Happy Pride Month

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I’m not gay or trans, but Pride Month is a cause of celebration for me, too.

When I look back and see all the change that's happened with LGBTQ rights, it's quite amazing and wonderful.

When I was growing up, there were virtually no gay or lesbian people who were not closeted. Sure, there were rumors about some, but there was so much stigma they were talked about in whispers or mocking tones.

Closets crumbled as leaders stood up and many individuals stopped hiding who they were.

On the ninth anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall uprising (which many see as sparking the gay rights movement), Harvey Milk spoke out against prejudice and smears and for openness and fighting for the power to change policies. Milk, one of the first openly gay elected officials in the U.S., held a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. He told the crowd he wanted to recruit them "for the fight to preserve your democracy from" anti-gay figures who were "trying to constitutionalize bigotry." Milk also spoke to our best vision of America, as epitomizing freedom and inalienable rights, and called on President Jimmy Carter to speak out against prejudiced laws.

Milk challenged the calumnies, still being told today, linking gay people to child molestation, noting that nearly all molesters are straight. Milk proclaimed "Don't distort the Bible to hide your own sins. Don't change facts to lies. Don't look for cheap political advantage in playing upon people's fears!"

Even more, Milk called for personal action, for gay men and lesbians to come out to their parents, relatives, friends, neighbors and "to the people who work where you eat and shop. Come out only to the people you know, and who know you." This, Milk said, would "break down the myths, destroy the lies and distortions."

And though, because he was assassinated less than six months later, Milk did not see the sweep of social change we’ve had on LGBTQ rights, he was right. Coming out made a huge difference, as straight people learned that there were people they knew and, in many cases loved, who were not heterosexual.

The movement also organized, elected more openly LGBTQ people and straight people who backed equal rights, brought lawsuits, put out ballot measures and passed laws.

We can measure change by what happened with marriage. In my youth, the notion that laws would later allow same-sex couples to marry seemed fantastical. The first time a Gallup poll asked about it was 1996. Back then, only 27 percent thought such marriages "should be valid," while 68 percent said they should not. Last year, those figures were almost reversed, with 71 percent supporting marriage equality and 28 percent opposing.

One of my best friends in the world was able to get married after her state changed its laws in 2012. She's a professor and her wife, who's a rabbi, have two smart, accomplished, well-adjusted grown children. Long ago I asked her when she first knew she was a lesbian. She said she always did. Her life and mine are richer because she has a beautiful, loving family and lives — nay, thrives — without hiding or repressing who she is.

Still, some oppose what happened and may seek to reverse it. While Maine is a pro-rights state, in a recent tweet, the vice chair of the Maine GOP opined that LGBTQ people used to get "the help they needed" for what was considered their "mental disorder[s]" and the party's platform still rejects same-sex marriage. Some are boosting libels against LGBTQ people and trying to take books with LGBTQ characters and themes from school libraries. Pride displays in stores and statements from sports teams and companies have been met by backlash, even violence.

But, when I see the extensive change in attitudes and lives lived, it's clear the closet door has not only only swung open but that LGBTQ people are never going back in, and other people overwhelmingly don't want that either. And for that I feel proud.

Amy Fried has written about the media and politics, women in politics, Maine and American political culture, and political activism, and works to create change through the Rising Tide Center. A political... More by Amy Fried, Opinion columnist