Never Forgetting the True Spirit of Pride

To celebrate LGBT History Month 2017, QT Notts have produced this poster, celebrating the true history and spirit of Pride. Please help spread this message – you can print off, email and distribute the poster, which is a free resource for everyone and hopefully a tool for reflection on the origins of our movement.

The transcript of the poster is as follows:

Never Forgetting the True Spirit of Pride

The first PRIDE was started by bisexual woman Brenda Howard in 1970 to commemorate the events that took place at The Stonewall Inn one year previously.

At Stonewall, it was mainly trans and queer people of colour who were being harassed unjustly by New York Police. Marsha P Johnson (pictured) is credited with having been one of the first to fight back against the police. The ensuing riots have gone down in history as the birthplace of modern LGBT liberation.

Pride spirit is about celebrating our diverse queer community and recognising just how many differences all of us have. And yet we are united in still facing marginalisation in mainstream society. None of us is just a letter added onto the growing list of LGBTIQA+ identities. All of us were in this movement right from the start. And before Stonewall, in other cultures and at other times, people like all of us existed, as diverse in experience then as we are now.

QT Notts is committed to keeping the spirit of Pride alive. Never fearful of speaking up for each other, always being ready to listen and learn from each other. Never letting people be pushed out so we can look more respectable. Never selling out to a simplified, single-strand story of who we all are.

We embrace and celebrate the people who have travelled the most difficult roads and faced multiple oppressions, because they hold the fire that lit up our whole queer culture. We owe the very existence of Pride to the queer and trans people of colour at Stonewall in 1969. This history is important because it tells us who we truly are as a community.