98 Fun Facts About Pride Month

In 2012, which search engine began decorating LGBTQ-related searches with rainbow patterns each June?

Google began showing rainbow-coloured bars on LGBTQ-related searches each June in 2012, and in 2017 it also painted rainbow routes onto Google Maps along Pride parade paths.

What slang term named the weekly cash envelopes the Stonewall Inn's Mafia owners handed police?

Gayola was the slang for such police payoffs; the Stonewall Inn, run by the Mafia without a liquor licence, handed the Sixth Precinct cash envelopes weekly to stay open.

In 1969 the Stonewall Inn was owned by which New York crime family?

The Genovese family's 'Fat Tony' Lauria and two partners had put up $3,500 in 1966 to turn the former restaurant into a gay bar run without a liquor licence.

The first New York Pride event, held on 28 June 1970, was promoted under what name?

Christopher Street Liberation Day, named for the Stonewall Inn's street, was the banner of the 28 June 1970 march; its permit arrived only two hours before the start.

The first New York Pride march in 1970 ran 51 blocks from Sheridan Square to where?

The marchers reached Central Park's Sheep Meadow for a 'gay-in'; The New York Times reported on its front page that the procession stretched about fifteen blocks.

Which activist, credited with organizing the first New York Pride march, is called the 'Mother of Pride'?

Brenda Howard, a bisexual activist, is often credited with organizing the first Pride Week and Parade in New York, leading to her recognition as the 'Mother of Pride'.

Which U.S. president first proclaimed June as 'Gay & Lesbian Pride Month'?

Bill Clinton issued the first presidential proclamation of Gay and Lesbian Pride Month in June 1999 and repeated it in 2000; Barack Obama revived the practice in 2009 as LGBT Pride Month.

Besides New York, which city held a Pride march in June 1970, a year after Stonewall?

Los Angeles's Christopher Street West march went down Hollywood Boulevard on 28 June 1970 after the ACLU overturned police chief Ed Davis's refusal of a permit.

The first two hand-dyed rainbow flags were raised on 25 June 1978 at which event?

A remnant of one of those two original eight-colour flags, believed lost for four decades, turned up among Baker's belongings in 2020.

How many colored stripes were in Gilbert Baker's original 1978 design of the rainbow flag?

Gilbert Baker's original rainbow flag, debuted in 1978, featured eight colored stripes, each with a specific meaning.

What does the red stripe in the standard six-color rainbow flag typically symbolize?

In Gilbert Baker's scheme the red stripe stands for life; the six-colour flag is usually flown with red on top, the order the colours appear in a natural rainbow.

The black and brown stripes on the 2017 Philadelphia flag and the Progress Pride Flag represent which group?

The black and brown stripes stand for queer people of color; Philadelphia's Office of LGBT Affairs launched the flag in June 2017 under the slogan 'More Color More Pride'.

Which stripe of Gilbert Baker's original rainbow flag was dropped because that fabric colour was hard to get?

Hot pink was dropped when Harvey Milk's assassination in November 1978 sent demand soaring and the fabric proved unavailable, so the Paramount Flag Company sold a seven-stripe version instead.

In Daniel Quasar's 2018 Progress Pride Flag, what do the light blue, pink and white stripes represent?

Transgender individuals, and non-binary people, are represented by the stripes borrowed from the Transgender Pride Flag; Quasar's 2018 redesign also took elements from the Philadelphia flag.

Rainbow-flag creator Gilbert Baker went by which drag name, alluding to the first US flag's seamstress?

Baker's drag name Busty Ross punned on Betsy Ross, the legendary seamstress of the first US flag; he refused to trademark the rainbow flag, saying it belonged to everyone.

Before entering politics, what type of business did Harvey Milk open in the Castro District?

Castro Camera became his campaign headquarters; a 1973 shouting match there with a state tax official over a $100 deposit helped push him toward running for office.

What anticapitalist, antiracist group for sexual freedom formed right after the Stonewall Riots?

