Queer Cafe

Famous LGBTQ Pride Month Quotes
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Inspirational Pride Month Quotes From LGBTQ Luminaries
Inspiring Quotes for Queer Women

"As I stand here in front of you: Black, bald-headed, pierced and queer, I can say I know a thing or two about being the other."
-Cynthia Erivo

"Being gay is a natural normal beautiful variation on being human. Period. End of subject. Therefore, any argument which says differently is an immoral supremacist one. Call it out as such. Be outraged, offended, angry and intolerant of any discussion or any one who describes you as unequal, undeserving, or unnatural for being just as you are."
-Larry Kramer

"LGBTQ people are some of the bravest and most potent change agents and leaders I have encountered, and the most forceful defenders of the vulnerable and voiceless, because they know what it's like to be there."
-Ronan Farrow

"There will not be a magic day when we wake up and it’s now okay to express ourselves publicly. We make that day by doing things publicly until it’s simply the way things are."
-Tammy Baldwin

"It isn't about choosing guys over girls or girls over guys. It's about choosing happiness over society."

-Quote

"I love that I am trans. And I love that I am queer. And the more I hold myself close and fully embrace who I am, the more I dream, the more my heart grows and the more I thrive."

-Elliot Page

"Now we know that queer and trans people are magic. So many kinds of magic and so many kinds of normal."
-Jill Soloway

Inspiring Quotes From the LGBTQ Community to Celebrate Pride Month
LGBTQ Pride Month Caption Ideas and Pride Quotes
Good Reads: Quotes About LGBTQ

“I enjoy being gay on so many levels, it’s such a wonderful thing to me. It’s an extraordinary gift and just to be able to see the real beauty in being gay is completely wonderful. The older I get, the more I feel lucky to have been born gay, and that pervades my life in the sense of all my friendships. I have so many amazing queer friends whom I just adore.”
-Andrew Scott

"Soon the day will come when science will win victory over error, justice a victory over injustice, and human love a victory over human hatred and ignorance."
-Magnus Hircshfeld

"It always seemed to me a bit pointless to disapprove of homosexuality. It's like disapproving of rain."
-Francis Maude

"The most violent element in society is ignorance."
-Emma Goldman

"Everybody's journey is individual. If you fall in love with a boy, you fall in love with a boy. The fact that many Americans consider it a disease says more about them than it does about homosexuality."
-James Baldwin

"What is straight? A line can be straight, or a street, but the human heart, oh, no, it's curved like a road through mountains."
-Tennessee Williams, Streetcar Named Desire

"The opportunity to be threatened, humiliated and to live in fear of being beaten to death is the only special right our culture bestows on homosexuals."
-Diane Carman, Denver Post

Inspiring Quotes From the LGBTQ Community to Celebrate Pride Month
LGBTQ Pride Month Caption Ideas and Pride Quotes

Inspirational Pride Month Quotes From LGBTQ Luminaries

"Openness may not completely disarm prejudice, but it's a good place to start."

-Jason Collins, First Openly Gay Athlete in US Pro Sports

"When all Americans are treated as equal, no matter who they are or whom they love, we are all more free."

-Barack Obama, US President

"This world would be a whole lot better if we just made an effort to be less horrible to one another."

-Ellen Page

"I believe that no one should ever have to choose between a career we love and living our lives with authenticity and integrity."

-Selisse Berry, Out & Equal Executive Director

"It takes some intelligence and insight to figure out you're gay and then a tremendous amount of balls to live it and live it proudly."

-Jason Bateman

"Every gay and lesbian person who has been lucky enough to survive the turmoil of growing up is a survivor. Survivors always have an obligation to those who will face the same challenges."

- Bob Paris, Writer, Actor

"All of us who are openly gay are living and writing the history of our movement. We are no more and no less heroic than the suffragists and abolitionists of the 19th century. And the labor organizers, Freedom Riders, Stonewall demonstrators, and environmentalists of the 20th century. We are ordinary people, living our lives, and trying as civil rights activist Dorothy Cotton said, to fix what ain't right' in our society."

-Senator Tammy Baldwin

"I've been embraced by a new community. That's what happens when you're finally honest about who you are; you find others like you."

-Chaz Bono

"We should indeed keep calm in the face of difference, and live our lives in a state of inclusion and wonder at the diversity of humanity."

-George Takei

Coming Out

"I'm proud that I was one of the first ones to come out, singing loud and proud.”
-KD Lang

"I’ve come to realize it is better, both for me and for the people I care about, including my fans, to live life authentically than to live a life never accepting who I truly am."
-Shinjiro Atae , Japanese Pop Star

"Growing up, I felt there was something about me that truly set me apart from other kids. But I didn't have a grasp of what it was. I had a few fleeting crushes on girls, then, a full-blown crush. Inside, they felt right and normal. But at the same time, I didn't have any way to process those feelings because I didn't know any gay people or know that I knew them. I felt that I would risk something if I expressed my feelings. Then I started playing on my college rugby team (which had some lesbian players) and for the first time I saw women being openly affectionate to each other. It was like being dropped into what was originally a foreign country but, once there, I realized it was my country of origin. I thought, Wow, the feelings I've been having are normal. It is okay to be who I am."
-Candace Gingrich, Manager of HRC's National Coming Out Project, Sister of Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich

"The world changes in direct proportion to the number of people willing to be honest about their lives."
-Armistead Maupin, Writer

"I wanted to be out so I could relax and be me."
-Melissa Etheridge, Musician

"It's great to be out and proud."
-Greg Louganis, Olympic Gold-Medal Diver at Gay Games opening ceremonies

"I just wish more of my fellow queers would come out sometimes. It's nice out here, you know?"
-Elton John, Accepting Distinguished Achievement Award from Elizabeth Taylor at Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center's 25th anniversary blowout

Inspirational Pride Month Quotes From LGBTQ Luminaries

“There’s no right or wrong way to be gay. No right or wrong way to come out. It’s your journey, do it the way you wanna do it.”
—Tan France

"When my friends and I came out in college, the other students took an obvious dislike to us. It was hateful, horrible rhetoric, and divisive. I lost some friends. I felt like they just couldn't step up to the plate. It was very hard, really hard, to deal with that, and to tell them that they were not being very supportive. You learn many valuable lessons about what friendship means. It's those first five minutes in coming out to your friends and acquaintances that are really the hardest. But after that, things get better than before. The most important thing you can do is come out. People's hearts have to change. And when a person meets someone who is gay, that more than anything seems to make them understand and take on new attitudes."
-Suzanne Westenhofer, Comedian

"The day we stop resisting our instincts, we’ll have learned how to start living."
-Federico Garicia Lorca, Poet and Playwright

"I've been embraced by a new community. That's what happens when you're finally honest about who you are. You find others like you."
-Chaz Bono

"Outing is a nasty word for telling the truth."
-Armistead Maupin, Writer

"The single most important thing you can do politically for gay rights is to come out. Not to write a letter to your congressman, but to come out."
-Senator Barney Frank

Inspiring Quotes From the LGBTQ Community to Celebrate Pride Month
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Inspiring LGBTQ Quotes for Pride Month
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"Every gay person must come out. Once they realize we are indeed their children and that we are indeed everywhere, then every myth, every lie, every innuendo will be destroyed once and for all."
-Harvey Milk

"Nothing has happened to me out of the closet that was anywhere near as dangerous as being closeted."
-Karen Thompson

