2SLGBTQ Canadians angry and anxious this Pride season, but determined to fight on

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Warning: This story contains references to suicide. 

Longtime 2SLGBTQ activist Clare Nobbs has been celebrating Pride month in Toronto for more than three decades — but this year a rise in harmful rhetoric has left her anxious and angry.

"I'm angry because our identities are apparently up for debate. There are questions around who we are, and why we should be celebrating," Nobbs told The Current's Matt Galloway. 

"But I reject that … I refuse to be ashamed of who I am. And so I will be celebrating," she said. 

"I'm celebrating community and I'm celebrating love."

Across Canada, recent months have seen protests against drag queens reading to children, stand-offs round access to gender-affirming care, and public rows about Pride flags. In New Brunswick, Premier Blaine Higgs has lamented a rise in gender diversity as "trendy," and proposed legislation that would bar teachers from using a student's preferred pronouns without parental consent.

In the U.S., hundreds of bills focused on transgender people have been brought forward so far this year, targeting gender-affirming care, participation in sports, bathroom use and education around gender and sexuality. 

Nobbs sees "a rising tide of hate," driven by far-right religious and political figures who've "given permission for all kinds of hateful things to be said and done against people who are different."

"Six months ago people said, 'Oh, it's mostly in the States, it's in the south.' It is creeping up fast," she said.

"There have been people acting in silos, fomenting, gathering strength, and they don't want to see our human rights respected. They don't want to acknowledge that difference."

For Joshua LeClair, a two-spirit Anishinaabe person and Pride organizer near Thunder Bay, pushing back against that kind of rhetoric "comes down to saving lives."

"The consequences [are] someone's child dying, someone's brother or sister dying," he said. 

LeClair is 33 and grew up watching Canada and other countries debate marriage equality. He said that debate made him feel as if large parts of society didn't think he deserved the right to start a happy family of his own.