REGINA – The bright blue, pink and white of the transgender flag flew proudly in front of the Regina Legislature Thursday. It joined many others across the world as Transgender Visibility Day was celebrated internationally.
But while the flag flew in Regina, others disappeared from their flag poles.
“At first we were pretty hurt, we were thinking ‘who’s doing this’?”- Joe Wickenhauser
Moose Jaw Pride recently celebrated a number of significant milestones. Tuesday, the group opened the first Pride office in the city’s history. Also, the first genderqueer flag and first transgender flag were raised at Moose Jaw high schools.
But shortly after the flags were raised, they disappeared.
Moose Jaw Pride took to the internet, posting an open letter to the thieves, and imagined them as people struggling to accept their own gender identity and expression.
“After some reflection we started to think, do we have to go to that dark place?” Joe Wickenhauser, executive director of Moose Jaw Pride, said.
“Our response has been to say ‘thank you for teaching us that we needed to give more flags out and really to promote this message of love, hope and understanding and to educate the public’.”
It’s a message of peace from a community that fights battles every day.
“Trying to use a public washroom, or when someone is talking to me in a way that they don’t acknowledge my identity… when I’m in those situations I do have some issues because that’s scary,” B Garnaeu I, the Green Party candidate for Batoche, Sask., said.
“What I see when I see the flag raising is like, alright, we’re claiming this week and we can use this week to talk about it and we can do this every year until people are tired of it.”
“Then we can just move on and live our lives.”
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