2020: Born This Way

Heart beating as she climbed on top of a milk crate one March afternoon in 2020, Claire Pearen knew the street preacher would not be pleased when he arrived to see her on “his” corner of Whyte Avenue that he had occupied every Friday. Claire blasted Lady Gaga’s Born This Way on a small speaker and began to dance, waving her homemade hot pink “I’m here and I’m queer” sign over her head in full view of the busy street. After Claire showed up Friday after Friday throughout the pandemic to talk back to the preachers, protest, and dance, Edmontonians started to take notice. One woman stopped to tell her how the preacher had relentlessly targeted her daughter over the past four years, tormenting her while she was boarding public transit on her commute because she had once responded to him stating, “We’re okay the way we are.”

Claire's own personal encounters with Edmonton street preachers began in 2013. While she waited for the light to change at the busy crosswalk, the self-styled preacher, clutching a sign… looked down at [her] from his pedestal, loudly announcing into his microphone that her rainbow hoodie was ‘“the Devil’s way of reaching out.” Over the next several years, Claire saw him “tell queer couples holding hands that if they didn’t repent, it would be too late, and God would take them.” The preacher would also shout at cars with rainbow flags ominously telling the occupants they were “going to hell”. He also chastised women telling them their short haircuts were “a gateway to homosexuality”. Claire recalled exchanging glances with someone else at the crosswalk and thinking:

...this young person might believe what these people are saying, and what if they walk away from here believing that they [themselves] are wrong? …There are so many people in the world that are forcibly shoved back in the closet because they’re scared to come out… those folks who are preaching Christianity, but don’t support the 2SLGBTQ+ community – that’s not right with me and doesn’t sit well.

Aware that many unhoused 2SLGBTQ+ youth accessed nearby shelters such as YESS and the Old Strathcona Youth Centre, Claire grew increasingly alarmed about the harms she saw on the streets. She contacted the Edmonton Police Services (EPS) about the preachers' ongoing street harassment, but soon learned that police would not act without adequate evidence of criminality. EPS later stated:

While the EPS understands that some street preaching taking place in Edmonton is harmful to and distressing for the 2SLGBTQ+ community and others, police must undertake the delicate task of considering these multiple sets of laws and rights when receiving reports related to these incidents. This includes determining whether a criminal offense took place and whether these incidents meet the threshold of the hate provisions laid out in the Criminal Code.

Claire endured the street preachers for years, yelling back at them whenever she saw them. In early 2020, she spoke with Corey Wyness, director of OUTpost, a space for queer youth to access shelter, food, and other supports. He told her that eight unhoused queer and trans youth had been lost to suicide since the beginning the beginning of the year. "Queer kids - we need direction and there’s so many people that are just so lost out there," Claire explained in an interview with Tales of the 2SLGBTQ+ podcast. She recalled how a passerby asked, “Do you really think you’re making a difference? You’re just dancing, do [the preachers] even care?” Claire replied: “I’m not here for them. I’m here for every queer kid that has to listen to this hate and vitriol. If they hear one thing from me, if they see one message on one of my signs that reminds them that they’re okay, then my job is done. I'm happy to just help one person.”

2021: Love is Louder at Pride Corner

Alone against five preachers with only a body camera for protection, Claire continued her protest. Her courage and resilience eventually drew more allies and helped to build the Pride Corner community. In February 2021, a stranger joined Claire for several weeks. By March, Claire’s friend and future Pride Corner organizer Erica Posteraro began protesting with her. Following his first inspiring interview with Claire, Tales of the 2SLGBTQ+ host Douglas Parsons joined in April, using his size to deter the more aggressive preachers. With Douglas came Brian Deacon, who managed the team’s social media accounts. In July, Brian launched the organization’s change.org petition for official recognition by the City of Edmonton and the Old Strathcona Business Association. Asked why the petition was important, Brian responded, “Just to get it on paper that people support this and people want this, people don’t want the preachers spreading their hatred all over the place.” The team was about to discover that a huge majority of Edmontonians agreed with them.

In the summer of 2021, an unprecedented flood of people, many of them youth, descended on Pride Corner. “That had nothing to do with me,” Claire later clarified. The counter protesters converged on Pride Corner in response to a Facebook post that had gone viral. Claire humourously recalled that “a woman on Whyte Avenue… took a pair of scissors out of her bra and cut the cord [of the preacher's equipment].” Edmontonians were inspired to organize a “Love is Louder” protest in response to the viral story. “We surrounded the street preachers, everyone showed up at once,” Claire recalls. It was the most heartwarming feeling.” The new counter protestors continued to show up over the summer, bringing more and more friends and allies with them.

