Pride marches are born of two thoughts that can be perceived as both complimentary and contradictory: Political action and community celebration.

Pride Month is in June because the Stonewall Riots, and follow-up Stonewall Uprising Gay Liberation Movement, began on June 28th, 1969. The LGBTQ community was born in a political act — riots often being the language of the unheard.

As we made political gains, Pride Parades and Festivals became not only the political act of demanding more freedom from further oppression and inequality, but also celebration of the gains we as a broad community have already made, and just a celebration of the simple joy found in the freedom to be our full, three-dimensional selves.

So we have now the somewhat contradictory experience of LGBT and LGBTQ Pride events being both political events and wild parties.

Pride Parades and Festivals have become more and more commercialized over the years, we, as a broad community, have become significantly separated from the roots from which Pride Parades, Festivals, and celebrations grew — the Stonewall Riots and Uprising.

The trans civil rights movement is in many ways a good 25 or 30 years behind the LGB & Q portions of civil rights movement — that being civil rights gains based on sexual orientation, but not being fully inclusive of gender identity based civil rights — which is one reason why trans marches and rallies are still more political and less commercialized than LGBT and LGBTQ pride events.

And, of course, commercializing trans events hasn’t really occurred as yet because it’s still a difficult thing for businesses to commercialize trans community — for example, when has one seen a television commercial by a corporate entity that embraces a fully positive portrayal of a trans person?

We’ve a long way to go to full equality for trans people. Fighting oppression is a function of minority population activism, and you’re going to see that reflected for many years to come at Trans Pride related events.

And too, you’re going to see that militant oppression fighting in how Trans Pride events are named: the political nature of trans events is found in the difference of how many Pride events for trans community are billed as Trans Marches instead of Trans Pride Parades — there’s a bit more militancy expressed in the term march.