Eastman Pride helps bring celebrations to rural Manitoba communities this summer

Several first-time Pride events are coming to rural Manitoba communities this summer, as a local group works to spread the message of Pride throughout the province, and into places where they believe it's needed now more than ever. 

"It's something that I think has been a long time coming in our area," said Kathy Majowski, one of the founding members of Eastman Pride. "It's very exciting." 

On Sunday, Eastman Pride will host the Beau-Head Pride Celebration, the first Pride event to take place in the town of Beausejour. It will include community members from the neighbouring rural municipality of Brokenhead and beyond.

The group is also hosting or supporting Pride events this summer at Powerview-Pine Falls (which happened earlier this month), Pinawa, the rural municipality of Whitemouth, Lac du Bonnet and Victoria Beach.

Eastman Pride was founded with the goal of bringing Pride events to more communities in the Eastman region, Majowski said.

She also has a personal reason for wanting to see Pride events in small and rural communities. 

"I live in Tyndall, and my daughter is part of the queer community and she's a teenager, and we've always enjoyed going to the Pride Winnipeg events and participating in that," she said. 

"But having something closer to home was important for me, for her to see that it's not just Winnipeg where she belongs. It's across our province that she is welcome."

Majowski said she knows many young members of the 2SLGBTQ+ community struggle to find acceptance and a sense of community in rural areas, and they're often forced to deal with negative comments and prejudices. 

"Those negative voices by far are in the minority, but they can be very loud and they can be very ugly,"  Majowski said.

"So when the youth hear that, that can be a big motivation for our group."

The group was also inspired to organize as many Pride events as possible in the area after a woman who was trying to organize Pride events last year was publicly criticized by some community members at a public council meeting, Majowski said.

"There were some people that came to that meeting that were against it, and they essentially intimidated that individual, and they didn't feel safe hosting that event after that meeting," she said. 

"That was our last straw. When we heard about that, we were like, 'Yeah, we need to do this.'"