The Gay Liberation Front (GLF) was formed in July 1969, immediately following the Stonewall Riots, as a radical collective advocating for sexual freedom with anticapitalist and antiracist principles.

Which president was the first Republican to publicly recognize LGBTQ Pride Month?

Donald Trump recognised Pride Month in a May 2019 tweet, the first Republican president to do so; the White House later issued it as a statement, and Joe Biden returned to formal proclamations in 2021.

Many campuses, out of session in June, celebrate Pride in April under what nickname?

Gaypril, a portmanteau of 'gay' and 'April', lets colleges hold Pride events while students are on campus, since most academic terms end before June.

The 'Annual Reminders', early LGBTQ+ demonstrations held each July 4 from 1965 to 1969, took place in which city?

Philadelphia's Independence Hall was the backdrop each July 4, making the Reminders among the earliest LGBTQ demonstrations in the United States.

What slogan was first proposed for the first New York City march before 'pride' won out?

While 'gay power' was proposed as the slogan for the first New York City march, organizers decided against it, arguing that the movement had not yet achieved political power but felt immense pride in their sexual identity.

The Stonewall Inn, site of the June 1969 uprising, stands in which Manhattan neighbourhood?

Greenwich Village had a sizeable gay and lesbian population from after the First World War, and Prohibition-era speakeasies had quietly helped its gay bars flourish.

Which Greek letter was used as an early emblem by some LGBTQ+ rights movements?

Designer Tom Doerr picked lambda for the Gay Activists Alliance in 1970, citing its physics sense of an exchange of energy; a 1974 congress in Edinburgh adopted it as the international gay-rights symbol.

The Gay Activists Alliance's New York headquarters, occupied in 1971 and burned by arsonists in 1974, was a former what?

The GAA Firehouse, a former fire station at 99 Wooster Street in SoHo, hosted hugely popular Saturday dances that funded the group's 'zaps' of politicians.

What does the orange stripe in the common six-color rainbow flag represent?

Orange stands for healing in Gilbert Baker's scheme; he assigned each of his original 1978 stripes a meaning, and orange survived the cut to six colours in 1979.

Which journalist wrote the 1982 biography 'The Mayor of Castro Street', about Harvey Milk?

Randy Shilts, a San Francisco Chronicle reporter, published The Mayor of Castro Street in 1982 and went on to write And the Band Played On (1987) about the AIDS epidemic.

In what year did London hold its first Pride march, marking the Stonewall riots' anniversary?

London's first Pride march was held on 1 July 1972, the Saturday nearest the Stonewall anniversary; the Gay Liberation Front organised it, from Trafalgar Square to a picnic in Hyde Park.

What does the yellow stripe in the common six-color rainbow flag symbolize?

Yellow stands for sunlight in Gilbert Baker's 1978 scheme, in which every stripe carried a meaning; the six-colour form of the flag dates from 1979.

Which group did Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera found in 1970 to house homeless youth?

Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR) grew out of the Gay Liberation Front's drag queen caucus during the Weinstein Hall occupation at NYU, and supported gay prisoners and homeless youth.

In the six-color rainbow flag, green stands for what?

Green stands for nature in Gilbert Baker's scheme; it was one of the six colours kept when the flag was simplified in 1979 for that year's San Francisco parade.

In Gilbert Baker's original 1978 flag, which colour's stripe stood for 'Magic/Art'?

Turquoise stood for magic and art; in 1979 Baker dropped it so three stripes could hang on each side of Market Street's lamp posts, leaving the six-stripe flag used today.

What does the blue stripe in the common six-color rainbow flag signify?

Blue stands for harmony and peace; royal blue replaced Baker's original indigo, which meant serenity, when the flag was cut to six colours in 1979.

What does the violet (or purple) stripe in the common six-color rainbow flag represent?

Violet stands for spirit in Gilbert Baker's scheme and has been the bottom stripe of the flag since the eight-colour original of 1978.

Whose apartment hosted the planning meetings for the first New York Pride march in 1970?

Rodwell ran the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop and had proposed the march at a homophile conference in Philadelphia in November 1969.