"The closet symbolizes isolation, the individual without society, a stranger even to the self."
-Kathy Weston

"By staying closeted we make ourselves invisible. By coming out we shatter the popular illusion that the whole world is heterosexual."
-Romanovsky & Phillips

"We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark. The real tragedy of life is when adults are afraid of the light."
-Plato

"Being out means doing what your grandmother told you to do, which is not to lie."
-Barbara Smith

Famous LGBTQ Pride Month Quotes
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Inspirational Pride Month Quotes From LGBTQ Luminaries

"There are many lesbians and gay men trapped by their fear into silence and invisibility, and they exist in a dim valley of terror wearing nooses of conformity."
-Audre Lorde

"The moment you can learn to deal with homosexuality in art, it's quite an exciting moment, just as in a sense when people come out it's quite an exciting moment. It means they become aware of their desires, and can deal with them in a remarkably honest way."
-David Hockney, Artist

"I have learned that coming out is a daily process, not limited to where we live, who we're linked to, or how we conduct our lives. It is understanding your place in the world, born of your own family. It is entwined with your personal ideas and the goals you set. Alas, these things are ever-changing, and you have to keep discovering new ways to exist as a gay or lesbian person while making your life whole."
-Tom Curtise

"Slowly but surely, gay people are coming around to the idea that if you continue to be invisible, that's all you will be, and it's not a nice life."
-Bev Clark

"When I see young men and old women come out of the closet and face being called faggots and dykes and pariahs and betrayers of the family dream, then I am honored to be gay because I belong to a people who are proud."
-Arnie Kantrowitz

Pride

"No one likes to be told to grow up. It’s insulting. But these are always the answers. They will always be the answers. The only answers. There will never be any other answers. Grow up. Behave responsibly. Fight for your rights. Take care of yourself and each other. Be proud of yourself. Be proud you are gay."
-Larry Kramer

"I'm homosexual. How and why are idle questions. It's a little like wanting to know why my eyes are green."
-Jean Genet

"I’m not willing to be tolerated. That wounds my love of love and liberty."
-Jean Cocteau, Writer and Director

"The next time you feel you have to say I love you to someone, say it to yourself and see if you believe it."
-Harvey Feirstein, Playwright, Torchsong Trilogy

“We’re not supposed to conform, we’re not supposed to be like somebody else, we’re not supposed to act like somebody else — and as long as you stay true to exactly who you are, you will be rewarded in ways that you can’t imagine.”
-Ellen DeGeneres

“How many years has it taken people to realize that we are all brothers and sisters and human beings in the human race?”
—Marsha P. Johnson

“We have to do it because we can no longer stay invisible. We have to be visible. We should not be ashamed of who we are.”
—Sylvia Rivera

“Equality means more than passing laws. The struggle is really won in the hearts and minds of the community, where it really counts.”
—Barbara Gittings

“We are powerful because we have survived.”
—Audre Lorde

“Personally, coming out was one of the most important things I’ve ever done, lifting from my shoulders the millstone of lies that I hadn’t even realized I was carrying.”
—Sir Ian McKellen

“Being born gay, Black and female is not a revolutionary act. Being proud to be a gay, Black female is.”
—Lena Waithe

Inspiring Quotes From the LGBTQ Community to Celebrate Pride Month
LGBTQ Pride Month Caption Ideas and Pride Quotes

Inspirational Pride Month Quotes From LGBTQ Luminaries

“I believe that telling our stories, first to ourselves and then to one another and the world, is a revolutionary act. It is an act that can be met with hostility, exclusion and violence. It can also lead to love, understanding, transcendence and community.”
—Janet Mock

“You are the ultimate power and you have never been so visible in the world! And that beautiful light and that rainbow is shining all around you. Stand in it. Bask in it. Allow yourself to glow in it as we grow. Take that spotlight, it belongs to you.”
—Lady Gaga

“We deserve to experience love fully, equally, without shame, and without compromise.”
—Elliot Page

“It’s wonderful to be gay. I love being gay. I really do. And I think I wouldn’t have had the life I’ve had if I hadn’t been gay. And I’m very proud of that. I’m very proud that I can appreciate that.”
—Elton John

“LGBT people are some of the bravest and most potent change agents and leaders I have encountered, and the most forceful defenders of the vulnerable and voiceless, because they know what it’s like to be there.”
—Ronan Farrow

“Don’t be afraid. Don’t be ashamed. Don’t ever apologize for your sexuality. Just be you.”
—Sonya Deville

"Whatever the public blames you for, cultivate it. It is yourself."
-Jean Cocteau, writer

"It is better to be hated for what one is than to be loved for what one isn’t."
-Andre Gider, Writer

"You always have to remember, no matter what you’re told, that God loves all the flowers, even the wild ones that grow on the side of the highway."
-Cyndi Lauper, Musician

Inspirational Pride Month Quotes From LGBTQ Luminaries

Transgender

"Transgender Americans shape our nation's soul."
-President Joe Biden

"Trans women are Wonder Women."
-Lynda Carter, Original Wonder Woman Actor

"Transgender people are some of the bravest Americans I know.
But no person should have to be brave just to live in safety and dignity."
-President Joe Biden

“Nature made a mistake, which I have corrected.”
—Christine Jorgensen

“I can’t begin to express how remarkable it feels to finally love who I am enough to pursue my authentic self.”

-Elliot Page, actor

“The trans community should not be stigmatized, demonized or weaponized.”
-Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London

“Being transgender is not just a medical transition; it’s discovering who you are, living your life authentically, loving yourself, and spreading that love towards other people and accepting one another no matter the difference.”
-Jazz Jennings

“We are born as who we are. The gender thing is something that is imposed on you.”
-Laverne Cox

“Nature made a mistake, which I have corrected.”
-Christine Jorgensen, US Army veteran and public figure

“I’ve never been interested in being invisible and erased.” -Laverne Cox, actress and LGBTQ advocate
“I think trans women, and trans people in general, show everyone that you can define what it means to be a man or woman on your own terms. A lot of what feminism is about is moving outside of roles and moving outside of expectations of who and what you’re supposed to be to live a more authentic life.”

-Laverne Cox

Inspiring Quotes From the LGBTQ Community to Celebrate Pride Month
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“The more I hold myself close and fully embrace who I am, the more I thrive.”

-Elliot Page, actor

“There’s a gender in your brain and a gender in your body. For 99 percent of people, those things are in alignment. For transgender people, they’re mismatched. That’s all it is. It’s not complicated, it’s not a neurosis. It’s a mix-up. It’s a birth defect, like a cleft palate.”

-Chaz Bono, public figure

“We are all assigned a gender at birth. Sometimes that assignment doesn’t match our inner truth, and there needs to be a new place–a place for self-identification.”

-Geena Rocero

“I’ve always been Sarah. My gender identity has always existed. I’ve always been a woman. Gay people aren’t straight before they come out as gay, and transgender people are who they are before they come out and transition.”

-Sarah McBride, activist and politician

“Our experience of gender is no more or less pathological than that of ‘mainstream’ society… We have a right to live in a body that matches our self-image and deep desires without someone else being the gatekeeper to our experience.”

–Florence Ashley, transfeminine jurist and bioethicist

“We have to be visible. We are not ashamed of who we are.”

-Sylvia Rivera, transgender rights activist

“When I was younger, I wish I would have been told more often that I was right and nothing was wrong with me, that I was deserving of everything this world has to offer, and that my visions for my future were worthy of pursuit.”

