2. In 1933 the Nazis banned homosexual groups in the Third Reich.
Gay men, in particular, were arrested and sent to concentration camps and the gas chambers as the Nazis believed that they were weak, could not fight for Germany and that they wouldn’t produce children to benefit the Aryan race. Like the yellow star for Jews, the Nazis forced gays to wear a downward-pointing pink triangle badge to identify them as gay.
3. The first lesbian bar, Mona’s 440 Club, opened in San Francisco in 1936.
4. June was chosen as Pride Month to commemorate the Stonewall uprising/riots on June 28, 1969.
On this day police raided the Stonewall Inn, a mafia-owned gay bar which had been paying off the police to ignore its gay customers since bars that served alcohol to gays could have their liquor licenses revoked. Unlike past similar events, people protested and refused to be led away, sparking riots and what is thought to be the beginning of the gay rights movement. The first LGBT Pride Parade was held in NYC in 1970.
