Title
Declaring June 2023
LGBTQ+ Pride Month in the City of Philadelphia.
Body
WHEREAS, The movement for
LGBTQ+ liberation has a deep and righteous history in the City of Philadelphia, helmed by revolutionary leaders who demonstrated the power of organizing alongside movements for justice to advance equity and civil rights; and
WHEREAS, On June 11, 1972, thousands of people rallied in Rittenhouse Square and marched through Center City to Independence Hall in Philadelphia's first formal Gay Pride March. Wearing symbolic chains and removing metaphorical masks, some of the marchers dressed in drag and extravagant outfits as they sang "we are proud to say to all today, gay is good and proud and right"; and
WHEREAS, Philadelphia's early movement for gay rights was led in part by lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans youth amidst targeted brutality and harassment toward the
LGBTQ+ community by the Philadelphia Police Department; and
WHEREAS, Philadelphia is home to one of the earliest annual demonstrations for
LGBTQ+ rights, the Annual Reminders, led by Frank Kameny, Clark Polak, Barbara Gittings, and Kay Lahusen outside Independence Hall on July 4th from 1965 to 1969. Participants included Ernestine Eckstein, Kiyoshi Kuromiya, and Ada Bello. The silent protests enforced strict dress codes and were critiqued for emphasizing conformity to heteronormative societal norms and excluding transgender and gender non-conforming individuals, but have been credited with laying the groundwork for the June 1969 Stonewall protests; and
WHEREAS, The Annual Reminders protests evolved into the first
LGBTQ+ Pride March in New York City when, at a meeting of the Eastern Regional Conference of Homophile Organizations in Philadelphia five months following the Stonewall protests, activists passed a resolution to move the time and location of the annual demonstration "in order to be more relevant, reach a greater number of people, and encompass the ideas and ideals of the larger struggle ...
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