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Every June, rainbow flags flood city streets, social media feeds, and storefronts. Pride Month is here again—but what does it really mean to you in 2025?
For some, Pride is a celebration. A time to dance, kiss, party, and shine unapologetically. For others, it’s a protest—a reminder that being visible, loud, and queer is still a radical act in many parts of the world. Some of us experience both: the joy and the fight, the glitter and the grief.
But it’s also okay if Pride feels complicated.
Maybe you’re not out to everyone in your life, and seeing others live freely stirs up mixed feelings. Maybe you’ve never been to a parade, or don’t feel safe doing so in your hometown. Maybe you’re older now, and Pride doesn’t look the same as it did when you were 25, shirtless in the crowd. Or maybe you are 25 and still trying to figure out how you fit into the LGBTQ+ community at all.
So, Adam4Adam blog readers we want to ask you: what does Pride mean to you, right now? Do you celebrate? And if so—how? Does it make you feel seen, or do you feel left out?
Pride, as we know it today, began as a protest. The first Pride march was held on June 28, 1970, to commemorate the first anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising—a series of demonstrations led by LGBTQ+ people in New York City, including trans women of color like Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, who fought back against police raids at the Stonewall Inn. That moment sparked a movement, and Pride Month is celebrated every June in their honor.
In 2025, Pride exists in a complex and rapidly changing world. We’re seeing greater LGBTQ+ representation in media, sports, and politics. Queer love stories are winning major awards. Same-sex families are increasingly visible. In many countries, legal protections have been strengthened, and young people today often grow up with access to more affirming spaces and communities than ever before.
And yet, challenges persist. In the U.S. and around the globe, LGBTQ+ individuals continue to face discrimination, targeted legislation, and violence. Trans rights remain under attack in many states. Mental health disparities affect queer youth at alarming rates. For many, Pride is not just a celebration—it is still very much a protest.
So, what does Pride mean to you in 2025? Is it a moment to be loud and unapologetically yourself? A time to honor those who came before and those still fighting? Or is it a month to reflect, reconnect with your community, and embrace your chosen family? Is your Pride filled with joy? Resistance? Healing? Hope? How do you show your Pride, and who do you show it for?
Whatever your experience, Pride Month remains an open invitation to celebrate identity, confront injustice, and show up for one another—whether through protest, party, or personal reflection.
Tell us your story.
Happy Pride Month 2025!
It means flags being shoved in everyone’s faces. I’m always glad when June is over.
Tbh, nothing much…Now don’t get me wrong, fellas, but, the current president has been instrumental in shunning gay people in the military, schools and within a family network. It’s no wonder that the allowing of marriage hasn’t been repeated yet?! I’m bi, more attracted to good looking bottoms than femme fatales nowadays, and I must admit that I try to stay away from large gatherings, both hetero and gay, because of the potential for bombings–our society is in a midst of madness for gay bashing–robberies, assault and batteries, bigotry and prejudice, both directly and indirectly. It’s sad that this world… Read more »
Pride means money spent on parades and sex orgies. It shows that we have a right to have sex with anyone we can convince to swallow our loads and incubate STDs. We will triumphantly return to a modern Weimar, where everyone’s kink can be accommodated. All we need to keep open borders and allow the third world in to serve our needs. Once we have these slaves to do our bidding, we can bask in the kind of fun that would shock Nero.
Pride is every day not one day in June. It has become another commercial Holiday just as Kwanzaa and Cinco De Mayo. It is about marketing and making money.
AGREED! More ways to make money instead of remembrance of guys who suffered for being gay and lost their lives or died from aids epidemic, not a circus like it has turned into
Glad you understood my point. Today, the media distorts the original meaning of “Pride” until it is reduced to a marketing event with the rainbows, drag-related parades, drinking all resembling a “Pagan Festival.”
Just reporting it for what it has become.
and just as fake
and equally confirmed
Should you be ashamed of who you choose to love? Absolutely not. Should you run around shoving your business in everyones face? Absolutely not.
My Straight friends and family (some very conservative when it comes to Politics or Religion) have said for a few years they respect people for who they are, sexuality-wise. That’s a requirement. But they are totally fed up with having others’ sexuality thrown in their faces constantly and into their young children during school days.
Your straight friends & family sounds like hypocrites. If they respect people for who they are, this is a non-issue. It sounds like they’re making the terms on “accepting sexuality”. The only people they can control with this BS statement is YOU.
It means people are pissed off at people of the LGBTQ community. My friends who arent gay or bi tell me all the time they are sick of having it shoved down their throats. I cant stand June and all the pride bs.
means there are 29 days too many…
It’s a wonderful time to acknowledge all the people that faced ridicule and persecution for all the liberation and freedom we have today ( and apparently still fight for). It’s a special time to commemorate those that lost lives fighting for our adversity, even when family or government turned their backs. This is probably an uncomfortable month for closeted and internalized homophobic types that feel grief about things being shoved in the public eye. You people will just have to stomach fear 30 days ( while still secretly enjoying the benefits from previous struggles of others). That is called FEAR.… Read more »
The month originally had great value. It brought LGTBQ+ individuals together for help and support. Gay friends tell me they joined up with the local LGTBQ+ group decades ago because it supported individuals with basic life needs for healthcare, housing, emotional support, employment, etc.
Sadly, they had to walk away three to four years ago. The local had been taken over by Left leaning militants … and those friends are Left leaning. Any group meeting became a mobilization effort for the Left to fight (hate) the Right. Discussion about supporting members became non-existent.
Being self, sexually liberated; that confidence in giving yourself agency, to live with/ love yourself, in spite of the world at large, as well as all too often; in spite of, “our gay societies,” too.
Pride used to be about LGB rights to be able to live our lives. Now that has all been supplanted by all the TQIA+ in-your-face crap. Those “experts” who tell young boys that if you love men, you must really be a girl, and so need to have your cock and balls removed, are really saying it is not all right to be gay. Same for those that tell young women that if you love a girl, you need to have your boobs removed because you must really be a boy inside, instead of saying it is okay to be… Read more »
I have no Pride . I don’t even post my pic on this site. Me and my straight friends think Pride is too much.
I spend nearly all my time in the wilderness year round and I have no social media, so for me “pride” is non-existent. Everybody talks about it being “shoved in their faces”, but the truth is people put it in their own faces by their willful engagement with systems that embrace it; the symbols don’t inherently mean anything: it’s only people’s belief and acceptance that gives any of it credibility. Don’t like it? Don’t look at it or immerse yourself in it. It’s no different than any other flag or political propaganda. Even if you hate it, you feed it… Read more »
I used to go to pride when I was younger. Back in the mid to late 90s, the pride stuff was all in the gay area of town.The parades were repetitive and boring, lots of martial arts clubs and stuff. I think I only went for 3 years before giving up on it. I didn’t need it, and it wasn’t all that fun. Pride is a relatively small event for a small amount of people. In the past it wasn’t a family event where families took their kids. That is how it should have stayed. Today, anything goes at the… Read more »
There’s much hypocrisy, here in our communities too. “Pride,” as an African American, is something I’ve survived, so, yeah, I’m proud of the fact, I’ve avoided HIV/Aides, considering.
I’m always going to find a ray of sunshine, in what has become a man-made dark landscape that has become America.