June is Pride Month, a time for celebrating the vibrant diversity that makes up the LGBTQ+ community. URL Media partners have already been highlighting people who are embracing the multitudes of their identities. These include queer Asian American filmmaker Quentin Lee, who spoke with AsAmNews about using the themed dates of AAPI Heritage Month (May) and Pride Month (June) to publish a PSA that speaks to those identities. 

“Being both queer and AAPI, you feel like you have to kind of fragment your identity because sometimes in the queer community, you’re Asian but you’re not queer enough,” Lee said. “And sometimes there’s also homophobia in the AAPI community where you are kind of not being talked about in general. So that’s why, I just thought, well, why don’t we just do that?”

Meanwhile, the work and philosophy of trans rights activist and co-founder of Parivar Bay Area, Anjali Rimi was uplifted in India Currents. Rimi was born in Hyderabad, India, and offered insights into the complex identities of kinnar and hijra folk and their experiences in the South East Asian community.

“Kinnar, hijra — there are so many identities that are woven into the cultural and historical heritage of the land that used to be the Indic land, whether that’s now Pakistan, Bangladesh,  India, or to an extent, Sri Lanka. We were treated how the Two Spirit people were treated in the [I]ndigenous communities and how they’re still treated.”

Rimi added: “You have to have a lot of cultural humility to understand the wholeness of our existence. And when you don’t, you’re going to attribute some of our identities to things that you believe are problematic, and then you start erasing our gender fluidity and our trans identity.”

For trans and non-gender conforming people especially, safety continues to be a concern, with violence and hate crimes continuing to harm them and other members of the LGBTQ+ community. Last year, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) recorded at least 32 transgender and gender-expansive people who were taken through violent means, including gun and interpersonal violence. The HRC also declared a national state of emergency for LGBTQ+ Americans in late 2023. This is largely due to the wave of legislation targeting this community. The ACLU is tracking over 500 anti-LGBTQ+ bills across the country that range from measures censoring curricula – like Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law – to drag bans and healthcare restrictions. These measures contribute to creating hostile environments for LGBTQ+ people and limit their ability to live freely and safely. 

Related: Check out this list of LGBTQ shelters in NYC from URL Media partner Documented. 

But people are still finding ways to creatively uplift their LGBTQ+ identity and the culture at large. For example, in a pioneering effort to elevate Black queer history and culture within academia, graduates from Howard University and Bowie State University working for HRC recently unveiled “Renaissance: A Queer Syllabus.” Focusing on Beyoncé’s hugely successful dance album that pulls from several genres of Black music culture – from house to disco – the syllabus centers the role of Black LGBTQ+ people in that history, and will be offered at HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) across the nation.

“Black queer history and culture has always been a vital part of Black culture as a whole. However, this rich area of history is often overlooked,” HRC Associate Director Chauna Lawson, one of the minds behind the syllabus, told Watch The Yard. “Many of us have spent most of our lives hiding our sexuality and identities due to the stigma that came along with it. The Renaissance Syllabus was not only conceptualized out of a global need for highlighting Black LGBTQ+ culture. It was birthed from a longing of our own self-discovery.”

How are you marking this Pride Month? Let us know on Instagram or X @url_media.

See you next time,

Ishena