Pride Flag Raising at City Hall by Lane Sterr, Chair - June 14, 2021
Lethbridge Pride Fest Chairs Flag Raising Speech
Oki and hello! My name is Lane Sterr and I am the current Chair of Lethbridge Pride Fest Society and Happy Pride Month! Thank you to everyone joining us today near and far and a thank you to all of our continued sponsors and supporters! I would like to begin by introducing this year’s board of directors, starting with our executives:
Levi Cox as Vice Chair, Tyler Gschaid as Secretary, Katherine Culley as Treasurer, Elizabeth Hegerat, Cassaundra Fayant, Branden Sant, David Fritz, Steve Ouellet, and Meg Gardin.
Lethbridge Pride Fest Society would like to acknowledge that we are gathered on the traditional territories of the Blackfoot people which includes the Piikuni (Pih-kah-nee), Kainai (Guy-an-a), Siksika (seeg-see-Kah), Tsuut’ina, (soot-tina) and Stoney Nakoda First Nations; also known as the Treaty 7 Region. This area is also home to the Métis Nation of Alberta, Region III. We pay our respect to the Blackfoot and Metis people, past, present, and future, while recognizing and respecting their cultural heritage, beliefs, and relationship to the land, and I’d like to particularly recognize the Two-Spirt and other LGBTQQIPA+ Indigenous members of our community. Lethbridge Pride Fest encourages each of us to commit to better relationships and reconciliation.
Before I speak any further, I would like to take a moment of silence to honor and mourn the tragic and heartbreaking news that remains of 215 Indigenous children from Kamloops, British Columbia, 104 Indigenous children from Brandon, Manitoba, 38 Indigenous children from Regina, Saskatchewan, 35 Indigenous children from Lestock, Saskatchewan, and the countless other stolen lives that will be discovered at Residential Schools across Canada, as well as the devastating loss of a family in London, Ontario that were murdered because of their Muslim faith.
This past year just like the one before, our community has been no stranger to tragedy, heartbreak, and adversity. The COVID-19 pandemic is not over, we continue to feel the grips of isolation from our community, the loss of loved ones, and the fear of uncertainty.
Though the end of the pandemic has always been unclear and foggy, through millions of vaccinations and counting, mask-mandates and regulations, the end of the pandemic is becoming more tangible by the day. I want to recognize the fatigue and exhaustion that everyone has felt from the beginning of this pandemic; our fatigue is a result of the extreme overload of empathy we feel and experience by being asked daily what we are all willing to risk and sacrifice for the health and safety of our community, loved ones, and ourselves. I want to encourage everyone to finish this race strong, now is not the time to throw in the towel or call it quits, but to remain strong and vigilant, and to also get vaccinated if you haven’t already. We all have a say in how long this pandemic lasts.
We are the 2SLGBTQQIPA+ community. A community that encompasses everyone who has a diverse sexuality or gender identity, as well as those who show up and support us as allies. Our community is also home to other visible minorities, as well as the many beautiful and sacred traditions and cultures of many. Looking back on this year we continue to see many stand up in the Black, Asian, Indigenous, and many other communities against systemic and generational racism, police brutality, religious bodies that preach hate at their service, acts of violence and terrorism, all in hopes of leaving our world better than we found it for the future generations to come. We know that all of our hands cannot celebrate when our hearts are hurting and that is why Lethbridge Pride Fest Society stands as allies with these communities and other visible minorities, we commit to growth and the learning or un-learning that is required to create a more equitable community and world for everyone so that we may see a day that we can all celebrate together.
Pride is not just a celebration though, as it began, it was and remains a protest. We must remember that Pride Is An Everyday March and we must continue that march because we know that we are stronger together than we are divided. Pride is a not just a movement and fight for inclusivity and equal treatment for the 2SLGBTQQIPA+ community, but a movement for all marginalized communities, all bodies, all disabled and abled persons, all beautiful ethnicities and cultures, for all walks of life. It’s a movement and a fight, because what we have inherited does not have to be inherited onto others. The cycle of trauma, racism, and the hatred that we have felt and feel from others for being different can end with us. We can pass down heirlooms of healing and acceptance of the diversity we see in each other and celebrate our differences. It starts with seeing these people and advocating for them as we would want others to advocate for ourselves. Reconciliation. Recognizing our contributions to division instead of inclusivity and breaking those habits and cycles. Supporting our vulnerable populations that are being ravaged and destroyed by an opioid’s crisis. And denouncing racist and transphobic behavior and actions. We are one community.
And though Pride is still about fighting for the equal rights of that community. Pride is protecting trans youth. Pride is about being valid while still in the closet. It’s about having community. It’s about overcoming and surviving the hard seasons of your life. It’s about being accepted and respected as ourselves. Pride will exist without parades, celebration, or permission because Pride exists in our heart and spirit; it cannot be taken away from us. Pride is not about division. Pride is not “thoughts and prayers” from our government when we need policy and change. Pride is not dismantling GSA’s. Pride is not actively putting up barriers for queer, trans, people of color, disabled and other marginalized groups of people. Pride is and will remain a protest and a uphill fight for progress.
