The Universal Crossword and the USA Today crossword teams have been among the biggest champions of fostering a diverse, inclusive group of puzzle constructors. From June 1 through June 11, USA Today published crosswords written by LGBTQ-identifying constructors, edited by the excellent constructor Amanda Rafkin, and the Universal Crossword has published Pride Month-themed puzzles throughout the entire month of June. I thought their work was inspiring and it gave me ideas for my own puzzles, so I decided to write a theme on PRIDE MONTH (122A: [Period associated with an initialism heard by saying seven of this puzzle’s clues out loud]) before the month was out. The theme is basically self-contained in the clues:
It’s a little unusual in that I basically turned what are normally theme clues into theme answers, and vice versa, so this might play a little like a themeless puzzle. However, I decided to give an extra nod to Pride Month by adding in references to various LGBTQIA figures and organizations in many of the clues:
Writing this puzzle gave me a chance to learn about many interesting people and groups that I wasn’t aware of — one of the side benefits of picking an overall theme for the clues beyond the theme answers themselves — but my goal was that you could still complete and enjoy the puzzle even if you didn’t know about them yourself.
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