-Janet Mock, Magazine editor, transgender rights activist

“I’m saying goodbye to people’s perception of me and who I am; I’m not saying goodbye to me, because this has always been me.”

-Caitlyn Jenner, Olympian and media personality

“When I was little, the idea of waking up as a girl was like a fairytale. I had this idea that I’d meet a witch who would transform me. From the moment I found out that it was actually possible, I went to bed each night feeling that when it happens, it will be the best day of my life. And it was!”

-Andreja Pejic, model and actress

“I don’t know what I am if I’m not a woman.”

-Marsha P. Johnson, LGBTQ activist

Inspirational Pride Month Quotes From LGBTQ Luminaries

Non-Binary/Genderqueer

"I am somewhat boyish and somewhat girlish. I identify with both, but I fancy women.”
-Eddie Izzard

"I'm not a boy. I’m not even a girl. I’m like a failed version of both.”
-Mae Martin (2020)

"I'm not a woman. I'm not a man."
-Prince (1984)

"The big problem for non-binary people like me isn’t just being seen. It’s being seen as human."
-Radam Ridwan

"I'm not gender non-conforming. I'm gender non-compliant."
-Social Media Comment

Inspirational Pride Month Quotes From LGBTQ Luminaries

Inspiring LGBTQ Quotes for Pride Month
Good Reads: Quotes About Gay Rights

Youth Encouragement

"All young people, regardless of sexual orientation or identity, deserve a safe and supportive environment in which to achieve their full potential."
-Harvey Milk

"We've made houses for hatred. It's time we made a place where people's souls may be seen and made safe."
-Jewel Kilcher

"It's the job of the young to push the societal envelope."
-Jeanne Cordova

"To be nobody but yourself in a world that's doing its best to make you something else, is to fight the hardest battle you are ever going to fight. Don't stop fighting."

-E.E. Cummings

"There's no person in the whole world like you, and I like you just the way you are."
-Fred Rogers

"Why fit in when you were born to stand out."

-Dr. Seuss

"Just be yourself. Let people see the real, imperfect, flawed, quirky, weird, beautiful, magical person that you are."

-Mandy Hale

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"Speak louder that the words before you and give them meaning no one else has found. The role we play is so important. We are the voices of the underground... Say everything you’ve always wanted, be not afraid of who you really are, cause in the end we have each other, and that's at least one thing worth living for."
-Ian Axel

“We are made for goodness. We are made for love. We are made for friendliness. We are made for togetherness. We are made for all of the beautiful things that you and I know. We are made to tell the world that there are no outsiders. All are welcome: black, white, red, yellow, rich, poor, educated, not educated, male, female, gay, straight, all, all, all. We all belong to this family, this human family, God’s family.”
-Desmond Tutu

“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of those depths.”

-Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

“All the world is full of suffering. It is also full of overcoming.”

-Helen Keller

“If you could only sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet; how important you can be to the people you may never even dream of. There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person.”

-Fred Rogers

“You are imperfect, you are wired for struggle, but you are worthy of love and belonging.”

-Brené Brown

“I can tell you that it takes great strength to surrender. You have to know that you are not going to collapse. Instead, you are going to open to a power that you don’t even know, and it is going to come to meet you. In the process of healing, this is one of the huge things that I have discovered. People recognized the energy coming to meet them. When they opened to another energy, a love, a divine love, came through to meet them. That is what is known as grace. We all sing about amazing grace. It is a gift. I think that it comes through the work that we do. For some people, it can come out of the blue, but I know that in my own situation, the grace came through incredible vigilance.”

-Marion Woodman

Inspiring Quotes From the LGBTQ Community to Celebrate Pride Month
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Inspiring LGBTQ Quotes for Pride Month
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"I just want you to know that you are so loved and so needed on planet earth."
-Grace Theisen

“There comes a time in your life, when you walk away from all the drama and people who create it. You surround yourself with people who make you laugh. Forget the bad and focus on the good. Love the people who treat you right, pray for the ones who do not. Life is too short to be anything but happy. Falling down is a part of life, getting back up is living.”

-José N. Harris

“Often when you think you’re at the end of something, you’re at the beginning of something else.”

-Fred Rogers

“And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm is all about.”

-Haruki Murakami

“If you are going through hell, keep going.”

-Winston S. Churchill

“Life doesn’t get easier or more forgiving, we get stronger and more resilient.”

-Steve Maraboli

“Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.”

-Albus Dumbledore

“Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy—the experiences that make us the most vulnerable. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.”

-Brené Brown

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“Opportunities to find deeper powers within ourselves come when life seems most challenging.”

-Joseph Campbell

“The dark does not destroy the light; it defines it. It’s our fear of the dark that casts our joy into the shadows.”

-Brené Brown

“As my sufferings mounted I soon realized that there were two ways in which I could respond to my situation — either to react with bitterness or seek to transform the suffering into a creative force. I decided to follow the latter course.”

-Martin Luther King Jr.

“The opinion which other people have of you is their problem, not yours.”

-Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

“Hope is not about proving anything. It’s about choosing to believe this one thing, that love is bigger than any grim, bleak shit anyone can throw at us.”

-Anne Lamott

“Refuse to fall down. If you cannot refuse to fall down, refuse to stay down. If you cannot refuse to stay down, lift your heart toward heaven and like a hungry beggar ask that it be filled. You may be pushed down. You may be kept from rising. But no one can keep you from lifting your heart toward heaven only you. It is in the middle of misery that so much becomes clear. The one who says nothing good came of this, is not yet listening. ”

-Clarissa Pinkola Estés

“Learning lessons is a little like reaching maturity. You’re not suddenly more happy, wealthy, or powerful, but you understand the world around you better, and you’re at peace with yourself. Learning life’s lessons is not about making your life perfect, but about seeing life as it was meant to be.”

-Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

“There’s no such thing as ruining your life. Life’s a pretty resilient thing, it turns out.”

-Sophie Kinsella

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Inspiring LGBTQ Quotes for Pride Month
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"It is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else’s life with perfection.”

-Bhagavad Gita

“Discovering the truth about ourselves is a lifetime’s work, but it’s worth the effort.”

-Fred Rogers

“You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.”

-Maya Angelou

“This is an important lesson to remember when you’re having a bad day, a bad month, or a shitty year. Things will change. You won’t feel this way forever. And anyway, sometimes the hardest lessons to learn are the ones your soul needs most. I believe you can’t feel real joy unless you’ve felt heartache. You can’t have a sense of victory unless you know what it means to fail. You can’t know what it’s like to feel holy until you know what it’s like to feel really fucking evil. And you can’t be birthed again until you’ve died.”

-Kelly Cutrone

"I don't like to gamble. But if there's one thing I'm willing to bet on, it's myself."

-Beyonce

“Anyone desperate enough for suicide should be desperate enough to go to creative extremes to solve problems: Elope at midnight. Stow away on the boat to New Zealand and start over. Do what you always wanted to do but were afraid to try.”

–Richard Bach

“When you feel like giving up, just remember the reason why you held on for so long.”

-Quote

"I like you as you are. Exactly and precisely. I think you turned out nicely. And I like you as you are."
-Fred Rogers

Inspirational Pride Month Quotes From LGBTQ Luminaries

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"It’s okay. It may not seem like it right now, but you are going to be fine. I know it’s scary, but don’t be afraid. I don’t want anyone to hold back who they are. You are who you are and you should love that person."
-Connor Franta

“When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hang on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.”

