These Pics Of Lady Gaga, Billy Porter & More Celebs Celebrating Pride Will Have You Feeling Empowered

June is Pride Month, an annual celebration of all LGBTQ+ identities that was most notably sparked by the Stonewall Riots on June 28, 1969, when LGBTQ+ individuals rioted in response to a police raid of The Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in New York City's Greenwich Village.

Following the riots, LGBTQ+ activists organized the first-ever pride march, and they called it “Gay Pride” to combat the shame that LGBTQ+ individuals were made to feel about their identities. Since the ’70s, pride celebrations have been held annually worldwide.

Often held in June in remembrance of the Stonewall Riots, pride marches welcome LGBTQ+ individuals, activists, and allies to join together in celebration. Additionally, celebrities often come out to march, speak, and perform in order to amplify messages of LGBTQ+ acceptance.

At Global Pride 2020, Laverne Cox said: “In the 1980s, many parades around the world marched for the AIDS crisis, and in recent times marriage equality and transgender rights. As a diverse community, we stand up to hatred together — now and always ... Exist, persist, resist.”

Speaking at The Stonewall Inn in 2019 for the riots' 50th anniversary, Lady Gaga said: “I will continue to fight every day during shows, and even when I’m not on stage, to spread a message that’s actually quite simple — be kind ... You were born this way, and you are superstars!”

Speaking to Variety in 2020, Billy Porter said: “Pride is community. Pride is love. Pride has always been a time for me to personally recharge and be reminded that when we come together powerful change happens.”

“My music being embraced and celebrated by the LGBTQ community is all I ever truly cared about when I thought about my career goals early on,” Ariana Grande told Billboard in 2018. “I am eternally indebted to and inspired by the LGBTQ community... I love you forever.”

“Pride, to me, not only comes with celebration but also with responsibility,” Antoni Porowski told Variety in 2020. “As a cis-gendered white male, my struggles are very different from others in the community, and I owe it to them to be an activist for our collective rights.”

“I’m sending my respect and love to those bravely living out their truth, even when the world we live in still makes that hard to do,” Taylor Swift wrote in June 2021. “Who you love and how you identify shouldn’t put you in danger, leave you vulnerable, or hold you back in life.”

“Since I came to [New York] as a wee-little girl, I have always been embraced by queer nation,” Madonna said at NYC WorldPride in 2019. “I always felt like an outsider, but you made me feel like an insider, like somebody ... I love and appreciate everyone here from the LGBTQ community.”

While accepting the 2016 GLAAD Ally Award, Mariah Carey thanked the LGBTQ+ community for their “unconditional love” and gave the initialism a new meaning: “So we've got L: legendary. G: gorgeous. B: beautiful — all of you beautiful people! T: tantalizing, and even Q for quality!”

“It’s wonderful to be gay. I love being gay. I really do,” Elton John told Variety in 2019. “And I think I wouldn’t have had the life I’ve had if I hadn’t been gay. And I’m very proud of that ... Don’t let anybody torture you for being gay or for your sexuality.”

Having written LGBTQ+ empowerment songs like “We R Who We R,” Kesha said during a 2019 NYC Pride performance: “I love creating a place where people can come and be with each other and be themselves. I want people to feel safe ... Shame is such a painful toxic emotion.”