Pride Winnipeg revamping parade, festival amid sharp criticism

Pride Winnipeg has issued a public apology and planned eight months of changes leading up to their next festival following sharp criticism about exclusivity and exclusion by the organization.

In August, Levi Foy went to a Pride Winnipeg community forum and noticed a problem.

"It was the typical Pride folks — white, kind of upper-middle class gay men, lesbians. Not a lot of folks of colour, not a lot of folks of gender-variance," said Foy, who runs Sunshine House's Like That program, an LGBT night at a harm-reduction rec centre in Point Douglas. "There was an absence of folks that I usually associate with."

Foy wasn't alone. A number of groups, including Queerview and Winnipeg's Queer People of Colour (QPOC), had raised concerns about who was being represented at Pride Winnipeg events and how.

So Foy invited the people planning those events to a meeting.

"People were really honest and really brave about their concerns with Pride; people not feeling that they're reflected in Pride's materials, not feeling that they can go to Pride's events because … of discrimination, lots of judgment," said Foy, adding transgender people and people who are gender-variant often didn't feel comfortable attending if they didn't "pass" as a particular gender.

Other issues included Pride's advertising campaigns, its corporate structure and its accessibility, both for people with disabilities and people who couldn't afford to go.

"They told us some things that were heartbreaking, in terms of feeling like Pride was a 'party for the beautiful,' and they didn't see themselves in there," said Michelle McHale, with Pride Winnipeg. "They didn't feel like all body types were represented or that they even belonged."

'It's been privilege that's gotten in the way'

An apology was distributed by email last week, saying the festival had failed at representing the LGBT community in the city and big changes were on the way, including two photo-shoots to help rebrand the festival.

"Instead of trying to find graphics and saying, 'Does this fit or is this good?' we figured we would get a photographer and then let the people who need to be represented and who have been unfairly excluded call the shots on that," said McHale.

McHale, the vice president of Pride Winnipeg's shareholder relations, said she's new to the organization, but she thinks communication issues may have played a part in creating the problem.

"I think that what's happened is privilege, quite honestly. I think it's been privilege that's gotten in the way of us being able to adequately hear what people were telling us and hear the things we needed to do differently," she said.

Pride reaches out to accessibility centres, religious groups

McHale has also reached out to a number of groups, including accessibility centres at the University of Winnipeg and the University of Manitoba, ASL interpreters, youth and seniors groups, religious groups and others.

Pride officials want to meet with those groups before the festival in June.

"What I do know for sure is the next Pride festival is going to be much better at representing different cultures, being accessible for people who are in different life situations, considering the different ways people like to celebrate their pride," said McHale. 

Foy said their group is happy with the progress so far, and that Pride immediately acknowledged their concerns.

"For a lot of us, and for a lot of people, not even getting that acknowledgement is often par for the course," said Foy. "We're always a little hesitant, but the reason we always do this work is for hope, and we hope that things will always get better."

The photo-shoots are tentatively scheduled for Oct. 24 at Sunshine House and Nov. 5 at an accessible venue.