Celebrating LGBTQ+ Pride Month 2025

This year, the Washington, DC-based Capital Pride Alliance hosted the 50^th annual LGBTQ+ Pride Month celebration in our nation’s capital, with their international WorldPride event organized around the theme, “The Fabric of Freedom.” According to Capital Pride Alliance Executive Director Ryan Bos, “Individual strings woven together as flags, clothing, armbands or patches, strengthen the fabric, and like our community, we are stronger together.” Echoing this metaphor of fabric, the Human Rights Campaign’s 2025 Pride Month theme is “These Colors Don’t Run.” “The Pride flag is more than fabric; it carries the weight of generations who refused to be erased and the fire of those still rising,” says Human Rights Campaign Executive Director Kelley Robinson.

The evolution of the literal fabric of the Pride flag over the past decade reflects the metaphorical fabric of the LGBTQ+ community, and how individual persons have grown to understand their identities and differences relative to social, political, cultural and professional contexts. The original seven-colored rainbow flag originated in San Francisco in the late 1970s and became a cultural touchpoint into the 21^st century. In 2017, the Philadelphia City Council added brown and black stripes to the Pride flag to include the contributions of communities of color to the LGBTQ+ movement. Then, in 2020, artist Daniel Quasar added white, pink and light blue stripes to represent the Trans community, combining these colors into a chevron with black and brown to create the Progress Pride Flag. To learn more about these fabrics of the LGBTQ+ community, please read the Human Rights Campaign’s extensive history on LGBTQ+ and sexual orientation flags.

This Pride Month, we urge our community to consider that the fabric that envelops the LGBTQ+ community is also interwoven with their allies who do not identify directly as LGBTQ+. The fabric truly is stronger when individuals see their circumstances and aspirations as woven together. The following list are a few examples of contemporary sociocultural issues espoused by the LGBTQ+ community, with far-reaching implications that promote equity for all.

• Gender-inclusive restrooms are often ADA accessible and contain baby changing tables, providing a more dedicated, safer space for people with disabilities and parents with young children. Please click here to view UC Irvine’s list of gender-inclusive restrooms, which includes annotations on ADA accessibility.
• Gender affirming care is a broad category of both life-saving and elective health care practices and procedures for patients of all gender identities and ages, including but not limited to: hormone therapy (e.g. testosterone replacement), cosmetic surgery (e.g. jawline contouring, face lift), reconstruction (e.g. breast/penile reconstruction following cancer treatment) and implants (e.g. lip, calf).
• Policies about power of attorney, marriage, custody and other family laws offer expansive definitions of family ties that benefit same sex partners, and can also offer crucial examples to follow for other policies that can positively benefit inter-generational families, blended families, families separated by active military deployment, and other non-traditional domestic arrangements where caretaking is performed beyond formal titles and blood relationships.
• Gender pronouns, particularly when used in asynchronous or text media (e.g. email signatures, social media bios), can be helpful in educating others about the linguistic and cultural significance of one’s name. We encourage all UC Irvine affiliates to use NameCoach to add a brief link to your email signature that can include your gender pronouns, an audio recording of your name pronunciation and the story of your name.

We hope this short list of examples can provide a new perspective on how integrated our lives and well-being are across communities. As you consider the impact of LGBTQ+ communities in your professional field, please look to the following resources to help draw connections between your own role, aspirations and identity.

• UC Irvine LGBT Resource Center
• UC Irvine Libraries: LGBTQ+ Pride Research Guide
• GLMA – Health Professionals Advancing LGBTQ+ Health Equity
• AMA Catalog of Topics: LGBTQ+ Population Care