Pride Month begins on Saturday, June 1, to mark a time of celebrating LGBTQ+ identity and raising awareness of issues facing the community around the world.
The month-long event will build towards the 2024 Pride Parade, which will be held on Saturday, June 29, building on the tremendous success of 2023, which was held on July 1. The parade is a march from Hyde Park Corner to Whitehall Place, with hundreds of groups involved.
London is one of the best places to celebrate Pride in the world and there are events for all ages and sexualities. Check our guide for all the best events and places to go, but not before you’ve read about the history of Pride!
Here is all you need to know.
Pride Month 2024
This year’s campaign will look to honour and celebrate the 1.5 million people in England and Wales who identify as LGBTQ+.
“The benefits of LGBTQ+ visibility go beyond recordkeeping,” charity Stonewall said. “As more people have had the opportunity to learn about our lives, attitudes have changed, allowing us all to write new, more colourful chapters in our country's story.”
Across the month, Stonewall and other charities and organisations will seek to promote change and acceptance within society and workplaces.
It will also provide a chance for more people to learn about the history of gay communities and their fight for rights.
History of Pride Month and the Stonewall Riots
June is Pride Month because it coincides with the anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall Riots.
That year, in the early hours of June 28, eight police officers from the New York “Public Morals Division” raided the Stonewall Inn — a gay bar in Greenwich Village, New York City.
There was nothing particularly exceptional about this. In the Sixties, the NYPD unit enforced all “vice” laws, and had the power to arrest and hospitalise gay people by force.
But on this particular night, the bar fought back. Neighbouring revellers were drawn to the scene, hundreds resisted prejudiced arrest, and a mirror was smashed by “the shot glass that was heard around the world”, thrown by Black transgender activist Marsha P Johnson.
As the eight policemen barricaded themselves inside the Stonewall Inn, protesters took control of the street: that night, and the five that followed.
Stonewall did not create a movement; LGBTQ+ activism had taken an organised shape in the 1920s, if not before. But the show of force and numbers, coupled with widespread media coverage, empowered throngs to join the campaign.
On the first anniversary of the Stonewall riots, demonstrations stretched across the United States in a mix of politics and parties that elevated a community whose existence had been denied, suppressed, and criminalised.
Celebrations have reclaimed the historic influence of LGBTQ+ people across the world, and paved the way for a more equal and diverse future. They have peacefully protested injustices not only facing the LGBTQ+ community, but many other marginalised groups.
And over the past five decades, they have become a placard to articulate specific demands, propelling causes like gay marriage and AIDS awareness.
In the 1980s, “Gay Freedom” became “Gay Pride” and, from 2009 to 2016, President Obama officially declared June the month of LGBT Pride.
