Fifty-one years ago, I attended my first gay pride festival in Manhattan’s Washington Square Park. Bette Midler sang “You Got to Have Friends.” We sure needed them. At that time, queer people had no legal protections. We could not be out as teachers, could be evicted, and were often physically attacked late at night with no police protection. Same-sex sexual activity was only legalized in 1980 in New York. 

Those of us gathered that day danced on the shoulders of activists a generation before, including Harry Hay of the Mattachine Society and Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon of Daughters of Bilitis who organized in the 1950s to counter police entrapment, McCarthyism, and the American Psychiatric Association labeling us sociopathic.

And of course, the 1969 Stonewall riots were a watershed moment when disenfranchised drag queens fought police harassment at New York’s Stonewall Inn. Drag queens had earlier fought police intimidation in San Francisco and Los Angeles. They had nothing left to lose and said enough! We owe those queens; their struggles catalyzed the LGBTQ+ movement for civil rights.

Another wave of political action erupted during the AIDS pandemic of the ‘80s and ‘90s. People fought for their lives. Care circles and memorials defined our chosen families. The community demonstrated fierce resiliency - mobilizing information, support, treatment, and advocacy. When few would care for us, we took care of our own.

Pride festivals evolved from celebrating sexual freedom and affirmation to funeral processions mourning the unrelenting AIDS carnage. Then legal protection, adoption, and marriage equality came to dominate agendas as we assimilated. Vermont led the nation here, granting civil unions in 2000 and full marriage rights in 2009.

As our community organized, political leaders emerged. Harvey Milk was the first openly gay man elected in California to the Board of Supervisors in San Francisco in 1977. I was there when he was assassinated one year later. Karen Clark, elected in 1981, was the first out lesbian to serve in the Minnesota Legislature. Ron Squires, Vermont’s first openly gay legislator, elected to the House in 1990, died from AIDS in 1993.

These pioneers were outliers. Now there are 1,174 LGBTQ+ elected officials serving in city, state, and federal offices. In Vermont, we have 13 state legislators in the Rainbow Caucus. Burlington just elected its first women and out lesbian Emma Mulvaney-Stanak as mayor. And our self-described “scrappy little dyke” Becca Balint is serving in Congress.

While there has been much progress politically, we still face tremendous prejudice and fear mongering. Little has changed to guarantee basic human and civil rights for queer people internationally, and whatever legal advances we gained nationally are at risk with an emboldened Right Wing and conservative Supreme Court.

Protections are being rolled back for queer and transgender kids as well as military personnel. LGBTQ+ seniors are increasingly isolated as Baby Boomers age. Gender affirming healthcare is being denied, state by state. Book banning, curriculum purging, outlawing drag shows – school plays and musicals are also on the hit list. There is much left to do.

The ACLU tracked 494 anti-LGBTQ+ bills in the 2024 legislative session. In a bit of good news, Florida’s legislature adjourned in March without acting on 21 anti-LGBTQ bills except for one that banned educating teachers on DEI topics as well as teaching “identity politics.” This one bill known as Stop WOKE Act was deemed unconstitutional by the 11th circuit appeals court in Atlanta.

At Pride festivities next month, let’s remember the battles of the past to build upon their legacies of resilience. From those ferocious drag queens in the ‘60s to the vehement AIDS activists of the ‘80s, I could not be who I am today without them. I love my idiosyncratic family.