–Harriet Beecher Stowe

"We are powerful because we have survived."

-Audre Lorde

"Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life. Define yourself."

-Harvey Fierstein

"What makes you different or weird... That's your strength."

-Meryl Streep

“There are people out there who love you and care about you just the way you are. You will find that your differences are a source of pride and a source of strength. The freedom to not fit in, to be true to ourselves, that’s the freedom that enriches all of us. That’s what America is all about.”

-President Barack Obama

“No, you aren’t alone. Yes, we all feel this way sometimes. No, you won’t always feel like this. Yes, the world is a better place with you in it.”

-Quote

“And here you are living despite it all.”

–Rupi Kaur

“Never never never give up.”

–Winston Churchill

Business/Workplace

"Communities that promote inclusion thrive, and so do the business that invest in them."

-Chad Griffin, HRC President

"I believe that no one should ever have to choose between a career we love and living our lives with authenticity and integrity."

-Selisse Berry, Out & Equal Executive Director

“Workplace equality is improving, but some employees, unfortunately, still face discrimination because of their sexual orientation and gender identity… Of course, from a job seeker’s perspective, there are many good reasons to seek out employers with diverse workforces… But the most important one is the way the employees are treated… Everyone should feel like their workplace is a safe space.”
-Lily Martis, Monster Jobs

“Some LGBTQ employees are completely closeted at work and fully out at home…. For them, everyday is a demanding, energy-draining balancing act…. Still others are fully out in all facets of their lives… Their experiences range from joyful to miserable… For some being out at work has been easy… For others, coming out on the job remains the most frightening thing they have ever done.”
-Dan Woog, Book, Gay Men Straight Jobs

“The workplace is full of mixed messages for LGBTQ people… Studies tell us that openness at work is a good thing, but outing oneself on a résumé could jeopardize getting an interview… Companies have LGBTQ recruiting and outreach, but there is a shortage of out people at the top tier of companies.”

-Kyle Knight & Todd Sears, Huffington Post

Defining Self

"I am the most well-known homosexual in the world."
-Elton John

"I’ve been in love with girls for my whole life, but I just didn’t understand — until, last year, I realized I wanted my face in a vagina."
-Billie Eilish

"Someone will always be prettier. Someone will always be smarter. Someone will always be younger. But they will never be you."
-Freddie Mercury

"I like the word gay, though I think myself more as queer. I believe the strength in my work comes from that perspective - my being an outsider."
-Holly Hughes

"I love that I am trans. And I love that I am queer. And the more I hold myself close and fully embrace who I am, the more I dream, the more my heart grows, and the more I thrive."

-Elliot Page

"Being queer is like being on a lifetime assignment as a secret agent in some foreign country."
-Noretta Koertge

"I don't want to be labeled as either a pansy or a heterosexual. Labeling is so self-limiting. We are what we do, not what we say we are."
-Montgomery Cliff

"I know I'm not a man. And I've come to the conclusion that I'm probably not a woman either. The trouble is, we're living in a world that insists we be one or the other."
-Kate Bornstein

"Because of our situation, God has given us an opportunity to almost transcend our gender, which gives us a vision and sensitivity that other people don't have. They think that being white and male is going to save the world. But life is not The Lion King."
-Jason Reeves

"Lesbians and other oppressed people have a bigger burden to bear because the rest of the world spends a lot of time telling us we should feel bad about ourselves."
-Nancy Lanoue

"It can be so painful and difficult to get to our truth, to find our authentic selves. But it's so worth it in the end."
-Elliot Page

"I know I can't tell you what it's like to be gay. But I can tell you what it's not. It's not hiding behind words, like family and decency and Christianity."
-Armistead Maupin

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Wise Lesbian Advice

"I will not have my life narrowed down. I will not bow down to somebody else's whim or to someone else's ignorance."
-Alice Walker, Writer

“I am a strong, black, lesbian woman. Every single time I say it, I feel so much better.”
-Brittany Griner, Athlete

“A woman and a woman together are beautiful, just as a man and a woman together are beautiful.”
-Drew Barrymore, Actor

“What I preach is: People fall in love with people, not gender, not looks, not whatever. What I’m in love with exists on almost a spiritual level.”
-Miley Cyrus, Singer

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Pinterest: LGBTQ Quotes

"I write for those women who do not speak, for those who do not have a voice because they were so terrified, because we are taught to respect fear more than ourselves. We've been taught that silence would save us, but it won't."
-Audre Lorde, Writer

"Find out who you are and be that person. That's what your soul was put on this Earth to be. Find that truth, live that truth and everything else will come."
-Ellen DeGeneres, Entertainer

"Being optimistic is like a muscle that gets stronger with use. Makes it easier when the tough times arrive. You have to change the way you think in order to change the way you feel."
-Robin Roberts, Television Host

"If you feel like there's something out there that you're supposed to be doing, if you have a passion for it, then stop wishing and just do it."
-Wanda Sykes, Comedian

"There's girls that grew up like me and even worse, and they need to know that there is someone out there that can give them hope. It's about inspiring people and helping people."
-Kehlani, Musician

"You really need to trust that you're on your own path, and as long as you stay true to it, and you show up, you will be successful."
-Jane Lynch, Actor

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Political Perspective

"I believe we can keep the promise of our founders, the idea that if you’re willing to work hard, it doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from or what you look like or who you love. It doesn’t matter whether you’re black or white or Hispanic or Asian or Native American or young or old or rich or poor, able, disabled, gay or straight, you can make it here in America if you’re willing to try."
-President Barack Obama

"As leaders, our greatest responsibility is ensuring that every person we represent, regardless of their gender identity or gender expression, is entitled to respect, fairness, and freedom."
-Phil Murphy, New Jersey Governor

"Senator, when you took your oath of office, you placed your hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution. You did not place your hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible."
-Jamin Raskin, Getting to the point, in a debate over a proposed constitutional amendment to the Maryland state constitution to prevent gay couples from having legal marriage rights

"They have every right to be as miserable as the rest of us."
-Kinky Friedman, Kinky Friedman & the Texas Jewboys bluegrass band, running for Governor of Texas as an Independent and supports gay marriage

"No government has the right to tell its citizens when or whom to love."
-Rita Mae Brown, Speech, August 1982

"How stupid is it that a government decides to choose who you can love?’ It never made sense to me, actually. No one can tell you who to love, right? Really, love chooses. You don’t get to choose.”
-Kunal Nayyar, Big Bang Theory

"If you dream of a world in which you can put your partner's picture on your desk, then put her picture on your desk...and you will live in such a world. And if you dream of a world in which you can walk down the street holding your partner's hand, then hold her hands...and you will live in such a world. If you dream of a world in which there are more openly gay elected officials, then run for office...and you will live in such a world. And if you dream of a world in which you can take your partner to the office party, even if your office is the US House of Representatives, then take her to the party. I do, and now I live in such a world. Remember, there are two things that keep us oppressed --- them and us. We are half of the equation."
-Senator Tammy Baldwin

"Other people get money for being married. They get health benefits for being married. They get money for having children. When we want to be able to kiss and hold hands on the street without being beaten up, suddenly we're asking for special rights."
-Mark Fisher

"By aspiring to join the mainstream rather than figuring out the ways we need to change it, we risk loosing our gay and lesbian souls in order to gain the world."
-Urvashi Vaid

"It's time we did something to assert ourselves. After all, we do comprise 10% of the population."
-Allen Ginsberg

