Pride, Power, and the Call for Equality: Celebrating the Intersection of LGBTQ+ and Disability Pride
Image: A man who is a wheelchair user is pictured from behind, sitting in his chair on the beach, waving a rainbow flag.
June and July are months of celebration of resilience, identity, and community. While June marks LGBTQ+ Pride Month, July carries the celebration forward with Disability Pride Month. These back-to-back months are more than a calendar coincidence. They are deeply connected by a shared history of activism, struggle, and triumph in the face of injustice.
To understand why we celebrate Pride in any form, we have to remember where it began.
From Stonewall to Self-Determination
Image: Protesters took to the streets in the aftermath of the Stonewall riots in lower Manhattan in the summer of 1969. Stonewall marked a turning point in the gay rights movement.
Leonard Fink/The LGBT Community Center National History Archive
In the early hours of June 28, 1969, New York City police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in Greenwich Village, NY. It wasn’t the first time. At that time in our country, it was common practice for police to storm LGBTQ+ spaces, harass patrons, and arrest people for so-called “cross-dressing” or violating discriminatory laws against queerness. But that night, the community had had enough.
As police began arresting and shoving patrons into wagons, a crowd gathered outside. Tension escalated when a woman, believed by many to be Stormé DeLarverie, a biracial lesbian, was violently shoved by officers. She shouted to the crowd, “Why don’t you guys do something?” That moment became a spark that ignited a movement.
People began throwing coins at the police as a symbolic act against years of bribery and corruption. Then bottles. Then bricks. As the crowd swelled, police barricaded themselves inside the bar. Someone uprooted a parking meter and used it as a battering ram. Trash cans were set on fire. Windows were smashed. The crowd, made up of drag queens, trans women, sex workers, homeless queer youth, and everyday LGBTQ+ people, surrounded the bar, refusing to be silenced.
The standoff lasted into the morning. And while the police eventually broke up the crowd, the resistance didn’t stop there. For six consecutive nights, the community came back to the bar. They organized. They marched. They demanded to be seen and treated as human beings.
What began as a spontaneous act of defiance became the starting point for the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement. Within a year, the first Christopher Street Liberation Day March, what we now call Pride, was held to commemorate the uprising.
Marsha P. Johnson handing out flyers in support of gay students at New York University, 1970. Photograph by Diana Davies. NYPL, Manuscripts and Archives Division, Diana Davies Papers. Copyright Diana Davies. Digital ID: 1582220
At the heart of the rebellion were people society had pushed to the margins: Marsha P. Johnson, a Black trans woman, drag performer, and tireless activist known for her deep compassion and fearless advocacy. She co-founded the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR), which provided housing and support for unhoused trans youth in New York City. Alongside her was Sylvia Rivera, a Latina trans woman of Puerto Rican and Venezuelan descent, who was one of the first people to throw a bottle that night. Sylvia fought not only for LGBTQ+ rights but also for the inclusion of trans voices in broader civil rights efforts, often in spaces that tried to exclude her.
These women stood on the front lines with countless others: drag queens, sex workers, homeless youth, queer people of color, and those living with disabilities or mental illness. Many of their names never made it into history books. But their bravery helped ignite a movement. They showed the world that resistance is a form of love for ourselves, our communities, and our right to exist.
This bold act of resistance resonates deeply with the disability rights movement, which also has a powerful history of protest. In April 1977, over 100 activists with disabilities and their allies occupied the San Francisco federal building for 26 days in what became known as the 504 Sit-In, demanding enforcement of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, which was the first federal civil rights protection for people with disabilities.
But what made the 504 protest truly historic wasn’t just its duration; it was its solidarity across multiple demographics.
One of the most powerful examples of intersectionality in action came when the Black Panther Party showed up to support the protestors. Though not typically aligned with the disability community at the time, the Panthers understood oppression in all its forms, and they knew that justice for one group must include justice for all.
Image: Dozens of protesters with disabilities gathered inside the HEW building for the Section 504 Sit-in in April 1977 .
They brought food and supplies every single day, even as other organizations withdrew support. They helped people with disabilities, many of whom used wheelchairs, ventilators, or other mobility devices, to be able to stay inside the building for such an extended period. Their commitment to liberation and equity helped keep the sit-in alive long enough to succeed. ( To read more about this historic moment, read this previous article.) This sit-in directly led to the passing of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, which was the foundation of the Americans with Disabilities Act that was passed in 1990, laying the foundation of disability rights in the United States.
These stories demonstrate that movements don’t typically succeed alone; they thrive when we show up for one another and cross former lines of difference and division.
Pride and The Power of Intersectionality
Pride, whether LGBTQ+ or Disability Pride, exists because for generations, people were told their identities were something to hide, that they were broken, that they didn’t belong. But Pride flips the script. It says, “We are not ashamed. We are whole. We are powerful in our authenticity.”
Image: Two people look at the camera during Pride Fest.
Pride is about more than waving a flag or hosting a parade. It’s about reclaiming the right and space to be in society, and to be accepted for who we are. It’s about challenging the systems and attitudes that silence or erase people based on their identities. And it’s about celebrating the rich and diverse expressions of human experience.
For millions of people, identity is a colorful tapestry woven with many facets of human experience. And for many, queerness and disability are inseparable parts of that tapestry.
According to a 2022 report by the Human Rights Campaign, 36% of LGBTQ+ adults in the U.S. live with a disability, compared to 24% of non-LGBTQ+ adults. Among transgender adults, it’s even higher, with over half (52%) reporting having a disability.
This overlap exists in young people also. The 2024 Disabled LGBTQ+ Youth Report found that 29.7% of LGBTQ+ youth have a diagnosed disability, and for trans youth, that rises to 33.3%. That means roughly one in three queer young people are also navigating living with a disability.
These overlapping identities bring unique challenges. A 2023 Trevor Project survey found that 65% of LGBTQ+ youth with disabilities, nearly two-thirds, reported being discriminated against during the past year for their disability. This discrimination correlates with alarming mental health outcomes, such as higher rates of anxiety, depression, and even suicide attempts compared to LGBTQ+ peers without disabilities.
Still, these statistics don’t tell the full story. They don’t speak to the resilience of queer individuals with disabilities. They don’t show how trans advocates with disabilities helped lead protests, art movements, and community programs long before such work hit headlines. They don’t capture the brilliance of youth creating inclusive spaces where all identities are honored. Intersectionality - interconnected social identities, such as disability and queer - isn’t just a concept. It’s people’s lived reality, woven together with complexity, courage, and creativity.
At CPWD, we know that true equality celebrates these intersections of identity. We envision a world where all facets of identity, such as gender, orientation, ability, race, and economic background, are fully seen, respected, and included.
This Pride season, we honor the courage of those who came before us, those who risked everything so that we could be free to live as our full selves. And we recommit to building a world where everyone has the right to be themselves.. Equality doesn’t mean “the same.” It means recognizing and accepting differences, promoting equal inclusion, and ensuring access to services and resources for all.
So let us march, roll, protest, and celebrate together. Let us raise our voices not just for visibility, but for justice. Because when we uplift every identity, we all rise. From all of us here at CPWD, we wish you a Happy Pride, whether that is LGBTQ+ Pride, Disability Pride, or both.