Today starts Pride Month, a time to honor and celebrate our LGBTQIA+ community. 

While this month is about celebrating, we must also remind you that Pride began as a riot, and our friends in the LGBTQIA+ community are currently under attack in this country now more than ever.

This year alone, the ACLU is tracking nearly 500 anti-LGBTQ bills making their way through state legislatures. These bills attack gender affirming healthcare for transgender adults & youth, work to ban books from libraries with little public input, and silence the first amendment protected free speech of drag performers & artists. The bills are widely unpopular, yet legislators continue to ignore, silence, and even censure those that speak up. 

This legislative sanctioned hate must stop. We all deserve to be our true authentic self in all aspects of our lives. We call on you to advocate for LGBTQIA+ people every month and support the LGBTQIA+ community every day. Hate has no place here. 

As always, we call you to action and invite you to support LGBTQIA+ serving organizations today. Here are some suggestions:

• The DC Center for the LGBT Community educates, empowers, celebrates, and connects the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities.

• Center for Black Equity promotes a multinational LGBTQ+ network dedicated to improving health and wellness opportunities, economic empowerment, and equal rights while promoting individual and collective work, responsibility, and self-determination.

• SMYAL supports and empowers lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) youth in the Washington, DC metropolitan region. Through youth leadership, SMYAL creates opportunities for LGBTQ youth to build self-confidence, develop critical life skills, and engage their peers and community through service and advocacy. 

• The Transgender Law Center (TLC) is the largest American transgender-led civil rights organization in the United States and changes law, policy, and attitudes so that all people can live safely, authentically, and free from discrimination regardless of their gender identity or expression.