Gov. Ralph Northam has proclaimed June as Pride Month in Virginia to celebrate the Commonwealth’s LGBTQ+ communities, their achievements and contributions, and their fight for inclusion and equality.
Virginians are encouraged to participate in Pride Month events hosted by the Northam Administration and community organizations taking place online and in person throughout the Commonwealth. A list of some of these events can be found here. The text of Northam’s Pride Month proclamation can be found here.
Northam also issued the following statement and shared a new video message about Pride Month, which is observed in June in Virginia and nationwide. Watch the video here.
Each June, Pride Month commemorates the riots at the Stonewall Inn in New York City that began on June 28, 1969, and are often recognized as the birth of the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement. Pride Month also celebrates several landmark rulings from the United States Supreme Court that upheld LGBTQ+ rights and advanced equality in the United States, including decisions that struck down the Defense of Marriage Act in 2013, Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015, which guaranteed same-sex couples the right to marry, and affirmed that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects LGBTQ+ employees from discrimination based on sex in 2020.
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