"It takes no compromise to give people their rights. It takes no money to respect the individual. It takes no political deal to give people freedom. It takes no survey to remove repression."
-Harvey Milk

Inspiring Quotes From the LGBTQ Community to Celebrate Pride Month
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Struggle

"Straight Americans need an education of the heart and soul. They must understand, to begin with, how it can feel to spend years denying your own deepest truths, to sit silently through classes, meals, and church services while people you love toss off remarks that brutalize your soul."
-Bruce Bawer

“It is a great injustice to persecute homosexuality as a crime, and cruelty too."
-Sigmund Freud

"It takes some intelligence and insight to figure out you're gay and then a tremendous amount of balls to live it and live it proudly."
-Jason Bateman

"I don’t know what it’s like to be picked on for being gay. But I do know what it’s like to grow up feeling that sometimes you don’t belong. It’s tough. And for a lot of kids, the sense of being alone or apart – I know can just wear on you. And when you’re teased or bullied, it can seem like somehow you brought it on yourself – for being different, or for not fitting in with everybody else. But what I want to say is this. You are not alone. You didn’t do anything wrong. You didn’t do anything to deserve being bullied. And there is a whole world waiting for you, filled with possibilities.''
-President Barack Obama

"Every gay and lesbian person who has been lucky enough to survive the turmoil of growing up is a survivor. Survivors always have an obligation to those who will face the same challenges."
-Bob Paris, Writer and Actor

"Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life. Define yourself."
-Harvey Fierstein

"Somebody, your father or mine, should have told us that not many people have ever died of love. But multitudes have perished, and are perishing every hour, and in the oddest places, for the lack of it."
-James Baldwin, Author

"The pain, the abuse, is the sand that will make your pearl."
-Tennessee Williams

Inspirational Pride Month Quotes From LGBTQ Luminaries

Celebrating Difference

"If you’re always trying to be normal, you will never know how amazing you can be."

-Maya Angelou

"Freedom means nothing, unless it means the freedom to be different."

-Marty Rubin

"Stop hiding what makes you different and learn to embrace every part of who you are!"

-Amanda Foust

"He who is authentic assumes the responsibility to be what he is, and recognizes himself free to be what he is."

-Jean Paul Sartre

"To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

"I think the reward for conformity is that everyone likes you except yourself."

-Rita Mae Brown

"The person who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd. The person who walks alone is likely to find himself in places no one has ever seen."

-Albert Einstein

Queer Women

"I'm obviously fighting for my community simply because I'm trans, and I have to do that, and I do it because that's my existence. I wake up in the morning, and that is my activism."
-MJ Rodriguez

“Just because I’m gay, it doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be able to sing at the top of my lungs all over the world and be able to achieve those dreams.”
-Hayley Kiyoko

“I am a strong, black, lesbian woman. Every single time I say it, I feel so much better.”
-Brittney Griner

“A woman and a woman together are beautiful, just as a man and a woman together are beautiful.”
-Drew Barrymore

“What I preach is: People fall in love with people, not gender, not looks, not whatever. What I’m in love with exists on almost a spiritual level.”
-Miley Cyrus

“I realize that just living my truth of what I am, there’s one less person to fight me in my own head.”
-Raven-Symoné

“I do realize the importance of having the bravery to live as who you are and I feel like a lot of people don’t have that bravery. Maybe by me opening my big fat mouth like I usually do and stepping up and owning who I am, maybe it might inspire somebody else to do the same.”
-Michelle Rodriguez

“I’m living by example by continuing on with my career and having a full, rich life, and I am incidentally gay.”
-Portia de Rossi

“I want to make sure that any young person or anyone really who is looking up to me—who sees a glimpse of I am as a person—that they see no shame, that they see pride, and that I’m truly unabashed about the person that I am.”
-Samira Wiley

“Being born gay, black and female is not a revolutionary act. Being proud to be a gay, black female is.”
-Lena Waithe

“The single best thing about coming out of the closet is that nobody can insult you by telling you what you’ve just told them.”
-Rachel Maddow

“It takes a little bit of bravery to step out, to be like, okay, I don’t look like anybody else around here. I am making the conscious decision to present myself the way I want to today.”
-Hunter Schafer

"I write for those women who do not speak, for those who do not have a voice because they were so terrified, because we are taught to respect fear more than ourselves. We've been taught that silence would save us, but it won't."
-Audre Lorde

"Find out who you are and be that person. That's what your soul was put on this Earth to be. Find that truth, live that truth and everything else will come."
-Ellen DeGeneres

"Sometimes people try to destroy you, precisely because they recognize your power - not because they don't see it, but because they see it and they don't want it to exist."
-Janet Mock

"Being optimistic is like a muscle that gets stronger with use. Makes it easier when the tough times arrive. You have to change the way you think in order to change the way you feel."
-Robin Roberts

"Sometimes when we are generous in small, barely detectable ways it can change someone else's life forever."
-Margaret Cho

"Sometimes in life you don't always feel like a winner, but that doesn't mean you're not a winner."
-Lady Gaga

"I think trans women, and trans people in general, show everyone that you can define what it means to be a man or woman on your own terms. A lot of what feminism is about is moving outside of roles and moving outside of expectations of who and what you're supposed to be to live a more authentic life."
-Laverne Cox

"To not have any hope is where things start to get really bleak. Things are possible. The impossible can be possible."
-Sarah Paulson

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"So many people are concerned with being the perfect 'something.' Whether it's the perfect singer, the perfect sexy girl, or the perfect feminist. I don't want to be the perfect anything."
-Halsey

"If you feel like there's something out there that you're supposed to be doing, if you have a passion for it, then stop wishing and just do it."
-Wanda Sykes

"I think that it’s important to remember that intelligence and confidence are two of the most beautiful attributes a person can have. But its very important to also remember that compassion, generosity, and humility are their counterparts, and without them intelligence and confidence simply become arrogance."
-Lauren Jauregui

"I will not have my life narrowed down. I will not bow down to somebody else's whim or to someone else's ignorance."
-Alice Walker

"When I use the enemy's language to hold onto my strength as a Mohawk lesbian writer, I use it as my own instrument of power in this long, long battle against racism."
-Beth Brant

"There's girls that grew up like me and even worse, and they need to know that there is someone out there that can give them hope with my music. It's about inspiring people and helping people."
-Kehlani

"For femmes, that evolving feminist thought reacquainted us with something we kind of knew already: men and women might mistake us for “just girls” when they see our makeup and fashions, but we were/are actually guerrilla warriors, fighting undercover in the war to save women from the continuing campaign to make us irrelevant fluff."
-Jewelle L. Gomez

"I'm just someone who cannot fake it. I can only do something with my full heart invested or just not do it at all."
-Amandla Stenberg

"I know it sounds new age-y, but what I've truly come up with is that you really need to trust that you're on your own path, as long as you stay true to it and you show up, which is 99% of it."
-Jane Lynch

"I'm a woman. That means I break hard. And mend like a motherfucker; all sexy and full of heartbreakingly beautiful scars."
-Staceyann Chin

Inspiring Quotes From the LGBTQ Community to Celebrate Pride Month
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Bisexual/Pansexual

"I just like a person, and I genuinely don’t care what the equipment is as long as we’re happy."
-Sam Damshenas

"I find females very attractive. I find males very attractive.
If I want to date a guy, I'll date a guy. If I want to date a girl, I'll date a girl."
-Mike Manning

