A rainbow can be seen in the skies over Bradford this month.
A group of about one dozen residents and members of council gathered to mark the beginning of Pride Month in town with a flag raising and proclamation at the Sunshine Meeting Place outside of the BWG Leisure Centre on Monday afternoon, June 3.
Holly Scott was one of those who came out to enjoy the ceremony, and actually had the chance to help raise the flag, which was more than she expected.
“I have family members that 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 she’s participated in the Pride parade in Newmarket on three occasions and visited Pride events in Barrie and Toronto, so she wanted to see what Bradford had to offer.
“We’ve been doing this in Bradford for a while now and I look forward to doing it,” Mayor James Leduc said while opening the ceremony. “It’s all about equity and inclusion. It’s all about diversity and sharing, and we want a community everyone can be respected in.”
Places around the world recognize June as Pride Month to celebrate two-spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex (2SLGBTQI+) people, community and culture.
“It's also an opportunity to acknowledge the history, the hardships, and the challenges that the community has endured, along with celebrating the progress that has been made,” the mayor read from the proclamation.
Before the ceremony, David di Giovanni, spoke with BradfordToday 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, all over really, because it’s taken quite a long time to get to a place where we can all be open and be ourselves,” he said. “As we see 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 that we want to be accepted and loved and respected like anyone else.”
That’s something Rev. Dana Dickson has worked to offer at the Trinity Anglican Church in Bradford.
“I believe that God created us all and God loves us all as we are, and all need to be treated with respect and dignity,” she said after the ceremony. “I feel like there hasn’t been enough respect and dignity.”
To help address the issue the church has taken steps to become an affirming church, which 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 to look different,” Dickson said. “We made a concerted effort to try and be a place where people feel safe to be who they are.”
While Bradford doesn’t have plans for an official Pride parade, the library does have several displays, including a banner outside the Zima Room, a Pride selfie wall, plus Pride book displays for a variety of age groups including fiction and non-fiction.
Since February, the library has also been operating a gender-affirming closet in partnership with CONTACT Community Services and the Gilbert Centre.
The closet provides a space where anyone can access free pieces of clothing that help them express their gender identity, and also offers gender affirming gear, including chest binders and binding tape.
So far, members of the community have acquired more than 100 items from the closet with more still available.
Later in the month, the Bradford Farmers’ Market has plans for a Pride festival from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday June 29 in the library parking lot, after which, the library has planned the return of an all-ages storytime with Carmen and E’Claire of the Haus of Devereaux inside the library from 1-4 p.m.
More information about the upcoming events can be found here and here.
