LETTER – An invitation to Jim Harrison to walk in next year’s Pride parade

Hello Mr. Harrison,

As president of PFLAG in Vancouver, (www.pflagvancouver.com), I invite you to attend one of our meetings. I am doing this in response to your column entitled ‘Pride parades shouldn’t be needed anymore’.

I’d like you to come and meet the people at our meetings, and understand what life is like for someone who identifies as L, G, B, T or Q. I’d also like you to meet their families.

I’d like you to talk to the trans people who have been denied work because of who they are, or what they look like. I’d like you to discuss with some of our youngest LGBTQ community members what being homeless is like after being kicked out by ‘loving’ parents. I’d like you to speak with my own mother, who will tell you about what it was like for me to come out to my father, and to some members of his family. I’d love to talk to you about the aunt who disowned me because of a sexual orientation I did not choose.

Most of all, I’d like for you to walk with us in next year’s Pride parade in Vancouver, and to tell me that you still think what we do in the parade is ‘tiresome’.

Your article angered me: I’m not going to pretend it didn’t. You’ve written something out of ignorance, and sadly I don’t think you realize it.

You are honestly more than welcome to join us, and I hope you do. I’m sure you’ve heard the term ‘walk a mile in my shoes’; I invite you to do that in front of 600,000 others and understand something that you’ve chosen to dismiss as ‘tiresome’. What’s truly tiresome is homophobia and transphobia, and we will keep marching until it has no place in our society, from columnists or otherwise.

COLIN McKENNA
PFLAG Vancouver