Pride Corner organizers were surprised by the sudden surge of support and amazed by the transformation of the small corner and the impact it had on the wider community. “It’s so powerful to see, and invigorating,” Erica recalled, as much to her surprise, the crowd swelled to around 30 people. As local youth began to join the weekly protests, Pride Corner became a much-needed place to meet, to spend time with friends, and a safe space for unhoused youth to access critical supports. “Every Friday… was the time where [unhoused youth] could come and be safe and get water and get food and grab those connections,” Douglas reflected. “Every week these youths are introducing themselves to each other and making new friends,” enthused Claire, “They’re remembering how it feels… their first time on Pride Corner, and they’re supportive and encouraging to those other people.” According to organizers, the emergence of a sober dancing space was not in Pride Corner’s original plans. “We have so many youths we do call it a ‘teenage nightclub’ at times,” Douglas joked. “While we are there to push back against harmful narratives,” Erica explained, “we saw a great need for queer, unhoused youth to have a place [where] they could feel welcome and be able to express themselves freely.”

Local politicians, organizations, and celebrities soon added their support to Pride Corner’s gaining popularity. Claire elaborated on the role provincial MLAs including David Shepherd and Janis Irwin played in Pride Corner's growing success: “Having [Janis] in our corner has been monumental in making change here in Edmonton.” Brian, the creator of Pride Corner’s Twitter page, listed several other notable figures who had liked or shared Pride Corner’s posts on social media, including Edmonton city councillor Michael Janz, and internationally acclaimed Albertan musicians Jann Arden and k.d. lang. Online support from Edmonton’s hockey scene included Andrew Ferrence, the former captain of the Oilers and the first captain of any major sport team in North America to march in a Pride Parade, and Luke Prokop, the first openly gay player in the WHL and later NHL. Pride Corner would be one of the beneficiaries of the Edmonton Oil Kings’ first Pride Day game on April 9, 2022, where Pride t-shirt sales helped raise money for Edmonton’s 2SLGBTQ+ community.

Pride Corner did not simply earn likes and retweets, it established its own place in history alongside the Stonewall Riots of 1969, an internationally recognized watershed moment of early queer activism. On October 15, 2021, Pride Corner organizers received RaricaNow’s Stonewall “Keeping Us Safe” Award. Erynn Christie, who joined the Pride Corner organizer team in the summer of 2021, remembers Claire's acceptance speech and how surprised she was that youth in the audience unanimously recognized the importance of Stonewall. “It warmed my heart… I [myself] wasn’t aware until [the 2018] Pride Parade when it was barricaded and stopped from happening.” In June of 2022, Stonewall veteran Martin Boyce honoured Pride Corner organizers with an LGBTQ2S+ Action award. “[Pride Corner is] such a grassroots movement, that anyone from Stonewall could recognize,” Boyce said, “This grassroots ability for gay people to honour themselves, not vainly, but at a very basic human level of ‘I am somebody.’”

After over a year of hard work, protesting, dancing, and over 10,500 signatures from around the world on their petition, Pride Corner organizers received an official proclamation from Mayor Amarjeet Sohi on May 13, 2022. The City of Edmonton, and the Old Strathcona Business Association, formally recognized the southeast corner of Whyte Avenue and 104th Street as Pride Corner, also recognizing the extraordinary time and energy Edmontonians had dedicated to creating a safe space for all in the city. “Having an official proclamation tells us what every 2SLGBTQ+ person needs to hear,” Erica explained, “that we are seen, heard, accepted, and supported.”

2021-2024: Pride Corner versus Prejudice

Youth Safety

Pride Corner’s increasing visibility throughout 2021 and 2022 made it a well-known gathering place for 2SLGBTQ+ Edmontonians, but it also prompted Pride Corner organizers to take on the added responsibility of making it a safer one, particularly for at-risk youth in the community. Organizers were alarmed by the high proportion of unhoused youth identifying as part of the 2SLGBTQ+ community. “Kids [on the street]… sleep their day away because they need to stay alive at night,” Claire elaborated, “If someone's not out to their family, they find out, they get booted. A lot of kids know they’re not going to be accepted, so they don’t say anything.” “We shield the youth as much as possible [at Pride Corner],” Douglas related. “We ended up going later all the time because we needed to make sure that they had rides home… that they had safe places to go.”

