Adam Prudhomme
Editor
Greater Napanee Pride held a meet-and-greet on Saturday, welcoming members of the community to drop by the Napanee Lion’s Hall to share ideas, learn how to get involved or simply just chat.
A completely volunteer run organization, Greater Napanee Pride was formed a little over a year now with the mandate of creating a safe space for members of the 2SLGBTQ+ community. Saturday’s event was the first of its kind, providing an opportunity for the community to meet the faces behind the organization.
“The purpose today is to just get out and about and meet members of the community so that it’s not just about the Pride Day that we’re kind of exposed to the community,” said Chris Beauchesne, a member of Greater Napanee Pride. “There’s people that don’t necessarily participate in Pride festivities or don’t come out to our drag shows. This is an opportunity for them to come out and meet and greet and share their ideas or offer their volunteer services. We have a hard time connecting with people on a regular basis because there’s nowhere for us to convene.”
Earlier in the week Beauchesne spoke to Greater Napanee council on behalf of the group, requesting the town once again recognize June as Pride Month, to which council obliged. Expanding on his comments made to council, Beauchesne spoke of the importance of providing a safe place for members of the 2SLGBTQ+ community. He noted the political climate has begun to shift of late, threatening to undo a lot of progress they’ve made.
“People talk to us face to face it’s mostly positive,” said Beauchesne. “I find that’s where we find there’s a lot of negative comments is on message board or comments on the bottom of articles where people don’t necessarily have to show their face to make their comment. It’s easier to say mean things about people when you don’t have to see them eye-to-eye. There is a negative undertone and has been brewing for the last couple of months but that leads back to the freedom convoy and their propaganda. They have been showing up at these drag queen story times and protesting. It’s negative, but usually when they have these protests, we have about three times the amount of people there as kind of a counter-protest. So there are loud people out there, but we still seem to be the louder voice. There’s definitely something in the air that’s given people an extra little oomph to give their bigoted opinions.”
Tiffany Lloyd, also a member of Greater Napanee Pride, agreed.
“There’s a lot of confirmation bias in their own little bubbles,” said Lloyd. “We have to keep reminding ourselves that the loudest people on the interest or the loudest people with the blow horn outside are not the majority.”
Beauchesne said getting the town to recognize Pride Month while flying the rainbow flag was a great start, followed by the first ever Pride march last June.
“Historically Napanee has not been a gay friendly environment,” he said. “I find people that live in this area travel out for those celebrations. They either go to Montreal or Toronto or even Kingston, but usually further to celebrate and not have that light cast on them. Now it’s accepted more and people showed up and I think it was even bigger than any of us expected.”
Plans are well underway for this coming June’s celebrations.
“We have heard that some people chose to hold back last year and not come and just sort of see how it goes and not put themselves out there on a limb,” said Lloyd. “Because it was so positive and such a wonderful experience, we’re expecting more this year.”
Following Saturday’s meet-and-greet the group hosted an ‘open stage’ event, encouraging anyone to take the stage to showcase queer amateur talent, whether it be drag, dance, comedy or music.