Declaring June 2024 LGBTQ+ Pride Month in the City of Philadelphia.

Declaring June 2024 LGBTQ+ Pride Month in the City of Philadelphia. WHEREAS, The movement for LGBTQ+ liberation has a deep and righteous history in the City of Philadelphia, helmed by revolutionary leaders who demonstrated the power of organizing alongside movements for justice to advance equity and civil rights; and WHEREAS, On June 11, 1972, thousands of people rallied in Rittenhouse Square and marched through Center City to Independence Hall in Philadelphia’s first formal Gay Pride March. Wearing symbolic chains and removing metaphorical masks, some of the marchers dressed in drag and extravagant outfits as they sang “we are proud to say to all today, gay is good and proud and right”; and WHEREAS, Philadelphia’s early movement for gay rights was led in part by lesbian, gay, bisexual, and Trans youth amidst targeted brutality and harassment toward the LGBTQ+ community by the Philadelphia Police Department; and WHEREAS, Philadelphia is home to one of the earliest annual demonstrations for LGBTQ+ rights, the Annual Reminders, led by Frank Kameny, Clark Polak, Barbara Gittings, and Kay Lahusen outside Independence Hall on July 4th from 1965 to 1969. Participants included Ernestine Eckstein, Kiyoshi Kuromiya, and Ada Bello. The silent protests enforced strict dress codes and were critiqued for emphasizing conformity to heteronormative societal norms and excluding Transgender and gender non-conforming individuals, but have been credited with laying the groundwork for the June 19…