Organizers had not even considered developing an emergency plan until an incident occurred in late 2021. “A woman on Whyte Avenue fell down unconscious,” Erynn recalled, noting that even without any pre-planning, youths and organizers leapt into action to call an ambulance to help someone they believed to be suffering from drug poisoning. “These youth are very responsible and they want to take care of each other, we’re just guides along their way to help them be better people.” The protestors at Pride Corner made the space safer for the 2SLGBTQ+ individuals, but also for the larger community of Old Strathcona as well.

Emergency preparedness was top of mind for Pride Corner after two threats targeted protesters in 2022. Only a week after a man at the intersection threatened protestors with a baseball bat, an anonymous gun threat was made towards Pride Corner during an online livestream. Organizers worked closely with the EPS Hate Crimes Unit to create detailed safety protocols. MLA Janis Irwin, then critic for Women and 2SLGBTQ+ Issues, stated “Many of them are young people… who are just here to have a safe space. Threats of violence, hatred directed toward them is entirely unacceptable.” While the man with the baseball bat was arrested after walking in a “very poised, aggressive, puffed-out manner” through the crowd threatening to “beat the gay” out of protestors, Erynn was deeply disturbed by the event and the traumatic effect it had on the youth in her care:

I don’t identify as queer but that doesn’t mean that I don't see the pain and the struggles and the difficulties that these people and youth face just to be themselves… We’re in 2022 - I don’t know why this continues to happen. If you don’t like the way somebody lives their life, if they’re not hurting you, then it doesn’t affect you.

After the gun threat, Pride Corner organizers temporarily relocated their protests while preparing new safety protocols and drills to keep participants safe.

Preachers, Premiers, and Pride Corner

Pride Corner has been a relatively recent chapter in a long story of pride versus prejudice in Alberta. In the 1940s, William “Bible Bill” Aberhart, Alberta premier – and preacher – used his evangelical morality to justify the persecution of gay men associated with Edmonton’s Strand Theatre. Over the decades, Albertan politicians continued to use religion to justify prejudice in policies and their politics. Most famously, religion was the Alberta government’s main defence in the Vriend v. Alberta Supreme Court case after a private Christian college fired Delwin Vriend because of his sexual orientation in 1991. More recently, Premier Jason Kenney passed Bill 8 (or known in the community as Bill Hate), which restricted Gay-Straight Alliances in Schools, and Premier Danielle Smith, while not publicly religious herself, also chose to appeal to the United Conservative Party’s religious and socially conservative base with comments and policies that raised alarm for 2SLGBTQ+ Albertans.

Within two weeks of the violent threats towards Pride Corner, Premier Smith’s comment that unvaccinated Albertans were “the most discriminated against group” in her lifetime sparked the ire of Edmonton’s 2SLGBTQ+ community. “I think we should be fearful. Anybody in the minority community should be fearful over comments like that,” said Murray Billett, a local 2SLGBTQ+ rights advocate who had played a pivotal role in the Vriend v. Alberta case only a few decades before. “For a provincial premier to even suggest such a thing… flies in the face of every statistic that you’ll ever read.”

In 2024, Premier Danielle Smith chose to further placate the United Conservative Party’s religious base with government legislation restricting students from learning about sexual orientation and gender identity in schools, limiting access to gender affirming health care, and banning the participation of trans women and girls in sports. In response, Pride Corner joined with other 2SLGBTQ+ advocates across Alberta to ban UCP members from Pride celebrations throughout the province. “This is a direct response to Premier Danielle Smith’s stated intention to infringe on the rights, freedoms and health care of the transgender community in Alberta,” the joint statement read. “You may not join our celebrations in June when you plan to attack us in September.” “Trans rights are human rights. We invite Premier Smith to reconsider her harmful and damaging policies and engage in meaningful discussions with the Two Spirit, Trans, Non-Binary, and Queer community.”

Although Smith’s personal attitude to religion had been less public than previous premiers like Jason Kenney, queer Albertans never forgot Smith’s infamous 2012 defence of a political candidate who claimed gay people would spend eternity burning in a lake of fire. Then leader of the Wild Rose Party, Smith refused to remove the candidate – an issue that put the party out of step with an increasingly progressive province. Her inaction on this issue was widely believed to have cost her the 2012 provincial election. Whenever Whyte Avenue street evangelists preached to passersby about eternal damnation in a “lake of fire”, the phrase reminded Albertans of Smith’s past politics, still burning over a decade later.

