30 Days of Pride
June is Pride Month.
Pride is the promotion of self-affirmation, dignity, equality, and increased visibility for LGBTQI+ people.
Pride is a direct counter to historical shame and social stigma, championing the right to live openly and authentically.
Day One
Stonewall Chorale Video
Kick off Pride Month with a video of the Stonewall Chorale performance on campus during GAYpril 2026. Dr. McSpadden sings with the Chorale!
Day Two
Celebrate Pride Month at the New York Public Library
The New York Public Library is celebrating Pride Month throughout June. Explore book recommendations, free online events, resources, and much more
https://www.nypl.org/spotlight/pride
Day Three
Film Recommendation: Badhaai Do (2022)
Have you ever heard of a lavender marriage? It is a strategic marriage of convenience between a man and a woman where one or both partners are LGBTQ+. These unions are entered into to conceal sexual orientation, protect professional reputations, or evade social and legal persecution. This Bollywood comedy-drama tackles the complexities of a gay man and a lesbian woman navigating a marriage of convenience in India.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpMsvH7DpPc
Day Four
Book Recommendation: Everything I learned, I learned in a Chinese Restaurant: A Memoir By Curtis Chin
Chin is the cofounder of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop who tells his story of growing up as a gay Chinese kid in 1980s Detroit and how he found refuge in a welcoming Chinese restaurant.
https://www.pbs.org/video/dinnerandabook-everything-i-learned-i-learned-in-a-chinese-restaurant/
Day Five
Poet Audre Lorde once noted, “Without community, there is no liberation.” Professor Emalinda McSpadden reflect this in article she wrote for the Spring 2025 issue of Loud! that looked at “Courage Through Community.”
https://www.bcc.cuny.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/loud-issue_7_2_final1.pdf
Day Six
Celebrate Disco!
Edwin Roman explores the connection between the marginalization of Disco and LGBTQI+ and people of color in the Spring 2022 issue of Loud!
https://www.bcc.cuny.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/loud-issue_4_2_final2_1a.pdf
Day Seven
Book Recommendation: Nepantla: An Anthology Dedicated to Queer Poets of Color
In 2014, Christopher Soto and Lambda Literary Foundation founded the online journal Nepantla, with the mission to nurture, celebrate, and preserve diversity within the queer poetry community. Now available in print it is a survey of poetry by queer poets of color throughout U.S. history.
https://nightboat.org/book/nepantla-an-anthology-dedicated-to-queer-poets-of-color/
Day Eight
Film Recommendation: We Were Here (2011)
This documentary looks at the traumatic early days of the 1980 AIDS crisis in San Francisco. Told Through the eyes of five individuals who lived through it you’ll get a glimpse into the fear, loss, and resilience that defined that time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_fydTnOVTk&t=8s
Day Nine
Learn about LGBTQ+ History Before Stonewall!
https://www.goodgoodgood.co/articles/lgbtq-history-before-stonewall
Day Ten
Learn what each Pride flag means!
Pride flags go beyond the standard rainbow flag or the newer Progress Pride Flag. In fact, there are dozens of unique Pride flags that represent various LGBTQ+ communities.
https://www.hrc.org/resources/lgbtq-pride-flags
Day Eleven
Culture Wars in The Toilet
Modern culture wars and issues of equality often begin in the toilet with regards to who gets to use them. Read more about this in the Spring 2024 issue of Loud!
https://www.bcc.cuny.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/loud-issue_6_2_final.pdf
Day Twelve
Film Recommendation: Pray Away (2021)
Pray Away is a 2021 American documentary that follows survivors of conversion therapy, and former leaders.
https://www.netflix.com/title/81040370
Day Thirteen
Comic Book Recommendation: Batwoman: Elegy
Kate Kane is Batwoman, one of many vigilantes who protect Gotham City using Bat imagery. She is an out lesbian, who was discharged from the military under don’t ask don’t tell. Batwoman: Elegy is a critically acclaimed graphic novel by writer Greg Rucka and artist J.H. Williams III, collecting the Detective Comics issues that established the modern Batwoman as a major DC Comics character. The artwork is nothing short of amazing.
https://www.dc.com/graphic-novels/detective-comics-1937/batwoman-elegy
Day Fourteen
Learn about America’s First Drag Queen!
Drag is an art form that acts as a conduit for social critique while simultaneously challenging oppression. Learn about William Dorsey Swann, who was America’s first drag queen as well as a former slave who became the very first LGBTI+ rights crusader. Check out the spring 2023 issue of Loud!
https://www.bcc.cuny.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/loud-issue_5_1_f1.pdf
Day Fifteen
View the Architecture of Andrés Jaque.
