Proud to Support Pride

With ‘inclusivity’ being one of our core values here at Apogee, it is important that we not only support the awareness of Pride but also ‘do’ more. It may only be our first steps, but any steps taken in the right direction is something we can all be proud of as together we can make a positive change. Each year we will do more as we continue to learn and support change in our communities.

- Dom Gryszan, Marketing Director

With June being the official LGBTQ+ Pride month, we are bringing you 10 interesting facts that you probably didn’t know.

1. June is the month that commemorates the Stonewall riots of June 1969. On 28th June 1969, the NYC police raided the Stonewall Inn, a well-known gay club in Greenwich Village in New York City. This sparked a series of protests and violent clashes in various bars and neighbourhoods in town, which served as a catalyst for gay rights movement across the world.

2. Bisexual rights activist Brenda Howard is considered the “Mother of Pride” as she first coordinated Liberation March on Christopher Street on 28th June 1970, exactly a year after the riot incident. She came up with the idea of a week-long Pride Festival with parades, rallies and dance parties, which has been kept since.

3. Throughout the years, the Pride name has changed from the initial Gay Liberation March to Gay Freedom March and with the cultural shift in the 80’s, these events started to adopt the name Gay Pride, now often just “Pride”.

4. The Rainbow Flag, the international symbol of LGBTQ+ community, was designed by Gilbert Baker in 1978. It used to be comprised of 8 colours, which were later cut down to six - red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet (removing hot pink and integrating turquoise and indigo into royal blue).

5. Every colour on the flag has its meaning: