Point of pride

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 08/07/2023 (876 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Sally Papso has been involved in the fight for gay rights in Manitoba for decades.

In 1987, the lesbian and veteran LGBTTQ+ activist helped rally support for Bill C-47, which added prohibition of discrimination based on sexual orientation, to the Manitoba Human Rights Code.

Papso recalled some arguing for the sterilization of gay men and women. She had to grit her teeth through the ugliness.

“There were three days of hearings… and we went every day,” Papso explained. “The religious right were brutal, absolutely brutal. It was very, very hard to sit there and listen.

“It was horrible, the things that they came up with, that they thought should be done to us: castration, hysterectomy, sent to an island somewhere. We were referred to as spawns of the devil. We had to sit there and not respond in any way.”

Ultimately, the bill passed July 2, 1987, but it didn’t change much at the time.

Winnipeg held its first Pride parade not long after, and many participants wore paper bags over their heads to protect their identity out of fear of discrimination.

More than 35 years later, acceptance and understanding have grown — but the battle is far from over, Papso said.

“The far right has a powerful, powerful voice and they have been given permission in the last three to five years to deliver that voice and it’s a really unkind voice and it is scary. A lot of what’s happening across the (border)… human rights are being clawed back, and a lot of that stuff trickles up into Canada.”– Sally Papso

“The far right has a powerful, powerful voice and they have been given permission in the last three to five years to deliver that voice and it’s a really unkind voice and it is scary,” Papso said.

“A lot of what’s happening across the (border)… human rights are being clawed back, and a lot of that stuff trickles up into Canada,” she said, referring to bans of books with LGBTTQ+ content and anti-LGBTTQ+ legislation enacted in parts of the United States.

According to Statistics Canada, there was a 64 per cent increase in hate crimes on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in 2021 over the previous year. Attempted book bans across the country, with recent attempts in southern Manitoba, have compounded a rising trend.

Papso attributed much of the recent rise in homophobia to the election of U.S. president Donald Trump in 2016. “He gave permission for people who are homophobic and full of hate, antisemitic, etc.… to start raising their voice.”

Papso noted that transgender people are now being targeted the same way gay people were in the 1980s and earlier.

The close association between gay and transgender rights has, in turn, opened gay people up to being targeted again, Papso said, adding supporters of the LGBTTQ+ community have become more vocal because of it.

“There is a larger rise in the voice of allies,” she said, pointing to supporters “winning out” in preventing LGBTTQ+ books from recently being banned in Manitoba libraries and schools.

However, Papso warned against complacency, urging that the targeting of marginalized communities be taken seriously.

“This is very frightening to me,” she said. “For those people who are homophobic, have been homophobic, were curbing their tongues in the late ’90s and early 2000s… Once they felt like they had permission to be homophobic, now we’re hearing from them.”

Ashley Smith, director of advocacy for the Rainbow Resource Centre, pointed to an attempt at Winnipeg City Hall to organize a ban of books with LGBTTQ+ content from civic libraries.

The initiative was led by former mayoral candidate and local businessman Don Woodstock and Rick Dyck, a riding director for the People’s Party of Canada. In defence of the proposal, Woodstock argued for the protection of childhood innocence — reminiscent of the reasoning behind the Don’t Say Gay Bill in Florida.

The Florida Parental Rights in Education Act is legislation that prevents teachers in the southern state from discussing gender identity or sexual orientation in kindergarten through Grade 3.

Opponents of the act, such as the Human Rights Commission say it is so vaguely worded it would effectively bar any discussion of LGBTTQ+ people.

Gender identity protection was only added to the Manitoba Human Rights Code in 2017.

It was around the same time anti-LGBTTQ+ rhetoric began to heat up, Smith noted.

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Southern Manitoba community advocates have faced recent battles against homophobia and discrimination, but supporters are pushing back.

Chris Plett, who is gay, has seen the discrimination in his hometown of Steinbach. While acts of public harassment and violence are rare, Plett said he regularly receives death threats via email and private message on Facebook.

(RCMP have been good about investigating these when warranted, he added.)

“I often hear homophobic and transphobic comments,” said Plett, president of Steinbach Pride. “I think sometimes people don’t realize I am who I am and that I’m in earshot, but maybe they do.”

Plett says LGBTTQ+ youth in Steinbach will tell him they often hear hate speech and anti-gay slurs at school from classmates, which they believe comes from the parents.

“Sadly, when you see the parents make all sorts of comments like that… that comes over to the next generation. A lot of the discriminatory comments that you would maybe hear from the parents you are now hearing from the kids,” he added.

Many political leaders also appear unwilling to embrace the LGBTTQ+ community.

The area’s representatives — Tory MP Ted Falk, Tory MLA Kelvin Goertzen and then-mayor Chris Goertzen — did not attend the inaugural Steinbach Pride parade in 2016. And no one holding those positions has attended in years since.

Aly Wowchuk, chairperson of Brandon Pride, said she was shocked by an upsurge in incidents in the western Manitoba city.

