Every October, purple takes over. Landmarks across Canada are lit in violet hues.School halls fill with purple shirts and ribbons. For one day, a single colour links millionsin a quiet act of solidarity. This year, Spirit Day falls on October 16. In 2010, Brittany McMillan, a high school student in British Columbia, read about aseries […]

The We Demand Rally, in Ottawa, was the country’s first large-scale demonstration for gay rights. While the crowd numbered fewer than 200, the event marked the beginning of a national conversation about equality for gay, bisexual, and lesbian Canadians, and what we now call the wider 2SLGBTQIA+ community.

The choice of date for Women’s Equality Day commemorates the signing of the 19thamendment on August 26th, 1920, a landmark addition to the American constitution that prohibitedfederal and state governments from restricting the right to vote based on sex. While this was amassive achievement only made possible by the work of dedicated activists, it is […]

In August 1973, something quietly remarkable happened across Canada. For the first time, LGBT communities in cities like Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal organized a coordinated week of events that would later be known as Canada’s first Pride Week. It didn’t look like the large, colourful parades we often see today. There were no floats, no […]

On May 30th this year, we commemorate the forty-fourth anniversary of the Pisces Bathhouse Raid, a planned operation by Edmonton’s legal system to arrest Gay men in what was previously a safe space to gather and connect. The legacy of the raids has had an enduring and long-lasting effect on Edmonton’s 2SLGBTQIA+ community, and we […]

May 22nd was Harvey Milk’s birthday, and every year we mark that occasion by taking time to remember him. Harvey Milk was a tireless fighter and advocate for 2SLGBTQIA+ rights in a time when Stonewall was still a fresh memory, and the results of his work still echo throughout the continuing fight for equal rights. […]

This June 28th marks the fifty-fifth anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, an event that forever changed activism for the Gender, Sexual, and Relationship (GSRD) community and has become an enduring story and symbol of when the fight for equal rights truly emerged into the open. On the night of June 25th, a police raid took […]

Every year on August 12, International Youth Day celebrates a host of issues facing the world’s young people and the power that they have to create change. The day was made official in 1998 after being proposed at the first ever World Youth Forum of the United Nations System in 1991. The goal was to […]

While we believe in the importance of honouring, celebrating, and educating about pride year-round, June marks a special opportunity to do so! Let’s kick things off with a list of 10 notable queer Canadians who have made an impact on GSRD history: Delwin Vriend – A teacher in Alberta who successfully fought to have sexual orientation […]