Words spoken by Rachel Paterson at the raising of the progresstive pride flag at Owen Sound City Hall, June 1, 2022.

Aanii, Tansi, Good Morning. Thank you all for gathering with us this morning as we stand together to raise our progressive pride flag.
Today we stand, situated on the traditional lands known as The Dish With One Spoon shared amongst the Ojibway, Odawa, and Pottawatomie Nations. The Dish With One Spoon Treaty Members – including Settlers – have the continued responsibility to ensure that the dish will never be empty

by taking care of the land and all of the living beings which congregate on it. The spoon itself represents our peoples keeping peace, for together there is no need of a knife which leads to violence; rather, we step forward together in peace and harmony. We would like further to give thanks to the Chippewas of Saugeen, and the Chippewas of Nawash, now known as the Saugeen Ojibway Nation, as the traditional keepers of these beautiful lands, to our Inuit Peoples and to the Metis Nations who are protectors to nibi, our water. Thank you for your wealth of knowledge, your teachings and demonstrating that we can all live together, all nations and beings, with kindness and love guiding our way. May we collectively as a society return to these teachings and ways of being.

Too much of the past years of covid have been fraught with violence, aggression and hatred. We see our Nations fraught with racism and discrimination, from the remains of our Indigenous children at the so-called ‘residential schools,’ the innumerable people of colour murdered throughout Turtle Island, the oppositional views on the covid pandemic and responses and the subtle and daily violence associated with them, withholding of treatments and healthcare from the impoverished throughout the world, the genocide occurring in Palestine, and our world on the cusp of another world war. These years have been heavy and burdensome. So many have lived in fear and continue to. So many have suffered through these times of global isolation.

This has however been a time of reflections, of re-evaluation of values, morals and mindsets. For many this has been a time of transcendent growth and revelation, of discovering their true-selves. In some cases, that may have been the realization that they are part of our
2S-LGBTQQIAP+ Community. To those of you newly here today, I say ‘welcome we are glad you could come out today and have come into who you have always been.’

As I contemplated what words to speak today, I realized I didn’t wish to speak words of my own. A spokesperson I may be; however, it is my queer responsibility based upon the privileges granted to me as a femme-presenting individual to amplify the voices of those within my community whose paths are harder than mine and may not be able to safely speak up and out.

So today I choose to share two poems which I hope those as allies understand is the result of the fear of coming out and living an authentic life, the shock of brutality and violence we face, and the bravery we lead with on a daily basis. Not all of us can safely be out; so, it is our job as a community to engage in building safer, informed spaces as a community together so that all of our wings may grow free of confinement, and love can flourish. As we work towards reopening our cities; we at Grey Bruce Pride ask our community to be mindful to ensure our spaces are safe and inclusive for our queer community. We cannot ever fully be safe without our allies, so we ask that you mind these pleas and hear the words of our community.

Again, thank you to all for joining us here today and I remind you all to please be mindful of the safety that's required for our community to go back to the teachings of our Indigenous people to live in harmony with one another. All living beings all nations lead by love.

I had prepared this speech a week ago, and in that time it seems like the world has shifted, except it hasn't. It's just as dangerous as it always has been, it's just getting increasingly more visible. Last Tuesday, in Uvalde, 19 elementary aged children and two teachers were brutally murdered. There have been 18 mass shootings in the US since. A total of 214 since the start of this year 27 at schools. Texas being the state with the highest number of school shootings for the past 8 years. This in a state where supporting trans children is considered child abuse, and can result in a child being removed from their familial home. Other states offering refugee status of a sort to families of trans youth that need to flee their home states. And yet it's acceptable to purchase not just a gun but an automatic rifle and immediately leave the store with it the day this gunman turned 18. And somehow in this conservative Bible belt that is Texas, the right wing media sources there wrongly accused a trans woman of being the mass murderer. They went so far as to even post photographs, some later corrected their previous statements and removed the photos but some did not. And this brings us to Tracy, a. 17-year-old trans Texan girl who was ganged up on by adult men who beat her who yelled at her who called her slurs and a freak, who blamed her trans sisterhood for the murders of 21 people and for perverting children. Thankfully she was able to flee however El Paso police have done nothing. No charges, no statement taken not from Tracy, not from the queer support agency She turned to. Because how could they possibly protect a trans person? Not with these new laws. Not with these laws of attempted erasure ship of trans, genderqueer and non-binary people. The simple truth is that I would not be able to stand here if it were not for black trans women. They paved the way for the privileges that I am so blessed to have, and it is my queer responsibility to pave the way forward honouring them and those to come.

So I stand here today on June 1st to say this is our month, our month of Pride and Indigenous History Month. We will celebrate, for ourselves, for those we've lost, and for our future generations. However, I stand here today, the day before our elections, and I plead to you all that you consider us tomorrow when you go to vote. You consider those of us who society has tried to erase, whose safe health care access is so rare that our community has to travel hours away in order to have safe health care access. That you consider those of us too scared to stand here today. Think of your morals and values and where they stand and know that the politics happening down the states, the games that you see playing out, they are starting their way here and it's terrifying, not just for our community but for all those vulnerable people within our society. Think of Tracy. Every day we wake up knowing that there are people who hate us when all we seek to do is love and live authentically just as you are granted that norm. Queer Vote has a Queer Report Card of our political parties. Please consider it. Not just tomorrow, not just for this month, but for everyday for years to come, please consider us. We have no safety without allies. We rely upon yourselves so please heed our words, and help us create safer communities here on these beautiful lands we are so blessed to live upon.