Books debate unites LGBTQ+ community

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This article was published 19/06/2023 (1180 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Westman’s LGBTQ+ community and its allies made a big statement Saturday by showing up in droves for this year’s Brandon Pride march, which attracted around 1,000 people from the Wheat City and beyond.

Just like last year, this event began with a rally at City Hall and was followed by a walk to Rideau Park, where marchers were treated to live musical performances and some barbecue.

However, organizers told the Sun that this year’s festivities — including the week’s worth of Pride events leading up to Saturday — felt a little more impactful than usual given everything that’s happened over the last couple weeks.

During her opening speech at City Hall, Brandon Pride chair Aly Wowchuk referenced the recent controversy surrounding the Brandon School Division, where former trustee Lorraine Hackenschmidt brought forward a proposal to set up a committee to review, and potentially ban, books that she saw as harmful to children.

Since most of the material that Hackenschmidt highlighted on May 8 revolved around LGBTQ+ issues or topics like sexual health, her proposal sparked a big response from parents, students, educators and activists living the region, who attended the follow-up school board meeting on May 23 to highlight the damaging affect banning books would have on the community at large.

“Then, for over six hours, you watched along with us online or in a crowded and hot gymnasium at Vincent Massey to listen to people share their knowledge and their stories,” Wowchuk said on Saturday.

“Our community was united against censorship, misinformation, hate and fought against intentions to erase queer and trans representations from our schools.”

At the end of this marathon meeting, the BSD board ultimately voted against Hackenschmidt’s proposal by a vote of 6-1, with trustee Breeanna Sieklicki being the only holdout.

Because of this result, Saturday’s Pride march was seen by some as a celebration of the community’s successful rejection of the anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric that’s been picking up steam across Canada and other parts of Westman.

In fact, the grand marshals for this year’s Brandon Pride march consisted of students from the nearby Rolling River School Division, who publicly protested recent efforts to install a new trustee on the school board pushing similar policies to Hackenschmidt.

While this candidate failed to obtain a seat on the board during last fall’s election, Brandon Pride selected these Rolling River students to serve as the vanguard of Saturday’s march, hoping that their presence would inspire others to stand up against other anti-queer campaigns that emerge in their rural communities.

“So that’s why we come here, to express ourselves and show that we’re here and we’re not going to be quiet about all the horrible stuff that’s going on,” said Emily Gabrielle, a Grade 11 student from Erickson Collegiate.

In terms of the scale of Saturday’s event, former Brandon Pride chair Ken Jackson couldn’t help but marvel at how far the march has come since its inception in 2015, when they only managed to attract a couple hundred people.

While local Pride events have gradually been increasing in popularity since then, Jackson believes that the recent school board meeting at Vincent Massey really galvanized the LGBTQ+ community like never before, since it gave them a tangible opponent to rally against in the form of Hackenschmidt and her supporters.

“I don’t think they realized that when we had that mass meeting [on May 23] they were actually putting a bunch of allies together,” he said.

“We didn’t all know each other in that room. But we do now. Maybe we need to thank them for getting us all together.”

The recent hubbub surrounding a book review committee encouraged Vincent Massey student Jason Foster to get involved and testify before the BSD board May 23 about his experience living as a transgender boy.

Following this experience, Foster decided to take part in his first Pride event this past weekend and was happy to see the support he received at that board meeting largely carry over to Saturday’s festivities.

“I never expected it from a small town like Brandon … but it’s very nice to see,” Foster said.

“Even in a town like this there’s all this support, so Pride is bigger than we think.”

Despite the celebratory atmosphere of Saturday’s march, Wowchuk reminded the crowd about the political nature of Pride Month and how Westman’s LGBTQ+ community must remain vigilant year-round.

After all, the recent controversies at BSD and RRSD are not isolated incidents, with similar book banning campaigns taking place throughout Canada and especially the United States.

In March, the American Library Association reported 1,269 demands to censor library books and resources in 2022, the highest number of attempted book bans since the organization began compiling such data over two decades ago.

The vast majority of these titles featured LGBTQ+ content or “sexually explicit” material.

Some of the items featured on ALA’s “Top 13 Most Challenged Books of 2022” list were even brought up during the May 23 BSD board meeting to justify setting up a book review committee, including Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye” and Juno Dawson’s “This Book is Gay.”

Because of this increasingly hostile atmosphere towards the queer community, Wowchuk said it’s more important than ever to stay engaged with upcoming elections at the provincial or local level, with the BSD school board currently contending with two vacancies.

“Before you cast your ballot, look into who is running, because the choices these people make will directly affect how we live and how our kids can live as their authentic selves,” she said.

Wowchuk also reminded the crowd that the City of Dauphin is scheduled to host its very first Pride parade on June 28.

» kdarbyson@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @KyleDarbyson