Covering the LGBTQ+ Community and Pride Events Amid a Spate of Anti-LGBTQ+ Laws
As Pride month commences amidst the backdrop of a rising tide of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, journalists face the crucial task of effectively covering Pride celebrations and the LGBTQ+ community. This year, more than 450 anti-LGBTQ+ bills are in consideration across the United States, including laws that criminalize Pride events or parts of Pride events. To fulfill their responsibility to shape public opinion accurately, journalists must approach their coverage with care, sensitivity, and an understanding of the broader context.
“We want to make sure that we can turn queer kids into queer adults,” said St. Petersburg Pride organizer Dr. Byron Green-Calisch, “… We know that representation plays a massive part in increasing feelings of satisfaction and decreasing depression in youth. So (we are) providing spaces for youth to come and see queer adults, and the simple fact that ‘it gets better.’”
Journalists need to determine their coverage goals, considering their location and the specific challenges faced by the LGBTQ+ community in that region. Merely documenting celebrations may be appropriate in some areas, but in states like Florida, where discriminatory laws have been enacted, journalists should adopt a more ambitious approach.
“In some places, it might be to document a celebration with citizens in our community,” said Kelly McBride, chair of the Craig Newmark Center for Ethics and Leadership at Poynter, also located in St. Petersburg, Florida. “That would be a perfectly legitimate reason. But we’re here in Florida, and I would say that you probably want to be a little more ambitious than that.”
Instead of presenting a false equivalency by giving equal weight to both sides of the debate, journalists must recognize the enormous gap between the LGBTQ+ community’s struggle for dignity and equality and the state's attempts to suppress LGBTQ+ rights.
“Just because something has been politicized does not make it political,” Dr. Green-Calisch said. “I think it’s a very, very important note to say that we’re talking about people’s existence right now.”
Journalists must also delve into the history of Pride events and understand their significance. The first Pride event was born out of a riot led by Black and brown trans women at the Stonewall Inn in 1969, symbolizing a fight for civil and human rights. Today, Pride encompasses both celebration and protest.
“There has been increasingly a transition into really embodying what Pride was originally intended to be, which is a protest,” said Max Fenning, president of PRISM, a nonprofit for LGBTQ+ youth in South Florida. “So that’s a big part of it; we show up to these more fiery than we did in the past.”
Journalists should also take care to use precise language and avoid conflation when covering anti-LGBTQ+ laws. These laws deliberately target specific aspects of the LGBTQ+ community, such as drag performers and trans people.
“This is a really good time to press the absurdity of those laws and to take the opportunity to do some explanatory journalism about how those laws are even going to work and who can be prosecuted because they’re different in different states,” McBride said. “You don’t have to put your own viewpoint in, but you definitely shouldn’t shy away from leaning into the controversy in a way that educates the public without inflaming the situation.”
Photojournalists play a vital role in accurately representing Pride events. Rather than focusing solely on provocative images that may misrepresent the community, photographers should select visuals that capture the diverse and inclusive nature of the crowd.
“I get that those photographs are sometimes the most interesting … (but) they are not necessarily representative of the community,” McBride said. “Go back to: What’s your purpose? Are you trying to make the gay community look as weird as possible? Especially in Florida, right? I feel like it’s mostly moms and their kids, but you don’t often see that in the photographs.”
In places like Florida, which has taken a sharp anti-LGBTQ+ turn in the last few years, the heightened risk of violence at Pride events is a real issue journalists must consider. Newsrooms and journalists should develop contingency plans to cover potential outbreaks. Threats and intimidation tactics by white nationalist organizations and armed protesters targeting drag events and Pride celebrations are a concerning reality—especially in places like Florida, which now allows citizens to carry concealed handguns without a permit. Journalists need to be prepared to report on any incidents while prioritizing the safety of those involved. Having a well-thought-out strategy in place enables newsrooms to respond effectively and responsibly.
Queer journalists are uniquely positioned to report on Pride and LGBTQ+ rights, despite some believing they are “too close” to the issue. Dismissing their perspectives as biased undermines the crucial role they play in accurately documenting the experiences of their community.
“It would be horrific to suggest that because you’re queer, you have a bias that prevents you from adequately documenting what’s going on in your community. That would be ridiculous,” said McBride. “I think that anything where you have a marginalized community, you want to have voices from that marginalized community informing how you cover them, because otherwise, you’re defaulting to a point of view that is reflective of the power structure, and you’re not even realizing it.”
Finally, journalists need to understand that queer joy is “an act of resistance in itself,” as stated by Dr. Green-Calisch.
“There is something so powerful about seeing your community reflected in full force and showings of joy and showings of power,” Fenning said. “Being able to see that as a young person, being able to see people that have lived experiences not too dissimilar from your own, (who) are able to just exhibit this pure joy, this oftentimes despite the odds, is really, really, really impactful for a lot of young people.”
Pride month highlights both the progress and the challenges that the LGBTQ+ community continues to face. With a heightened amount of stress in recent years, these celebrations—and how journalists talk about them–have the capability to create more safety and more progress for the communities themselves.
