On this day in queerstory: New Year countdown

On New Year’s Eve 1990, gay actor Ian McKellen was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in recognition of his services to art. Elsewhere, December 31 is loud with meaning. It’s countdowns and champagne, fireworks and promises—but in global LGBTQ+ history, it has also been a night of reckoning. A moment to look back at what was survived, what was lost, and what—against the odds—endured. Queer people have long understood that making it to the end of the year is not a given. Sometimes, it’s an achievement.

Around the world, New Year’s Eve has been a site of queer gathering, even when visibility was dangerous. Underground parties, private apartments, back rooms of bars, and later clubs became spaces where queer people claimed the right to joy at the edge of time. If the world was ending—or threatening to—at least it would end with music.

Historically, these gatherings mattered. In cities from Berlin to Buenos Aires, Manila to Montreal, queer New Year’s Eve events functioned as rituals of survival. To dance, kiss, and laugh on December 31 was to defy narratives that framed queer lives as temporary, tragic, or disposable. The very act of staying up to welcome the future became political.

December 31 also became a moment of queer accounting.

Globally, December 31 has also been a planning night. Not the tidy goal-setting of self-help culture, but something messier and more honest. What needs to change? Who needs protecting? What can’t go on like this? Queer history shows that many movements quietly began in late-night conversations held just before or after midnight, when defenses were down and urgency felt real.

Culturally, New Year’s Eve highlights how queer people relate to endings. For many LGBTQ+ folks, endings have arrived early and without consent—families cut ties, countries forced exile, bodies failed by systems that didn’t care. December 31 offered a rare chance to control an ending, to say goodbye on our own terms, surrounded by people who knew what it cost to get here.

There’s also something distinctly queer about the way this night collapses time. Past, present, and future crowd together. Old wounds surface. New desires appear. The clock becomes symbolic: we’re still here. Globally, that message has mattered in places where queer existence itself has been treated as temporary or imported.

On this day in queer history, December 31 stands for audacity. The audacity to celebrate when celebration wasn’t guaranteed. The audacity to plan when the future was uncertain. The audacity to believe—just for a moment—that the next year might hold something better.

When the countdown hits zero, it isn’t just a new year beginning. It’s proof that queer people, worldwide, have once again outlasted expectations.

And honestly? That’s always been worth staying up late for.