9.14.2009

Are Queers too tired to address Homophobia

We may have won some battles on the gay rights front, we still have much to do as This Magazine points out here...

If queers were going to advocate for something more—and Canada, pink as it is, is still not quite a gay utopia—activists would have to look beyond changing discriminatory laws. But the transition from wartime to peacetime has not been easy. At the height of the marriage debate, Egale’s annual operating budget peaked at $538,000; now it’s about $160,000, plus donated office space in Ottawa and Toronto. This year the Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Rights in Ontario packed up shop after more than 33 years, during which time it had successfully advocated to include gay and lesbian people in Ontario’s Human Rights Code and get the Toronto District School Board to adopt a non-discrimination policy that included LGBT people. - This Magazine

Canadian schools are another example of what's left to be done. A ground breaking survey was begun last year of schools across the country. That survey found may GLBTQ students were often on the receiving end of verbal and physical assaults and found many locations in schools unsafe. Prof. Catherine Taylor is continuing her research of homophobia in schools in phase two of the study.

The first-phase report of The National Climate Survey on Homophobia in Canadian Schools can be found here.

All that plus the recent case in Thunder Bay where a brutal example of Homophobia resulted in one man being severely beaten.

Maybe we queer activists are burnt out, or maybe for many the fight was just for marriage. I hate to think that is where it is at.

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