What is it like to be an LGBTQ2S+ teen in Canada today? Talking to young activists on life in an increasingly hateful world

High school students Isio Emakpor, right, and Patrick Mikkelsen outside the York Catholic District School Board building, on May 30.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail

Patrick Mikkelsen and Isio Emakpor had fought hard for the York Catholic District School Board in Toronto to raise the Pride flag this month.

Flying the flag, they said, would show support for LGBTQ2S+ students like themselves – a clear message that they belong as much as anyone else – and a gesture in keeping with their faith.

“One of our Catholic social teachings is to treat people with human dignity and respect,” Mr. Mikkelsen said.

So when trustees of the board voted Monday not to raise the flag at its main office in Aurora, Ont., during Pride month, the two Grade 12 students were crushed.

“It was kind of heartbreaking,” Mr. Mikkelsen said.

The day after the YCDSB vote, Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Anthony Bass apologized for sharing an anti-LGBTQ2S+ Instagram post. Both incidents are just the latest proof, say queer and trans teenagers, of a world that’s increasingly hostile to them. There have already been more anti-LGBTQ2S+ demonstration events in Canada this year than in 2021 – such as protests at drag queen story hours at libraries – and this year is on track to outpace the number of events in 2022, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event and Data Project, a U.S.-based non-profit organization.

In the U.S., hundreds of bills have been introduced in the past year that seek to strip rights and protections from transgender people, according to the National Center for Transgender Equality. And in 2023 alone, 16 states have sought to restrict drag performances. Florida recently expanded its controversial “don’t say gay” legislation which, among other measures, prohibits any discussion or instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity in prekindergarten through eighth grade; bars trans people from using the public facilities that align with their gender identities; and will allow the state to remove children from their home if their parents provide them with gender-affirming care.

Teens and activists say more education and more forceful activism is needed to protect their rights and ensure their safety.

“We’ve entered, or re-entered, a cycle where we have to be more vocal, more visible and more unapologetic about defending our place in the world,” says Tristan Coolman, president of the York Region chapter of PFLAG Canada, a national charitable organization founded to help parents and other family members support their LGBTQ2S+ children.

Kaden Pitcher.Alicia Wynter/The Globe and Mail

Kaden Pitcher, a Grade 11 student at a high school just outside of Guelph, Ont., plays drums in his school band. He came out as trans during the pandemic and this weekend will be attending a Pride Prom organized by OK2BME, an organization that offers supportive services for LGBTQ2S+ children, teens, adults and their families in the Waterloo region.

“It’s really scary,” he says of incidents of anti-LGBTQ2S+ discrimination.

“It’s really sad to know that I can’t be myself openly and have everybody be fine with it. I’m just trying to be me. I’m just trying to hang out and be a teenager. And there’s people who hate me just for the fact that I’m me.”

The fear felt by Kaden is certainly not exclusive to teenagers.

'It’s really sad to know that I can’t be myself openly and have everybody be fine with it,' Mr. Pitcher says.Alicia Wynter/The Globe and Mail

QMUNITY, a B.C.-based queer, trans and two-spirit resource centre, has had to institute new safety protocols following recent occurrences of hate experienced by staff providing inclusion supports, says Anoop Gill, the organization’s co-executive director of programs and services.

“The political climate is changing. There are attacks happening. Of course my staff feel a sense of grief, a sense of being scared,” Ms. Gill says.

When the organization is asked to do education, whether at a school or other institution, QMUNITY asks them to review the safety measures they have in place and presents them with a contract that asks the host organization to be held accountable for any incidents that may occur.

“As I think about my staff, events going on in the community and Pride season starting, I am worried,” Ms. Gill says.

Isabelle Bruce, a Grade 12 student in Vancouver who identifies as bisexual, says she experienced “culture shock” when she moved back to Canada from Costa Rica last summer.

Isabelle Bruce, left, and Jackie Franks outside of their high school in Vancouver, on May 28.Kayla Isomura/The Globe and Mail

“I thought of Canada as kind of the dream of accepting unity, just everyone being diverse and different and everyone accepting,” she says.

But the divisiveness over LGBTQ2S+ issues and the discrimination faced by those in the community in Canada and the United States soon dawned on her.

Next year she’ll be attending the University of British Columbia to study political science. One reason she did not apply to schools south of the border, she says, is because “LGBTQ2S+ rights are being threatened.”

Jackie Franks, an 18-year-old in Vancouver, says there needs to be more support in schools for LGBTQ2S+ people.

“It feels like we’re kind of on our own,” she says.

Her school has a gender-neutral washroom but no gender-neutral change room, something the Gay-Straight Alliance, which she is part of, has lobbied for.

'It feels like we’re kind of on our own,' Ms. Franks says.Kayla Isomura/The Globe and Mail

“When it comes to queer issues at the school board, there’s a lot of hoops you have to jump through to get anything done,” she says.

In late April, police had to escort angry parents out of a York Catholic District School Board meeting where the proposal was made to fly the Pride flag at schools, offices and facilities in June for Pride month.

Mr. Mikkelsen and Ms. Emakpor were part of the student delegation that had petitioned to raise the flag.

“There was a lot of shouts and heckling from the crowd. One person shouted, ‘Here comes the rainbow room,’” Mr. Mikkelsen says of when he and other students took the podium to make their case.

Ms. Emakpor says that opposition to LGBTQ2S+ issues is becoming so much more heated and open because the community is making progress.

“And that’s why the pushback is so much,” she says. “The fact that they’re starting to see change that they don’t like is why they’re starting to fight back a little more and stop the progress that is being made.”

Mr. Mikkelsen says there is so much misunderstanding among people like the parents at that meeting in April who were screaming at him and his fellow students.

“We’re just asking for representation, inclusion and visibility. We’re not forcing an ideology on someone,” he says.

The board’s decision not to raise the flag was, for Mr. Mikkelsen, a denial of that basic request. That’s what made it so crushing.

But Mr. Mikkelsen and his fellow students haven’t given up.

On Thursday they held a walkout from class in the afternoon across all YCDSB schools, asking that students wear rainbow colours instead of their uniform.

“We still have to keep fighting for this,” Mr. Mikkelsen says.