Pride 2025: June update from UPLIFT Action
Beloveds,
Pride 2025 arrives at a time of deep reckoning and urgent resistance.
Across the country, we are witnessing a coordinated escalation of political attacks on LGBTQIA+ people—particularly targeting trans and nonbinary youth, families, and communities. These attacks are not isolated; they are deeply connected to intersecting systems of oppression—white supremacy, Christian nationalism, anti-Blackness, misogyny, and ableism—that threaten all of us. (See our curated resource list Preparing for Pride for workshops, toolkits, and resources on how to offer solidarity and support this Pride season).
This moment demands more than celebration—it calls us into bold solidarity. Pride was born from protest, from defiance, from the sacred truth that LGBTQIA+ lives are worthy, joyful, and powerful. Today, we carry that legacy forward—not just in words, but in our actions, relationships, and commitments.
As Unitarian Universalists, our faith calls us to keep love at the center. And love, in this moment, moves like this:
Join The Gathering: A virtual event celebrating LGBTQIA+ pride and preparing for upcoming Supreme Court decisions. Nicole Pressley from Side With Love will discuss building power through campaigns. Rev. Kentina Washington-Leapheart from SACReD will address challenges to reproductive justice and bodily autonomy. UU trans/non-binary musician Shana Aisenberg will also perform. Connect, find inspiration, and take action.
RSVP for The Gathering on June 9th at 8 ET: Register here
Congregational staff and board members, join Now What: The Gathering on June 11th at 1pm ET: Register here
Join UPLIFT Action: a Side With Love campaign advocating for bodily autonomy, Because Every Body is Sacred. Subscribe to the UPLIFT Action Newsletter to receive advocacy updates, educational tools, and actions to support LGBTQIA+ rights all year, not just during Pride. We offer guidance to help congregations and communities stay safe during Pride and year-round while showing up as public witnesses for LGBTQIA+ dignity and liberation. Subscribe today.
Renew Your Welcome: We invite congregations to participate in the Five Practices of Welcome Renewal, a powerful path to recommit to LGBTQIA+ inclusion and become ever more spiritually nourishing spaces for all.
Supporting UU Trans Religious Professionals: We encourage you to support TRUUsT — an organization of trans Unitarian Universalists who are living out a call to ministry within Unitarian Universalism. Email truust@transuu.org to learn how you might support their work.
LGBTQIA+ Resources: Visit www.uua.org/lgbtq/resources for a growing library of resources to support LGBTQIA+ people in your congregation, community, and beyond.
Dear friends, let me be honest—for me, Pride is complicated. All throughout June, I vacillate from rolling my eyes and sissying that walk. I release a sigh of frustration when I see rainbow flags go up in storefronts while legislation strips away our rights. I feel exhausted by the commercialization of a movement that was born in the streets—by transwomen of color, by Black and brown queer people, and by people dying of AIDS who dared to fight back. It’s hard to know where the celebration ends and the co-optation begins. And still, I feel joy.
There’s a deep, abiding joy in being Black and queer. It’s in our music, our style, our stories, our survival. It’s in our capacity to love expansively, to grieve collectively, to laugh even when the world tells us not to exist. That joy is not naive—it’s a refusal to be diminished.
So this Pride, I’m holding space for contradiction. For fatigue and celebration. For grief and resistance. For the love that lives in chosen family, in congregational care, and in each courageous act of showing up for one another.
Wherever you are this month—angry, joyful, numb, overwhelmed—you are beautiful, you belong, and you are welcome here.
Much Love,
Michael
Rev. Michael J. Crumpler
UUA LGBTQ and Multicultural Programs Director
