THUNDER BAY – After learning that Thunder Pride didn't have the resources to hold a formal Pride parade this year, Lak Williams and Sarah DiBiagio organized a protest to take matters into their own hands.
“I understand what goes into making one happen, but, since it didn’t happen, we just kind of took matters into our own hands as there were concerns from the community about lack of representation and visibility in the streets despite them having a street fair,” said Williams.
“It doesn’t have quite the same effect as walking in the streets like as a parade would. So we decided to take more of a grassroots approach and maybe do more of a protest style instead and have a march today.”
Pride originally started as a protest and riot after, police raided New York City's Stonewall Inn, roughing up and arresting its 2SLGBTQIA patrons in June 1969, and, with that history in mind, many in the 2SLGBTQIA question why Thunder Pride’s parade was cancelled this year.
“One of the main reasons that there wasn’t a pride parade this year is that apparently there wasn’t enough funding for the police to block off the roads, which is kind of ironic because pride as we know, started as a protest against police brutality,” said Williams.
“So, it’s to a lot of people’s confusion why we’re not able to have access to the streets as we would, due to financial reasons when police were never welcomed at pride for the longest time. It just goes to show how far removed it’s almost become and I think it’s about time we get back to the grassroots and spread awareness and be visible, especially for the people who couldn’t be here today.”
With many pride events leaning more and more towards commercialization, Williams, like others in the community, believes that the 2SLGBTQIA community needs more community-based events.
“It’s super important, especially because it’s coming from the community rather than doing things on behalf of the community,” they said. “I mean, I might be a little biased but, I feel it’s not that difficult to do some community engagement and talk to the folks that you want to do events for rather than doing events on behalf of them.”
President of the Rainbow Collective Thunder Bay, Jason Veltri, says he also wants to see more community involvement in the movement.
“It’s massively important, you know, you can’t expect two organizations to do all this work. This is a lot of planning that goes into Pride month,” he said. “So we encourage more people to get involved in the movement, organize events, raise money, give back to their community in ways that matter to them.”
