Happy Pride Month!

Hello my forest friends, it is the start of Pride Month! This year also marks the 10th year I am celebrating Pride Month and Pink Dot! 

So I have known for a decade that June is the pride month of the year but I haven't gotten around to understanding exactly why. I know for a fact that the stonewall riots have a part to play in the culmination of this special month, but I haven't done much research. Henceforth, here I am today, exploring the start of Pride Month.

Every year, during the month of June, the LGBTQA+ community celebrates in a number of different ways, with various events held during this special month as a way of acknowledging the influence the LGBT community has had around the world. 

Colourful rainbow floats and pretty parasol picnics galore, it is vastly different from how the LGBTQA+ rights movement came in June of 1969. The great Stonewall riots catalyzed the LGBT movement in New York City's Greenwich Village, starting from the early morning hours of 28 June when police raided the popular Stonewall Inn. The inn was a gathering place for young LGBTQA+ members and they were arrested for selling liquor without a license - and getting roughed house around the place, clearing the bar. Outside, the crowd that watched the bar's patrons being herded into vans were evidently enraged. 

In the past, most members of the LGBTQA+ community had stood by passively but this time, the crowd began jeering, fighting back and started throwing debris, coins, and even bottles at the police, forcing them to barricade themselves in the bar to await backup. Not before long, almost 400 people joined the riot. Although the police reinforcements dispersed the crowds, riots continued to wax and wane outside the bar for the next five days, and these riots, now known as the Stonewall riots, provided the spark that ignited the LGBTQA+ rights movement in the United States. 

In Singapore's case, there is a similar incident that is dubbed as 'Singapore's Stonewall'. In 1993, plainclothes police officers carried out a raid of Rascals at Pan Pacific Hotel on a regular Sunday gay disco night. Click here to watch Victoria Wondersnatch talk about it. This resulted in a Letter of Complaint written by Wilfred Ong and signed by 21 other people, that actually helped to reduce police raids and entrapment in the following years. 

Further liberalization happened in 2008 and Singaporeans were allowed to hold public rallies and protests at the Speaker’s Corner (they were only allowed to make speeches previously). The opportunity to gather and raise the concerns of the community in a visual and public way marked a milestone in LGBT activism. 

x

evelyn