Celebrate Pride Month 2021
Sunday 27 June 2021
Pride Month, which takes place throughout June, is an annual celebration marking the anniversary of the Stonewall riots in New York in 1969. Pride is a month-long celebration of LGBTQA+ culture and an opportunity to raise awareness of issues facing the LGBTQA+ community.
During Pride Month there is a wide range of events taking place around the country but in 2021 the annual London Pride Parade will take place later in the year, on the weekend of 11 September.
Here our Head Girl Hannah V tells us about Prism, Queenswood's club for pupils in Year 9 and above, where students meet to discuss LGBTQ+ issues and culture.
"I started Prism when I was in the Lower Sixth as a safe space for any student to feel comfortable and supported no matter their identity. The club has been very successful, with members from a variety of LGBTQ+ communities. We have created a close-knit group of students that come to express themselves in a way that is not always possible outside our society.
This year, the club moved online to respect the year group bubbles and we have been holding sessions on Google Meet every Thursday lunchtime. Each week we have discussed recent LGBTQ+ news and celebrity stories, debated some of the key issues within the community and chatted about our own experiences and struggles.
A new addition this year was the Prism Newsletter, created by the members of the club and sent out to all Q students every week. The newsletter featured book and film reviews (from RuPaul’s Drag Race to Boy Erased to Pose), LGBTQ+ Celebrities of the Week (including Billy Porter, Elliot Page and JoJo Siwa) as well as useful LGBTQ+ terms, historic events and news about Amazon’s ban of books framing LGBTQ+ identities as ‘mental illnesses’.
I have learned so much from the running of this club and all the students who have come to it. I really hope that the club will continue to have a positive influence on the lives of both LGBTQ+ and non-LGBTQ+ students at Q when I have left."
Hannah