1980: Early Pride in Edmonton Although Pride had been officially celebrated annually since 1980 in Edmonton with picnics and baseball games, a parade remained absent from the event list for nearly a decade. By 1984, the emerging organization Gay and Lesbian Awareness (GALA) had taken on the responsibility of organizing Pride from Gay Alliance Towards Equality (GATE). For GALA, celebrating Pride publicly became increasingly important as the AIDS crisis arrived in Edmonton to a hostile social and political climate. Mayor Laurence Decore repeatedly refused GALA’s requests to declare Gay and Lesbian Awareness Day, claiming that, if approved, any “special interest group” could request a proclamation. Although GALA mustered the support of a few sympathetic city councillors and politicians beyond Alberta’s borders, the local fight for awareness was the first step towards a much larger battle. There were no human rights protections for sexual orientation at the federal level, let alone under Alberta’s Individual Rights Protection Act (IRPA). For many members of Edmonton’s queer community, the visibility of and participation in a Pride Parade could mean risking relationships with family and friends, losing employment, or facing eviction with no recourse. Despite these very real fears, Pride could no longer afford to be a private celebration. Edmontonians would have to take a risk and take to the streets to raise awareness of the challenges the community faced. 1991-1992: First March, First Parade By the early 1990s, Pride had grown into a 12-day festival and a small, informal Pride march took its first steps down Whyte Avenue in 1991. The handful of participants followed organizers Michael Phair and Maureen Irwin, many protecting their identities from onlookers with paper bags over their heads. After Delwin Vriend’s wrongful dismissal from King’s College that year, Pride took on a new urgency. Saturday, June 27th, the biggest day in the 1992 festivities, kicked off with a Pride-a-Thon in Kinsmen Park. This recurring fundraising event invited people to walk, run, and bike on behalf of the Delwin Vriend Defense Fund. Each participant received a personal letter from Delwin, stating, “This event is not only about raising funds for the legal battle I am now mounting, it is a visible demand for equality and justice.” The Pride-a-Thon ended with a rally at McIntyre Park, passionately addressed by New Democrat Svend Robinson, Canada’s first out gay Member of Parliament. After the rally, Edmonton’s first official Pride Parade began. “When the day came, I was terribly nervous–none of us knew whether anyone besides the organizers would actually show up and a parade of 15 did not sound like much fun,” parade organizer Michael Phair recalled. “As I rounded the corner to Gazebo Park there were a couple of hundred people, trucks, banners and costumes.” More than 200 participants carrying banners and pink triangles marched down the middle of Whyte Avenue between 103rd and 104th Street and back to McIntyre Park. Pink petunias circled the cheering crowd, and the gazebo was decorated with pink ribbons and a large banner that read, “80,000 LESBIANS AND GAYS LIVE HERE”. McIntyre Park was practically flushed with optimism: feeling “tickled pink with pride and power,” Liz Massiah of GALA sensed “a real change in terms of acceptance of gay and lesbian rights in Edmonton and, with some notable exceptions, things seem to be getting even better.” Those exceptions ranged from a handful of hecklers on the parade sidelines, recent rashes of gay bashings across the city, and a historically hostile city council on the verge of a major change. Part of the jubilant atmosphere at McIntyre Park was due to Michael Phair recently declaring his intention to run for city council, which still had not declared a Gay Pride week despite a more sympathetic ally in Mayor Jan Reimer. Earlier in the year, Phair had criticized acting Mayor Sheila McKay for her lack of “courageous leadership” when she refused to proclaim Gay Pride week in Mayor Reimer’s absence on the grounds it would be “too divisive”. 1993-1998: Pride as Protest After putting down roots in Old Strathcona, Pride continued to grow and transform throughout the 1990s to keep pace with changing values in the queer community. GALA’s demand for an official proclamation from the city was finally answered by Mayor Jan Reimer in 1993, who wrote that “Dignity and respect for all people, without discrimination based on sexual orientation, is an important goal for a free and democratic society.” This simple gesture made with relative ease during Reimer’s tenure once again became a political battle with the election of Mayor Bill Smith in 1995, who approved every proclamation request save for GALA’s. Former GALA spokeswoman Maureen Irwin stated demands for a proclamation from Smith were “a waste of time.” “The important thing is we have legislation to protect us,” she responded, “who cares what Bill Smith says?” For the marchers, now well over 400 participants, the Pride Parade’s objective continued to shift from a simple municipal acknowledgement to a demonstration against discrimination at the provincial