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SARASOTA – Sarasota will proclaim on Monday that it recognizes June as Pride Month.
That’ll be the first time in the city’s over 100-year history that it advocates for rights of LGBTQ+ residents.
According to the Herald-Tribune, the city has issued numerous laws protecting the LGBTQ+ community but had yet to officially recognize June as Pride Month.
Sarasota residents voted overwhelmingly in 2003 to add sexual orientation as a protected class to the city’s charter.
In 2015, the city’s first openly gay commissioner Ken Shelin lobbied to include transgender people as a protected class.
Project Pride SRQ says this makes the community “feel seen, supported and welcomed in the city of Sarasota. The visibility the city is showing us is authentic.”