"I call myself bisexual because I acknowledge that I have in myself the potential to be attracted (romantically and/or sexually) to people of more than one sex and/or gender, not necessarily at the same time, not necessarily in the same way, and not necessarily to the same degree."
-Robyn Ochs

"Personally, I think choosing between men and women is like choosing between cake and ice cream. You'd be daft not to try both when there are so many different flavors."
-Bjork

"Are you going to hold me to some outdated binary of sexuality. I'm bisexual. It's not that complicated."
-Michael Guerin, Roswell

“Whether it's men or women, it doesn't really matter. The human race is filled with passion and lust. And to coin terms like heterosexuality, homosexuality or even bisexuality makes no sense to me. You are human. You love who you love. That should be enough. No labels. No stigmas. Nothing. Just be to be.”
-Krista Ritchie, Kiss the Sky

"I do drink red wine, but I also drink white wine. And I’ve been known to sample the occasional rosé. And a couple summers back, I tried a Merlot that used to be a Chardonnay, which got a bit complicated… I like the wine and not the label."
-Dan Levy as David Rose on Schitt's Creek

Philosophical

"Homosexuality is regarded as shameful by barbarians and by those who live under despotic governments just as philosophy is regarded as shameful by them, because it is apparently not in the interest of such rulers to have great ideas engendered in their subjects, or powerful friendships or passionate love, all of which homosexuality is particularly apt to produce."
-Plato

"If God had wanted me otherwise, He would have created me otherwise."
-Johann von Goethe

"Silence kills the soul. It diminishes its possibilities to rise and fly and explore. Silence withers what makes you human. The soul shrinks, until it’s nothing."
-Marlon Riggs, Filmmaker

"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind."
-Dr. Seuss

"Do not follow where the path may lead. Go, instead, where there is no path and leave a trail."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Every time you don't follow your inner guidance, you feel a loss of energy, loss of power, a sense of spiritual deadness."
-Shakti Gawain

"Is life not a hundred times too short for us to stifle ourselves."
-Friedrich Nietzsche

"It's a helluva start, being able to recognize what makes you happy."
-Lucille Ball

Inspiring Quotes From the LGBTQ Community to Celebrate Pride Month
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Love

"I am the love that dare not speak its name."
-Lord Alfred Douglas, From poem Two Loves

“The greatest mortal gift of all is our capacity to love.”
-Josh Kiszka

"There's this illusion that homosexuals have sex and heterosexuals fall in love. That's completely untrue. Everybody wants to be loved."
-Boy George

"If you are not personally free to be yourself in that most important of all human activities - the expression of love - then life itself loses its meaning."
-Harvey Milk

"You must know that I am, of all men who were ever born, the most inclined to love persons. Whenever I behold someone who possesses any talent or displays any dexterity of mind, who can do or say something more appropriately than the rest of the world, I am compelled to fall in love with him. And then I give myself up to him so entirely that I am no longer my own property, but wholly his."
-Michelangelo

"It is that deep spiritual affection that is as pure as it is perfect. It is beautiful, it is fine, it is the noblest form of affection. There is nothing unnatural about it."
-Oscar Wilde

"I just want to be loved. Is that so wrong?"
-Harvey Fierstein

"I say that homosexuality is not just a form of sex, it’s a form of love, and it deserves our respect for that reason."
-Christopher Hitchens

"In itself, homosexuality is as limiting as heterosexuality. The ideal should be to be capable of loving a woman or a man, without feeling fear, restraint, or obligation.”
-Simone de Beauvoir

"The important thing is not the object of love, but the emotion itself."
-Gore Vidal

"What people do in their own homes is their business, and you can choose to love whoever you love."
-Jay Z

Marriage/Family

"If your Bible tells you that gay people ought not be married in your church, don't tell them they can't be married at city hall. Marriage is a civil rite as well a civil right, and we can't let religious bigotry close the door to justice to anyone."
-Julian Bond

"Protect marriage? Please. Give me a break. With a 50 percent divorce rate, rampant domestic violence, Las Vegas drive-through chapels, and I wanna-marry-a-really-rich-guy reality TV shows, there's no way gays could trash marriage the way straight people already have."
-Good Times, Santa Cruz County News

"We shouldn't just allow gay marriage. We should insist on gay marriage. We should regard it as scandalous that two people could claim to love each other and not want to sanctify their love with marriage and fidelity."
-David Brooks, New York Times

"Gay and lesbian people fall in love. We settle down. We commit our lives to one another. We raise our children. We protect them. We try to be good citizens."
-California Sen. Sheila Kuehl, After California Senate approved gay marriage bill

"The consecration of Gene Robinson as bishop of the New Hampshire Diocese of the Episcopal Church is an affront to Christians everywhere. I am just thankful that the church's founder, Henry VIII, and his wife Catherine of Aragon, and his wife Anne Boleyn, and his wife Jane Seymour, and his wife Anne of Cleves, and his wife Katherine Howard, and his wife Catherine Parr are no longer here to suffer through this assault on traditional Christian marriage."
-Owen Keavney

"Marriage should be between a spouse and a spouse, not a gender and a gender."
-Hendrik Hertzberg

"Home is where the heart is, no matter how the heart lives."
-Sally Fingerett

"He pressed his forehead against mine, clasped me around my waist, and said henceforth we were married."
-Herman Melville

"Marriage is a long, dull meal with dessert served at the beginning."
-Oscar Wilde

Discrimination

"The people who would forbid gays from marrying in the country are those who would have made Rosa Parks sit in the back of the bus."
-Jason West, Mayor of New Paltz, NY

"I fought too long and too hard to end discrimination based on race and color, to not stand up against discrimination against our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters. Human rights, civil rights, these are issues of dignity. Every human being walking this Earth, whether gay, lesbian, straight, or transgender, is entitled to the same rights. It is in keeping with America’s promise of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

-John Lewis, US Congressman

"Discrimination is discrimination no matter who the victim is, and it is always wrong. There are no special rights in America, despite the attempts by many to divide blacks and the gay community with the argument that the latter are seeking some imaginary special rights at the expense of blacks."
-Julian Bond, NAACP Board Chairman

"At the end of the day it doesn’t matter which group is most oppressed or whether they are identically oppressed, what matters is that no group be oppressed."
-Keith Boykin, President of National Black Justice Coalition

"I am in the valley of prayer on the issue of gay marriage, and I will err on the side of inclusiveness and not exclusion. I’m going to follow Jesus and say, Whosoever will, let them come. And I’m going to extend rights to all of God’s children and if I am wrong, God will have to judge me."
-Rev. Joseph Lowery, Founder of Southern Christian Leadership Conference

"I believe that no one should ever have to choose between a career we love and living our lives with authenticity and integrity"
-Selisse Berry, Out & Equal Executive Director

"I hate the word homophobia. It's not a phobia. You're not scared. You're an asshole."
-Morgan Freeman

Humor

"Bisexuality immediately doubles your chances for a date on Saturday night."
-Woody Allen

"Closets are for clothes."
-Bumper Sticker

"My mother took me to a psychiatrist when I was fifteen because she thought I was a latent homosexual. There was nothing latent about it."
-Amanda Bearse

"If homosexuality is a disease, let's all call in queer to work: Hello. Can't work today, still queer."
-Robin Tyler, Stephanie Strong

"If Michelangelo had been straight, the Sistine Chapel would have been wallpapered."
-Robin Tyler