And in our pursuit of continued progress, Lethbridge Pride Fest would like to present and adopt a new flag to represent our community, the progressive flag. While it preserves the six-stripe rainbow as the base, the “progress” variation adds a chevron along the hoist that presents the colors of black, brown, light blue, pink, and white stripes to bring marginalized people of color, trans people, those living with HIV/ AIDS and those who have been lost to the forefront of the flag so that we may remember them and their contributions. The arrows point to the right to show forward motion, while being along the left edge shows that progress still needs to be made. Progress that we must all commit to.
We are honored to have Jay Whitehead speak and raise our flag this year. As you hear Jay speak, I encourage you all to think of what’s next, what is next that will enrich and strengthen our community, what will bridge gaps for us all.
Finally, I would like to wish everyone a Happy Pride as well as Indigenous History Month.
Lane Sterr, Chair
Guest of Honour, Jay Whitehead’s Speech
When I first moved to Lethbridge in 2004, as a politically minded, if naïve, undergraduate theatre student, I felt invisible as a queer person. I immediately sprang into action, thinking that I could use my skills as a queer actor and theatre artist to do something about this problem that I perceived. My idea was to produce a cabaret event that would feature queer voices and queer stories for the local public, to bring awareness and visibility to Lethbridge LGBTQ+ residents. I didn’t have high hopes for the cabaret at first, being new to Lethbridge, I believed that finding an audience for such an event would be a hopeless and trying exercise in futility. But angered by the notion of no one coming, I persistently pressed forward, booking a studio space at the University of Lethbridge for the event and beginning to gather performers, most of whom were theatre students in the Drama Department at the University of Lethbridge who would perform everything from monologues, to songs to drag numbers. This event would be my huge middle finger to Lethbridge; it would be my political statement to a community wherein I believed myself invisible and I relished the potential of being even more angry and motivated when no one attended. But I couldn’t have been more wrong. On the night of the cabaret, which I had cheekily titled Pretty, Witty & GAY! (which are lyrics from a song in the musical West Side Story), I was shocked to find that Lethbridge residents were showing up in droves to celebrate queer stories on stage! In retrospect, I probably should’ve asked for more than the paltry $5 admission I charged that first year. Pretty, Witty & GAY was a smash hit. People came and they came in droves! It was meant to be poorly attended and therefore fuel my angry fire against this ‘repressive’ community. What I felt instead of anger was an amazing sense of love, gratitude and acceptance from a community that seemed to, in fact, value my efforts to bring a platform to queer voices in this city! Since that night in 2004, The Pretty, Witty & GAY!, now The Quiant, Quirky and QUEER Cabaret has grown to become one of the annual cultural highlights in Lethbridge. I’m thrilled to say that the cabaret has happened annually since that first year in various venues around town including the University of Lethbridge, Moose Hall, and currently, The Sterndale Bennett Theatre! This year marked the 15th installment of this event, originally born from my undergraduate angst, and it has become a celebration of diversity, love and acceptance in a city I’ve now come to love and feel valued in. The Cabaret has now become part of an entire festival of events for the local queer community and its allies produced by Lethbridge’s queer theatre company Theatre Outré. Lethbridge is a good place to be queer! It’s a good place to be an artist! Valued organizations like Lethbridge Pride Fest and OUTreach Southern Alberta prove to me that Lethbridge is shifting. We can celebrate who we are here. We can be loud and proud in Lethbridge, Alberta. And it’s because of this event and what it taught me about the people who live here that I’m able to proudly call Lethbridge my home!
But as we celebrate, we must also turn our minds and actions to those who might still feel invisible in our city and within our community. Pride isn’t a celebration to everyone. To some it is a brutal reminder that there is still much work to do, that the fight isn’t yet won. And changing that has to start at home, it has to begin and grow from within our LGBTQ2S+ community. To my trans siblings, to my indigenous and two-spirit siblings, to my black, latinx, and Asian siblings, to my senior siblings. I know some of you feel forgotten by us. I know some of you still feel invisible and alone. I know some of you watch in horror as other queer folks fret over hairstyles and tank tops and wedding cakes and corporate sponsorships. Pride month can’t, yet, claim to be a celebration for all because, despite valiant efforts, we haven’t yet cleaned our own house or made everyone feel truly welcome here. I would like to acknowledge, that as an organization that I help operate, Theatre Outré and Didi’s Playhaus hasn’t yet done enough. I know we need better representation of EVERYONE under the rainbow umbrella in the art we produce and in the stories we choose to tell. I know we need to make our space more welcoming for all Queer folx and that we need to take our politics and our ideas further to better the lives of those who are most vulnerable among us. For that, I’m sorry. May we all look inwards as individuals within one queer family and reflect upon what more we can do, who can advocate for, who we can love more and what fights still need fighting. May we never forget that Pride started as a riot. May we never lose that spirit of revolt in hopes of creating a world where all feel welcome, where all may celebrate who we are as individuals and what we are as a community together, always from a place of love, so that no one in Lethbridge ever feels invisible again.