It's a good time to remember that Pride started with struggle: the Stonewall Rebellion that began June 28, 1969, which ushered in decades of protest to support LGBTQ+ people's basic human rights. With last week's twin Supreme Court decisions, strengthening gun rights and curtailing reproductive freedoms, Pride month and all the Pride parades taking place through the summer remind us of the necessity of making our voices heard if we are to preserve the rights so many fought for.

To that end, stay tuned for announcements of fall events sponsored by the Jack W. Peltason Center for the Study of Democracy in the School of Social Sciences exploring the future of American democracy, the politics of the Supreme Court, reproductive rights and the right to bodily autonomy and privacy, and the fall 2022 elections.

As for Pride Month, let's keep hope alive, celebrate community, remember trailblazers who made sacrifices for the freedoms we as LGBTQ+ people now enjoy, and honor our supporters, allies and the families we are born into as well as the families we choose. To celebrate - we offer a roundup of recent research from faculty and grad students in the School of Social Sciences. With work on the physical and mental harms of hiding one's identity, to the diversity and complexity of gender and sexuality, in cross-cultural and comparative perspective, and even in the workings of the language we use every day, UCI social scientists are setting the scholarly agenda and mapping out the terrain of struggle, past, present and future. Happy Pride!

-Bill Maurer, Dean, School of Social Sciences

Read more:

• Commemorating the Stonewall Riots, Bill Maurer, Professor of Anthropology and Law; Dean, School of Social Sciences
• From the closet to the spotlight, LGBTQ+ life isn't easy on our health, Sara Mednick, Professor, Cognitive Sciences
• Why English might let go of "he" and "she", Tom Boellstorff, Professor, Anthropology
• Does everyone 'have' a gender?, Canton Winer, Graduate Student, Sociology
• From friendship to a study of masculinity, love and body image, Sandy Wenger, Graduate Student, Anthropology