ANSONIA — City and state officials celebrated the raising of the LGBTQ Pride flag near city hall at a ceremony June 6, marking the state of Pride Month.
The following photos and video were contributed by Ansonia photographer Jeremiah Barrett.
Ansonia has raised the Pride flag each June going back to at least 2023.
Pride Month has its origins in the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York City.
At the time, the New York City government openly discriminated against queer people and ordered police to raid gay bars.
Police raided The Stonewall Inn in the early hours of June 28, 1969, triggering a series of demonstrations that lasted for weeks.
Following the demonstrations, LGBTQ organizers including Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera formed organizations dedicated to advocating for LGBTQ rights.
In 1999, former President Bill Clinton signed a proclamation recognizing June as “Gay and Lesbian Pride Month.” In 2011, former President Barack Obama expanded that designation and recognized the month as “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Month.”
Two Supreme Court rulings in the 2010s led to increased rights for LGBTQ people in the United States. In 2013, the Supreme Court overturned the Defense of Marriage Act, a 1996 law which had forbidden the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriage.
Then, in the 2015 decision Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court recognized a right for same-sex couples to marry throughout the United States under the Fourteenth Amendment.
In February, state Treasurer Erick Russell, the first openly gay Black man elected to a statewide office, visited Ansonia to speak about the connections between Pride Month and Black History Month.
