Richmond Fellowship and Leicester Life Links are proud to be celebrating Pride Awareness Month 2022. At Leicester Life Links this month we have encouraged ourselves to increase our awareness, knowledge and promote diversity and inclusivity within our service. Pride can be celebrated in a number of ways from small conversations to large scale exhibitions. Every small act towards celebrating all genders, sexualities and the history of the pride community helps to bring awareness to an important topic to guide the way for further future change.
Pride is celebrated in June to commemorate the Stonewall Riots in 1969 where LGBTQ+ customers in New York City’s Stonewall Inn resisted police raids on their bar. During this altercation, the police officers entered the Inn and demanded to ‘check the sex’ of the customers via physical examination. Although reports are unclear, sources have shown the pride community have been subject to decades of raids and brutality. Due to this discrimination, the ‘Gay Liberation’ movement was developed globally allowing the pride community to express their opinions, perceptions and experiences of the treatment they have received from others to help stop the oppression of the community.
In 1970, the first pride event was celebrated in New York created by Brenda Howard, a bisexual activist. During this event, they initiated the first pride march named ‘Christopher Street Liberation Day March’ in celebration and protest of where the Stonewall Inn was located. Brenda Howard continued with planning and organising events and since then, globally pride awareness month is celebrated.
The pride community has been protected by the introduction of laws including the Equality Act 2010 giving pride employees protections from discrimination, harassment and victimisation at work, as well as the Gender Recognition Act 2004 giving transgender people the full legal recognition of their gender and to acquire a new birth certificate. Without Brenda Howard, none of this would have been possible.
Within the past 52 years an increased awareness, knowledge and understanding of the pride community with different genders, sexualities and attractions has grown and developed along with the flag which has evolved to represent the community as much as possible. See below a few of the flags which have been used in the past 52 years.
This was one of the first images for the gay community named the Gilbert Baker design to represent the diversity of the gay community which each colour standing for a different component of the community: hot pink – sex, red – life, orange – healing, yellow – sunlight, green – serenity and nature, turquoise – art, indigo – harmony and violet – spirit.
The city of Philadelphia evolved the flag to represent people of colour who are part of the pride community, with the addition of the black and brown stripes. These were placed the top of the flag to represent the struggles and prejudices that queer people of colour face regularly as shown in 2018 when studies show 51% of BAME LGBTQ+ people have experienced racism within the gay community.
In 2021 the flag was further adapted by Valentino Vecchietti of Intersex Equality Rights UK to incorporate the intersex flag, creating the ‘Intersex-Inclusive Pride Flag’. To further explain, the flag has used a chevron design to represent those communities within the pride community who are marginalised, including people of colour, those living with HIV/AIDS and those who have been lost, transgender and non-binary. With this newer design, the chevron being an arrow shows forward movement whilst being more towards the left reminds people there is still progress to be made for equality for these communities.
These are not all of the pride community flags, each gender, attraction and sexuality have their each individual flag to represent those communities.
How is Leicester Life Links supporting the Pride Community
- Using our social media platforms to spread awareness
- Being an inclusive organisation
- Creating a workshop to spread awareness to the public and other organisations
- Improving staff understanding and awareness of the different communities within the pride community and the different terminology to fully understand and support individuals on their journey
- Having an event stand at Leicester Pride (September 2022)
See below a couple of pictures of the office to increase staff awareness and understanding of Pride Awareness Month:
How are other organisations celebrating pride?
Many different clothing brands are promoting the pride community by using the flag colours on their logos and/or merchandise or advertising how they support the community for inclusive and diversity within their organisation.
Please click here to be directed to our self help tab for the pride community.
Although June is Pride Awareness Month we should use this month to improve our knowledge and understanding of the Pride Community in order to support them throughout the year.
