“There would absolutely be no Pride Month and nothing to celebrate if it weren’t for LGBTQ+ people of color who were on the front lines at the Stonewall riots,” said Tyler King, co-president of the interest group at the University of South Alabama College of Medicine.
King was referring to the Stonewall rebellion, which took place in New York on June 28, 1969, in which demonstrators fought back against police raids on bars that catered to LGBT patrons. Black transgender activist Marsha P. Johnson, who died in 1992, was among the influential figures who contributed to the riots.
“We want to praise them and make them visible during this really important time in our history,” King said.
MedPride and Allies is spotlighting Johnson and others on its Facebook page, including Audre Lorde, an activist who used poetry and other writings to inspire Black women; Christian Cooper, a gay writer and editor for Marvel Comics and now senior biomedical editor at Health Science Communications; and Lori Lightfoot, who became Chicago’s first Black female and openly LGBTQ+ mayor in 2019.
This week, MedPride is also partnering with the Student National Medical Association, Rainbow Mobile and the Mobile Bevy to raise awareness about Juneteenth, which commemorates the end of slavery in Texas more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued. MedPride and Allies is hosting an online fundraiser for Black Visions Collective, a Black-led, queer- and transgender-focused nonprofit based in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minn.
King said that the MedPride and Allies interest group was re-energized at the USA College of Medicine in 2018. With nine officers, it draws 20 to 30 people to its regular meetings. “Our main mission is to provide a safe place and place of togetherness for any LGBTQ+ students that we have in the College of Medicine or in Basic Medical Sciences,” she said. “Secondly, we want to raise awareness of LGBTQ+ health inequities, especially in the South.”
This week also witnessed the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling on LBGT rights, in which the court said that existing federal law forbids job discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or transgender status. King called the decision “huge” but said there is still more to fight for.
“I’m incredibly grateful for the people who have fought every single day for this,” she said. “We will celebrate this while also realizing we must continue to push for equality and protection of our transgender community.”
