender girl who was subjected to the therapy.
In November 2018, more than 150 LGBTQ candidates were elected into office in the midterm elections.
In 2019, the US House of Representatives passed the Equality Act, a bill that would protect LGBTQ people from discrimination in housing, the workplace, public accommodations, and other settings. It failed to pass in the Senate.
On June 15, 2020, the Supreme Court clarified that the word "sex" in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act includes "gender identity" and "sexual orientation." This federal civil rights law protects LGBTQ workers from discrimination in the workplace.
But Pride is more than just the progress that has been made from the past to the present – it must be focused on the future. The Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System data below shows just how much work needs to be done to make things better for the younger LGBTQ generation.
Click on the button bar below to filter the graphs by the selected orientation. Notice the differences in the responses for each group.
Securing a safer future is just one of the reasons LGBTQ and transgender rights advocates have urged the US Government to pass the Equality Act, which prohibits discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity. There’s still lots of work to be done to demand and safeguard equality.
Data from the CDC Youth Behavior Risk Surveillance System.