Andrés Jaque is gay architect and the Dean of the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. He frequently integrates LGBTQ+ issues, activism, and non-normative perspectives into his architectural work.
https://officeforpoliticalinnovation.com/
Day Sixteen
8 things you didn’t know about Alan Turing
Alan Turing was a British mathematician and logician who is a pioneer in computer science and was responsible for breaking the Nazi Enigma code during World War II. His work gave the Allies the edge they needed to win the war in Europe. Turing took his own life in 1954, two years after being outed as gay. He was only 41 years old.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/8-things-didnt-know-alan-turing
Day Seventeen
Learn about Dr. Valerie Stone
Dr. Valerie Stone is a physician and vice-chair for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. In 2011, she became the first African American to become professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. She is a nationally recognized expert on HIV/AIDS and her research focuses on disparities in HIV/AIDS care by race, ethnicity and gender. In 2020, she was honored by the Massachusetts Medical Society as the recipient of the Society’s LGBTQ Health Award, an honor recognizing an individual who has made outstanding contributions to LGBTQ health.
https://www.lgbtqiahealtheducation.org/us/faculty-advisory-board/valerie-stone/
Day Eighteen
Saluting LGBTQI+ Service Members
Prior to 2011, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was the official policy on military service for LGBTQIA+ service members. The Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) notes, “It is estimated that there are a little more than 1 million LGBTQI+ Veterans in the United States. Since the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Repeal Act of 2010, surveys have found that more than five percent of active-duty service members identify as part of the LGBTQI+ community.” Celebrate those who paved the way for a more inclusive military.
https://nationalvmm.org/saluting-lgbtqia-service-members/
Day Nineteen
Book Recommendation: We Are Everywhere by Matthew Riemer and Leighton Brown
We Are Everywhere is a rich and sweeping photographic history of the Queer Liberation Movement, from the creators and curators of the popular Instagram account @lgbt_history, released in time for the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots.
Day Twenty
Learn about Michael Callen, The Father of Safe Sex
Callen was an AIDS activist before there was an AIDS movement. From the time of his diagnosis with AIDS in 1982, he was involved in virtually all of the positive responses to the epidemic, including the self-empowerment of People with AIDS; the invention of safer sex; the community-based research movement; development of prophylaxis for major opportunistic infections; and the establishment of buyer’s clubs providing low-cost access to both experimental and approved AIDS treatments.
https://callen-lorde.org/about/
Day Twenty-One
Celebrating Audre Lorde
The Audre Lorde quote, “Your silence will not protect you” is the tagline of the BCC LGBTQI+ Resource Room newsletter Loud! Check out the Spring 2020 issue which remembered Lorde for Women’s History Month.
https://www.bcc.cuny.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/loud-issue_2_2_final.pdf
Day Twenty-Two
Graphic Novel Recommendation: Gaysians (2025)
Gaysians is a celebration of queer chosen family that follows four gay Asians navigating love, identity, and friendship.
https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/michael-curato/gaysians/9781643755120/
Day Twenty-Three
Film Recommendation: Rafiki (2018)
This Kenyan film tells the story of a forbidden love story between two young women, Kena and Ziki, whose fathers are political rivals. Despite facing harsh realities in a society where their relationship is illegal, their love for each other blossoms.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7M_-ucSaFpU
Day Twenty-Four
Quoting Baldwin
James Baldwin was an American writer and civil rights activist who was acclaimed for his essays, novels, plays, and poems. The Spring 2019 issue of Loud! collects some of his best quotes.
https://www.bcc.cuny.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/loud-issue1_2_final_draft1.pdf
Learn more about Baldwin at the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/introduction-james-baldwin
Day Twenty-Five
35 Queer Photographers Illustrate What “Pride” Really Means
In 2019, W magazine asked 35 queer photographers to illustrate how they personally define pride and queer identity.
https://www.wmagazine.com/culture/queer-photographers-pride
Day Twenty-Six
The Mets host its annual Pride Night on June 26. The “RuPaul’s Drag Race” alum Jan Sport hosts a free pregame party featuring a live D.J., mascot appearances and performances by the Queens Crew, the team’s hype troupe.
https://www.mlb.com/mets/tickets/specials/pride
Day Twenty-Seven
Film Recommendation: Soldier’s Girl (2003)
Soldier’s Girl is a 2003 biographical drama television film based on the true story of the relationship between Calpernia Addams and Barry Winchell and the events that led up to Winchell’s murder by fellow soldiers Justin Fisher and Calvin Glover on July 6, 1999.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oBAEYqkxYs
Day Twenty-Eight
June 28, 1970, Marks the Formation of Gay Pride Week
On the first anniversary of the Stonewall riots, gay activists in New York City orchestrated the first Gay Pride parade, called Christopher Street Liberation March. The parade, which symbolized the start of Gay Pride Week, spanned 15 city blocks and included thousands of participants. The same year, gay activists in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston and Chicago followed New York City’s lead, organizing gay pride celebrations.
Inspired by the wave of U.S. activism, other countries, including Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Germany and New Zealand, forged gay-rights movements, changing the LGBTQI+ landscape globally.
Day Twenty-Nine
Remembering Sylvia Rivera
A veteran of the 1969 Stonewall Inn uprising, Sylvia Rivera was a gay liberation and transgender rights activist who was also a noted community worker in New York. The Fall 2019 issue of Loud! remembers her.
https://www.bcc.cuny.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/loud-issue2_2_final2_online.pdf
Day Thirty
View film footage of the first Christopher Street Liberation Day Parade, held in New York City, New York, on June 28, 1970, to commemorate the first anniversary of the Stonewall Riots.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrumPkkyF1c
