June is Pride Month, an annual celebration and awareness campaign that raises awareness of LGBTQ+ communities and celebrates diversity. In Abingdon, the occasion is being marked in a variety of ways. The County Hall Museum and Abingdon School are both flying the Progress Pride Flag.
In Abingdon, several organisations and businesses are also marking the month in their own way. At Mostly Books, a display of books highlights the diversity of LGBTQ+ voices and experiences.
At Helen & Douglas House, dresses arranged in rainbow colours are displayed alongside Pride flags and bunting.
The British Heart Foundation has brought together rainbow-coloured donations that staff have been saving, creating a colourful themed display.
Later this month, Abingdon Drama Club will present Things I Know to Be True, a family drama that explores how people respond when long-held assumptions about home, family and identity are challenged. Each of the siblings faces a personal crisis, including one who is transitioning from male to female.
And before all that, there was the rainbow in a stained-glass window at St Helen’s Church. It appears in the story of Noah, where God sets the rainbow in the sky as a sign of a covenant after the flood.
A rainbow contains a spectrum of colours that can be divided into seven, twenty-four, three hundred and sixty, or infinitely many shades. Whether or not diversity was what the biblical writer had in mind, the rainbow has remained a symbol for millennia, taking on new meanings for different generations.
