Though June is commonly celebrated as Pride month, Maynooth will have a Pride event in August.
Joe Shulman, organizer of Pride in Hastings Highlands since 1992, passed the torch to new organizers a few years ago.
Shulman was pleased to see Bancroft Shopper’s Drug Mart employees’ “total embrace” of the Pride posters and t-shirts in the store.
Queers of the Area, a local group which counts Shulman as a member, recently helped fundraise for the new lift being installed at the Village Playhouse, and are anticipating having the name of their group officially recognized as one of the donors.
Shulman said this would not have been a possibility when he first moved to the area in 1988.
Before Shulman and his partner moved to Maynooth, he had previously lived in Toronto in the 1980s, and remembers events like the AIDS epidemic and the bathhouse raids.
He said though much progress has been made and the legalization of homosexuality and same-sex marriage is taken for granted today, these rights feel as though they are increasingly subject to change in today’s world.
Shulman has not seen a change in people’s fear of “otherness” over the years, and he’s seen a growth in apathy.
He said he was recently watching a film called Nuremberg about the trials of Nazi leaders, and the other people watching were on their smartphones at the same time.
“To have the American soldiers’ footage of the liberation of the camps, the sidebar to an amusement diversion, hit me to the heart,” he said.
“People don’t want to be sad. I get it,” he added.
“I totally get that people don’t want to be brought down, they don’t want to talk about stuff that happened before they were alive, like the residential schools or the 60s Scoop or any of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women.”
Shulman said at 75-years-old, he’s seen things happen in recurring cycles.
“You keep on chanting to yourself, ‘don’t make the same mistakes twice’…You know, once should be enough. And we’re still learning our lessons. We’re still taking baby steps forward and big steps back.”
He said over the years, Pride has grown into a welcoming, diverse, inclusive event, but added not all battles are won yet.
“Pride, we are always reminded, started with a riot,” he said.
Shulman said the last Pride that was held in the area had around 250 people, including members of the 2SLGBTQ+ community and allies.
He said for this year’s Pride, planning will be ongoing right up to August long weekend, but at this point it will include an artisan market, a celebration of local talent within the 2SLGBTQ+ community and a potluck. He added though the main public event will happen on Aug. 2, other gatherings will likely take place over the course of the long weekend as well.
“It’s so inclusive, just the event itself. From the moment you arrive, you’re welcomed, you’re celebrated. There are supports there, information.”
Shulman said the new stewards of the event have done a good job continuing its legacy.
