Pride has never been just about the parties. To the LGBTQ community, Pride is about staking our place in the world and speaking truth to power. It’s about making clear that we’re here, we belong, and we are resilient — resilient together.
 
As our Trans Justice Campaign Manager LaLa Zannell has said: “For many Black and Brown queer and trans people, gathering in person has always come with a health and safety risk — including from law enforcement, and others who feel they have the right to harm us for simply being who we are … For many of us, this is not the first pandemic that shows the injustices in our health care, economic, and criminal justice systems.”  
 
Whether you’re celebrating Pride 2020 over Zoom, on the phone, or standing six feet apart from your friends donning rainbow masks — the message of Pride remains, and it’s stronger than ever. The history of Pride is rooted in the LGBTQ community responding to police violence and abuse of LGBTQ people and sex workers and those who fought back.
 
This year, we’re showing what Pride means to us with a new Pride 2020 zine that sums up the year in LGBTQ rights, the meaning of pride to our community, profiles of trailblazers in trans rights including Aimee Stephens, and the fight ahead as we tackle sex work decriminalization, bans on trans athletes, attempts to license discrimination in the name of religon, and more. Plus, you’ll get a crossword, word search, a coloring book page, and more fun, socially distant ways to celebrate pride in 2020. This is how we stay resilient.

While the pandemic continues, so will our fight for LGBTQ rights, and especially for trans rights, which are under attack like never before. This year, dozens of anti-trans bills are moving through state legislatures in an attempt to police our bodies and the spaces we can access, including schools, health care services, sports, employment, and more. With so many lives on the line due to COVID-19, it’s more important than ever to ensure that trans people can access the same civil rights and liberties as everybody else. Trans people belong. 

COVID-19 may have shut down our ability to celebrate Pride the way we’re used to, but we can still celebrate from home — whether by dancing in our rooms or chatting with friends on the phone. You can also send a message to Congress to pass the Equality Act and make sure you know your voting rights. Becoming an at-home activist is one way to stay safe and show what Pride is really about.
 
At a time when so many people are losing their lives, their jobs, their life as they know it, Pride shows us that if anything, we are resilient together. 

Forty years after four white Miami police officers were acquitted by an all white jury in Tampa of the 1979 killing of unarmed Black motorcyclist Arthur McDuffie, Floridians are still protesting the inequities in America's criminal justice system and the murders of Black people at the hands of police.

The civil disobedience that occurred in Miami, Tampa, Jacksonville, and throughout America during the last weekend in May 2020 following the killings of George Floyd and other Black people at the hands of cops eerily reflected the angst, anguish, and discomfort many South Floridians experienced all those years ago following the controversial verdict.

The issues are identical: Black lives being undervalued in America. The killings of George Floyd and Arthur McDuffie by cops, and the public outcries of grief toward delayed justice in both cases manifested the hopelessness many people felt toward a society that treated them with gross antipathy.

In all those years, despite our shared progress toward creating a more socially integrated society, there still exists a seemingly unabated current of institutionalized racism that continues to criminalize and dehumanize Black life. This has to end.

The grief is unbearable and unacceptable. Black people should not have to repeatedly and publicly affirm their worth to and in a society that they were forced to build by enslavement. It is insane that Black people are routinely tasked to educate their non-Black peers that racism in all forms is unacceptable. It is unthinkable that more than a half century after the release of the Kerner report that we are a society that remains separate and unequal.

For far too long, our society has accepted the status quo of police targeting communities of color. For far too long, police officers have been able to use excessive and deadly force without repercussions. For far too long this lack of accountability has eroded trust in law enforcement and made our communities less safe.
 
Until we live in an American society that roots out all anti-Black oppression and injustice, and until we all act to show value to the lives of all Black Americans, all Americans will not be free. The list of Black people who have been murdered by police is far too long for people to ignore the institutionalized racism in our country.

Systemic racism will not be eradicated if Black people act alone. We must all act to root out discrimination and inequity in all forms of our society. Ignorance is unacceptable.

None of us is free unless all of us are and, clearly, some of us are not yet free.

The right to protest is fundamental to our democracy and enshrined in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In response to the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police, people across the country have taken to the streets to demand racial justice and an end to police brutality and systematic racism against Black people.

Especially in the time of COVID-19, it’s important to know your rights and stay safe while protesting. In the following videos, ACLU experts outline your rights while protesting, including how to keep yourself and your devices safe.

In this video taken at a protest against police brutality in Brooklyn, New York, Emerson Sykes, staff attorney for the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, & Technology Project, shares important information on how to protect yourself and others while protesting – and what rights you have when interacting with police.

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In this video taken at another protest against police brutality in Brooklyn, Daniel Kahn Gillmor, senior staff technologist for the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, & Technology project, shares how to protect yourself and your devices from police surveillance while protesting.

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1. The right to protest is a fundamental human right guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution and the First Amendment.
2. If you get stopped, ask if you are free to go. If the police say yes, walk away.
3. You have the right to record. The right to protest includes the right to record, including recording police doing their jobs.
4. The police can order people to stop interfering with legitimate police operations, but video recording from a safe distance is not interfering.
5. If you get stopped, police cannot take or confiscate any videos or photos without a warrant.
6. If you are videotaping, in some states, the audio is treated differently than the images. But images and video images are always fully protected by the First Amendment.
7. If you get arrested, don’t say anything. Ask for a lawyer immediately. Do not sign anything and do not agree to anything without an attorney present.
8. If you get arrested, demand your right to a local phone call. If you call a lawyer for legal advice, law enforcement is not allowed to listen.
9. Police cannot delete data from your device under any circumstances.

1. Wear a mask to protect you from facial recognition used by police.
2. Ensure your devices have strong passwords, either six digits or a full password.
3. Avoid using biometrics like face or fingerprint recognition to unlock your phone that police can use to unlock your phone for you or you risk exposing your data and information about your loved ones.
4. Keep your phone in airplane mode when you don’t need to communicate. Radio signals can be used by law enforcement to track your device.
5. If you do have to communicate, use encrypted messaging apps.
6. If you get arrested, make sure your device is turned off or locked with a secure password.
7. Do not accept a water, soda, or a cigarette from the police – this is a common trick used to collect DNA samples.