Youth Pride is May 16th, 2015!!!

Hey Everyone!

Good news: Its the start of the Pride Festival and Parade Season!

Some of you may be asking, "Kyle, what's Pride?"

Good question Amigxs!

Pride is a celebration of every individual in the LGBTQ+ community!

It started long ago...

Picture it, June 28, 1969, a hot summer day in New York.

Being LGBTQ+ is a criminal act at this time. 

No holding hands with your partner in the street, not being able to express your gender in the way you feel, being arrested for even being suspected of being gay. 

A crowd of people in the community are gathered at their favorite underground bar, the Stonewall Inn.

As usual, the police are making their daily rounds to see who they can arrest for "homosexual activity". 

They get rough with the patrons. 

The community are fed up with the way they are treated. 

Marsha P.Johnson (Activist extraordinaire + Black Trans Woman)

and other Trans women of color lead the group, finally fighting back against injustice. 

This led to protesting and more. 

These events were known as the Stonewall Riots, and what was the catalyst for the LGBTQ+ rights movement. 

Since then, the goal of Pride is for people in the community to party! For people to express themselves, 

and embrace everyone in it. 

We have a lot of work to do within our community, but Pride is a time for us to come together and just have fun.

Everyone of every age comes to Boston Pride (on June 13th this year)

But Youth Pride , as the name implies, is just for youth. (When I say youth I mean people ages 14-22)

I bring this up because Massachusetts Youth Pride is in a week!!!

Its next Saturday, May 16th, 2015!

Here's how its gonna go:

9:30am to 10:30am - Peeps from ALL OVER Massachusetts (and I mean seriously, people from all over)

come and gather next to City Hall, you can check in and register to march at this time

12:00am- Next, we start marching around the Boston Commons chanting and cheering

11:00am to 4:00pm- Later, we get back to City Hall & enjoy the festival:

Its gonna be emceed by my homies, Stephanie and Taqari!!!

Performances by a variety of people including my friend Ny :D

A community and resource fair, with different booths for neat organizations like the Hispanic Black Gay Coalition, BAGLY**, GLASS**, Fenway Health and more!

And a DJ playing some righteous tunes you can dance to!

7pm to 11:00pm- And last but not least, BAGLY prom!

You do not need to dress up, its super casual 

Its free IF you get tested for HIV any time in May before and the day of Pride at BAGLY headquarters, otherwise its $15

Dope music plays all night 

Chilling with your homies

Photo booth

Gender Neutral bathrooms

And free condoms... everywhere

And that's the rundown of Youth Pride, 

I hope I see you there! :D

**BAGLY stands for Boston Alliance of LGBTQ+ Youth

GLASS stands for LGBTQ+ Adolescent Social Services 

Ps. BAGLY is located at 14 Beacon Street on the 3rd floor, its across from the State House (building with the golden dome on top)