The Canadian Centre for Gender and Sexual Diversity – formerly known as Jer’s Vision – is celebrating its 10th anniversary in connection with this year’s International Day of Pink Gala, to be held April 8 at Ottawa’s De La Salle Secondary School.
“When you hit 10 it’s undeniable that you are doing something right,” says the organization director Jeremy Dias. “Kind of exciting to hit such a milestone and to be looking forwards.”
Dias founded the centre using the money he won in a legal case against his Sault Ste. Marie high school for facing extreme intolerance when coming out as gay.
Working to end bullying, discrimination and homophobia in schools and communities across Canada and the U. S., the Centretown-based organization reaches more than 250,000 people annually through workshops, presentations, training conferences and supporting youth initiatives.
“For me it’s about making the lives of individual people better,” Dias explains. “It’s about slowly changing attitudes and hearts when it comes to LGBTQ issues.”
One of the largest campaigns CCGSD leads is International Day of Pink.
The movement began in Nova Scotia when two straight high school students saw someone gay being bullied because of his pink shirt. A few days later the two students asked everyone at the school to arrive in pink.
Inspired by the initiative, the centre founded The International Day of Pink which has taken place annually on April 8 since 2007. It involves people across the country uniting in pink to represent their stance against bullying, specifically towards sexual minorities.
Last year, more than 9.2 million Canadians participated, according to Dias.
A newer campaign launched by the centre is The Gay Sweater, which has been grabbing national media attention in recent weeks.
Debuting in March at the Toronto Fashion Week, it is a sweater made entirely from the hair of gay people throughout Canada. The 20-pound sweater was designed to be “the world’s first and only gay object” bringing attention to the word “gay” being routinely and wrongly used in derogatory contexts.
Throughout the centre’s decade of activism, it has recognized others who have done exceptional work to stop bullying and discrimination. Every year it presents Youth Role Model of the Year awards at the gala.
“It is critical that we as a community recognize the hard work of individuals who make this initiative happen,” says Dias. “There are so many amazing people who often go unrecognized.”
Quinn Maloney-Tavares and Polly Hamilton are two of the award winners this year. They have been honoured for founding Canada’s first Catholic elementary school gay-straight alliance.
The Grade 6 students, who attend St. George Elementary School in Ottawa, were assigned a project on social justice this past fall. They chose to do it on gay rights but had the idea vetoed by their principal who thought the subject wasn’t suitable for children in younger grades.
“Everybody, every year they’ve done the same kind of project on Free the Children or child labour, and that is important stuff, but (gay rights) has never been done,” explains Quinn. “It is an issue but nobody has ever actually stood up for it so we wanted to do it.”
After the story went public, the controversy was resolved by allowing the girls to go ahead with their assignment and create a GSA with the help of the centre.
Ottawa’s nine-member pop-electronic band, The Peptides, have recognized the contributions Dias and his organization have made to the LGBTQ community.
The band has agreed to premiere a new music video at this year’s gala for their song Love Will Find You. They also announced that beginning April 23 and lasting for about a month, all proceeds from the video’s download sales will be donated to the centre.
Accessible support networks are prime ways to help struggling youth identifying as a sexual minority, according to the Peptides.
“It’s hard to be who you are sometimes in fear of judgment,” says vocalist Olexandra Pruchnicky. “The sooner people can be comfortable in their own skin the sooner they can be happy in other aspects of their life too.”
Dias’s organization has plans to continue educating, engaging and supporting communities across Canada. All funds raised at the International Day of Pink Gala will be put towards future programming.