Famous Quotes From the LGBTQ+ Community to Help You Celebrate Pride
Pride month is in June, and there are tons of ways to celebrate and show your support for the LGBTQ+ community. You can learn about the history of Pride month, attend local events put on by LGBTQ+ organizations in your area, volunteer for these organizations, and donate to LGBTQ+ advocacy organizations. You can also make it a point to support businesses that donate to LGBTQ+ organizations and educate yourself about the meanings of different Pride flags. Another way to show support is to reflect on quotes from the LGBTQ+ community. We've rounded up 55 of the best Pride quotes for you to read and share on social media.
These quotes from activists, artists, politicians, entertainers, and more emphasize what it means to be an LGBTQ+ person. Some have spoken about the challenges faced by LGBTQ+ people past and present, calling for allies to get involved. Others detail the freedom and joy they experience from openly expressing their gender identity and/or sexuality. And many use their platform to remind people that what happens to the LGBTQ+ community is of importance to everyone, no matter your identity.
These quotes make for great Pride captions for Instagram and are sure to spark interesting, necessary conversations. Here are 55 quotes from the LGBTQ+ community for you to reflect on and share.
Harvey Fierstein
“Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life, but define yourself.”
Sylvia Rivera
“I'll be the first one to step on any organization, any politician's toes if I have to, to get the rights for my community.”
Edie Windsor
“Marriage is a magic word. And it has magic throughout the world. It has to do with our dignity as human beings, to be who we are openly."
Emmie America
“More people need to find the inspiration, the courage, to just speak up because when the riot gets too loud, no matter how hard whoever tries, it's not possible to calm it. When the fire's too big, you can't have enough water to put it down.”
Yasmin Benoit
“Me being in the position I’m in now is a sign of inclusion and progress. I’m glad that I can provide that representation for Black asexual people in particular because we’re so often forgotten about.”
Elliot Page
“People cling to these firm ideas [about gender] because it makes people feel safe. But if we could just celebrate all the wonderful complexities of people, the world would be such a better place.”
Rina Sawayama
“As women, and especially as queer people, we need to say no to things and be heard and stick our head above the water. It’s an issue, and I’m constantly trying to work with different people.”
George M. Johnson
“I've been fighting for LGBTQ rights for as long as I can remember because, in turn, I'm fighting for myself and fighting for people like me.”
Frank Mugisha
“It is important for the international community to listen to the local voices, and take direction from the local voices on how they can support, and how they can engage, and how they can provide solidarity to the LGBT community that needs this support urgently.”
Gilbert Baker
“You can live in this light of the truth. It’s totally liberating. You don’t have to live a lie.”
Bayard Rustin
“We need, in every community, a group of angelic troublemakers."
Kodo Nishimura
“I want to inspire other religious leaders of the world to re-examine their conceptions and teachings against LGBTQ people so that all of us can feel safe to be ourselves and shine in our own color. If I can contribute to that, what people think of me does not matter at all.”
Billy Porter
“I'm in a place where I want everything in my life to mean something. For me, life is about being positive and hopeful, choosing to be joyful, choosing to be encouraging, choosing to be empowering.”
Ellen DeGeneres
“We're not supposed to conform. We're not supposed to be like somebody else. We're not supposed to act like somebody else. And as long as you stay true to exactly who you are, you will be rewarded in ways that you can't imagine."
Tom Daley
“I feel we’re at this pivotal moment in the queer movement in terms of holding onto our rights, which are being chipped away at. … We can’t become complacent, and we need to make many alliances. People need to come together as one. There is power in numbers.”
Marsha P. Johnson
“You never completely have your rights, one person, until you all have your rights.”
Bob Paris
"Every gay and lesbian person who has been lucky enough to survive the turmoil of growing up is a survivor. Survivors always have an obligation to those who will face the same challenges."
James Baldwin
"You have to go the way your blood beats. If you don’t live the only life you have, you won’t live some other life — you won’t live any life at all."
Brittney Griner
“I am a strong, black, lesbian woman. Every single time I say it, I feel so much better.”
George Takei
"We should indeed keep calm in the face of difference, and live our lives in a state of inclusion and wonder at the diversity of humanity."
Barack Obama
“When all Americans are treated as equal, no matter who they are or whom they love, we are all more free.”
Tammy Baldwin
"All of us who are openly gay are living and writing the history of our movement. We are no more — and no less — heroic than the suffragists and abolitionists of the 19th century; and the labor organizers, Freedom Riders, Stonewall demonstrators, and environmentalists of the 20th century."
Chris Colfer
“There’s nothing wrong with you. There’s a lot wrong with the world you live in.”
Mark Segal
"Stonewall represented, absolutely, the first time that the LGBT community successfully fought back and forged an organized movement and community."
