Pride month is almost over but the work isn’t: Why we still need LGBTQ+ activism
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June is Pride Month. It is an opportunity to celebrate the resilience and vibrancy of the LGBTQ+ community, reflect on the progress that has been made, and take stock of what still needs to be done.
A few days ago, I wandered into a speciality LGBTQ+ bookstore. I asked the owner for recommendations on historical fiction and he whisked me down the aisles, pulling out titles while we chatted about our favourite books in the genre. I mentioned that I really enjoyed The Great Believers and A Language of Limbs, two fictional books set during the AIDS crisis in separate parts of the world.
At that, he gave me a sheepish look, “Gosh, I forget that’s considered history now. It feels like it wasn’t that long ago in my lifetime. Though, for you, it would be history, hey?”
I felt deeply embarrassed. The AIDS epidemic began in the 1980s. He was right – it really wasn’t that long ago.
What is Pride Month?
June is Pride Month. It is an opportunity to celebrate the resilience and vibrancy of the LGBTQ+ community, reflect on the progress that has been made, and take stock of what still needs to be done. In Australia, Pride Month commemorates the first Mardi Gras in June of 1978, which was a protest in solidarity with The Stonewall Riots that started in the U.S. nine years prior.
Whilst the first Mardi Gras was a major milestone in Australia LGBTQ+ history, it was also a day marked by police brutality and discrimination. Many people involved in the protest were badly beaten and 53 people were arrested. Those arrested had their names, occupations, and addresses published in the Sydney Morning Herald with devastating consequences: many lost their jobs, were evicted from their homes, and ostracised from their families. Some tragically lost their lives.
When you live in a beautiful community such as Canberra – with its rainbow roundabout and inclusive sidewalks – it can be easy to forget that there was a time in recent memory when LGBTQ+ people were denied basic rights and treated with such open violence and unbridled contempt.
Recent ‘history’
And yet, this is the truth: all the rights currently enjoyed by LGBTQ+ people were achieved in the last few decades. Homosexuality was still illegal in Tasmania until 1997, the ACT only removed sodomy from criminal records in 2015, and same-sex marriage wasn’t legalised in Australia until 2017.
While so much progress has been made, the fight for LGBTQ+ rights is far from over. At home and abroad, we are witnessing attempts by governments, institutions, and political actors to erode our hard-won victories. Since the beginning of the year, the American Civil Liberties Union has tracked more than 597 anti-LGBTQ+ bills across U.S. legislatures. Most of these bills are targeted at transgender people.
At home, the Queensland Government suspended gender-affirming care in January of this year for new patients under 18-years-old, pending a review. This move was described by Equality as “catastrophic for young trans people” and has been slammed by medical practitioners as being politically motivated.
The Northern Territory government also announced that it would roll back hate speech protections for the LGBTQ+ community in its Anti-Discrimination Act, but was recently forced to back down after mounting community pressure.
In addition to these blatant attacks against LGBTQ+ people, we should not lose sight of the fact that conversion therapy remains legal in several jurisdictions across Australia, and LGBTQ+ people are still not counted in the census, which creates significant gaps in research and funding towards health and other outcomes.
We still need you
We still need real and genuine activism from people within and outside the LGBTQ+ community in 2025. Attacks on all LGBTQ+ people, but particularly our transgender and gender diverse people, are real and ongoing. The legitimacy of our existence is an embodied fact — it is not up for public debate. And yet, time and time again, we are targeted for cheap and dehumanising political point scoring.
Everyone, regardless of sexuality or gender identity/expression, deserves to live a life of dignity, free from harassment and discrimination. It is clear that we have not arrived at this point yet.
So, as Pride Month comes to an end, let us remember that Pride is built on the backs of LGBTQ+ communities and allies, who protested, rallied and fought for every inch of visibility and progress enjoyed today.
While I am still constantly shocked by how recent it was that LGBTQ+ people did not have the rights that we can now take for granted, I also find it incredibly hopeful and motivating to know that so much progress can be made in such a short amount of time.
Our successes are a reminder that, with the courage and determination to speak out against injustice and envision a better future, there are still sweeter fruits of progress waiting to be enjoyed by us all, all year round.
