Pride history book’s update offers more insight
With many traditional Pride events getting sidelined due to COVID-19 it’s important to still mark the movement and educate younger generations about the work that went into making this celebration a global unifying event.
Victoria based author Robin Stevenson’s revised and updated award-winning book Pride: The Celebration and the Struggle is full of interesting stories and is a great guide to all things Pride.
Postmedia caught up with Stevenson and asked a few questions:
Q: This is an upgraded and expanded version of Pride: The Celebration and the Struggle so what is new in the book?
A: It is updated to reflect changes in the world since 2016 — always a challenge with non-fiction! And it also has a lot of new content — including a whole new chapter on activism — and features many wonderful stories that I am really excited to share. The new stories and profiles include a trans girl from Vancouver fighting for support and inclusion at school, a group of teens organizing the first Pride parade in Inuvik, and a nonbinary teen who started a website to promote LBGTQ+ books. There is also an expanded section about challenges facing the LGBTQ+ community around the world. As a result of my experiences researching the original book, I have become very involved in LGBTQ+ refugee issues and advocacy, so I have brought this into book: I added a story about the world’s first Pride celebration in a refugee camp, which took place in Kakuma, Kenya, and a story about a gay couple who resettled in Canada after fleeing persecution in Indonesia — the same couple who inspired my 2019 picture book, Ghost’s Journey: A Refugee Story.
Q: When you went back and looked through the book what made you happy?
A: I was really happy to notice how many connections that I’d made as a result of the first book, and how many of those connections had grown over the past few years: for example, the teen who did the cover reveal for the original book, on their blog, is featured in the new book with a story about their creation of YA Pride, a website that promotes LGBTQ+ representation in books for teens; and a child who appears in a photo in the original book, watching a Pride parade from her balcony at age 11, returns as a teen activist in the new book with powerful words about why all schools should have GSAs.
Q: In terms of the discussions around LGBTQ issues and realities what is the biggest difference between 2016 and now?
A: In 2016 Barack Obama was president in the US and marriage equality had just come to the states. I felt that the future for young LGBTQ+ people had never looked brighter. Over the past four years there have been some major challenges and steps backwards, and we have been reminded that no battle is ever won permanently. The political climate has shifted, fuelling racism, transphobia and homophobia and bigotry in all of its forms. But I think it is important that kids not only hear about
LGBTQ+ identities and community when we talk about homophobia and transphobia, and I wanted the new book to keep the positive, celebratory tone of the original. The way I chose to address that was by focusing more on activism: Pride has always been about protest — and many young people are picking up that fight.
Q: How important is history to the future of fighting for the rights of LGBTQ people?
A: I think it is essential for young people to know the history of the LGBTQ+ rights movement, as well as the history of the civil rights movement and all social justice movements. They need to know how long and hard people have fought, often at great personal cost and against great odds, to achieve the rights we now have. Today’s young activists should have the chance to learn about the activists whose shoulders they stand on. I think seeing how far we have come can help give them hope that the sometimes overwhelming injustices in today’s world can also be fought against and that change is possible. They need to know that Pride began with a riot — and that people standing together and fighting back against oppression is how change happens.