Harry Hay co-founded which pioneering gay rights organisation in Los Angeles in 1950?

Harry Hay co-founded the Mattachine Society in Los Angeles in 1950 with Rudi Gernreich and others, naming it after masked medieval French societies; it became one of the earliest lasting US gay rights groups.

Where did Gilbert Baker's 2003 anniversary rainbow flag stretch 1.25 miles from sea to sea?

Baker's 25th-anniversary flag ran a mile and a quarter down Duval Street in Key West in the original eight colours; sections were afterwards sent to more than 100 cities.

The pre-Stonewall 'Annual Reminders' protests emphasized gaining what for gay people?

The Reminders were meant to remind Americans that gay people lacked basic civil rights protections; picketers dressed conservatively, and a 1965 sign read '15 MILLION HOMOSEXUAL AMERICANS ASK FOR EQUALITY, OPPORTUNITY, DIGNITY'.

Which activist coined "Gay is Good" in 1968 after hearing Stokely Carmichael chant "black is beautiful"?

Frank Kameny coined 'Gay is Good' in 1968; the slogan is engraved on his marker in Washington's Congressional Cemetery, and he said he hoped to be remembered for it.

In what year did Monica Helms create the light blue, pink and white pride flag?

Monica Helms designed the transgender flag in 1999, the year after Michael Page's bisexual flag gave her the idea; it first flew at Phoenix Pride in 2000.

In which city was the Society for Human Rights, America's first gay rights group, founded in 1924?

Henry Gerber, a German-born postal worker, founded the Society for Human Rights in Chicago in 1924; it published two issues of Friendship and Freedom before police shut it down in 1925.

Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone were shot dead in November 1978 by which former city supervisor?

White had cast the sole vote against Milk's gay-rights ordinance; his lenient manslaughter verdict later triggered the White Night riots.

What term refers to the broader range of Pride events held from June to September in Canada?

In Canada, 'Pride Season' refers to the wide array of Pride events held from June to September, in contrast to the single 'Pride Month' observed in the U.S.

Gilbert Baker said the rainbow flag was inspired less by 'Over the Rainbow' than by 'She's a Rainbow' by which band?

Baker credited the Rolling Stones' 1967 song 'She's a Rainbow', along with the rainbow's hippie-era associations and the five-stripe 'Brotherhood Flag' carried by the 1960s peace movement.

The first openly gay city commissioner in the United States was appointed in 1976 in what city?

Harvey Milk became the first openly gay city commissioner when Mayor George Moscone put him on San Francisco's Board of Permit Appeals in 1976; announcing a State Assembly run got him fired after five weeks.

Which stripe of the 2010 Asexual Flag stands for allies and non-asexual partners?

White stands for non-asexual partners and allies on the asexual flag; black is asexuality, grey covers grey-asexuality and demisexuality, and purple is community. AVEN members chose the design by online vote in August 2010.

Why were yellow and purple chosen for the 2013 Intersex Flag?

Yellow and purple were picked because, unlike pink and blue, they carry no gender associations; the flag's unbroken purple circle stands for wholeness and completeness.

In whose basement did Bob Mellors and Aubrey Walter hold their new gay liberation group's first meeting in 1970?

The Gay Liberation Front first met in a basement classroom at the London School of Economics on 13 October 1970; its newspaper Come Together grew out of the group's Media Workshop.

What does the deep lavender stripe on the 1998 Bisexual Pride Flag represent?

Lavender marks attraction to more than one gender, where the pink (same-gender) and blue (different-gender) bands overlap; Michael Page unveiled the flag at BiCafe's first anniversary party on 5 December 1998.

RuPaul's Drag Race first aired in 2009 on which cable channel?

Logo TV, Viacom's LGBTQ-focused channel, launched RuPaul's Drag Race in February 2009; the show moved to VH1 for seasons 9 to 14 and to MTV from season 15.

How many consecutive competition-program Emmys did RuPaul's Drag Race win starting in 2018?

Drag Race won the competition-program Emmy four years running, 2018 to 2021, before Lizzo's Watch Out for the Big Grrrls broke the streak in 2022.

