13 Photos of Queer Joy & Celebration at White House Pride Month Event

President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden welcomed a sizeable, diverse crowd to the White House on Saturday to celebrate Pride Month and show his administration's stance on LGBTQ+ rights. The commemoration comes as a rampage of discriminatory legislation going through Republican-led statehouses directed explicitly at transgender people.

More than 1,000 guests attended a picnic and concert by popstar Betty Who on the South Lawn, including Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who is the first out LGBTQ+ member of the Cabinet, his husband Chasten, and Assistant Secretary for Health and Human Services Admiral Rachel Levine, the first out transgender person to be confirmed by the Senate.

Also among the attendees were survivors of last November’s mass shooting at the LGTBQ+ Club Q nightclub in Colorado Springs and the 2016 mass shooting at Pulse, an Orlando gay club.

Before the event scheduled for Thursday, the administration called it the biggest Pride event ever held at the White House. Officials had to postpone it due to poor air quality caused by Canadian wildfires. In conjunction with the event, Biden announced several new resources to support LGBTQ+ people across the country.

But on Saturday, in Washington, the haze that had engulfed much of the East Coast this past week had vanished, making for a warm, sunny day with low humidity and a gentle breeze for the president and first lady’s South Lawn fete.

“So today, I want to send a message to the entire community — especially to transgender children: You are loved. You are heard. You are understood. And you belong,” Biden declared to cheers on the South Lawn.

In praising the courage of LGBTQ+ Americans, the president acknowledged their struggles with discrimination and violence.

“No one should have to fear for their safety in this country,” he said, acknowledging the survivors of gun violence in the audience.

“When a person can be married in the morning but thrown out of a restaurant for being gay in the afternoon, something is still very wrong in America,” said the president.

He also said that Congress should pass the Equality Act, which amends the 1964 Civil Rights Act to include sexual orientation alongside race, religion, sex, and national origin.

A nationwide effort has been led mainly by GOP state leaders to enact legislation restricting gender-affirming healthcare and other LGBTQ+ rights.

The American Civil Liberties Union reports that at least 491 anti-LGBTQ bills were introduced across state legislatures in 2023.

According to the Human Rights Campaign, this year saw more than twice as many bills signed into law than last year, the highest on record. Bathroom regulations, the forced outings of kids, pronoun usage restrictions, drag bans, and bans on teaching about sexual orientation or gender identity are some of these draconian measures.

“When families across the country face excruciating decisions to relocate to a different state to protect their child from dangerous ant-LGTBQ laws, we have to act. We need to push back against the hundreds of callous and cynical bills introduced in states targeting transgender children, terrifying families, and criminalizing doctors and nurses,” Biden said.

“These bills and laws attack the most basic values and freedoms we have as Americans,” the president said to cheers from a crowd dressed in rainbow-colored clothing, shorts, sundresses, and even drag.

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“Captured a moment of pure joy today when Montana's Rep. Zooey Zephyr was grooving to @BettyWho's performance of "Somebody Loves You" at the @WhiteHouse #LGBTQ #Pride2023 celebration on the South Lawn this afternoon. @ZoAndBehold has moves!”

Jill Biden said the celebration was meant to “celebrate the beauty and resilience” of the LGBTQ+ community in the face of growing threats.

“We know that this year’s Pride is caught between the push and pull of progress,” she said. “Outside the gates of this house are those who want to drag our country backwards. But today, we’re not here to be strong. We’re not here to be courageous, even though, for so many of you, just coming to this event is an act of bravery.”

She added, “Today, we are here to find joy,” as the crowd cheered.

“Today, we say loud and clear — that you belong, that you are beautiful, that you are loved,” she said. “Let it remind you that you don’t have to face those battles alone. You are never alone.”

Ahead of the weekend’s event, the Biden administration announced a number of new measures across the federal government that aim to support LGBTQ+ people. The measures include a new position in the Department of Education which will engage with communities over book bans in schools.