This Pride Month, let’s remember that LGBTQIA+ rights are workers’ rights. Both movements are rooted in shared struggles for dignity, equity, and justice.

LGBTQIA+ people have been and are a critical part of the labor movement. In fact, some labor unions were among the first big groups to support LGBTQIA+ rights. And many LGBTQIA+ activists have also fought for workers’ rights.

Here are a few:

Harvey Milk helped the Teamsters organize a boycott of Coors beer products in protest of their discriminatory practices. As a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Milk sponsored a bill banning discrimination based on sexual orientation in employment, housing, and public accommodations.

Bayard Rustin, a gay black man, was a political activist for civil rights, nonviolence, socialism, and gay rights. As an advisor to Martin Luther King, Jr., he helped organize the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963. Rustin founded and became director of the Philip Randolph Institute, which coordinated the AFL-CIO’s work on civil rights and economic justice.

Sylvia Rivera was a transgender woman who fought for both LGBTQIA+ rights and better treatment for poor people and workers. In the 1970s, she fought for the Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act in New York, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in employment, housing, public accommodations, and education.

We at GSD believe that everyone deserves to feel safe and respected on the job, and paid fairly for their work, no matter who they are or who they love.