Pete Buttigieg
“I'm proud of who I am. I am proud of my husband and our marriage.”
Harvey Milk
"All young people, regardless of sexual orientation or identity, deserve a safe and supportive environment in which to achieve their full potential."
Hayley Kiyoko
“So while I might not want to constantly be asked about my sexuality and just be me, a big part of me is my love of women. So I guess I’m talking about it until it’s no longer seen as something to talk about."
Anderson Cooper
"The fact is, I’m gay, always have been, always will be; and I couldn’t be any more happy, comfortable with myself, and proud."
Drew Barrymore
“A woman and a woman together are beautiful, just as a man and a woman together are beautiful.”
Jason Collins
"Openness may not completely disarm prejudice, but it's a good place to start."
Cynthia Nixon
“Our community is not a monolith, thank goodness, any more than America itself is. I look forward to and will continue to work toward the day when America recognizes all of us as full and equal citizens."
Lady Gaga to the LGBTQ+ Community
"This community has fought and continues to fight a war of acceptance, a war of tolerance, and the most relentless bravery. You are the definition of courage, do you know that?"
Miley Cyrus
"What I preach is: People fall in love with people, not gender, not looks, not whatever. What I'm in love with exists on almost a spiritual level."
Raven-Symoné
“I realize that just living my truth of what I am, there’s one less person to fight me in my own head.”
Halsey
"I'm a young, bisexual woman, and I've spent a large part of my life trying to validate myself — to my friends, to my family, to myself — trying to prove that who I love and how I feel is not a phase."
Sam Smith
“The more I accept myself as a genderless human being, in a way, the more I’m loving my body.”
Amandla Stenberg
"Gender and sexuality are so fluid. It's OK to change your mind a million times and figure out what works for you. It's OK to take your time."
Michelle Rodriguez
“I do realize the importance of having the bravery to live as who you are, and I feel like a lot of people don't have that bravery. Maybe by me opening my big fat mouth like I usually do and stepping up and owning who I am, maybe it might inspire somebody else to do the same."
Laverne Cox
"I think it's important for parents to educate themselves too, and be open, and realizing that your children are their own person. And if they may or may not act the way you want them to — in terms of gender expression — that that's OK."
Alice Walker
“No person is your friend who demands your silence or denies your right to grow.”
Rev. Troy Perry
"The Lord is my Shepherd, and he knows I’m gay.”
Mauree Turner
“I can't give someone a playbook on how to come out, but I can help create a safe space for others to be heard and feel loved — just like the one my mom provided for me. I know who I am. I've lived in this body for the last 27 years, and I'm very confident in the power that I hold.”
Audre Lorde
“It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.”
Harvey Milk
“And you’ve got to elect gay people so that young child, and the thousands upon thousands like that child, know that there’s hope for a better world. There’s hope for a better tomorrow."
Kristen Stewart
"The whole issue of sexuality is so grey. I’m just trying to acknowledge that fluidity, that greyness, which has always existed. But maybe only now are we allowed to start talking about it."
Sarah McBride
“I once worried that there was no place for trans people like me to participate in any way in our politics. Since coming out, though, I've seen that change is possible, and I've learned that the only things that are truly impossible are the things we don't try. You can run, you can win, and you can serve.”
Janet Mock
"I believe that telling our stories, first to ourselves and then to one another and the world, is a revolutionary act."
Demi Lovato
“I'm very fluid, and I think love is love. You can find it in any gender.”
Samira Wiley
"I want to make sure that any young person, or anyone really, who is looking up to me — who sees a glimpse of who I am as a person — that they see no shame. That they see pride, and that I'm truly unabashed about the person that I am."
Janelle Monáe
“I’m nonbinary, so I just don’t see myself as a woman, solely. I feel all of my energy. I feel like God is so much bigger than the ‘he’ or the ‘she.’ If I am from God, I am everything. I am everything, but I will always, always stand with women. I will always stand with Black women. But I just see everything beyond the binary.”
Lena Waithe
"Being born gay, black, and female is not a revolutionary act. Being proud to be a gay, black female is."
Zachary Quinto
"Our society needs to recognize the unstoppable momentum toward unequivocal civil equality for every gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender citizen of this country."
Tammy Baldwin
“When we look back at the Stonewall uprising and activism that grew out of that moment, even the most basic progress seemed like it would take a revolution to achieve. So we had one. And that’s how we’ve made such enormous progress over the last 50 years. Today, we should remain inspired by the courage of the story of Stonewall.”
Tan France
“There’s no right or wrong way to be gay. No right or wrong way to come out. It’s your journey. Do it the way you wanna do it.”
Jonathan Van Ness
“I want people to fall in love with themselves and to be really proud and full of joy for the space they take up. If someone else appreciates the space you take up, then that's icing on the cake.”
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