FDNY Members From the LGBTQ Community Celebrate Department’s First Ever Pride Celebration
June 13, 2016
FDNY members from the LGBTQ community celebrated the Department’s first ever Pride Celebration at the New York City Fire Museum on June 13.
“LGBTQ people often seek out community because it can be difficult to feel out of place in a world where your identity is not always accepted, appreciated, or respected,” said FDNY LGBTQ Outreach Coordinator, Firefighter Brooke Guinan. “It is a joy that the Fire Department of the City of New York can add its voice to the idea that we are stronger, happier, and better off when we learn to embrace all people for who they are and the diversity that they contribute to our society.”
One day before the event, a mass shooting in an Orlando, FL nightclub took the lives of 49 members of the LGBTQ community. The horrific loss of so many innocent lives just 24 hours earlier was fresh on the minds of all in attendance.
"We have witnessed this kind of hate before, including when our city was attacked 15 years ago. For those of us in the FDNY, we lost many good friends and colleagues that day. And while the goal of the haters is to stop us from celebrating who we are and what we believe, that’s not going to happen. It didn’t happen 15 years ago, and it won’t happen now,” said Fire Commissioner Daniel A. Nigro. “We respect the rights of all people to be who they are – and we celebrate all that that means, including diversity in race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation and gender identity."
Get More Photos From The Pride Celebration
“This Pride Celebration serves as a milestone for the FDNY and we hope that it serves as an example to the City and world that love and support always win out in the end,” added Firefighter Guinan.
At the event, the Department paid tribute to several individuals whose work has benefited the Department and LGBTQ New Yorkers. Awards were presented to FDNY Deputy Assistant Chief Lillian Bonsignore, Chief of EMS Training; the Marble Collegiate Church, a diverse, inclusive church in Manhattan; and Tanya Koifman, the clinical social worker at Harvey Milk High School in Manhattan.
“For 25 years I have thoroughly enjoyed a profession that is based on caring for others,” said Chief Bonsignore. “FDNY has provided an environment where I am the one that is cared for, accepted and appreciated for exactly who I am. I am grateful to be a part of such an amazing Department and will always appreciate the opportunities that I have been given.”
In October, 2015, FDNY debuted its first ever “It Gets Better” video, in support of the It Gets Better Project. The Project's mission is to communicate to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning youth around the world that life gets better, and to create and inspire the changes needed to improve quality of life for them. In the FDNY-produced video, twelve active FDNY Firefighters, Paramedics, and EMTs discuss the challenges they faced throughout their lives and the success they have found both as adults, and as members of New York’s Bravest. Several of the participants in the video were in attendance at the pride celebration.
Watch the FDNY’s It Gets Better video here.
“Every day, we are becoming a stronger organization through our improved diversity which includes the growing number of LGBTQ Firefighters, EMT’s, Paramedics and civilians in the FDNY,” said Commissioner Nigro.