Pride Without Violence: Honoring Liberation for All Beings
This Pride Month, let’s expand our circle of compassion to include non-human animals, and recognize that true liberation means leaving no one behind.
“Pride means no one gets left behind, not even the voiceless.”
June is a month of celebration, remembrance, and resistance. All over the world, LGBTQ+ communities step into the spotlight, claiming space, honoring their history, and affirming their right to love and live freely. Pride Month is not just about rainbow flags and parades. It is a declaration that love matters, that identity is sacred, and that no one should suffer for being who they are.
But June also marks another kind of observance: a surge in animal rights activism. National Animal Rights Day is commemorated on the first Sunday of June. Summer is when many cities host vegan festivals, street outreach, and education campaigns. This parallel season of advocacy invites us to consider a powerful question: Can we talk about love, liberation, and visibility without addressing the lives of those we systematically ignore, non-human animals?
The answer, increasingly, is no.
Shared Histories of Marginalization and Resistance
The LGBTQ+ movement and the vegan movement may seem, at first glance, like distinct causes. But they share deep roots. Both challenge societal norms. Both have faced ridicule, dismissal, and violence. And both are fundamentally about questioning power, who holds it, who abuses it, and who suffers under it.
Queer people have been told they are unnatural, perverse, or dangerous. So have vegans. So have animal rights advocates. To live authentically as queer or vegan often means standing against mainstream culture and refusing to play along with systems of silence and compliance.
Pride is born from resistance, from Stonewall, from the AIDS crisis, from the relentless pushback against heteronormativity and patriarchy. Veganism, too, is a form of resistance. It says no to a system that treats sentient beings as products, resources, or entertainment. It demands we see what we are taught not to see.
The Politics of the Body: Autonomy, Pleasure, and Consent
Pride Month centers the body, our right to control it, express it, and find joy in it. From drag to dance to open affection, Pride is a celebration of bodily autonomy. It also challenges the idea that pleasure must come at someone else's expense.
In this light, veganism offers a radical and joyful complement. It asks us to extend our ethic of bodily autonomy to animals, whose bodies are used, violated, and killed in systems designed solely for human pleasure. Whether it is for taste, tradition, or profit, the exploitation of animals is a violation of their right to live free from harm.
Consent is a central concept in both movements. Queer rights insist on consensual love and expression. Vegan ethics insist that no being should be forced into a life of suffering and death. If we celebrate human consent, how can we ignore the lack of it in animal agriculture, fur farming, or marine parks?
Queer Vegan Voices: Living Both Truths
Many individuals live at the intersection of queerness and veganism. For them, the connections are clear. Rubyyy Jones, a queer performance artist and activist, has spoken about how coming out as queer and embracing veganism both required unlearning societal conditioning and reclaiming autonomy and compassion.
Dominick Thompson, a prominent Black vegan athlete and advocate, often discusses how various forms of oppression are connected. He emphasizes that justice for one group should not come at the expense of another.
Still, many LGBTQ+ spaces have been slow to embrace veganism. And many vegan spaces have failed to fully welcome queer people. That is changing. More events now center inclusivity. Queer-led vegan organizations are gaining visibility. Pride festivals increasingly offer plant-based options, not just for environmental reasons but in recognition of the moral alignment between the two movements.
Joyful Resistance: What Pride and Veganism Celebrate Together
Pride is often portrayed as a celebration, and it is. But it is also protest. The same goes for veganism. When we say no to cruelty, we make space for something better. That "better" is not just about survival. It is about joy.
Both movements embrace the beauty of chosen family, radical creativity, and shared abundance. In veganism, we create new traditions, plant-based meals, compassionate holidays, ethical fashion. In queer life, we do the same. We invent rituals, build support networks, and reclaim our stories.
Together, these movements imagine a future where no one has to suffer to feel loved, seen, or nourished.
Expanding the Circle: Who Is Still Left Out?
Pride Month asks us to widen our vision. Who still lacks safety, voice, or dignity? In many cases, the answer is: animals.
Speciesism is a form of discrimination that operates quietly but powerfully. It tells us that some lives do not count because they do not look like us, talk like us, or organize into voting blocs. But animals think, feel, and form relationships. They resist captivity. They mourn their dead. They love their young.
If Pride is about honoring the diversity of love and identity, it must also recognize the rich emotional lives of animals. No being should be excluded from moral concern simply because of their species.
Overcoming Myths: “You Can’t Be Everything”
A common pushback is that people cannot fight every battle. That you can be for gay rights or animal rights, but not both. But this argument misunderstands the nature of compassion.
Caring is not a zero-sum game. The more we open our hearts, the more we see how oppression is interconnected. Patriarchy, white supremacy, heteronormativity, and speciesism are all systems that rank lives and justify domination. When we confront one, we start to see them all.
Pride Month is a perfect time to reject this false scarcity of compassion. We do not have to choose between causes. We can live a politics of love that spans species, genders, and boundaries.
A World Worth Being Proud Of
Imagine a Pride celebration free from exploitation. No leather made from baby calves. No food made from bodies who did not want to die. No rainbow-themed cosmetics tested on animals. Instead, we have vibrant plant-based food, cruelty-free glitter, sustainable fashion, and inclusive joy.
That world is possible. It is already being built by queer vegans, ethical entrepreneurs, intersectional activists, and youth who refuse to inherit a broken legacy.
Let Pride be more than a party. Let it be a portal to the world we actually want to live in.
Conclusion: Let Love Live, in All Its Forms
Pride is rooted in love. So is veganism. Both movements ask: What kind of world do we want to create? Who do we include in our circle of care?
This June, let us celebrate love without violence. Let us honor our bodies and theirs. Let us live the values we march for.
Because liberation means all beings.
Further Reading
The Queer Vegan Manifesto – various essays and online publications
Animals and Women: Feminist Theoretical Explorations by Carol J. Adams and Josephine Donovan
Sistah Vegan edited by A. Breeze Harper
The Sexual Politics of Meat by Carol J. Adams