The Pride of the Prairies
Pride 2011 promises to be one of the biggest celebrations of Winnipeg’s LGBTQ community yet
David Pepper, founder of the North Star Triangle Project, will speak at Pride Winnipeg’s 2011 rally. (JOHN WOODS / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS ARCHIVES)
Martha Wash (JOSH DE HON)
On Sunday, June 5, thousands of Winnipeggers will come together in solidarity with the city’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) community for Pride Day — the cumulation of a 10-day celebration which kicked off this year on May 27.
Featuring an 11:30 a.m. rally at the Manitoba Legislature, a parade down Broadway at noon, and a free, outdoor festival at The Forks that runs until 6:30 p.m. and features music, a children’s play area and a business/art fair, Pride Day is open to all and promises something for everyone.
It also promises to be big.
Last year saw several changes made to the annual event, now in its 24th year. Among them, the festival was moved from Memorial Park to The Forks — a site with better amenities and more space to accommodate the huge crowds now taking part in the "Pride of the Prairies."
Organizers estimate approximately 15,000 people participated in 2010’s Pride Day events; cumulative attendance for the 10-day festival was pegged at about 30,000.
"It seems that we’re growing very quickly," says Scott Carman, director of media and communications for Pride Winnipeg, who credits an increased acceptance of Winnipeg’s LGBTQ community and a lot of hard work.
"I think we’re doing a better job of getting the word out and marketing what’s happening during Pride Week," he says.
Of course, last year’s hot, sunny weather didn’t hurt, either.
"We got really lucky," Carman admits. "It rained most of the week leading up to Pride and we ended up having the most beautiful day imaginable.
"All the feedback from the people who attended was very positive — everything from having the permanent stage, the covered stage, to having the beer tent for the first time," he continues, chuckling. "One of the lessons we learned was that we needed a bigger beer tent."
Indeed. Not only was the inaugural beer tent a hit, it also inspired an ingenious fundraising idea. Partnering with Winnipeg-based Half Pints Brewing Company, Pride Winnipeg has created and patented Queer Beer, an original recipe cheekily described as "a little bit fruity and 100% fabulous." Proceeds from the sale of the speciality beer — which is also available at local LGBTQ bars and two MLCC stores — will provide an ongoing source of revenue for Pride Winnipeg.
Musical performances at The Forks begin at 1:30 p.m. and will include sets by local pop rock trio Sons of York and Alberta’s Rae Spoon, a transgender experimental alt-folk artist. This year’s headliner is Martha Wash, who’s perhaps best known for the 1982 hit It’s Raining Men, which she recorded with The Weather Girls (although you may also recognize her voice from Black Box’s Strike It Up and C+C Music Factory’s Gonna Make You Sweat/Everybody Dance Now). Wash performs at 4:30 p.m..
Pride is more than just a party, however, a fact acknowledged by Pride Winnipeg’s 2011 theme: unity.
Carman says a 2010 screening of the documentary, Beyond Gay: The Politics of Pride, got local organizers thinking about Pride festivals elsewhere "and the fact that, in some parts of the world, it’s actually still illegal to be gay or to engage in homosexual acts, and some people actually lose their lives over it." (Underlining that reality, the 2011 Pride Guide includes a map showing the status of LGBTQ rights in countries around the world.)
Organizers also wanted to acknowledge last year’s string of suicides by American teens tormented by homophobic bullying and the murder of Ugandan gay activist David Kato this past January, just months after being outed by a newspaper in that country in an article headlined "Hang them."
"There’s a lot of real-world events happening that made us think, you know, it’s time that we take a stand and stand united with our brothers and sisters around the world," Carman says.
That goal is one that’s shared by Ottawa’s David Pepper, who will be speaking at this year’s rally.
Born in Fargo, raised in Brandon, Man., Pepper, 48, is a long-time gay-rights activist with an interest in international issues who’s using a 10-month sabbatical from his job with the Ottawa Police Service to travel across Canada on a self-funded tour to raise awareness about the plight of LGBTQ refugees and provide information on how citizens can privately sponsor someone who is being persecuted because of his or her sexuality; something he and a group of friends are currently doing.
"The experience of refugees in our world is, I think, the No. 1 humanitarian challenge of our times. Maybe on par with slavery," Pepper says, over the phone from Toronto.
Since launching the North Star Triangle Project in Winnipeg in April, Pepper has visited 11 cities, with another 12 left to go.
"As gays and lesbians and bisexual and trans people, we understand struggle — at the personal level, at the social level, at the family level, at the political level," Pepper says.
"We also, as human beings, need to recognize that that struggle is not one that we are alone in."
For more information about Pride 2011, go to www.pridewinnipeg.com.
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