level. Pride became even more vital for the hundreds of marchers on Whyte Avenue to see and to be seen as both the AIDS crisis and the battle for human rights protections waged on. A severe blow to the community in 1996 underscored the importance of the latter: the Alberta Court of Appeal overturned the 1994 ruling that had “read in” sexual orientation to the Individual Rights Protection Act after Vriend’s dismissal. What had previously been a cold, callous negligence by the Alberta Government now seemed an active fight to deny human rights protections based on sexual orientation. Premier Ralph Klein came under more and more pressure to use the notwithstanding clause for this purpose, and it was soon clear that the Vriend case would be heard by the Supreme Court of Canada. Pride organizer David Saunders emphasized the twofold importance of the parade as both an opportunity to make Edmonton's queer community more visible and to protest the actions of the provincial government: “We have families, we pay bills, we hold jobs. We’re just like everyone else… [T]he lesbian and gay community will be here long after the Klein government is ancient history.” Seeing and Being Seen The risk of being seen participating in a Pride Parade continued to be high, but for some, worth taking. “[W]hen I arrived at the rally site (Gazebo Park in Old Strathcona),” one Womonspace writer recounted after the 1994 parade, “I still wasn’t sure whether I would fall in step with the other parade participants, or stay safely on the sideline and pretend I ‘just happened’ to be on Whyte Avenue when they passed by.” After being seen by a colleague at the parade and witnessing her reaction, the decision became much easier: It was pretty much at that moment that I decided to march–proudly and loudly–in the parade. Not merely because my cover was already blown, but because the panic and contempt in my co-worker’s eyes was like a slap in the face, and it made me realize (as corny as it sounds) that if you’re not part of the solution, you truly are part of the problem. Another factor in her decision was that the 1994 parade commemorated the 25th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, the initial spark of the Gay Liberation movement and the origin of many Pride celebrations around the world. “I marched–with a “Remember Stonewall” button and a rainbow ribbon proudly pinned to my lavender T-shirt–because there are too many people out there who can’t.” While Edmonton’s queer community continued to show up to protests on the steps of the legislature, the parades and rallies at McIntyre Park across the river were not primarily to catch the eyes of politicians. Other Edmontonians, whether they saw themselves within the community or outside of it, curiously watched the annual spectacle as drag queens and same-sex couples holding hands occupied Whyte Avenue. By 1995, the Pride Parade had taken on a louder and more flamboyant air since the first small crowd of masked marchers only a few years earlier. As onlookers gawked at the “freak show” and members of Potter’s House Christian Church passed out pamphlets urging marchers to embrace “a better life,” divisions and tensions over ‘visibility’ also emerged from within Edmonton’s queer community. Speaking on behalf of Parents, Family and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, Ellen Howrish expressed anxiety over the media focus on drag, claiming it promoted “hatred of gays and lesbians” while ignoring those in the community, such as “families and the people who go to regular jobs every day.” This view was not shared by all queer Edmontonians, however. “We certainly don’t have to pass as straight to be accepted by straights,” wrote one Womonspace member on internalized homophobia, “and we shouldn’t ask the most flamboyant and visible members of the community to censor themselves. After all, isn’t that what this whole gay and lesbian movement is about–freedom to be ourselves?” These notions of ‘respectability politics’ would continue to dominate discussions around Pride in Edmonton and beyond for decades to come. However Edmonton’s queer community presented itself, it was important to be visible, both to each other and to outsiders: “It lets them know how many of us there are,” participant Rey Ledda explained. 2015: Return to Old Strathcona Pride in the late 1990s grew distant from McIntyre Park as the community started to outpace the park’s capacity. The 1997 parade began in the shadow of the familiar gazebo of the park after Delwin Vriend, lawyer Julie Lloyd and the Edmonton Vocal Minority received the crowd. Marching southward down 104th street to end in Rollie Miles Park, the end of the parade marked the end of an era for Pride on the south side. In 1998, Pride festivities moved from June to May to coincide with the Canadian GALA Choruses Festival, and from Old Strathcona to downtown for proximity to both the Choruses Festival and hotels for out-of-town participants. The Pride festival would not come south of the river again for nearly two decades. When the parade returned to the heart of Old Strathcona in 2015 to celebrate 35 years of Pride in the city, it was more