The organizers of Capital Pride, an annual parade and festival celebrating the LGBTTQ* community in Ottawa, have announced several new events aimed at encouraging diversity that will be included in this year’s festivities from August 15-21.
The festival is highlighted by a parade that runs through Centretown along Bank Street.
It has been expanded after consultation with community members who say they did not feel safe or included at previous Pride events.
Capital Pride’s Community Advisory Committee has been “consulting with LGBTTQ* community members, especially youth, people of colour, two-spirited, transgender and people in recovery, who have reported that they often do not feel welcome or safe participating in Pride events,” says a press release issued by organizers on March 16.
As Pride events become more mainstream, organizers have received feedback that some members of the community feel that they are no longer being included in the celebrations.
An increasing number of Pride parades feature corporate sponsors, mainstream entertainment, and overwhelmingly serve the white, gay population specifically. It is becoming more difficult for many of the people who Pride was designed to celebrate to have a voice in the festivities.
“I actually went to an event last year called anti-capitalist pride,” says Merissa Taylor-Meissner, the programming coordinator of the Carleton University Gender and Sexuality Resource Centre.
“People were talking about how they didn’t feel like they belonged at pride because of the aspect of money-making and the aspect of whose bodies are there, because it’s usually mostly white, cis, gay men.”
Cis, or cis-gendered, is a term used to describe a person who identifies with the sex they were born with.
“I think it’s fantastic that Pride is taking steps in a different direction that will celebrate trans and queer history in the nation’s capital,” says Jeremy Dias, the founder and director of the Canadian Centre for Gender & Sexual Diversity.
“Their transparency and their efforts have been commendable. It’s really exciting to see that the organization is coming together and that the community is coming together on this.”
“We really want to make our Pride a safe and welcome place for all spectrums,” says Joanne Hughes, the producer of the Capital Pride festival since 2015.
“We’re providing more diversity in terms of our programming by adding arts, culture and heritage components, and just by making it a festival that everyone can contribute to and enjoy.”
Capital Pride declared bankruptcy in 2014, but organizers say that they are now financially solvent, and preparations for this year’s festival are in full swing.
“We’re having two (performance) stages this year, and the programming on both of those stages will be queer showcases of music, dance, comedy,” says Hughes.
“We’re really trying to show a variety of genres,” he says.
The organization also received increased funding from the City of Ottawa’s Heritage Funding Program this year, which will be used to create the Ottawa Queer History Project.
“This will be an ongoing project,” says Hughes.
“What we really want to do is highlight the entire history of the rainbow community within Ottawa . . . We want to look at people who have been important in terms of activism, or in starting bars, or even in the Pride parade itself.”