While June is generally viewed as Pride month, Canada’s various Pride events take place throughout the summer months.
From the Festival Fierté Val d’Or, Dryden, and Okotoks Pride in early June, to Calgary and Ottawa in late August, the calendar is as diverse and colourful as the movement itself.
Labour and Pride
The LGBTQ+ rights movement and the labour movement have had our ups and downs, but there is no doubt we need to work in harmony more than ever.
It’s still complicated, and it has to be. Organizers of pride events are spotlighting their communities’ intersections and connections to various struggles: for migrant rights, peace, anticolonial resistance, anti-racism, among other anti-oppression struggles. Some are explicitly naming capitalism as an oppressive system that creates barriers to expressing our sexualities and gender identities.
From ‘Riots’ to ‘Parades’
In Greenwich Village, New York City, in 1969, the Stonewall Inn was raided by police. In 1981 the Toronto police raided bathhouses, arresting hundreds of men in a single night. These targets had traditionally been safe spaces for queer people. The fightback became the core of Pride marches. Several of our events in Canada commemorate key dates like these, or critical steps forward.
In the Pride tradition, resistance, visibility, fun, and community outreach are all happening at once. Pride is about joy, and at the same time, about an ongoing fight for human rights. When we march, we welcome each other to be our authentic selves, we see and acknowledge each other, and we also fight for better policy, justice, and freedom from harassment and violence.
Now, municipal governments, banks, mass retailers, and many other mainstream institutions claim their piece of Pride and provide supports. Still, as big and as popular as Pride events get, they have a fiercely political core, founded on a movement for human rights and dignity. Resistance and celebration work together!
Unfortunately, we can’t take human rights for granted. Homophobia and transphobia are still serious threats that are mobilized by certain politicians and groups. We still have every reason to insist that Pride is political.
UCTE Members on the March
We’ve collected some photos of our members participating in a few of the events this year.
If you have any photos or stories of your local taking part in Pride 2025, please feel free to share them. And if you haven’t been part of a pride event yet, please join us next year!
