Minneapolis/St. Paul Celebrated Another Successful Pride Weekend Drawing in Over 400,000 People!

This past weekend the lovely Twin Cities celebrated another successful Pride Parade, drawing in over 400,000 people. 

-Photo Credit - http://www.exploreminnesota.com/events/3732/twin-cities-pride-festival

History of Pride in Minnesota 

• Minnesota's first pride parade, dating back to 1972, was a 50 person protest to remember what had happened at the Stone Wall Inn, in Manhattan, New York, three years prior that helped launch the Gay Rights movement.
•  Slowly but surely the movement gained steam, as acceptance of queer culture was becoming more common place. 
• In the 1990's the Twin Cities Pride events began to host food vendors, music, and other non-profit booths.
• By 2010 the Pride Festival spanning over 2 days resembled what we now see today. 

Significance of the Pride Festival. 

• For many years the LGBT community was ridiculed and shunned to behind the scenes activities.
• Similar to the Black Rights movement in the US, it took many years of hard fighting by individual people on the ground level to slowly gain acceptance into the main stream.
• Within recent years, the passing of laws such as allowing openly gay people in the military and allowing gay marriage has helped push this needed agenda main stream. 
• The ability for those who had suffered for many years to be able to come together and celebrate who they are with people like them, and people who support them is what this country is all about. 
• The Pride Festival helps show the country and the rest of the world that they will not be help down by others views and opinions, and I could not be happier for the LGBT community. 

-My best friend on the left with her girlfriend and their two good friends 

My history with the LGBT community

• I am not a gay man. I did not grow up with any gay friends (openly). I was not really around any gay people for a large portion of my life. 
• Like many of us, even if we consider ourselves open and accepting people, we will develop some sort of internal bias of things we have not experienced. 
• As I grew up I was introduced to more and more queer culture, and befriended more and more gay people. 
• I want to mention this because we have to remind ourselves that often people who have biasis toward another, either expressed or not, are often the result of a lack of exposure. 
• That is why events like Pride are so important for us as a society.

-Out having some fun for Pride Festival

The Future 

• My hopes for the LGBT community is they continue to increase their exposure to others who are unfamiliar with their culture. 
• Through exposure will come more acceptance on an individual level. 
• Ultimately I hope this will have an impact on the depression and suicide rates of young gay people who struggle. 

-Photo credit: Sue Vruno

-Through writing this I to promote the idea of looking inward to yourself and seeing what you truly feel and have biases toward. 

-Only through acknowledgement can you truly change. 

Thanks for reading!