Gay pride festivities take place around the world year round but none is more emblematic of the LGBTQ struggle for full equality than New York City’s Gay Pride.  Of course, that’s because the gay rights movement started here in New York City at The Stonewall Inn 45 years ago this weekend.  In the nearly half-century since this movement began, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, intersexed, queer and questioning people have started coming out of the closet, refusing to be silent, insisting on being seen and accepted for who we are.  It seems fitting that on gay pride weekend we ought to pause, take stock of where we are as a community and as a movement in order to better understand where we have come from and where we are going.

We have waged our epic struggle for equal rights while enduring a massive and historic  epidemic that disproportionally afflicted our community.  Since the first case was reported in 1981, the World Health Organization estimates that nearly 36 million people have died of HIV/AIDS.  There are currently 35.3 million people living with HIV/AIDS in the world today, 2.1 million of them are children. In 2012, 1.6 million people died of HIV/AIDS and, more alarmingly, 2.3 million people were newly infected. In United States, there are over 1 million people living with HIV-AIDS and there are 50,000 new infections per year according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Among groups identified at higher risk for infection, only among gay and bisexual men is the rate of new infections increasing.  The highest rate of new infections in gay and bisexual men is among black men ages 13-24.  Gay and bisexual men make up 63% of all new HIV infections in the United States per year. A recent study done by the CDC found that one in five gay and bisexual men in over 20 major US cities were infected with HIV, but nearly half of these men did not know they were infected.  HIV-positive individuals live longer, healthier lives thanks to the amazing advances in medication therapy, but there still remains no cure for HIV/AIDS.  Recently, there has been much more open discussion and publicity about PrEP (Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis) as a safe and viable option for helping to stem the tide of new infections in men who have sex with men.  Sadly, there is still much division about PrEP within our community and the medical community has been slow, if not silent, on the matter until only very recently.  Clearly, we have a long way to go in the battle to contain the spread of HIV in our own community and to end the HIV/AIDS epidemic, globally.

We have demanded equality under the law including our right to marry the person whom we choose.  It has been 10 years since marriage equality was first passed in United States in Massachusetts in 2004, and in that time 20 states and the District of Columbia have passed full marriage equality.  One year ago this weekend, The Supreme Court of The United States handed down two landmark decisions regarding marriage equality and in the year since, 14 out of 14 federal court rulings striking down state marriage bans have cited the Supreme Court’s Windsor opinion.  Because of the rulings, The U.S. federal government now recognizes all legally performed same-sex marriages, regardless of the current state of residence.  Indeed, the expansion of marriage equality has finally picked up speed and is growing at an ever-increasing exponential rate.  Though 46% of Americans live in states that have adopted full marriage equality, more than 50% live in 32 states and territories that still ban all types of unions except one-man-one-woman couples.  Indeed, our work is far from done.

Some of our straight friends and family members have asked us “why have a Gay Pride?” The answer is very simple; before there was “gay pride” we only had “gay shame”. We lived in the shadows, in closets of fear and self-denial. We refused to honor ourselves and our relationships.  We allowed ourselves to be bullied into silence and invisibility and that cost so many of us our lives.  It was only when we came out and insisted on being regarded as equal and worthy of our inherent human dignity, that anything began to change for the better for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people.  So each year we celebrate gay pride as a way of vanquishing the gay shame of the past and strengthening our community by collectively reclaiming our self esteem.  Gay Pride is a celebration of the immense diversity that exists within our community and the powerful contribution that we as a community bring to our respective countries around the world.

So whether you identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer or intersexed, whether you’re questioning or whether you are a straight ally, we wish you a safe and happy Gay Pride Weekend!