Patti Harrison Gets a Crash Course on the Origins of Pride Month

With Pride Month in full swing, it only made sense that during last night’s Full Frontal With Samantha Bee, the show decided to send comedian and aspiring Cats extra Patti Harrison out and about to learn more about the pioneering protests at Stonewall where it all began. After speaking with ACLU’s Trans Justice Campaign Manager LaLa Zannell about the crucial role trans and nonbinary people played in Pride’s earliest days and meeting a trans woman named Judy Bowen who witnessed the Stonewall riots firsthand, Harrison learns how activists like Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera have been largely erased from history and replaced with companies’ drive to bank off the movement. But, of course, it takes a while for Harrison to really arrive at her learning moment. “Okay, hypothetical situation: You get a phone call, ‘Hi, it’s me, Taco Bell, and I am coming out as nonbinary.’ Would you not show Taco Bell, in that moment, love and support?� she asks Zannell earlier in the segment — to which an exhausted Zannell replies, “Oh Patti …