🌈 Why Pride Month still matters in 2025

This June, we celebrate more than just visibility—we celebrate resilience, community, and the ongoing pursuit of equality.

The Pride Month theme for 2025, “Pride Belongs Here,” is a powerful reminder that LGBTQIA+ individuals deserve to live openly, authentically, and safely—everywhere.

ASDA National Committee member Katie Mouser shares her insights, support and pride in working in Australia’s space industry.

I’m a bit late to the party with my piece on this one – mainly because for the first time in a very long time for me, I struggled with how to organise my thoughts and feelings around global events and changes. I’ll be honest – some of it was that I got scared speaking up might see my inbox fill with cruelty, or make me a target for poor behaviours. I even wondered if it would somehow prevent me from future travel, or whether this might be the moment I was “called into the principal’s office” at work, for being myself and sharing my thoughts.

As someone who identifies as part of the rainbow, but also a “to the bone” ally of our whole community, it’s been tough. It made me wonder if I ought to pack up my flags and pins and prompts around my workspace, retreat into myself and hope nobody ‘remembered’ I belonged to the community, if that was the “smart” choice. For some around the world, they have had no other option – and in many ways, that’s why I didn’t take it.

I’m supported by my workplace, in my committee membership and volunteer work with the Australian Space Diversity Alliance. A Senior Manager is on our Advisory Board, and everyone I talk to about ASDA is enthusiastic and positive, most ask how they too can show support or become involved. I regularly am asked to bring stickers when I meet with peers, because people are proud to show their pride; in themselves, in their friends and family, in equality and in our diversity. There is a sense of pride in being able to continue to show support and allyship, to be my absolute self – and being twice as open, for those who are no longer able or don’t feel safe to do so.

It’s been bittersweet over the last few months, watching others be pushed back down into the “don’t ask, don’t tell” box. Hearing friends’ hearts breaking as they share being asked to shut down similar programs to ASDA (and then promptly forced to).

The reason Pride Month matters so incredibly much in 2025, to me, is because it’s a chance to show everyone, not just those of us able or willing to live in the open as we are, but EVERYONE, that Pride Belongs Here. That THEY belong here. 

If you’re still curious, consider the points below about what a dedicated month helps achieve;

🏳️‍🌈 It honours the legacy of the Stonewall Uprising and decades of activism.

🏳️‍🌈 It affirms identity and belonging in every workplace, classroom, and community.

🏳️‍🌈 It responds to recent setbacks in corporate and public support.

🏳️‍🌈 It raises awareness of ongoing discrimination and mental health challenges.

🏳️‍🌈 And it reminds us that rights, once won, must still be protected.

Let’s continue to show up, speak up and stand together. Pride isn’t just a celebration—it’s a commitment.