LGBT activists raise questions about inclusion in Pride

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Pride Toronto and Chief Mark Saunders agreed uniformed officers wouldn't march in this year's parade, after controversy erupted during last year's annual parade when Black Lives Matter temporarily shut it down to "challenge Pride's anti-blackness."

That issue is still front and centre in cities across Canada.

At Winnipeg's Pride celebrations in June, organizers asked police to march out of uniform, saying many black and transgender marchers simply did not feel safe around police. Halifax police announced they're voluntarily stepping away from next month's pride events in their city. 

But police participation isn't the only source of division in the LGBT community. Across the country, Pride committees have been grappling with how events can better reflect the diversity of the communities they represent and how the movement for LGBT rights should change.

Community activist Lali Mohamed is disappointed by the racism that exists in the LGBT community, but says it is not exceptional. He says racism, anti-blackness and anti-Muslim sentiments are "pervasive" in society.

I just wish we could do better.- Lali Mohamed

"I, as somebody who has to navigate and negotiate the terrains of homophobia, have to then encounter really terrible ... racism from the LGBT community," he tells The Current's guest host Piya Chattopadhyay.

"I just wish we could do better," he says. 

Rebecca Benson, a Haudenosaunee Two-Spirit community member, echos Mohamed's sentiments, adding there is anti-Indigenous sentiment and a lack of visibility of two-spirit people in the LGBT community.

"I think there's not enough done to ensure that racialized, Indigenous, low-income folks are included … Pride doesn't do enough to do outreach to those communities," Benson says.

"If we're not paying attention to who our most vulnerable members of our communities are and we're not carving out spaces that will keep them safe, then what are we doing?"

If we're not paying attention to who our most vulnerable members of our communities are and we're not carving out spaces that will keep them safe, then what are we doing?- Rebecca Benson

Doug Elliott, Toronto lawyer and one of the pioneers in Canadian gay rights activism, argues while there is an issue of racism in the community, there has been little discussion about another form of discrimination: ageism.

"It's a problem that we have yet to really come to grips with," he tells Chattopadhyay. 

According to Elliott, Pride Toronto is holding its first event for seniors this year, but it's "one tiny event in a very large calendar" that mostly caters to young people, as well as the "commercial life" of the LGBT community. 

Benson says in order to make Pride more inclusive, the community needs to tackle discrimination and racism in all of its forms — including the exclusion of seniors, Islamophobia and anti-Indigenous sentiment.

"When you uplift one community, you uplift everybody else."

Listen to the conversation at the top of the web post.

This segment was produced by The Current's Ines Colabrese, Pacinthe Mattar and Donya Ziaee.