By Paul Norris, Marketing Content and Engagement Coordinator, Acis Group

What is Pride? 

This year Pride Month is 50 years old. But what is it?

Firstly, there’s a reason it takes place in June; this is because June is the month that the Stonewall Riots took place. These were very important protests that took place in the USA which changed gay rights not just for Americans, but for people across the world.

Pride is a celebration of people coming together in love and friendship to show and celebrate how far LGBTIQA+ rights have come. The Pride event isn’t just a celebration – it also goes a long way to showing the places that there’s still work to be done.

This year the theme is Medicine – #UnderTheScope, and it celebrates ‘LGBTIQA+ peoples’ contribution to the field of medicine and healthcare, and encourages you to ‘look under the scope’ to listen to LGBTIQA+ peoples’ lived experiences.

Why is Pride Important? 

Pride month is about acceptance, equality, celebrating the work of LGBTIQA+ people, education in LGBTIQA+ history and raising awareness of issues affecting the LGBTIQA+ community.

It’s important to show how things have changed with some fantastic steps being taken towards equality, but it also calls for us to remember how damaging homophobia was and still can be.

There’s plenty of work still to be done and this is why Pride Month, 50 years on from its inception, continues to celebrate and raise awareness of the past and current issues facing the LGBTIQA+ community. Pride is important and although the month-long celebration takes place in June, there are Pride events all year round because Pride matters all year round. There are also numerous awareness days and weeks throughout the year too!

You can see all events for 2024 on the pride calendar.