| May 17, 2008 |
| The International Day Against Homophobia, held on May 17 every year, is a rallying event offering an opportunity for people to get together and reach out to one another. Fondation Émergence promotes, mainly on a pan-Canadian level, the International Day Against Homophobia and encourages organisations and individuals to highlight this event in their environment. More | |||||||||||||||||||||
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| May 12, 2008 | ||
| 8:00 am | to | 10:00 am |
The Centre would like to invite you to our 4th Annual Awareness Breakfast to observe National Day Against Homophobia, May 17th. This observance has grown tremendously since 2003 when first organized by the Fondation Émergence in Quebec. Last year saw hundreds of events organized in communities across Canada to raise awareness about homophobia. Please visit the official website www.homophobiaday.com for more information.
The Centre’s Awareness Breakfast brings together a mix of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, two-spirit individuals with representatives from community groups and organizations, businesses and levels of government. In the first year, 140 people attended the breakfast. Last year the event sold out at 350 people.
The overarching theme for the Day this year is ‘healthcare’. The goal is to combat homophobia, transphobia and heterosexism in all aspects of the healthcare system; to raise awareness about the specific health needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, two-spirit communities and individuals; and to support the development of educational tools and work toward their full integration into healthcare curricula.
The Centre is delighted to partner once again with Vancity to bring the Awareness Breakfast to our communities. We are also pleased this year to have Hospital Employee’s Union as a community supporter. In addition, community sponsors include BC Cancer Agency, BC Cancer Foundation, BC Centre for Disease Control, BC Nurses Union, Fondation Emergence, Gay & Lesbian Educators of BC, Gayway, Gay & Lesbian Business Association, Vancouver Coastal Health, and media sponsor The Georgia Straight.
The 2008 Awareness Breakfast is on Monday, May 12, 8:00 -10:00am at Coast Plaza Hotel, Ballroom, 1763 Comox Street (at Denman). We chose Monday this year so that folks can carry the spirit of the breakfast throughout their week, concluding with the Day itself on Saturday, May 17th. The event will feature a buffet-style breakfast, speakers, door prizes and opportunities to connect with each other.
Tickets are $20 ($7.50 students/seniors/underemployed) and available at Little Sisters Bookstore, 1238 Davie Street, Vancouver. You may also request tickets by completing the attached ticket order form. Ticket forms must be received with payment by Friday, May 2nd. Tickets went fast last year so please purchase yours early to be part of this important event. Tickets will not be available at the door. Full-price ticket sales are crucial to help make this event self-supporting. Therefore, please note that there are limited tickets available at $7.50
This year we are encouraging folks to bring along a colleague to the breakfast who may not have attended previously. This helps ensure that our network of allies continues to grow each year! And of course, remember to share this invitation with your family, friends, and neighbours as well. NDAH Breakfast Ticket Order Form
We hope you are able to join us at the Awareness Breakfast as a public testament of your commitment to ending homophobia, transphobia and heterosexism in healthcare and to building a society in which all Canadians are valued for their unique and rich identities and contributions. If you would like additional information, please do not hesitate to contact me at The Centre at 604 684-6548 or email educationoutreach@lgtbcentrevancouver.com
Letter to LQ’s Editor from Corea Ladner:
Hello:
Perhaps you are already aware that an education guide that encourages tolerance for gay/lesbian/transgendered diversity in the schools is being compaigned against being available in BC schools.
The article states that ‘This week the Catholic Civil Rights League, a lay group, urged parents to protest against the guide over its inclusion of gay issues including same-sex marriage.’
Please see the following link for the full article. http://www.365gay.com/Newscon08/03/032608school.htm
I would suggest that, since the CCRL is working to kill the guide, It would be helpful for us to send an email to the Education Minister to ensure the guide is used. Perhaps you could distribute this information if you have an elist and/or like minded friends and encourage everyone to send an email.
I’ve included below the email letter that I sent to Shirley if you would simply like to forward it with your own name.
Ms. Bond’s email address and website are as follows. Thank you for yor help.
http://www.leg.bc.ca/mla/38thparl/bond.htm
Dear Shirley Bond,
Public schools must be inclusive of all minorities. Gay and lesbian people make up 10 % of the population, including school children. Particularly in high school, gays. lesbians, bisexuals, and trnasgendered teens feel as if the whole system is created by and for people unlike them. Moreover, they are likely to suffer violence simply because they are gay – or are perceived to be gay.
Positive role models and an understanding of how gay culture has influenced and contributed to mainstream culture will help eliminate the discrimination suffered by GLBT youth in school. As Education Minister, I feel that you have a golden opportunity to help eliminate violence and discrimination in school – and in society by releasing the Education Guide, “Making Space, Giving Voice.”
Please help be part of the solution that brings compassion, knowledge and understanding into a culture that has suffered immeasurably by the ignorance of centuries of religious oppression and ignorance.
Please do so immediately and give it your full support. Thank you for your time.
Corea Ladner, Human Service Worker, BA
This weeks’ Xtra west did an excellent cover story about queer women in music, and why so many of them aren’t publicly self identifying as queer or lesbian or putting queer/lesbian content in their music.
Young lesbian and queer women artists are quoted as saying they don’t want to be ‘pidgeonholed’ as queer by representing themselves in the media as lesbian or writing about lesbian experience. While not exactly closeted, if the majority of their fans have no reason to know they’re not straight, they will be assumed to be straight.
Musicians and other public figures passing for straight is nothing new. Queer artists like KD Lang, the Nylons, George Michaels and Elton John also passed for straight in their early careers. While not needing the deep closet of gay actor Rock Hudson or US Congresswomen Barbara Jordan, who were outed only after their deaths, many young lesbian and queer artists are choosing to represent themselves as straight by not declaring otherwise. Would kd or the Nylons have been as successful as they have been if they had come out early in their careers? We’ll know that gay and lesbian people have reached full equality when creating art about our own experiences no longer reduces our career success.
But why are musicians looking for less mainstream audiences not out and proud? Lesbian musical matriarch Cris Williamson is quoted as saying that it’s all just a part of an artistic pendulum, and that much younger women, currently 12 or 13 have swung back towards being more political, and that gives her hope. I think she’s got a point here. Cris’ words put me in mind of an 80’s TV show starring Michael J Fox as the Republican teenage son of progressive activist parents. His parents were so political, there was no way to differentiate himself from them without embracing the conservative values they’d fought. Perhaps the current generation of lesbian and queer women artists are reacting to their musical foremothers in a similar way, choosing to be apolitical or pass for straight in order to be nothing like the lesbian musicians who preceeded them. One can only hope that their musical daughters will feel an equal need to do something different.
Dykes are debonair, bi’s are beautiful, queer women are quirky and gay women are gorgeous. LQ is unfashionably lesbian–focused, but welcomes readers with other choices. 