Roughly how many viewers watched 'The Puppy Episode', in which Ellen's sitcom character came out in 1997?

About 42 million people watched the 30 April 1997 broadcast; it won an Emmy for comedy writing and a Peabody, but ABC cancelled Ellen after one more season.

Which 2016 film, the first LGBTQ-themed feature with an all-Black cast, won Best Picture after a famous envelope mix-up?

Moonlight's win was announced only after La La Land was read out by mistake; Mahershala Ali became the first Muslim to win an acting Oscar for it.

Brokeback Mountain lost the 2005 Best Picture Oscar to which film?

Crash, Paul Haggis's ensemble drama, took Best Picture at the March 2006 ceremony; Ang Lee won Best Director and Brokeback's screenplay, adapted from Annie Proulx's short story, also won.

For playing Harvey Milk in Milk (2008), which actor won the Best Actor Oscar?

Sean Penn took his second Best Actor Oscar for Milk, after Mystic River; Dustin Lance Black won Best Original Screenplay the same night, and Gus Van Sant directed.

Billy Porter's 2019 Emmy for Pose made him the first openly gay Black man to win in what?

Porter's Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series made him the first openly gay Black man to win a lead acting category; he was Golden Globe-nominated for all three seasons of Pose.

At the 2020 Emmys, Schitt's Creek became the first comedy or drama series ever to do what?

Dan Levy personally collected wins for series, writing and directing, and all four acting categories went to the Rose family.

How many weeks did Lil Nas X's 'Old Town Road' top the Hot 100 in 2019?

Old Town Road held number one for 19 weeks in 2019, then a Hot 100 record; Lil Nas X came out on 30 June 2019, the last day of Pride Month, while it sat on top.

Kim Petras won her history-making Grammy for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance for her feature on which Sam Smith song?

Unholy, Sam Smith's 2022 single featuring Petras, topped the UK and US charts and won at the February 2023 Grammys, a first for an openly transgender woman in a major category.

For which series was Laverne Cox the first transgender Primetime Emmy acting nominee in 2014?

Cox played Sophia Burset on Orange Is the New Black; her 2014 guest-actress nomination made her the first transgender Emmy nominee of any kind since composer Angela Morley in 1990.

Frankie Goes to Hollywood's 'Relax' hit UK number one in January 1984 despite what?

BBC Radio 1 banned Relax in January 1984 after DJ Mike Read objected on air to its sexual lyrics; the song still reached number one and spent five weeks there.

Jennie Livingston's 1990 documentary Paris Is Burning chronicles which New York subculture?

The Harlem ball scene of the late 1980s, with its houses, voguing and drag categories, is the film's subject; it joined the National Film Registry in 2016.

Netflix's Heartstopper, about schoolboys Nick and Charlie, is based on a webcomic by which author?

Alice Oseman wrote and illustrated the Heartstopper webcomic from 2016 and adapted it herself; Kit Connor and Joe Locke star, with three eight-episode series released between 2022 and 2024.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) holds what record in cinema?

Rocky Horror is cinema's longest-running theatrical release: after flopping in 1975 it became a midnight movie at New York's Waverly Theater in 1976 and stayed in limited release for five decades.

Roughly how many people attended Stonewall 50 - WorldPride NYC in Manhattan in 2019?

Organisers estimated five million people in Manhattan over the final weekend of June 2019; the 50th-anniversary march alone drew about four million, the largest Pride event held to that point.

Jack Baker and Michael McConnell applied for a marriage licence in 1970 in which city?

Jack Baker and Michael McConnell applied in Minneapolis in May 1970; the refusal led to Baker v. Nelson, which the US Supreme Court dismissed in 1972 'for want of a substantial federal question'.

Which city hosted Africa's first pride parade, on 13 October 1990?

Johannesburg's 1990 march, organised by GLOW with Simon Nkoli among its leaders, came near apartheid's end; South Africa's 1996 constitution then banned discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation.

Southeast Asia's first pride march, in June 1994, drew 30-50 people where?

