To­day, the U.S. Em­bassy Port of Spain raised the rain­bow Pride flag at its Queen’s Park West com­pound, to mark the start of Pride Month in Trinidad and To­ba­go, and the cel­e­bra­tion of June as LGBTQI+ Pride Month in the Unit­ed States. 

And ac­cord­ing to an of­fi­cial state­ment from the U.S. Em­bassy in Trinidad and To­ba­go, the flag will be flown all day.  

June 26 al­so marks an im­por­tant turn­ing point in the fight for LGBTQI+ rights in the Unit­ed States: it is the an­niver­sary of the his­toric Oberge­fell v. Hodges Supreme Court de­ci­sion in 2015, which ruled that the fun­da­men­tal right to mar­ry is guar­an­teed to same-sex cou­ples and is the law of the land.

“In June, Amer­i­cans cel­e­brate LGBTQI+ Pride Month by show­cas­ing out­stand­ing ex­am­ples of di­verse, in­clu­sive com­mu­ni­ties.  To­day is an his­toric day.  This is the first time we are fly­ing the Pride flag over the U.S. Em­bassy in Port of Spain.  We chose this date, June 26, as it co­in­cides both with a sig­nif­i­cant Supreme Court land­mark de­ci­sion in civ­il rights, and is of­fi­cial Flag-Rais­ing Day to mark the first week­end of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Pride Month, which runs through Ju­ly 25,” Chargé d’Af­faires Shante Moore said of the his­toric event.

He added: “Pride move­ments across the globe have made tremen­dous progress over the past 30 years.  We con­firm the ben­e­fits of rec­og­niz­ing in­di­vid­u­als’ LGBTQI+ sta­tus as an in­her­ent as­pect of one’s iden­ti­ty.  Di­ver­si­ty is strength, and the U.S. Em­bassy is proud to fly the Pride flag to­day as a pow­er­ful sym­bol in sup­port of LGBTQI+ hu­man rights, which af­firm the free­doms and as­pi­ra­tions of di­verse com­mu­ni­ties every­where.”

The Biden-Har­ris Ad­min­is­tra­tion has en­cour­aged all em­bassies and con­sulates to fly the Pride flag on the same flag­pole as the U.S. flag to demon­strate the Unit­ed States’ lead­er­ship on LGBTQI+ hu­man rights around the world. 

In his procla­ma­tion of June as LGBTQI+ Pride Month, Pres­i­dent Biden rec­og­nized the re­silience and de­ter­mi­na­tion of the many in­di­vid­u­als who are fight­ing to live freely and au­then­ti­cal­ly. 

“This Pride Month, we rec­og­nize the valu­able con­tri­bu­tions of LGBTQI+ in­di­vid­u­als across the Unit­ed States and the world, and we reaf­firm our com­mit­ment to stand­ing in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the LGBTQI+ com­mu­ni­ty in their on­go­ing strug­gle against dis­crim­i­na­tion and in­jus­tice,” said an of­fi­cial state­ment from the U.S. Em­bassy in Trinidad and To­ba­go.