Digital Pride fest debuts unique programming
As she looked over submissions for this year’s Saskatoon Pride parade, co-chair Natasha King felt proud.
Last month, the Saskatchewan Diversity Network, which organizes the Saskatoon Pride Festival, announced that Pride will go digital this year in order to respect public health guidelines limiting the size of gatherings and encouraging physical distancing.
Moving this year’s Pride parade online hasn’t stopped people wanting to participate by submitting videos, King said.
“People have put a lot of effort and organization into putting something together that’s meaningful, and it really touches my heart,” she said.
“For the last three months, it’s been really challenging for a lot of folks and they seem to have really channelled their energy into creating some pretty amazing messages of community and messages of love.”
While COVID-19 has changed how Pride month in Saskatchewan will be celebrated, for organizers it has only heightened how LGBTQ2+ communities connect with and support each other.
Even with Queen City Pride’s festivities postponed until the fall, organizers have been working to support and bring visibility to programs to support LGBTQ2+ populations in the province, co-chair Dan Shier said.
The organization is holding a smaller-scale Pride motorcade on Saturday to wrap up what would have been Queen City Pride Week, and a panel discussion on Thursday about the impacts of COVID-19 on LGBTQ2+ communities in Canada.
It’s worth talking about, considering how the pandemic has affected those groups, Shier said. A recent study by national LGBTQ2+ advocacy group Egale Canada found that LGBTQ2+ communities were disproportionately hit in areas like finances, job loss and physical and mental health.
More than 60 per cent of LGBTQ2+ respondents reported they expect their mental health to be negatively affected in the next two months, compared to 42 per cent of the general public.
“It’s really clear that it’s having a significant impact on people’s well-being, mental health and access to basic things that we take for granted a little bit,” he said. "I think messages of hope are always needed, especially in harder times.
“It’s important that not only community leaders and organizations are being visible and putting that message out there, but for each and every one of us to be doing check-ins.”
The Saskatoon Pride Festival, running June 12-20, kicks off with a drive-in movie screening on Sunday and wraps up next weekend with the virtual parade, main stage and dance party.
New programming that has been in the works for a few years is having its debut online. The organization’s Two Spirit Ball, an evening of dance, performance and discussion, will be the first time Saskatoon Pride has organized an entirely Indigenous-led event.
The organization has worked in recent years to include more community voices and involvement, and moving online has made that even easier, King said.
“I think one of the neat things about this is it is more inclusive,” she said. “We have people contributing that are not living right in Saskatoon, and folks that weren’t able to access Pride for other reasons. And they’re able to do this digitally.”