Quezon City, in Metro Manila, hosted the June 1994 march organised by ProGay Philippines and the Metropolitan Community Church; Tokyo's first pride parade followed that August.

Which city's parade was named the world's biggest by Guinness World Records in 2006?

São Paulo's parade, held on Paulista Avenue from 1997, entered Guinness World Records in 2006 with about 2.5 million people, the largest pride parade recorded at that time.

Which 26 June 2015 Supreme Court ruling legalised same-sex marriage in every US state?

Obergefell v. Hodges was decided 5-4 on 26 June 2015; the White House was lit in rainbow colours that night, and lead plaintiff Jim Obergefell had sued Ohio to be named on his late husband's death certificate.

Which country was the first in the world to legalise same-sex marriage, on 1 April 2001?

The Netherlands opened marriage to same-sex couples on 1 April 2001; four couples wed in Amsterdam that night, with mayor Job Cohen made a registrar specifically so he could officiate.

The 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting, which killed 49 people, took place in which city?

Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, was attacked during its weekly Latin Night on 12 June 2016; 49 people were killed and 53 wounded.

Which European city's Pride peaks with a Canal Parade of decorated boats each August?

Amsterdam's Canal Parade, first held in 1996, sends around 80 decorated boats from Westerdok along the Prinsengracht to the Amstel on the first Saturday of August.

Which man, pardoned posthumously in 2013, appeared on the Bank of England's £50 note in 2021?

Alan Turing's £50 note entered circulation on 23 June 2021, his birthday; the 2017 'Turing's law' posthumously pardoned thousands of other men convicted under old indecency laws.

Which playwright was the catalyst for founding the protest group ACT UP in 1987?

Larry Kramer's March 1987 speech at New York's Lesbian and Gay Community Center sparked ACT UP; he had co-founded Gay Men's Health Crisis in 1982 and later left his papers to Yale.

In May 2015, which country became the first to legalise same-sex marriage by popular vote?

Ireland's referendum on 22 May 2015 passed with 62% in favour and wrote marriage equality into the constitution; Australia followed with a postal survey in 2017.

Which advocacy group's logo is a yellow equals sign on a blue square?

The Human Rights Campaign adopted the equals-sign logo in 1995; its red version, shared during the Supreme Court's March 2013 marriage arguments, produced a 120% jump in Facebook profile-photo changes.

Asked about her gender, Marsha P. Johnson said her middle initial stood for what?

'Pay it no mind' was Johnson's answer to a judge who asked what the P stood for; it became the title of a 2012 documentary produced by Randy Wicker and directed by Michael Kasino.

Which openly gay organiser of the 1963 March on Washington was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2013?

Bayard Rustin received the medal from Barack Obama on November 20, 2013; weeks before the 1963 march, Senator Strom Thurmond had read his Pasadena arrest file into the Congressional Record to discredit him.

Which country gained the world's first openly LGBTQ head of government in 2009?

Iceland's Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir took office on 1 February 2009 after the previous coalition collapsed in the financial crisis, and served as prime minister until 2013.

Tammy Baldwin became the first openly LGBTQ US senator in 2012, representing which state?

Baldwin won Wisconsin's Senate seat in 2012; she had been the state's first openly lesbian assemblywoman from 1993 and the first woman Wisconsin sent to the US House, elected in 1998.

In Germany and Switzerland, the annual Pride events held between June and August are known by what name?

Christopher Street Day, named for the Stonewall Inn's street, began in Berlin and Bremen in 1979; Cologne's and Berlin's are the biggest, and Zürich hosts the main Swiss event.

The first WorldPride, held in July 2000, took place in which city?

Rome hosted WorldPride in July 2000 during the Catholic Church's Great Jubilee; the Vatican objected and mayor Francesco Rutelli withdrew city support, yet organisers put the 8 July crowd in the hundreds of thousands.

Gay Games founder Tom Waddell had competed at the 1968 Olympics in which event?

