Pride Month is being celebrated in Fort Frances.
It was officially kicked off on Wednesday with a flag-raising ceremony at Fort Frances High School.
Mayor Andrew Hallikas also used the occasion to declare June as Pride Month in the community.
Borderland Pride’s Doug Judson says kicking off the month at the high school is a recognition of the support area educators have given to the 2SLGBTQIA+ community.
The RRDSB (Rainy River District School Board) has been a pioneer in the local Pride movement, and the local education community has been a longstanding source of support for Borderland Pride,” says Judson.
“The board and staff and students, but also to the United Native Friendship Center, Seven Generations Education Institute, and a number of our education labour union locals have been longstanding supporters of Pride and continue to show up at our events, and I know, are living those values every day in the work that they’re doing.”
Judson says the flag-raising at the high school also recognizes the efforts of young people who also help drive the Pride movement forward.
“I think that as we march into the month ahead, where we have all these events lined up to celebrate Pride through advocacy and education and leadership and arts and drag, that other people in the community look to youth and respect youth for the understanding and the innate sense of inclusion that (they) continue to demonstrate as a generation on Pride and inclusion as we see so much hate and vitriol and legislative attacks on people who are different or parents who are protecting their children, who are queer and trans.”
A number of students were on hand for the flag-raising.
Arianna Hyatt of the school’s Sexuality and Gender Acceptance club (SAGA) says it is important the flag flies at their school.
“Support for the 2SLGBTQIA+ community has come a long way, but there is still progress to be made to end discrimination against the 2SLGBTQIA+ community. Today’s raising of the flag is to show that Fort Francis High School, Borderline Pride, and SAGA are here to continue to provide inclusive communities for all and to help end discrimination, as well as ending misinformation regarding the two 2SLGBTQIA+ community and issues,” says Hyatt.
The flag raised was not the usual rainbow flag but one known as the Progress Pride Flag. The flag overlays the usual 6-striped rainbow with a chevron on the left side that features black, brown, light blue, pink, and white stripes. The flag represents some of the most marginalized communities at the forefront of the Pride movement – including racialized members of the community and trans and gender-diverse people. The arrow points to the right to show forward movement, but that progress still has to be achieved.