With Pride Month now concluded, a new survey has come to light, with many expressing negative feelings about the festive LGBTQ+ 30-day celebration.
According to a new Talker Research survey shared by Scripps News, 17% of Americans said Pride Month should not be celebrated “at all,” while another 8% said the annual celebration is “too much” and should be scaled back. The survey, conducted online from June 11 to June 17, 2026, included 2,000 general population Americans with internet access.
Still, the findings were not all negative. Talker Research found that 28% of respondents believe Pride Month is important and should be supported, while 21% said they support the idea of Pride but “don’t really care about it” in practice. The divide also fell sharply along political lines, with 44% of Democrats saying Pride Month is important, compared to 17% of Republicans. Meanwhile, 32% of Republicans said Pride should be canceled, compared to 6% of Democrats.
The survey arrives as Gallup reports that support for several LGBTQ+ issues has slipped from recent highs. Gallup’s May 2026 Values and Beliefs survey found that 65% of Americans support legal same-sex marriage, down from a 71% peak in 2022 and 2023. Gallup also found that 62% of Americans view gay or lesbian relations as morally acceptable, the lowest figure on that question since 2016, while 38% said changing one’s gender is morally acceptable, down eight points since 2021.
Robert Kesten, president and CEO of the Stonewall National Museum Archives & Library, said the numbers reflect a climate where some LGBTQ+ Americans may feel pushed back into silence.
“It’s no small wonder that, with an LGBTQ+ population that is a bit fearful at this moment, in places they don’t feel welcome, people hide,” Kesten said. “People in those communities are not as out. People don’t want to be the outsiders in inhospitable communities, and few people feel comfortable being outsiders even when they are not under attack.
“If they’re able to protect themselves by covering up their identity, they will do so, especially if they do not have the resources or ability to move to a more inviting place to live,” Kesten continued. “And that’s certainly what we’re seeing. So either people are moving, or people are going back into hiding. And with that, the amount of information that’s on social media [and] certainly in the right-leaning press is very homophobic.
“So the general population starts to believe what it reads because it doesn’t really have another reference point. Same-sex marriage was higher in how people viewed it; it has fallen. It hasn’t fallen tremendously. But the fact that it’s going down and not continuing to go up is an indication that the marketing strategy, the fear factor, all of those things work over time — and it doesn’t have to be a long time before people are impacted by it.”
Pride Month traces back to the 1969 Stonewall Uprising in New York City, where a police raid at the Stonewall Inn sparked days of resistance and became a major turning point in the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement, according to the National Park Service. The first Pride march was held in New York City on June 28, 1970, on the one-year anniversary of Stonewall, according to the Library of Congress.
That history is part of why the new polling is landing with weight. At a time when some Americans want Pride erased from the calendar altogether, LGBTQ+ advocates say visibility remains central to the celebration’s purpose. The ACLU is tracking more than 500 anti-LGBTQ bills in state legislatures in 2026, while the Movement Advancement Project reports that LGBTQ+ protections still vary widely from state to state.
Despite the backlash, Talker Research found that 44% of all respondents believe support for LGBTQ+ Americans has increased over the past year. Among LGBTQ+ respondents, that number rose to 56%. Meanwhile, 39% of all respondents said support has neither increased nor decreased, and 17% said it has decreased.
“One thing that’s important is to recognize that we hear a lot of people talking about feeling like they’re being erased. The attacks on Pride are an example of that. It’s important for people to understand that only you can erase yourself. No one else can erase you. And that’s because if you know your history, if you know your culture, if you know why Pride exists, then it can’t be taken away.
“They can paint over rainbows on the sidewalks or on the streets. That they can do, but they can’t take away what’s in your head and what’s in your heart. And that means you can share it. And if you share it and that person shares it and you share it again, that means it’s alive and well.”
The survey also showed a major gap in who actually participates in Pride events. Thirty-nine percent of LGBTQ+ respondents said they planned to attend a Pride event, compared to just 9% of non-LGBTQ+ respondents. On the other side, 54% of non-LGBTQ+ respondents said they would not attend and had no interest in attending any Pride events, compared to 7% of LGBTQ+ respondents.
“Human beings need human relationships to be healthy,” added Kesten, highlighting the importance of having Pride Month and suggesting that people go “to [Pride] no matter who you are, because that’s when the hand is most outstretched to the greater community.”
Kesten added, “Go for the music. Go for the food. Go for the dancing. Go to have joy with people that you love.”
Even as public opinion shows signs of cooling, LGBTQ+ visibility remains a major cultural and business conversation. A 2026 GLAAD Pride Poll found that 68% of Americans agree brands should be able to show support for the LGBTQ+ community during Pride if they choose to. That contrast paints a complicated picture: some Americans want Pride scaled back or canceled entirely, while many others still view the celebration as a space for history, community, visibility, and joy.
