PRIDE is for everyone. Pride Month is a time to celebrate our loved ones, our communities, and those who came before us. We honor those who have struggled, worked, and lived their authentic lives in historical moments of profound injustice and conflict. We mourn the many lives lost to the AIDS epidemic, in addition to those lost to racist, misogynistic and homophobic violence. We give our gratitude to the many activists, movement leaders, and supporters who paved the way for the progress of LGBTQIA+ rights, and it is this legacy we take upon ourselves to carry on, progress and preserve. We must remain unabashedly loud in our defense of LGBTQIA+ rights and dignity, because the stakes are incredibly high.

Americans today face a political climate of intense social division, growing poverty, mass incarceration, increased attacks on workers’ rights, and escalating violence by police and immigration authorities. The interests of the majority — the millions of hard-working, everyday people—remain unrepresented in the major political parties.

Queer identity is capitalized upon to sell consumer goods, while access to gender-affirming and reproductive healthcare is stripped away. We criticize the manipulative “pinkwashing” tactics utilized today by the same corporate and political entities who once shunned our communities. Declaring public but superficial support for LGBTQIA+ people while engaging in practices that serve only to harm queer and working-class people around the world is unacceptable.

Abroad, the government of Israel exemplifies this trend. Advertising a facade of friendliness towards the queer community, it upholds itself as a critical “outpost of democracy” in the Middle East — all while illegally occupying and carrying out a genocide in Palestine, and brutally arresting its own queer citizens who dare to speak out.

Meanwhile, rights for LGBTQIA+ people are threatened with bills introduced at all levels of government in the United States. In Michigan, homophobic bills such as House Bill 4066 — which if passed would restrict student athletes to sports teams based on their sex assigned at birth — and House Bill 4467 — which would make it illegal for healthcare professionals to perform gender affirming procedures on minors — threaten the livelihoods of LGBTQIA+ people. To make it that much worse, the H.R. 1 Bill (Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act) threatens to restrict healthcare for all trans folks and introduce regressive definitions of “sex.” We maintain a firm stance against such legislation in our state and country.

The attacks on LGBTQIA+ rights run in parallel to the attacks on workers rights and immigrant rights. Alarmingly, Donald Trump’s administration has begun a policy of mass deportation, setting quotas that ICE must reach and doing so at the cost of free speech, the right to live, and the right to work. Whole swathes of our country, our states, and our communities are now being labeled as dangerous and expendable, with no regard for due process. Los Angeles, California, has become exemplary of the resistance to these attacks: residents have been resilient in their heartwarming and brave support for their immigrant and at-risk neighbors. In turn, these allies have been gassed, beaten, shot, mocked, and labeled as dangerous by Trump, his administration, and the right-wing media. The LGBTQIA+ community has faced these threats before, and are still fighting that fight today. It is easier to win when we stand in solidarity with each other. We know what it means to be the target. We know what it means to be hated and vilified and considered sub-human.

Now we must use that knowledge to be allies. Stand up for your fellow humans. Organize your communities. Resist the fascistic, extreme-right forces however and whenever you can. Recognize that the struggle for LGBTQIA+ rights is interconnected with other struggles around the world, including liberation from imperialism and the struggle for immigrant rights. Live the truth that we all know: PRIDE is for everyone, because everyone deserves pride. Happy Pride Month!

Image: NYC Pride (June 28 – 29, 2025) by Pride (Facebook).