Looking back: 50 years of Pride
Fifty years ago, the first New York City Pride Parade took place. Fifty-one years ago were the Stonewall riots. Community members were asked to reflect on their significance and how these events shaped the LGBTQIA+ experience today.
The Vermont Humanities Council began in 1974, making it 46 years old this year. The council takes part in public humanities programming in all 14 counties, with typically about 800 public events.
Ilstrup was the first director of the Center of Vermont in the early 2000s, spending a lot of time working with issues that he now deals with as a humanist. In the last few months, the council has been much more out front about perspectives centered around diversity, equity, and inclusion.
“One of the projects that humanities did last year as part of our Pride acknowledgments was a podcast about queer history in Vermont,” Ilstrup said.
The podcast talked about the story of the lives of Charity Bryant and Silvia Drake, two women who were together as a married couple in Addison county Vermont during the first half of the 19th Century.
“Part of our job as humanists is to tell those stories that are hundreds of years old, about all different kinds of lives,” Ilstrup said.
When asked how Pride month and the 51st anniversary of Stonewall have been big moments for the LGTBQ+ community, Ilstrup said, “Stonewall created a level of visibility for people across the country that wouldn’t have existed before that.”
“We certainly look at the history of Stonewall,” Ilstrup said, “as being one of the examples of sort of progressive or Emersonian means in American life that we are one of the stories we tell about ourselves is that we are constantly moving closer to a more perfect union.”
The history of queer activism in Vermont goes back a long way. By the mid-1980s, there were several LGBT advocacy and activist groups in Vermont, which Ilstrup partly attributed to the impact of the Stonewall Riots.
Ilstrup added, “HIV/AIDS greatly impacted that work and made it even more visible with the founding of Vermont chairs in the mid-1980s and the AIDS projects of Southern Vermont.”
Right now, the Humanities Council is focusing on promoting Black voices as part of the movement for racial justice.
“The LGBT organization is really standing in solidarity with our African American brothers and sisters and that’s really important,” Ilstrup said.
Ilstrup pointed out that there have been real efforts to turn queer people out at Black Lives Matter events.
He said, “One of the things that we have to remember, especially white queer people, is that Stonewall was primarily led by trans people of color.”
Ilstrup also wanted to emphasize the point that the Stonewall riots were led by black and brown people.
“I think we will have done our job for this year in supporting and uplifting black folks in the struggle of this moment,” says Ilstrup.
Discrimination, especially against the transgender community, is still a major issue today. People identifying as transgender have been mistreated for years, and just the fact that they had to protect themselves from dying and from the government was a big deal and remains to this day, he said.
“Even now, the federal government is trying to deny lifesaving coverage to transgender people,” Ilstrup said; a community that faces higher rates of bullying, risk for drug addition, depression and poor mental health.
Ilstrup was enthusiastic about the importance of Pride Month and Stonewall’s anniversary, noting how this time helps people remember the history behind the movement toward equality.
“I’m always really, particularly glad when there are opportunities in June to think about Pride and really connecting the Stonewall riots in New York to what is happening right now, today, so I’m always looking for that opportunity to connect to our history,” says Ilstrup.
Vermont has always been known as a progressive state and a strong advocate for equality across all spectrums, Ilstrup said. There are countless events celebrating the LGBTQ+ community, many of which are organized by the Pride Center.
“This year, one of the things that I have really, really loved is the 30 days of Pride that the Pride Center of Vermont has been posting on their Twitter, Instagram and Facebook feeds, where they take each day as a different figure in Vermont queer history, or a different organization,” Ilstrup said.
Ilstrup has worked to make every member of the Vermont community feel welcome, using his position on the Vermont Humanities Council to send a message of acceptance. He has thrown his support behind the Black Lives Matter Movement, represented the LGBTQ+ community through events and podcasts, and brought awareness to the ever-present inequality centered around transgender people across the world.
“I also think it’s really important to recognize that this struggle for LGBT equality is not done,” said Ilstrup.
Margaret Tamulonis
Margaret Tamulonis. Courtesy photo.
Margaret Tamulonis, manager of collections and exhibits at Fleming Museum, has been a volunteer curator for the Vermont Queer Archives for 20 years. The Vermont Queer Archives is a program created by the Pride Center of Vermont, featuring posters, documents and oral histories. It is one of the first programs that the Pride Center started when it was founded in 1998.
“They wanted to show that they cared about elders and what the people who had come before us had done and accomplished,” Tamulonis said.
Records show Vermont’s first Pride event was in Burlington in 1983. It’s happened every year since, September, so as not compete with larger festivals in New York City and Boston.
“That was people really putting themselves physically out there, outing themselves and maybe even risking their – I mean it sounds over dramatic, but it’s true – they were risking their jobs and their kids by being out,” Tamulonis said.
Tamulonis interviewed the organizers of the first Pride event in Vermont and members of the LGBTQ+ community.
“Something that really jumped out at me was that many of them were people who are really invested in the overall Vermont community. That they care about their neighbors and their rights and that they continue to be invested in the community here, including the LGBTQ community.
“When people are out in the streets like that it’s an act of bravery, especially with the Black Lives Matter protest and everything and that’s amazing and that’s the heritage we come from,” ,” Tamulonis said.
The pandemic has caused Pride events and parades to be virtual, the upside of which is that people can attend events worldwide without leaving home.
The Vermont Pride Center has been able to have digital events to continue to reach more people and maintain a strong community.
More information about the Vermont Queer Archives is available on Vermont Pride Center’s website and Vermont Folklife Center’s website. An exhibition about the first Pride event and history of the queer community of Vermont will be available in August at the Vermont Folklife Center. It will include interviews, photographs, documents, newspapers, etc. about the Pride event in Vermont, in 1983.
