Srishti Sangwan

To understand the Pride Month and its importance, we need to highlight the term “gender identity”. Mostly, there is a misconception about gender identity to the sex assigned at birth biologically. One’s gender identity can be the same or different from their sex assigned at birth.

Gender identity isn’t related to sexual orientation in a direct way. The people who are questioning their gender may identify as straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual, polysexual, pansexual or asexual. Some people describe their sexuality and gender identity as being fluid – that is, they change over time.

Most people feel that they’re either male or female. Some people feel like a masculine female, or a feminine male. Some people feel neither male nor female. These people may choose labels such as “genderqueer,” “gender variant,” or “gender fluid.” Your feelings about your gender identity begin as early as age 2 or 3.

Some people’s assigned sex and gender identity are same, or in line with each other. These people are called ‘cisgender’. Other people feel that their assigned sex is of the other gender from their gender identity (i.e., assigned sex is female, but gender identity is male). These people are called ‘transgender’or ‘trans’. But, not all transgender people share the same exact identity.

There are many different gender identities, including male, female, transgender, genderless, non-binary, agender, pangender, genderqueer, two-spirit, third gender, and all, none or a combination of these. There are many more gender identities then we’ve listed. Gender can be complex and people are defining themselves in new and different ways as we gain a deeper understanding of identities.

Our surroundings impact our gender identity also. We do not accept our true self due the societal norms and pressures. But it is a conception of self and we need to understand the fact that gender identity may vary from the sex of an individual.

LGBTQA+ is community group of people who are able to stand up for their gender identity without the fear of societal norms. They conduct festivals and celebrations of sexuality, diversity, pride and individuality. Activists and sociologists of LGBTQA+ state that their community is a sort of counterbalance to homophobia, heterosexism, biphobia, sexualism, transphobia and any pressures that are present in modern society.

On June 28, 1969, the Stonewall Uprising took place in New York City in USA. At that time, the NY police would frequently raid queer bars and harass the queer community. We still see the homophobia and back then, there were laws against homosexuality in American constitution.

One of the most popular queer bar, Greenwich Village’s Stonewall Inn was raided frequently too. However, on that particular day in June, all hell broke loose when the queer community fought back and protested hard for six day long. This changed the world forever, for the better.

In the remembrance of this day, on 28th June 1970 – exactly on first anniversary of Stonewall Uprising, the first ‘Pride Parade’ took place. Since then, we celebrate this every year. The Pride month is all about teaching equality, acceptance, freedom and most importantly love.

From 1969 to now, LGBTQA+ community have been fighting hard to give them the right to marry, right to adopt children, to start families, to fight discrimination, hate speech, and hate crimes, and to simply allow queer members to live with dignity. They are fighting all and all for full acceptance and freedom to identify them and love whoever they want to love.

In India, 2018 was the best year for the community with the good-bye of section 377 which was against the homosexuality in Indian constitution. On that occasion, there were so many Pride Parades organised by the queer communities in different regions of India to celebrate their freedom.

Around the world, there are still a long way to go for equality. We need to acknowledge that we should respect everyone and we should teach our new generation about everything so that they can never fear to identify them as who they are from the inside. We need to take steps for equality in everything and everywhere.

Stay home, Stay safe. Start accepting, Start growing.

Happy Pride Month Folks! ✨