It’s been a rough month for LGBT, so I want to talk about what we can celebrate.

On this day last year, the United States Supreme Court ruled that banning same-sex marriages at the state level was unconstitutional. A month before that, Ireland (where I live) became the first country in the world to legalise same-sex marriages by popular vote. The excitement in response to these events was a fantastic atmosphere, and I was in the middle of both of them. They weren’t perfect - the campaign for trans recognition goes on, and I’m not sure kink (I talked about the place kink has in Pride a couple of years ago) will ever reach the same kind of mainstream acceptance that being gay will, but nonetheless, it was a landmark. The slogan of the day was “Love wins”.

Love.

The LGBT community and related Pride participants are an extraordinarily diverse group of people. The main thing that unites most of it is that who or how we love is unusual (I’m simplifying), and all we want is to not be shamed for it. It’s love that defines us, and I think that’s pretty powerful. Every year, millions of people from all walks of life around the world (not all in June) take to the streets, to celebrate love in all its forms, in peace.

Peace.

I think we all want some of that right now. Tuesday will be the 47th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, which set the modern Pride movement in motion. It was an act of violence in response to a police raid. But since then, throughout all the anger, the infighting (and there has been a lot), and against all the hatred, the LGBT movement has been… pretty peaceful. I can’t confidently claim it’s been 100%, but peace seems to be something we think highly of. And that’s pretty great.

Love, and peace. I think that’s worth celebrating.