For LGBT Pride Month (JUNE!) – Being a REAL Ally!

IMPORTANT NOTE: Lots of Useful and Interesting Links at the bottom of the blog! Check them out.

Traditionally, June is LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) Pride Month commemorating the “Stonewall Rebellion” in Greenwich Village, New York in late June 1969. Led by a set of brave drag queens, patrons of the Stonewall Tavern boldly stood up to police harassment.
Ally final
To supplement the materials I provided in past years (see links at bottom of blog), this year I want to discuss the importance of “allies” for and within the LGBT community. Allies can be “heterosexual” people, LGB taking action as allies for trans folks, or LGBT acting as allies across other dimensions of diversity like age or race.

Webster’s dictionary defines an ally as “one that is associated with another as a helper.” What a great definition that goes well with the graphic I created for this blog! A true ally-helper is much more than a person who says they support someone; they go beyond that to take some kind of action to help their associates. According to Friendfactor, one of the leading non-profits in the US today working to educate and activate LGBT allies, 77% of Americans verbally state that they support LGBT inclusion, but a much smaller number, 14%, actually do something about it.

Some actions you as an ally can take:
• Support your LGBT friends by including them in your social activities and treating same-gender couples the same as your heterosexual coupled friends.
• Use inclusive, non-gender specific language like partner or spouse when describing your significant other and asking about theirs, to signal that you’re supportive.
• When you hear someone use a derogatory slur or make a stereotype about LGBT people, ask them why they think so and start a conversation about how they may feel if that slur or stereotype was made about them.
gay marriage poster
• Attend rallies and community activities advocated for LGBT equality, speak out as a straight person and even carry a sign or banner (see photo).

Finally engage with Friendfactor, contact [email protected] for more info on building an active ally program at your workplace or school. Visit www.friendfactor.org for their excellent ally resources. And consider supporting or attending Friendfactor’s 1st Annual Ally Challenge Awards Dinner in San Francisco on July 26.

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Here are some additional past blogs that can serve as LGBT Pride Month Resources:

LINK: Five things to never say to gay people

LINK: Five common misconceptions about gay people

LINK: Five Heroes of the early US Gay Rights Movement

LINK: Five Ways CEOs Can Show Support for LGBT Diversity

A Guest Blog: LGBT Gay Diversity in Direct Sales

LINK: Four Quick Points around LGBT Economic Development

LINK: The Intersection of LGBT and Aging

LINK: LGBT and Housing Issues

Five Heroes of the early US Gay Rights Movement

This is my third and final installment of my “lists of five” as we approach June and LGBT Pride Month. Please do link to and read my first two installments:
• LINK: Five things to never say to gay people
• LINK: Five common misconceptions about gay people

In this third and final installment here is my list of five heroes of the early LGBT rights movement in the USA:

Photo:  Lesbian pioneer activists Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon who were partners for 56 years before Del passed away in 2008.

Photo: Lesbian pioneer activists Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon who were partners for 56 years before Del passed away in 2008.


1. Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon. These two lesbians met at work in 1950 and began their relationship two years later. They were active in the Council of Religion and the Homosexual, National Organization for Women (NOW) and helped form the early lesbian group and publication “Daughters of Bilitis” in 1955. Del and Phyllis realized their life-long dream of legally marrying on June 16, 2008 as soon as California permitted same-gender marriage, and Del died two months later at the age of 87.

2. Dr. Frank Kameny. Frank was an out open gay man who was fired simply for being gay from his job as an astronomer for the US Army Map Service. His court case proceeded all the way to the

I got to meet Dr. Frank Kameny in October, 2009, two years before he passed.

I got to meet Dr. Frank Kameny in October, 2009, two years before he passed.

US Supreme Court (he lost), but Frank continued to be a leading gay-rights activist and lead and won the battle to have homosexuality removed from the American Psychiatric Association’s classification of mental disorders. Frank passed away in October 2011 at the age of 86.

3. Bayard Rustin. Bayard was an African-American civil rights leader who was the main organizer of Dr. Martin Luther King’s 1963 March of Washington. He was a long-time key figure working behind the scenes in the Black Civil Rights movement and in the later part of his career in the 1970s and 1980s shifted his focus to gay rights work, mostly in New York state.

4. The drag queens of Stonewall. On June 27-28, 1969, several patrons (a hand full of drag queens) of the Stonewall gay bar got fed up with the unfair police harassment at the bar and fought back, leading the “Stonewall Rebellion” which is considered by most people the beginning of the US’s Gay Rights Movement. Many cities now celebrate LGBT pride the last weekend of June each year to commemorate these brave members of our community.

5. Rev. Troy Perry. As a gay minister, Troy was forced out of his pastorate. Having the strong call to minister to the LGBT community, Troy held a worship service in his home with 12 people in October, 1968, and from this humble beginnings, Troy lead the Metropolitan Community Churches to become a dynamic global movement of approximately 15,000 members of over 200 churches across 40 different countries.

We should all remember and honor these leaders who paved the way for all us to continue in the journey for full equality of all LGBT people across the globe.