It’s Pride Month! Throughout June, HollywoodLife is celebrating with The Sound Of Pride, where celebs and stars of the LBGTQ+ community pick songs for the ultimate 2023 Pride Month playlist. It’s the perfect soundtrack to planning your Pride party, researching how to protect LGBTQ+ rights, or reading about the history of Pride Month. Helping us kick the 2023 installment of the series off is Margaret Cho, beloved comedian, commentator, and 2023 LA Pride Parade’s Icon Grand Marshal.
Margaret Cho keeps it short and straightforward when asked if she has a Pride 2023 message. “Fight for queer rights,” the comedy icon tells HollywoodLife, along with her picks for The Sound of Pride. As Margaret explained to Today’s Alexander Kacala in 2021, she’s been surrounded by queerness for most of her life, ever since her parents bought a bookstore in San Francisco’s gay neighborhood, the Castro District, in 1978. Margaret, who identifies as bisexual/pansexual, says being surrounded by “drag queens, go-go boys, and porn stars,” as Kacala put it, helped inform and inspire her.
It’s why in 2023, she tells HL that “pride feels more urgent and needed. We have to stand up for our rights like never before.” As the ACLU has tracked, there are 491 anti-LGBTQ bills in U.S. state legislatures. These bills, like the one Missouri passed, severely restricting gender-affirming care to adults, range from preventing trans students from participating in school activities to weakening nondiscrimination laws to limiting access to LBGTQ content (like drag bans and removing books from libraries.)
That’s why “fighting for queer rights” is on Margaret’s schedule for June — and every month after that. She will also participate in the 2023 LA Pride Parade as this year’s Icon Grand Marshal. “I have been attending Pride celebrations since 1978,” she says about the appointment, “and this time around, the need to celebrate as well as unite is more urgent than it has ever been. Our love is greater than their hate.”
Margaret will also spend June on the road on her LIVE & LIVID tour. Check out here for dates. And see below for her selections for The Sound of Pride.
Sam Smith ft. Kim Petras, “Unholy”
“It’s really the song of the season and perfectly prideful.”
Tina Turner, “Let’s Stay Together”
“The legend…a tribute and a blessing for us to continue to work together as a community.”
Cher, “Believe”
“The gayest gay anthem of all time.”
HollywoodLife: Pride is a time to celebrate unsung heroes. Is there anyone you’d like to see get some more of the spotlight this year?
Margaret Cho: Scott Thompson has been an icon for queer comedy since the early 80s with The Kids in the Hall. He’s a true pioneer and a bona fide comedic genius, as well as a close friend. He was out when out was out. So much respect for him.
Do you have a memory of Pride Months past that you’d like to share? Or a similar moment of Pride, when you felt triumph and/or acceptance?
The roar of the Dykes on Bikes beginning the procession always brings me to tears.
What do you have planned for June (and the rest of 2023?)
Fighting for queer rights.
Do you have a Pride 2023 message to share with the HollywoodLife audience?
Fight for queer rights.
Keep checking HollywoodLife throughout June for more entries in The Sound of Pride and additional Pride Month coverage.