On May 23, a proposal to implement a committee to vet books that would have potentially led to the removal of books with LGBTTQ+ content in school libraries caused an uproar. Thirty-one delegates spoke at the Brandon School Division board of trustees meeting where the issue was voted on May 23; only one was in favour of the proposal.

It was ultimately voted down by the BSD board 6-1, with two trustees absent — but the issue has had lingering effects, Wowchuk said.

The book ban issue disrupted local Pride plans as members “moved our focus to the Brandon School Division and making sure the (LGBTTQ+) community was aware of this.”

Wowchuk said acts of homophobia were present in the run-up to Brandon’s Pride week in June. Decorations were ripped down at a local school (though she did not say where).

Peter Wohlgemut, president of Pembina Valley Pride, said there has been an uptick in incidents in his community this year, although opposition has always been present since the group held its first parade in 2019.

This year, in the run-up to Pride festivities on the weekend of June 10, decorations were torn down at the United Church in Morden, and a minivan was defaced with a homophobic slur during Pembina Valley Pride 2023.

There have also been attempts to ban LGBTTQ+-themed books from the South Central Regional Library, which covers the communities of the Pembina Valley.

A proposal was also made to ban books, some of which contain LGBTTQ+ content, from Prairie Rose School Division libraries on the basis they were “pornographic.”

A decision and statement from PRSD trustees was issued June 26, resoundingly rejecting the proposal and declaring the accusation certain books were pornographic or violated the Criminal Code of Canada to be “without foundation, hurtful and harmful.”

The board emphasized all the books in PRSD libraries were age-appropriate.

Wohlgemut said the existence of a Pride organization in the Pembina Valley is important because it shows the LGBTTQ+ community in the region they don’t need to leave to have a community.

Pembina Valley Pride also organizes game and family nights, and online education events in conjunction with the Sexuality Education Resource Centre, a LGBTTQ+-friendly organization which promotes sexual health education based in Winnipeg.

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In stark contrast to the communities of southern Manitoba stands Thompson.

Pride North of 55 held its first march in 2014. Government officials have marched in every local Pride parade since.

NDP MP Niki Ashton (Churchill—Keewatinook Aski) and Thompson Mayor Colleen Smook were both in attendance at the parade June 10. NDP MLA Eric Redhead (Thompson) was unable to attend due to another commitment, but marched in the Winnipeg Pride parade.

No attempts have yet been mounted to ban books with LGBTTQ+ content from either the Thompson municipal or school libraries, and there has been no history of organized opposition pride events in Thompson, advocates say.

Susannah Mueller, who is gay, a teacher in Thompson and treasurer of Pride North of 55, said the atmosphere in the northern city has been more welcoming than she expected since moving there in 2012.

“When we had our first parade in 2014, we expected some backlash but… it never came.”

Mueller noted Mystery Lake School Division, which covers Thompson, has been supportive of Pride North of 55 from the beginning, and R.D. Parker Collegiate has had a gay-straight alliance for at least six years.

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Travers, a professor of sociology at Simon Fraser University who uses they/them pronouns and just one name, believes, like Papso, the resurgence of the anti-LGBTTQ+ sentiment can be traced back to the 2016 U.S. election.

“When Trump was elected, one of the first things he did was to start to rescind the LGBTQ rights and provisions and policies of the federal government,” Travers said.

The emergence of transgender issues into the political mainstream has also helped pave the way for a resurgence of anti-LGBTTQ+ sentiment, Travers said, adding the lack of familiarity people have with the issue until recently has created a situation which is conducive to the spread of misinformation.

Travers adds a desire to protect children is a powerful motivator for people, and misrepresenting LGBTTQ+ people as predators is easier than confronting real issues surrounding sexual abuse of children.

“The idea that having access to books with queer content will somehow turn kids gay or transgender is simply wrong,” Travers said.

“The kinds of movements that create space for gender and sexually diverse people simply let queer and trans kids know that they’re not alone, that there’s nothing wrong with them.”

Travers said although the proposed book bans are just that — proposed, so far — and legislatively, Canada as a whole has not regressed on LGBTTQ+ issues, this could change depending on the political climate.

Travers noted recent developments in New Brunswick, where changes have been made by the provincial government which weaken its Policy 713, originally meant to help protect LGBTTQ+ students.

Previously, teachers were allowed to refer to students by their chosen name and pronoun without informing that student’s parents. This will now be forbidden, potentially depriving transgender and non-binary students of a safe space in which to come out.

Changes to the policy have led to controversy on a national scale.

“Right now, trans kids in New Brunswick are being told they don’t have the right to be their true selves, that they need to ask permission. Well, trans kids need to feel safe, not targeted by politicians,” Prime Minister Trudeau said at a Pride rally in Toronto on June 9.

In response, Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre told reporters at the House of Commons that Trudeau should “butt out” of the matter and “let parents raise kids.”

graham.mcdonald@freepress.mb.ca