The LGBT community celebrates Pride Month every year in the month of June. It is observed to recognise the struggles and discrimination faced by the LGBTQAI+ community and to bring positive changes in society. Colourful uplifting parades with floats and celebrities, joyous festivals, workshops, picnics, and parties are among the principal components of LGBTQ Pride Month, also called Gay Pride, which is celebrated in June around the world.
We strongly believe that the focus on inclusivity and diversity in Web3 should not be just for one month, so we want to try something different with how Web3 looks at Pride Month!
First, let’s learn a little about the origins of Pride Month.
Why is it celebrated in the month of June?
The event that catalysed the LGBTQ rights movement happened in June 1969 in New York City’s Greenwich Village, at the Stonewall Inn. In the early morning hours of June 28, police raided this popular gathering place for young members of the LGBTQ community—arresting the employees for selling liquor without a license, roughing up many of the patrons, and clearing the bar.
Outside, the crowd that watched the bar’s patrons being herded into police vans became enraged. Before long some 400 people were rioting. Although police reinforcements dispersed the crowd, riots waxed and waned outside the bar for the next five days, these Stonewall riots (also called the Stonewall uprising) provided the spark that ignited the LGBTQ rights movement in the United States.
The meaning behind the Pride/Rainbow flag 🏳️🌈
The pride flag, which has become the universal symbol of the LGBTQ+ movement, wasn’t in use before 1978 when late artist and gay rights activist Gilbert Baker designed and hand-sewed it. Baker may have thought of the vibrancy of a rainbow but he also thought of meanings behind every strip of the colour – hot pink represented sex, red for life, orange for healing, yellow for sunlight, green for nature, turquoise for magic, blue for harmony, and violet for spirit. Turquoise and pink colours were dropped from the then-eight colour flag since they were hard to find at the time for mass production. The flag has since retained six colours.
How are CommunityBuild and Web3 celebrating Pride Month?
CommunityBuild helps incredible Web3 founders and teams with full-stack community building, growth and management, focusing on building ownership-driven communities through our vibrant community of incredibly talented individuals from all over the world.
Communitybuild believes it's time to build Web3 communities that are inclusive, and democratic and give ownership of the project to the community. It is our understanding that Web3 and LGBTQIA+ community go through many shared experiences and similar challenges. We have utilised this year's Pride Month to learn more about the struggles faced by the LGBTQIA+ community and to highlight some of the amazing work done by the LGBTQIA+ community in Web3.
Here are some of the inspiring projects that we were lucky to experience and feature on our page:
- Queer Rise NFT – Queer Rise is a queer-led NFT project with an awe-inspiring collection of 10,000 hand-drawn NFTs representing queer culture. Their roadmap includes events and experiences for NFT holders including the opening of Queer Rise Bar, which aims to provide the metaverse experience of a Queer club. A portion of proceeds from sales will also support organisations such as wayOUT, and OutRight Action International.
2. Bit Baddies NFT - Bit Baddies is a collection of 5000 Baddie NFTs and is the first female and LGBTQ+ project on Solana. The project was created with inspiration from drag culture to highlight the beauty of feminine traits in NFT projects at a time when male traits dominated the Solana NFT space. They aim to empower female, queer, and diverse artists, and donate a portion of their funds to organizations such as OutRight and Little Pink Houses of Hope
3. Queer Friends NFT - Queer Friends NFT is a Queer and Women-led NFT collection celebrating the beautiful queerness in all of us. Their mission is to to amplify the voices of women, gender queer and LGBTQ+ friends and provide them with community, education, representation, and opportunity in web3. They will also be donating a portion of proceeds to LGBTIQ non-profit partners, and reinvesting a portion in women, non-binary, and LGBTQ+ led NFT projects.
We want to continue to feature projects we love in our blog and on our thread here, so keep an eye out on this blog and send us cool Diverse and Inclusive projects we should include in our thread and blog to hello@communitybuild.xyz or DM us on Twitter <3
About CommunityBuild
CommunityBuild helps incredible Web3 founders and teams with full-stack community building, growth and management, focusing on building ownership-driven communities through our vibrant community of incredibly talented individuals from all over the world. CommunityBuild team members have worked with pioneering projects across NFTs, Metaverses and DeFi like eDAO, Tanukiverse, Hydrastarter and blockchains like Polygon.