Whether you’re an ally or a member of the LGBTQ+ community, Pride Month is a time to throw on your best ridiculously sparkly outfit, dance, sing, and celebrate everything that LGBTQ+ people have contributed to society and history.
So, if you’re interested in fun and alternative ways to celebrate, here are some of our suggestions for how to celebrate Pride Month. From fabulous Pride activities to colourful Pride cards that you can send to those that are queer and dear to you, discover lots of fun and alternative ways to enjoy this month-long celebration.
And remember: even if you don’t end the day drunk, sunburnt, and covered in body glitter and rainbow paint, Pride is Pride nonetheless.
What is Pride Month?
Pride is a month to celebrate lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people, including intersex, non-binary, and asexual or aromantic people, and everyone under the LGBTQ umbrella.
Pride Month promotes equality and visibility of LGBTQ people, celebrates diversity, and helps to create a community and safe space for people to celebrate who they are. Large parades, parties, and events to celebrate Pride often take place in cities across the world.
When is Pride Month?
Pride Month takes place in June, in honour of the 1969 Stonewall Riots in New York. When police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in Greenwich Village on June 28th 1969, it triggered riots against police brutality and brought the lack of LGBTQ+ rights into the spotlight for the first time, catalysing the gay rights movement both in the US and worldwide. Pride Month has been celebrated in June ever since 1970.
1. Learn about LGBTQ+ history
Pride is great fun – there’s rainbows, there’s music, there’s tons of partying and there is lots and lots of glitter. But Pride is more than a party – after all, it started out as a riot, and people across the world are still fighting for their rights. So, why not take some time this Pride month to learn a little bit more about LGBTQ+ history?
Slot some learning into your commute with a podcast (we love Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness (of Queer Eye fame) and A Gay and a Nongay). Or add some informative content to your evening scroll by following some awesome informational Instagram accounts like LGBT History, them, or Pink News.
2. Send a Pride card a to friend
Here at thortful, we have a huge range of wonderful and rainbow-filled Pride cards, perfect for sending a smile in the post to a friend, partner, or to your mums or dads. Here is a sneak peak at the cards from our independent card creators that will be sure to bring a smile to their face thanks to their cute and colourful designs and heartfelt words!
Maybe you want to go above and beyond? Well, if you’re after a little something extra to go along with your card, we’ve got a whole blog full of the most sickening drag race gifts that would be perfect for the RuPaul superfan in your life.
3. Attend a Pride Parade
Perhaps one of the most popular Pride Month activities is attending a Pride Parade! Whichever parade you go to, you’ll end up being surrounded by huge crowds of LGBTQ+ people and their allies. Essentially, it’s just a massive party celebrating everything there is to love and appreciate about being queer.
Alternatively, if you can’t make any of the parades near you, you can still support your local LGBTQ+ drag queens and music artists in your community by seeing if you can go watch another one of their upcoming events elsewhere.
4. Read LGBTQ+ books
As the queens of RuPaul’s Drag Race would remind you, reading is fundamental! So make some time this month to read books by queer authors. Goodreads has a great list of LGBTQ+ books to choose from, but we’ve listed a couple of our favourites – from important classics to fun young adult novels.
- The Colour Purple, by Alice Walker
- One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston
- What It Feels Like For a Girl by Paris Lees
- We Have Always Been Here by Samra Habib
- Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, by Benjamin Alire Saenz
- Queer, There, and Everywhere: 23 People Who Changed the World by Sarah Prager
- Tomorrow Will Be Different, by Sarah McBride
- We Are Everywhere by Matthew Riemer and Leighton Brown
Whether you buy from your local LGBTQ bookshop, borrow books from the library, or listen to audiobooks, June is the perfect time to expand your horizons with some Pride-friendly reading.
5. Have a get-together with some Pride activities
Even if you can’t attend a Pride parade, this doesn’t mean you can’t celebrate. Get some friends together over to your house, and try some of these fun Pride activities to get going. And why not throw together a couple of our top summer cocktails to sip on during the festivities?
Play an LGBTQ+ trivia game
Throw down the gauntlet, and challenge your friends with some Pride-themed trivia questions. Here are some ideas for Pride quiz questions to get you started!
Q: In what year was the first same-sex marriage performed in the UK?
A: 2014
Q: Which British soap aired the first pre-watershed lesbian kiss in 1994?
A: Brookside
Q: What were the colours of the first Pride flag?
A: Pink, red, orange, yellow, green, turquoise, indigo, and violet
Q: Who was the first winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race, who later returned for season 3 of Drag Race: All Stars?
A: Bebe Zahara Benet
Q: Which bisexual activist is known as the ‘Mother of Pride’ for her work in organising the first Pride march in 1970?
A: Brenda Howard
Lip sync for your life to some classic Pride tracks
Get your favourite Pride playlist on and blast the classics from Elton John to Lady Gaga so that you can have your very own lip-sync-off with friends, as inspired by the queens of Drag Race.
Maybe you don’t have a go-to lip sync song already picked out? Not to worry, below are some lip sync songs that are guaranteed to result in an iconic performance.
- Milkshake – Kelis
- It’s Raining Men – The Weather Girls
- Physical – Dua Lipa
- Black Velvet – Alannah Myles
- Sorry Not Sorry – Demi Lovato
- Pound The Alarm – Nicki Minaj
Plan a Pride movie night
If you’d rather keep things low-key, you could keep things more casual by inviting some friends around for a film night – or use an extension like Netflix Party to plan a virtual movie night with some Pride-appropriate films. There’s a truly vast amount of great LGBTQ+ films out there, and we’ve picked a couple of light and fun suggestions to get your movie night going!
- Love, Simon (2017)
- Paris is Burning (1990)
- Carol (2015)
- The Birdcage (1996)
- But I’m a Cheerleader! (1999)
- Pride (2014)
- The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994)
- Red, White & Royal Blue (2023)
Of course, not everyone is a movie buff, and if you’d prefer to binge-watch a series, below are some essential LGBTQ+ TV shows to add to your watchlist.
- Heartstopper
- It’s a Sin
- Elite
- Glee
- Modern Family
- RuPaul’s Drag Race
- The L Word
- Will & Grace
Get creative with some Pride-themed arts and crafts
Another way to get into the spirit of Pride, especially if you’re wanting to get the kids involved, is with some arts and crafts. So, we’ve gone ahead and saved you the job of searching around by rounding up some great options for Pride-themed arts and crafts projects we’ve come across online for both adults and kids:
- Artbar have instructions on how you can make your very own mini rainbow garland
- Carla Schauer Studio has written a whole blog on everything you need to know about making some colourful painted Pride rocks
- For something more complex, HobbyCraft has all the information on how to make a crochet rainbow cushion
- Over on The Neon Tea Party blog, you can find a handy step-by-step guide for candy stripe (aka rainbow) friendship bracelets
6. Donate to local LGBTQ+ organisations
Pride is a time for LGBTQ+ communities to celebrate with rainbows and music (and really good outfits), but it’s also a time to reflect on the work that still needs to happen. There are lots of great charities supporting LGBTQ people and causes – so find out about the work that British LGBTQ+ organisations are doing and donate money, or find out if there are local charities or community organisations that could use some volunteers.
Hopefully these Pride ideas will help you make this year’s celebrations extra special and as sparkly as possible. For some more celebratory ideas, check out the rest of the thortful blog where you can find guides on everything from how to make a flower garland all the way to tips for organising the very best garden party.