"Did you hear about the Scottish drag queen? He wore pants."
-Lynn Lavne

"I think gay people are like blondes: There’re fewer of them but they have more fun."
-Rita Mae Brown, Writer

"Homosexuality is God’s way of insuring that the truly gifted aren’t burdened with children."
-Sam Austin, Composer and Lyricist

"You could move."
-Abigail Van Buren, "Dear Abby," In response to a reader who complained that a gay couple was moving in across the street and wanted to know what he could do to improve the quality of the neighborhood

"Outsiders develop humor as a defense. Why do you think most comedians are gay or Jewish?"
-Paul Lynde

"There are easier things in life than being a drag queen. But I ain’t got no choice. Try as I may, I just can’t walk in flats."
-Harvey Fierstein, Filmmaker

"Homophobia is the irrational fear the three fags will break into your house and redecorate it against your will."
-Tom Ammiano, Comic

"When people have asked me in the past if I’m gay, I’ve said I’m not gay, but I’m festive.”
-Sharon Gless, Actress

"I think it’s interesting that when you play a lesbian, people ask you if you’re a lesbian, but if you play a serial killer, nobody asks you if you’re a serial killer."
-Nora Dunn, Actress

"You’re kidding. You really are queer. But you’re so attractive."
-Leslie Ann Warren, Actress, from the film Victor/Victoria

"I don't mind straight people as long as they act gay in public."
-Dennis Rodman

"Homosexuality in Russia is a crime and the punishment is seven years in prison, locked up with the other men. There is a three year waiting list."
-Yakov Smirnoff

Human Rights

"When all Americans are treated as equal, no matter who they are or whom they love, we are all more free.”"
-US President Barack Obama

"All of us who are openly gay are living and writing the history of our movement. We are no more, and no less, heroic than the suffragists and abolitionists of the 19th century. And the labor organizers, Freedom Riders, Stonewall demonstrators, and environmentalists of the 20th century. We are ordinary people, living our lives, and trying as civil-rights activist Dorothy Cotton said, to fix what ain't right in our society."
-Senator Tammy Baldwin

"You cannot demand your rights, civil or otherwise, if you are unwilling to say what you are."
-Merle Miller, Writer

"Few contemporary cultures are as hostile to homosexuality as America’s is."
-Myron Brenton, Writer, The American Male

"Whenever a society wants to demonize a particular group, it prohibits them from marrying."
-California Assemblywoman Sheila Kuehl / On state governments legislating against gay marriages

"How dare you make my life a felony."
-Protest Sign at 1987 Sandra Day O’ Connor speech

"If gay and lesbian people are given civil rights, then everyone will want them!"
-Protest Sign

Everyday

"This world would be a whole lot better if we just made an effort to be less horrible to one another."
-Ellen Page

"I am reminded of a colleague who said that all my homosexual patients are quite sick, to which I finally replied, so are all my heterosexual patients."
-Ernest van den Haag, Psychotherapist

"I'm living by example by continuing on with my career and having a full, rich life, and I am incidentally gay."
-Portia DeRossi, Actress

"Being gay is natural. Hating gay is a lifestyle choice."
-John Fugelsang

"We should indeed keep calm in the face of difference, and live our lives in a state of inclusion and wonder at the diversity of humanity."
-George Takei

"I'm a supporter of gay rights. And not a closet supporter either. From the time I was a kid, I have never been able to understand attacks upon the gay community. There are so many qualities that make up a human being. By the time I get through with all the things that I really admire about people, what they do with their private parts is probably so low on the list that it is irrelevant."
-Paul Newman

Activism

"Burst down those closet doors once and for all, and stand up, and start to fight."

-Harvey Milk

"I do not have to be a woman to believe in women’s rights. I do not have to be an Asian, an African American, a Latino, or Native-American to believe in civil rights. I do not have to be gay to believe in gay, lesbian and bisexual rights. But I do have to be a human being to believe in human rights."
-Activist Saying

"We need, in every community, a group of angelic troublemakers. When an individual is protesting society's refusal to acknowledge his dignity as a human being, his very act of protest confers dignity on him."
-Bayard Rustin

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
-Martin Luther King Jr

"The torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans, born in this century, unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today."
-John F. Kennedy

"Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."
-Barry Goldwater

"If you can't raise consciousness, at least raise hell."
-Rita Mae Brown

"I became an activist to reconcile myself, and to give voice to experiences of oppression, and to resist the slow death of silence and inaction."
-Carmen Vasquez

"Real love cannot be silent in the face of injustice."
-Mel White

"Sometimes you have to speak your mind rather than mind your speech."
-Anonymous

"If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door."
-Harvey Milk

Orientation and Gender

"I don't think homosexuality is a choice. Society forces you to think it's a choice, but in fact, it's in one's nature. The choice is whether one expresses one's nature truthfully or spends the rest of one's life lying about it."
-Marlo Thomas

"There are some people in this world that believe being gay is a choice. It's not a choice, we're born this way."
-Lady Gaga

"As anyone who is gay will confirm, being that way is not something you become, it is a set of emotional and physical responses that just are."
-Lance Loud

"Only the human mind invents categories and tries to force facts into separated pigeon-holes. The living world is a continuum in each and every one of its aspects. The sooner we learn this concerning sexual behavior the sooner we shall reach a sound understanding of the realities of sex."
-Alfred Kinsey

"It’s so clearly biological, so obviously genetic. One can’t help who one is attracted to, who is sexually desirable, or who one falls in love with. If you ask a straight person, how do you know you’re straight?, their answer is usually something along the lines of I just know whom I’m attracted to. Well, duh, it works the same way for gay, lesbian, and bisexual people too. We don’t choose our sexuality, our sexuality chooses us."
-Aaron Parks

"I believe that gender is something between your ears, not between your legs."
-Chaz Bono

"I don’t think there is such a thing as a precise sexual orientation. I think we’re all ambiguous sexually."
-Tennessee Williams, Playwright

"I always have and still do consider myself queer. To me, being queer isn't who you're sleeping with. It's just an idea that sexuality isn't gender-based, that it's love-based."
-Ani DiFranco

"I desire a person, not a gender."
-Matthew Ehrlich, Writer

Allies

"If you claim to be somebody's ally, but aren't getting hit by the stones thrown at them, you aren't standing close enough."

-Stan Mitchell

"I’m about as privileged as you can get. I’m a white, male, heterosexual front man of a rock band. So the weight I feel every day is, What are you doing with that?"

-Dan Reynolds, Imagine Dragons Frontman

"I affirm that I am a friend and ally of the LGBTQ community and that I will use my voice to take a stand."

-GLAAD Allies Program

"My gay fans know that I completely love and accept them, as I do all people. I've struggled enough in my life just to be appreciated and understood. I've had to go up against all kinds of people through the years just to be myself. I think everybody should be allowed to be who they are, and to love who they love. I don't think we should be judgmental."
-Dolly Parton

"The function of freedom is to try to free someone else."

