Press Release: 6/2/2025
This Year, Pride Isn’t Just a Time to Celebrate, It’s a Time to Mobilize
At Fenway Health, we take Pride in Our Health. Celebrate Pride with us!
Support Fenway Health and show your LGBTQIA+ Pride with our 2025 Pride in Our Health shirts. We’ve got long and short-sleeved t-shirts, sweatshirts, and hoodies. Every dollar raised supports life-saving care and services for the LGBTQIA+ community.
Learn more and buy your shirt on Bonfire today!
Happy Pride Month from Fenway Health! 🌈 June marks LGBTQIA+ Pride Month in the United States and many other countries around the world, with the June 28, 1969 Stonewall Uprising viewed by many as the cornerstone moment of the modern LGBTQIA+ rights movement and the birth of Pride.
Pride is more than a celebration—it’s a living legacy of decades of activism, community, and progress. Massachusetts has long been at the forefront of LGBTQIA+ rights and since our founding in 1971, Fenway Health alongside our many allies and community partners has helped to lead the way.
Despite decades of progress, we face serious challenges today as federal and state governments look to restrict access to healthcare, attack LGBTQIA+ and racial justice progress, and eliminate protections for transgender and non-binary people across the US.
While the parades, music, and celebration are joyous, Pride is rooted in protest. From Stonewall to today’s advocacy for transgender rights and protections against discrimination, the fight for LGBTQIA+ equality continues.
A Dangerous Trend
Since January, the federal government has made radical changes to the nation’s public health, research, and foreign policy infrastructure. It has dismantled policies developed over the past several decades that advanced equality and health equity for LGBTQIA+ people and other populations, and that advanced effective, science-based HIV and STI prevention and care. And the ACLU is tracking nearly 600 anti-LGBTQ+ bills under consideration in states around the country.
These policies are not rooted in science, safety, or facts. They are part of a broader political agenda that seeks to dehumanize LGBTQIA+ people and score points in a culture war. And they’re working—communities are being divided, and the consequences are real.
Real Lives, Real Consequences
The consequences of these policy and legislative assaults are not theoretical. LGBTQIA+ youth already face disproportionately high rates of depression, anxiety, homelessness, and suicide—not because of their identities, but because of rejection and discrimination.
When lawmakers demonize trans kids, restrict access to healthcare, or try to erase queer history from classrooms, they’re sending a message that LGBTQIA+ people are not welcome, not safe, not valid. And the people most at risk hear that message loud and clear.
LGBTQIA+ adults also experience the negative consequences of anti-LGBTQIA+ policies and rhetoric, which can lead to a worse quality of life and mental health, experiences of discrimination and harassment, and difficulties accessing health care. Negative depictions of transgender people in the media are significantly associated with clinical symptoms of depression, anxiety, global psychological distress, and PTSD.
Donwload Our Pride Month 2025 Infographic (PDF)
Pride Is Protest
Pride was born in protest. It began with resistance—at Stonewall in 1969, in marches through hostile cities, in courtrooms, in classrooms, and at kitchen tables.
That spirit is just as necessary now as it was then. Pride is a celebration of joy, identity, and community—but it is also a reclamation of space in a world that continues to marginalize queer lives.
In the face of today’s challenges, Pride is not optional. It’s essential.
- Boston Pride For The People is Saturday, June 14
- Boston Spirit Magazine has a listing of Pride events across New England
Actions to Take This Pride Month
If you’re wondering how else to honor Pride Month in 2025, here are a few meaningful actions:
- Sign up for Fenway Health updates & advocacy alerts.
- Share how government actions impact your life and speak out against anti-LGBTQIA+ policies, especially at the local level
- Donate to our Strides for Action walk to support LGBTQIA+ healthcare, research, advocacy and education and support other LGBTQIA+ organizations, especially those working in states under attack.
- Protect queer youth by affirming them in your home, classroom, or workplace.
- Stay informed, and challenge misinformation when you see it.
- Vote in local, state, and national elections for candidates who will protect LGBTQIA+ rights.
- Show up—at Pride events, rallies, and school board meetings. Silence helps no one.
A Future Worth Fighting For
Despite these challenges, we remain hopeful. LGBTQIA+ people have always fought back. We have always found ways to thrive, to build community, and to love openly—even when the world said we couldn’t.
This Pride Month, let us celebrate that legacy—and recommit ourselves to defending it. Let us shout louder, love harder, and keep showing up—for each other, and for the generations that come next.
Happy Pride. We’re not going anywhere.