Cranbrook welcomed Pride Month on June 6 and 7, with a weekend of spirited events.
The festivities began with Queerioke on Friday, June 6 at the Eagles Hall. Drag queen April Storm MCed this event and lit up the venue with warm vibrant energy.
Rotary Park was host to a variety of outdoor activities on Saturday, June 7. Highlights include a dog costume show and a panel discussion with local 2SLGBTQ+ speakers.
Attendees dressed their friendly pups in pride gear and paraded them in the park to win a prize gift basket.
The panel brought together a handful of 2SLGBTQ+ people, who shared their experiences about coming out, dealing with discrimination, navigating challenges with identity, and positive experiences of self-acceptance. Event organizer Elora McCormack moderated the discussion for speakers Jonte Hurlock, Alyssa Quick, Hunter Rhodes and Smokii Sumac.
McCormack said sharing stories is important, as it’s often difficult for 2SLGBTQ+ individuals living in non-urban areas to find role models that they can relate to.
"Our community is a little bit smaller and less connected. We don't have as many resources for queer youth and even queer adults," she said "... In a smaller community people just don't really know us as well."
"Younger people might not be totally ready to come out," she added. "Myself, I took a really long time to confront those emotions, so having people who you can relate to is definitely very important, to hear their stories and maybe see yourself reflected in them.”
Sumac, a Ktunaxa poet, provided Indigenous perspective.
Sumac came out as transgender in 2017 while they were performing onstage at the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word. Sumac identifies as two-spirited, a term used by Indigenous peoples who embody both masculine and feminine characteristics.
"It gave me a word that made me feel welcome and I've been learning more in our language, the different types of words we have to describe this, to describe who we are and who we love," said Sumac. "Two spirit gives us a word that we can use everywhere to share that and it also gives us a community."
Sumac said while attitudes towards queer people in the Indigenous community are still evolving and changing, overall people have been very accepting.
“I find our community is open to having the hard conversations because we’ve done so much work from healing traumas from past events and coming together as communities. I’ve been welcomed into communities to have these conversations,” Sumac said.
“There has always been gender and sexual diversity in Ktunaxa culture and in many Indigenous cultures,” they added.
The weekend wrapped up with the Tounge In Cheeks drag show on Saturday evening, starring April Storm, Nada Nuff, Farrah Nuff, The Marvellous Mo and local performer Glitter Beast.
