Glen Cove LGBT community works to ‘make a change for the better’

Despite the rain and heavy clouds, rainbow flags were waved throughout the streets of downtown Glen Cove to celebrate the beginning of Pride Month and the raising of the city’s pride flag. For many, raising the flag stands as a symbol of how far the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community have come in their journey for equality for all people. 

“This flag also stands as a reminder that we still have more work to do,” Elle Woska, President of the Glen Cove High School’s Genders and Sexual Alliance Club, said. “There will always be people out there who do not accept people for who they are, but we can work as a community to bring more light to the world and make change for the better.”

Since 1999, June has been designated as Pride Month, in honor of the Stonewall riots in June 1969, a series of demonstrations in response to a police raid of Manhattan’s Stonewall Inn, a gay bar. 

In 2015, the Supreme Court declared same-sex marriage legal in all 50 states. In 2022, The House of Representatives gave final congressional approval to legislation that provides federal recognition of same-sex marriages. This measure was conceived out of concern that the Supreme Court could reverse its support for legal recognition of same-sex marriages.

In support of the community and its journey toward equality, Councilwoman Marsha Silverman organized the fifth annual Pride flag-raising downtown on June 6. She began the initiative in 2019 to spread awareness of the discrimination the LGBTQ community continues to face across the country and worldwide. 

“I truly wish from the bottom of my heart that everyone in the world was treated equally so that there was no need to separately celebrate LGBT pride.” Silverman said. “But unfortunately, with anti LGBTQ hate on the rise, for those members of our community who identify as gay, queer, trans, or questioning, or feel marginalized, support and acceptance is particularly important.”

It wasn’t until January 2019 that the State Legislature amended the state’s Human Rights Law of 1945 to add gender identity and expression as a protected category against discriminatory behavior in employment, housing, public places and non-religious schools. 

This year, more than 500 anti-LGBTQ pieces of legislation have been introduced in 46 states, making it harder to get gender-affirming care, limited protections for transgender people, and censor discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity.

“I haven’t seen this kind of vitriol and extremists against our community in decades,” Sarah Kate Ellis, president and CEO of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, said. “But I always say the damage is done as soon as they’re introduced because they poison the well against who we are as a community.” 

A report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that about 70 percent of LGBTQ youth reported feeling sad and helpless in 2021. That’s a high increase compared to 35 percent among heterosexual youth. 

“I think this Pride Month is especially important because it’s both a time for us to celebrate and take a moment to be with each other and community,” Ellis said. “It’s also a time for us to look at the situation that we’re in and the culture that we’re living in and the cultural war that has been thrust upon us as a community and figure out how we’re going to witness and how we’re going to push back on this awful, awful narrative.”