What Pride Actually Means and Why It Still Matters Now

Let's start with what Pride isn't.Pride isn't rainbow-washed vodka bottles that appear for 30 days before vanishing back into the corporate ether. It's not Instagram filters you slap on for a week, corporations changing their logos to Technicolor versions, or glitter-bombed merchandise that nobody asked for.It's not a party that just happens to shut down entire city blocks. (Though yes, the parties are fabulous.)While I'm usually the first to celebrate a good sale on rainbow tank tops, the commercialization of Pride Month often drowns out what we're actually marking: a revolution that began with marginalized people saying "enough" and refusing to apologize for their existence.When my twin daughters are old enough to ask about Pride, I won't start with parade floats and rainbow flags. I'll start with resistance.From Stonewall to SuburbiaPride began with a riot. Specifically, the 1969 Stonewall uprising, when patrons of the Stonewall Inn, a New York City gay bar, fought back against a police raid. Leading the resistance were transgender women of color like Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, drag queens, butch lesbians, and other people living at society's margins who were tired of systematic harassment and dehumanization.These weren't celebrities with Instagram accounts and corporate sponsors....