Waddell finished sixth in the decathlon at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics; he wanted to call his 1982 event the Gay Olympics until a US Olympic Committee lawsuit forced a name change weeks before it opened.

Which columnist founded the It Gets Better Project in September 2010?

Dan Savage and his husband Terry Miller posted the first It Gets Better video in September 2010 after a string of suicides by bullied teenagers; an essay collection they edited followed in 2011.

Which justice wrote 2020's Bostock opinion extending Title VII to gay and trans workers?

Neil Gorsuch wrote the 6-3 Bostock opinion of 15 June 2020, reasoning as a textualist that firing someone for being gay or transgender is discrimination 'because of sex'.

The 1966 Compton's Cafeteria riot, three years before Stonewall, hit which neighbourhood?

Compton's Cafeteria stood at Turk and Taylor streets in San Francisco's Tenderloin; trans women and drag queens fought back against police harassment there in August 1966, a story revived by Susan Stryker's 2005 documentary Screaming Queens.

Which group organized the first Dyke March, in Washington, D.C. in April 1993?

The Lesbian Avengers, founded in New York in 1992, called the 24 April 1993 march on the eve of the March on Washington; more than 20,000 women took part, and the New York Dyke March followed that June.

The phrase 'Lavender Menace', reclaimed by lesbian feminists in 1970, was coined by whom?

Betty Friedan, NOW's president, used 'lavender menace' in 1969 to dismiss lesbians as a threat to feminism; Rita Mae Brown quit NOW in protest and helped stage the May 1970 Lavender Menace action.

The UK charity Stonewall was formed in 1989 to campaign against which law?

Section 28, the 1988 law banning councils from 'promoting homosexuality', prompted Stonewall's founding by Ian McKellen and others in May 1989; it was repealed in Scotland in 2000 and in England and Wales in 2003.

In 2012, Moscow courts banned gay pride parades in the city for how long?

Moscow's city court upheld a ban running to 2112, effectively 100 years; the European Court of Human Rights had already ruled in Alekseyev v. Russia (2010) that such bans violate freedom of assembly.

Who said in 1967 there was 'no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation'?

Pierre Trudeau, then justice minister, paraphrased a Globe and Mail editorial in December 1967 while defending the omnibus bill that decriminalized homosexual acts between consenting adults in 1969.

The Trevor Project, an LGBTQ youth crisis line founded in 1998, is named after what?

The 1994 film's creators launched the hotline; it follows a gay thirteen-year-old rejected by his friends.

The Daughters of Bilitis took their name from an 1894 work by which French poet?

Pierre Louÿs's Les Chansons de Bilitis (1894) presented Bilitis as an invented lesbian contemporary of Sappho; the 1955 group was the first lesbian civil rights organization in the United States.

In 1974 Kathy Kozachenko became the first openly gay American elected to office — where?

Kozachenko won an Ann Arbor city council seat in April 1974 at age 21 for the left-wing Human Rights Party, campaigning on enforcement of the city's anti-discrimination ordinance.

Which president signed Executive Order 10450, the order behind the 'Lavender Scare'?

Dwight D. Eisenhower signed Executive Order 10450 in April 1953, listing 'sexual perversion' as grounds for dismissal from federal jobs; thousands lost careers before Bill Clinton's 1995 order lifted the security-clearance bar.

Transgender Day of Remembrance began in 1999 after Rita Hester's murder in which US state?

Rita Hester was killed in the Allston neighbourhood of Boston, Massachusetts, in November 1998; Gwendolyn Ann Smith's 'Remembering Our Dead' web project led to the first vigil in 1999 and the 20 November observance.

The first Olympic 'Pride House' for LGBTQ athletes and fans opened at which Games?

Pride House debuted at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, with Qmunity hosting the downtown venue and a second, more celebratory house in Whistler; London 2012 followed.

Magnus Hirschfeld's sexology institute, looted by Nazis in 1933, had opened in 1919 where?

The institute opened in July 1919 in a villa in Berlin's Tiergarten, near the Reichstag, housing a public Museum of Sex; it issued 'transvestite passes' to shield trans people from police.