Out and About in Alberta: Pride Corner Pops Up

Weekly clashes between the religious preachers and Pride Corner protestors seem to personify the tensions between the rural, religious right and progressive, diverse, and urban Albertans, at least on the surface. For many Albertans, including David Paturel, a straight ally that participates in Pride Corner rallies, the corner of Whyte Avenue and 104th Street is “a golden beacon for anyone in the 2SLGBTQIA+ community in such a conservative province.” Even so, Pride Corner did not only “preach to the choir” from the relative comfort of their Old Strathcona corner -- organizers showed up in solidarity with 2SLGBTQ+ Albertans outside of Edmonton as well.

In Lacombe, 125 kilometres south of Edmonton, the small city’s second annual Pride celebrations included a “Pride Corner on Whyte Pop Up” in 2024. “We are having them come down to Lacombe as they are going to small communities around the province,” explained Johnathan Luscombe, executive director of the Lacombe Pride Society. “They will be bringing their music, and all kinds of fun stuff and we will just have a great time dancing and celebrating.” For Pride Corner founder Claire Pearen, who grew up biracial and queer in Lacombe, Olds, and Sherwood Park, outreach to smaller communities was very important and deeply personal.

Pride Corner responded to calls from around the province to support 2SLGBTQ+ Albertans, particularly those that felt ignored, isolated, or infringed upon in their own communities. In response for calls to ban pride symbols in the town of Westlock, Pride Corner members co-organized a pop-up party with Thunder Alliance, the local Gay-Straight Alliance at R.F. Staples School in March of 2024. “We’re holding a pop-up party in Westlock today because we learned that a lot of queer folks here aren’t feeling safe and learning they’re taking down the [rainbow] crosswalk, [which] is kind of like an erasure of our existence,” Claire commented, “It’s a show of support. Being a person in the 2SLGBTQI+ community in a small town can be really difficult, and … we don’t want to be tolerated; we want to be accepted.” Hundreds of people from Edmonton, Westlock, Red Deer, and surrounding communities came to dance and show support, including Westlock Mayor John Kramer, several town councillors, and MLAs Brooks Arcand-Paul and Janis Irwin.

In March of 2024, the town of Barrhead painted a rainbow crosswalk for the third straight year with the help of Pride Corner activists. By the end of the year, a so-called “neutrality” bylaw plebiscite resulted in a ban on all public symbols including Pride crosswalks, the first Disability Pride crosswalk in Canada, and even the Treaty Six flag. “Neutrality benefits the oppressor,” MLA Janis Irwin, originally from Barrhead herself, said, “I don’t think it’s neutrality at all. … I don’t want to say that it was a response in hate. It just shows that we have a whole lot more work to do to educate and inform our province.”

Conclusion: Pride Corner on Whyte

Today on Whyte Avenue, Pride Corner’s rainbow street sign directs crisscrossing visitors and residents alike around Strathcona’s Arts District. It is also a symbol of the direction Claire Pearen saw the city’s 2SLGBTQ+ youth sorely needing and ultimately became the inspiration that launched her first protest in 2020. Corey Wyness witnessed the positive change firsthand, as youth at OUTpost seemed happier, more sociable, and more willing to seek out resources and make plans. “Pride Corner gives them a space to be themselves and express that. They feel like they belong to a community,” Corey noted. Locals in smaller communities like Westlock appreciated Pride Corner’s efforts as well. “We’re so lucky in our allies, not just from the town, who showed up in numbers, and we're so grateful for that, but they (came) from everywhere,” said Nicky Vranas, teacher lead of Thunder Alliance in Westlock. “I think with having Pride Corner here… music and dancing are some of the oldest forms of communication and they’re universal to everyone”.

Pride Corner organizers have not taken the safety, friendships, and pride they helped shape for granted. In one word, Erynn Christie said that Pride Corner represents “Community”. “There's a place for everybody,” she explained, “You don't have to fit a certain mold.” For Douglas Parsons, knowing the Pride Corner community was out there after experiencing the isolation of the pandemic was “incredible”. “It’s everything - It’s the end of the week, I look forward to spending that time out there,” Douglas said, “People smile when we see each other, when we say goodbye.” Erica Posteraro reflected on the impact Pride Corner had on her own life. “It’s one of those things that I’m gonna look back on when I’m old and know that this is one of the most meaningful things that I could be doing with my time and my energy…. It’s building the future I wanna see,” she said. “This world is what we’re leaving for the kids in the future,” Claire elaborated. “These kids out on these streets are the ones that are going to be here and our future leaders.” “Hatred doesn’t belong in Edmonton or anywhere in the world,” Brian Deacon asserted, “We belong.”