On Tuesday the City of Milledgeville recognized Pride Month with a proclamation at the city council meeting.
“This is the first time that we have proclaimed pride month in the city of Milledgeville, not because the city objects to the LGBTQ+ community, but because no one has ever requested it before, but that changes tonight,” Mayor Pro Tempore Denese Shinholster said. “I want everyone to reflect on the diversity that Milledgeville embraces to know that everyone is welcome here and that is not something that just started tonight.”
The Milledgeville chapter of the PFLAG Chapter Network requested that the city proclaim June as Pride Month in Milledgeville. Members of the organization attended the meeting to accept a plaque and honor the local LGBTQ+ community’s history.
Referring to Central State Hospital, PFLAG Milledgeville board member Jessica McQuain stated in a press release, “Given the history of Milledgeville as the place where the state institutionalized LGBTQ+ people for ‘deviancy’ or ‘lewd behavior’ for simply existing, this is a momentous occasion.”
Pride Month was initially declared as Gay and Lesbian Pride Month in June 1999 by President Bill Clinton to recognize the anniversary of the Stonewall riots, in which LGBTQ+ citizens fought on June 28, 1969, against criminal laws that have now been declared unconstitutional.
In 2011, President Barack Obama expanded the recognized Pride Month to include the LGBT community as a whole, and in 2021, President Joe Biden expanded the recognition again to LGBTQ+ Pride Month.
Founded in 1973 as Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, the organization officially changed its name to PFLAG in 2014 and is the first and largest organization dedicated to supporting, educating, and advocating for LGBTQ+ people and their families. PFLAG now counts more than 400 chapters nationally, with more than 200,000 members and supporters.