In Key West, Pride is a celebration of diversity and inclusion. This year it begins on June 8th and runs through June 12th. Most days are filled with fun, festive events to welcome participants and show them the highlights of the Keys community. Some of this year’s events included art showings, pool parties, karaoke, sailing trips, a street fair on Duval Street, and the biggest event—the Pride Parade.
The first LGBT Pride March was in 1970 in New York City. Protestors banded together after police raids on a local gay bar on Christopher Street. The movement grew out of a need for LGBT activists to band together on a larger scale than they had been before, and soon after other cities across the country followed suit.
Pride is a way for LGBT community members to band together, but particularly in the Florida Keys, it also serves another purpose. The Keys place great value on not just being inclusive, but deliberately diverse. Many consider our motto of “One Human Family” to be a way of life. The annual Pride celebration is a way to demonstrate our inclusion of all types of people, ensuring they feel safe and valued.
Pride also serves to generate discussion on LGBT issues. Although marriage equality was recently legalized in the United States, only 19 states currently have laws prohibiting discrimination against the LGBT community. Since 2010, there have been over 50 documented hate crimes in the United States committed due to gender identity and sexual orientation. We still live in a world where hatred and homophobia lead to the deaths of 50 innocent people in the middle of Pride month in Florida, wounding more and affecting millions nationwide and across the world.
Pride is about combating homophobia and fighting discrimination based on gender or sexual orientation. It’s an opportunity for our community to come together to end violence and intolerance against the LGBT community worldwide. The Florida Keys are proud of our diversity. We celebrate Pride, and the work our community does to overcome bias.
If you would like to help the victims of the June 11th attack on Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, you can donate here: https://www.gofundme.com/pulsevictimsfund. The city is also in need of blood donors. For more about what you can do to help, check out Equality Florida’s Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/equalityfl.
by Chelsea Wait