-Toni Morrison

“If you’re gay, God bless you. If you’re trans, God bless you. And if you have a problem with them, fuck you."
-Charles Barkley

Bigotry

"It is long past time to eliminate bigotry in the workplace and to ensure equal opportunity for all Americans. It is time to make clear that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans are first class citizens. They are full and welcome members of our American family and they deserve the same civil rights protections as all other Americans. It is time for us to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Such discrimination is wrong and should not be tolerated."
-Senator Tom Harkin

"While many minority groups are the target for prejudice and discrimination in our society, few persons face this hostility without the support and acceptance of their family as do many gay, lesbian, and bisexual youth."
-Virginia Uribe & Karen Harbeck

"You just can’t say lesbianism hurts women’s golf. It’s more correct to say homophobia does."
-Donna Lopiano, Executive Director of the Women’s Sports Foundation

"The mind of a bigot is like the pupil of the eye. The more light you pour on it, the more it will contract."
-Oliver Wendell Holmes, American Jurist

Civil Rights

"We are a better, stronger nation for having advanced the cause of equality."
-Senator Tammy Baldwin

"I still hear people say that I should not be talking about the rights of lesbian and gay people and I should stick to the issue of racial justice. But I hasten to remind them that Martin Luther King Jr. said, Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. I appeal to everyone who believes in Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream to make room at the table of brotherhood and sisterhood for lesbian and gay people."
-Coretta Scott King

"Homophobia is like racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in that it seeks to dehumanize a large group of people, to deny their humanity, their dignity and personhood. This sets the stage for further repression and violence that spread all too easily to victimize the next minority group."
-Coretta Scott King

"We are all tied together in a single garment of destiny. I can never be what I ought to be until you are allowed to be what you ought to be."
-Martin Luther King Jr.

"I've always felt that homophobic attitudes and policies were unjust and unworthy of a free society and must be opposed by all Americans who believe in democracy. The civil rights movement thrives on unity and inclusion, not division and exclusion. My husband's struggle parallels that of the gay rights movement."
-Coretta Scott King

"For many years now, I have been an outspoken supporter of civil and human rights for gay and lesbian people. Gays and lesbians stood up for civil rights in Montgomery, Selma, in Albany, Ga. and St. Augustine, Fla., and many other campaigns of the Civil Rights Movement. Many of these courageous men and women were fighting for my freedom at a time when they could find few voices for their own, and I salute their contributions."
-Coretta Scott King

"We have a lot more work to do in our common struggle against bigotry and discrimination. I say “common struggle” because I believe very strongly that all forms of bigotry and discrimination are equally wrong and should be opposed by right-thinking Americans everywhere. Freedom from discrimination based on sexual orientation is surely a fundamental human right in any great democracy, as much as freedom from racial, religious, gender, or ethnic discrimination."
-Coretta Scott King

"For too long, our nation has tolerated the insidious form of discrimination against this group of Americans, who have worked as hard as any other group, paid their taxes like everyone else, and yet have been denied equal protection under the law. I believe that freedom and justice cannot be parceled out in pieces to suit political convenience. My husband, Martin Luther King, Jr. said, Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. On another occasion he said, I have worked too long and hard against segregated public accommodations to end up segregating my moral concern. Justice is indivisible. Like Martin, I don’t believe you can stand for freedom for one group of people and deny it to others. The great promise of American democracy is that no group of people will be forced to suffer discrimination and injustice."
-Coretta Scott King

Religion

"Religious freedom ends when it becomes an excuse to harm other people."

-Pete Buttigieg

"From a religious point of view, if God had thought homosexuality is a sin, he would not have created gay people."
-Howard Dean

"My sexual orientation is not a sickness to be healed or a sin to be forgiven. My sexual orientation is a gift from my Creator to be accepted, celebrated, and lived with integrity."
-ChristianGay.Com

"It's funny, isn't it? You can preach a judgmental, vengeful, angry god, and nobody will mind. But, if you start preaching a god that is too accepting, too loving, too forgiving, too merciful, too kind, then you're in trouble."

-Bishop Gene Robinson

"It is never legitimate to use the words of scripture to promote a loveless agenda."
-Right Rev. Dr. Peter Short / Moderator of United Church of Canada

"The Bible contains six admonishments to homosexuals and 362 admonishments to heterosexuals. That doesn't mean that God doesn't love heterosexuals. It's just that they need more supervision."
-Lynn Lavner

People should never be the collateral damage of your theology.
-Sarah Bessey

"It took the Catholic Church 359 years to admit that they were wrong when they accused Galileo of heresy and condemned him to death, unless he recanted that the earth rotates around the sun. Since he wanted to live, he was forced to deny the truth and agree with the Church that the sun rotates around the earth, but he was still placed under house arrest until his death."

-ChristianGay.Com

"If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge? We shouldn't marginalize people for this. They must be integrated into society."

-Pope Francis

"If you're against abortion, don't get one. If you're against contraception, don't use any. If you're against same-sex relationships, don't have one. If you're against same-sex marriage, don't marry someone of the same gender. Do not impose your religious beliefs on all Americans."

-Ana Navarro-Cardenas

"The Church is powerful and has a history of pressuring society and individuals to say and believe what the Church thinks is right. They were wrong then and they are wrong now regarding homosexuality. Let's hope it doesn't take them that long this time to discover and admit their error."
-ChristianGay.Com

“Religion has been used for beautiful things, but also as a way to justify discrimination—whether it’s gender, or race, or the LGBTQ community, or what have you."
-Elliot Page

“Religion promotes the hatred and spite against gays. It turns people into really hateful lemmings and it’s not really compassionate.”
–Elton John

"The Scriptures have been misused to defend bloody crusades and inquisitions; to support slavery, apartheid, and segregation; to sanction the physical and emotional abuse of women and children; to persecute Jews and other non-Christian people of faith; to support the holocaust of Hitler's Third Reich; to oppose medical science; to condemn inter-racial marriage; to execute women as witches; to excuse the violent racism of the Ku Klux Klan; to mobilize militias, white supremacy and neo-nazi movements; and to condone intolerance and discrimination against sexual minorities. "
-Mel White, Letter to Jerry Falwell

"There is nothing in the Bible or in my own theology that would lead me to believe that God regards homosexuality as sin. God is interested in our relationships with ourselves, others, the things in our lives, and with God. There is nothing in the mind of God that could be against a loving, sexual relationship, freely entered into, without coercion, among sincere adults whether gay, bisexual or straight."
-Dr. Slayton, Baptist

"Some argue that since homosexual behavior is unnatural, it is contrary to the order of creation. Behind this pronouncement are stereotypic definitions of masculinity and femininity that reflect the rigid gender categories of patriarchal society. There is nothing unnatural about any shared love, even between two of the same gender, if that experience calls both partners into a fuller state of being. Contemporary research is uncovering new facts that are producing a rising conviction that homosexuality, far from being a sickness, sin, perversion or unnatural act, is a healthy natural, and affirming of human sexuality for some people. Findings indicate that homosexuality is a given fact in the nature of a significant portion of people, and that it is unchangeable."
-Bishop John Shelby Spong, Episcopalian

"Our sexual orientation is a given, something we discover about ourselves. Some might say it is a gift from God. How one relates to others (caring or exploiting) is the source of sin."
-Bishop Wood, Episcopalian

Culture

"Gay people are born and belong to every society in the world. They are of all ages, all races, all faiths. They are doctors and teachers, farmers and bankers, soldiers and athletes. And whether we know it, or whether we acknowledge it, they are our family, our friends, and our neighbors. Being gay is not a western invention. It is a human reality."

-Hillary Clinton

"Do you want to protect your children from gay influence? Very well. Destroy the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, silence Messiah and Swan Lake, and burn Moby Dick and The Portrait of a Lady. Gay culture is all around you. And it belongs to everybody."
-Brue Bawer

"Why is it that, as a culture, we are more comfortable seeing two men holding guns than holding hands?"
-Ernest Gaines