June is designated as Pride Month in the United States and while there have been plenty of parades, festivals, proclamations, and other celebratory events, those who are part of the LGBTQ+ community routinely admit that expressing pride can be a daunting experience.
In fact, for some, it can even bring the prospect of being harassed, attacked, or murdered.
According to data released by the non-profit Everytown for Gun Safety, the murders of trans people nearly doubled between 2017 and 2021 – 73% killed with a gun.
In addition, Everytown’s Transgender Homicide Tracker reported a 93% increase in tracked homicides of trans and gender-nonconforming people in the U.S. and Puerto Rico over the last four years.
And while only 13% of the transgender community is estimated to be Black, according to UCLA School of Law’s Williams Institute, Black trans women accounted for nearly three-quarters of the known victims.
“Bias-motivated crimes are a real, frightening problem in the United States, and LGBTQ+ people continue to be targeted because of who they are,” the Everytown report said.
Further, whether you believe transgender youth deserve the same privileges and protections as cisgender youth (a person whose gender identity corresponds with their sex assigned at birth), or not, the drastic surge in suicide attempts cannot be ignored.
According to the National Center for Transgender Equality’s U.S. trans survey, the largest survey of transgender people to date, 40% of trans youth reported attempting suicide in their lifetime. That’s nearly nine times the national average, according to Everytown.
Transgender Americans face severe systemic inequalities, including elevated rates of poverty, homelessness, and physical violence. They also navigate a complex system of legal challenges, from high rates of discrimination in housing and employment to state-level restrictions on health care access, public accommodations, and legal identification.
But they are still our children, brothers, sisters, parents, and friends – people who deserve the right to live their lives in peace. They, too, are Americans.
On Saturday, June 20, thousands of LGBTQ+ members of the community and advocates, flooded the streets of Washington, D.C. for the annual Capital Pride Parade. This year’s theme, “Exist. Resist. Have the Audacity!,” was fitting, given the way the pendulum has recently swung in America’s highest court and the Trump administration.
During the 1970s, the U.S. witnessed an explosion of cultural pride, and a deliberate, retaliatory attack aimed at centuries of internalized shame and historical denigration as African Americans asserted, “I’m Black and I’m proud.”
But it was more than a slogan adopted from the lyrics of R&B superstar James Brown’s #1 hit, “Say It Loud – I’m Black and I’m Proud.”
For Black Americans, it was an anthem, a defiant act of courage, and the defining soundtrack of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements, demanding equality and asserting self-love.
This is the task ahead for the LGBTQ+ community.
And slowly, but surely, they are moving up the mountainside, regardless of the personal, professional, and societal risks that come when one bravely dons the cloak of “pride.”
