Pride celebrations across the country kick off in June and continue through August, and CBC Music has curated the perfect playlist to soundtrack every situation: protests, reclamations, parties, virtual parades, tributes, brunch, Zoom hangouts, beach bonfires and whatever way you take part in Pride.

And, let's never forget that Pride parades in North America were rooted in protest against police brutality (read more about the Stonewall riots) and led by queer people of colour, including Marsha P. Johnson, a Black transgender woman.

• Queering the Canadian music industry

• Meet Tao-Ming Lau, the woman changing the face of Canadian music

• A candid interview with Ferron, an unsung Canadian treasure

CBC Music has put together this playlist to honour some of Canada's great LGBTQ2SIA artists, including Orville Peck, Beverly Glenn-Copeland, Peaches, James Baley, Witch Prophet, Wares and more in support of everybody in the LGBTQ, Two-Spirit, non-binary, genderqueer and gender non-conforming communities and beyond. Here's to a safe, visible and inclusive world.

Happy Pride, everybody!

From Attitude.co.uk:

"The thing that I connected with country music when I was a kid is it's about isolation, heartbreak, disappointment. That's the gay experience for everyone at some point. I feel like that music is written for people who feel like the minority or feel somehow alienated. Somehow the stigma got twisted around where it's like, oh this music is for well-adjusted, straight white men or whatever. And I actually disagree. I think that it's meant to be for people who feel like freaks."

From Noisey:

"Those of us who stand outside the circle of this society's definition of acceptable women; those of us who have been forged in the crucibles of difference — those of us who are poor, who are lesbians, who are Black, who are older — know that survival is not an academic skill."

From Out Front Magazine:

"I don't know if people understand what I'm trying to do with my art because so much of it is informed by me being a Chinese–Vietnamese, queer, person of colour. I think it's not surprising that I sent out this album to a lot of record labels; I tried to shop it at a lot of record labels, and the two that I ended up going with are headed by men of colour. I think they're able to understand my art so much more."

From Dominionated:

"[Cassia J.] Hardy's voice on Survival is one of the best voices that you will hear this year. She is tough and tender, distilling multidimensional emotions into memorable hooks. There's both pop-punk songs (I would have listened to 'Surface World' during the throws of my punk phase in the early aughts) and shoegaze softness on Survival. There is beauty and strength. There is survival."

From KidsHelpPhone:

"I remember growing up feeling ashamed of feeling a deeper connection with girls. As a kid I was secretive about it and my experiences. I tried so hard to cover up the person my spirit and inner self was begging me to be. This became a very sad time for me. When I felt safe enough, I came out as someone who felt a connection with females, as a lesbian. As I came to know more about my culture and its traditions, I found myself overwhelmed with clarity in knowing that two-spirit is something that speaks to my heart and blood memory. It feels like home to me … I've had many experiences I'm grateful for in my community and growing as a two-spirit person. It's beautiful to me to be able to see young Indigenous people coming out with who they are and feeling empowered and loved in the world to do so. There is still a lot of acknowledgement and leg work that is yet to be done, but it's magical to see it happening."

Shawnee is among the featured performers in We're Funny That Way, an LGBTQ2S+ comedy and music special, streaming exclusively on CBC Gem starting Friday, June 26 at 8pm ET.

From CBC Music:

"As a queer woman of colour, I continue to thrive as an artist who is committed to telling true stories of my life in hopes for change and to inspire the world around me."

From Music Musings and Such:

"James Baley: voice, vogue and fashion. He will be the next Gaga but better."

From Noisey:

"P.E.I. is a great place and a really interesting place to make work, but you have to make an escape plan, especially during the winter. Storm tip culture. It's one of those places where you can tell there's nothing else to do in the winter but practice your goddamn instrument. There are great bands here. In terms of, like, the diversity of the scene, as a trans person I find it, not frustrating, but like there's a lack of representation. It is changing, there are a lot of really cool women-fronted projects that are coming up, queer musicians, and there's a really amazing all-ages scene here. A bunch of queer music kids are coming out of that and that's really amazing to see happen. I thought that it would be really hard to get into the music scene here, because island mentality is a thing and it is hard to get into circles, but it's been really welcoming."

From the McGill Daily:

McGill Daily: If you could change one thing about the Vancouver music scene, or the Canadian scene in general, what would it be?

Nicolle Dupas (Strange Breed): I would say the biggest thing for me is having women in music, and more visibly queer people in music of all different kinds. There's sort of a type of queer person that's more [palatable], but there needs to be more diversity. Let's get more queerness out there, because queerness looks like so many different kinds of people, and it sounds like a lot of different styles of music.

From an interview with Style via CBC Indigenous:

"I grew up as a little boy who always dreamed of being a performer, who always dreamed of being onstage and being a fully realized woman. So to be living in my truth now, and when I get up there [onstage], I own it and I work it."

From an interview on Beyond the Binary:

"I identified as male for 10 years after I came out as trans. The journey to identifying as non-binary was a lot slower than initially coming out as trans. Incidents involving how invested some folks are in the binary came up every day. Eventually, I started to question why I would invest any part of my own identity in a system that failed to accept me as male because I was trans. I met people who went by the pronoun 'they' and it felt like it fit. It's been nice to feel like I'm not trying to hit any of the sexist markers of a gender role. I don't believe anyone should have to do that to have their identity respected."

Partner's statement on Bandcamp:

"There is still so much work to be done, but the fact that we are able to sing this song is a triumph. It is a privilege to have our voices heard, and that privilege is predicated on the long and harrowing history of queer folks of all identities, and especially those with intersectional identities who have faced (and continue to face) realities more complex and dangerous than we can fully understand. We are profoundly grateful to those before us, and ever mindful of the struggles of those who do not share in our privilege who are working and making art alongside us."

From an interview in Exclaim:

"Choosing a man or a woman isn't the point, it's just that these strict rules are stupid. Every woman I know has kissed a woman, but not every guy I know has kissed a guy, and I think they need to. It just helps you find out who you are."

From Phi:

"For a while, as I was transitioning, I did a lot of activism-type work. It helped me ground myself as a trans woman. I initially had a lot of hesitations about calling myself that, which may have been about feeling like I wouldn't pass, or that people would try to take away my trans woman-ness. But doing that work grounded me. So I've been getting involved more on a community level, although my egotistical artistic practice is still very dear to me."

From Kaytranada's interview with Fader:

"Finally, in early winter, he told his brother and mother definitively that he was gay. Though his mother, a Catholic, did bring up Bible verses that condemn homosexuality, Kay says both were supportive and told him that they'd always love him no matter what. 'I feel better than I ever have, you know?' he says. 'I've been sad my whole life, but f--k that. I know I have good things ahead. I don't know honestly if I'm fully, 100 per cent happy, but I'm starting to get there.'"

From an interview with the Face:

"Everybody makes this thing about sexuality as if that's the main thing in your life, it is NOT. The main thing in your life is to get through it with a sense of joy, whilst being able to deal with the pain that life will bring you."