to avoid downtown construction and the redesign of Churchill Square than out of nostalgia for Gazebo Park. In the almost twenty years since the Pride festival had left the south side, the parade had grown exponentially to become the fourth largest in Canada. Around 450 participants attended the festivities in 1994; by 2015, the Pride Parade down Whyte Avenue included over 2,000 participants and attracted an enthusiastic and colourful crowd of more than 55,000 observers, a far cry from the 11 individuals in the 1991 march. In a dramatic contrast from its earliest years in Old Strathcona, Edmonton Pride was attended by representatives from corporations, national sports teams, the Canadian military and RCMP, and representatives from all levels of government. Future Prime Minister Justin Trudeau attended Edmonton Pride for the first time; in 2017, his Liberal government would bolster the 1998 Vriend victory with Bill C-16, prohibiting discrimination on the grounds of gender identity and expression. The crowd that descended upon McIntyre Park for a $2 Pride breakfast was not simply larger, it was also a more diverse group of advocates and allies with unprecedented visibility and support, over three decades since the city’s first cautious marches for awareness. In the late 2010s, Pride had far outgrown its humble beginnings in McIntyre Park as the increasing size and inclusivity of Edmonton’s queer community created new shifts in values. Partly due to the growing size of the festival, no Pride activities occurred in the park towards the end of the decade, save for 2018 when the park became a VIP viewing area for Pride Pass holders and hosted a special “Wine Up to Pride” event. Little did organizers realize, the 2018 parade would mark the end of an era for Pride in Old Strathcona for a second time. A protest over the participation of the police and military blocked the parade. Protestors shouted, “No justice, no Pride” and “Racism is a queer issue.” Eventually, after heated tensions and much negotiation, the Parade did continue, but for the last time. In 2019, the Edmonton Pride Festival Society (EPFS) could not or would not answer the protest demands from organizations, including Shades of Colour and RaricaNow, aiming to support racialized and underrepresented groups within the 2SLGBTQ+ community. Citing concerns for community safety and the demands to pivot the festival’s focus away from celebration and corporations and more towards community engagement and activism, EPFS chose to cancel the parade outright. Marching into the Future Over a century after the founding of McIntyre Park, and 33 years after Edmontonians rallied in support of Delwin Vriend, Edmonton’s 2SLGBTQ+ community and allies would again gather under the gazebo for a new cause. In the fall of 2024, several hundred protestors came to McIntyre Park to oppose the provincial government’s proposed legislation to ban gender affirming health care for minors and now required parental consent for name or pronoun changes in schools, and banned the participation of all trans women and girls from female sports. "We're terrified because we're watching the next generation of our community lose the ability to grow up as themselves," Trans Rights YEG activist and rally organizer Rowan Morris told the Edmonton Journal. Like the rallies for Delwin Vriend decades before, politicians attended the rally at McIntyre Park to make their support for the trans and gender diverse community known. "We need to be showing up and we need to be speaking out and we need to be showing that trans rights are human rights," said MLA Janis Irwin, who attended the rally alongside then provincial opposition leader Rachel Notley, MPs Heather McPherson and Blake Desjarlais, several city councillors, and Senator Paula Simons. Edmonton’s Pride celebrations have responded to the changing needs of the queer community since they first began in 1982. In the early 2020s, these needs ranged from understanding issues of inclusivity and safety for underrepresented groups to implementing health restrictions on gatherings after the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. The small gathering of those brave enough to be visible at McIntyre Park in the early 1990s set into motion gatherings the size and scope of which have dramatically transformed Edmonton’s community over the past three decades. Visibility remains a pressing question at the centre of Pride in Edmonton and elsewhere; while many participants may no longer fear a loss of livelihood for simply participating, old anxieties and new challenges remain. The past three decades raised questions that each generation of 2SLGBTQ+ Edmontonians continue to answer, ranging from who is welcome to participate to how participants re/present themselves. Perhaps the most enduring of these questions was first answered by the banner draped from the gazebo in McIntyre Park in 1992 asking, “How many queer Edmontonians are there?” An article from Womonspace on the importance of Pride suggested, “more than they have seen anywhere else, more than they can imagine seeing. That can be enormously encouraging, inspiring and even deeply moving”.