Pride celebrations ‘very important’ to opening

A rainbow can be seen in the skies above Bradford this month.

A group of about a dozen residents and council members gathered to mark the beginning of Pride Month in the city with a flag raising and proclamation at the Sunshine Meeting Place outside the BWG Recreation Center on Monday afternoon, 3 June.

Holly Scott was one of those who came out to enjoy the ceremony and actually got a chance to help raise the flag, which was more than she bargained for.

“I have family members who are gay and I like to support it,” she said.

Having moved to Bradford from Newmarket a little more than two years ago, Scott said he has attended the Newmarket Pride parade three times and visited Pride events in Barrie and Toronto, so he wanted to see what he had Bradford to offer.

“We’ve been doing this in Bradford for a while and I can’t wait to do it,” Mayor James Leduc said during the opening ceremony. “It’s all about equity and inclusion. It’s all about diversity and sharing and we want a community where everyone can be respected.”

Places around the world recognize June as Pride Month to celebrate Two-Spirit, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Intersex (2SLGBTQI+) individuals, community and culture.

“It is also an opportunity to recognize the history, hardships and challenges the community has endured, along with celebrating the progress that has been made,” the mayor read in the proclamation.

Before the ceremony, David di Giovanni spoke with Bradford Today and shared his thoughts on the importance of Pride Month, both as the manager of cultural services at the Bradford West Gwillimbury Public Library and as someone who has previously spoken publicly about his experiences as a queer person.

“Celebrating pride is really important in communities like Bradford, everywhere, because it’s taken quite a while to get to a place where we can all be open and be ourselves,” he said. “As we’re seeing across the country, we still have a long way to go in terms of finding acceptance and visibility, so this is just another reminder that we’re still here and we’re members of the community and we want to be accepted and loved and respected like anyone else.”

It’s something Reverend Dana Dickson has worked to provide at Trinity Anglican Church in Bradford.

“I believe that God created us all and God loves us all as we are and we all should be treated with respect and dignity,” she said after the ceremony. “I feel like there wasn’t enough respect and dignity.”

To help address the issue, the church has taken steps to become an affirming church that not only welcomes the 2SLGBTQI+ community, but is also a safe space.

“Many places are not safe. It’s not safe to be out, it’s not safe to be there and also to be transgender or look different,” Dickson said. “We’ve made a concerted effort to try to be a place where people feel safe to be who they are.”

Although Bradford has no plans for an official Pride parade, the library has several displays, including a banner outside the Zima Room, a Pride selfie wall, plus displays of Pride books for a variety of age groups, including fiction and non-fiction.

Since February, the library has also operated a gender-affirming closet in partnership with CONTACT Community Services and the Gilbert Center.

The closet provides a space where anyone can access free clothing items that help them express their gender identity and also offers gender-affirming gear, including chest binders and binder tape.

So far, community members have purchased more than 100 items from the closet, with more still available.

Later in the month, Bradford Farmers’ Market has plans for a Pride festival from 9am to 1pm on Saturday, June 29 in the library parking lot, after which the library has planned an all-ages storytime return with Carmen and E’Claire from the Haus of Devereaux inside the library from 1-4pm

More information about upcoming events can be found here and here.