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Celebrating the Champions and Change makers of the 2024 PTP Pink Awards.
Queer Joy is a seven part podcast celebrating the 2024 Pink Triangle Press Pink Awards.
The PTP Pink Awards are a national pay-it-forward celebration of queer excellence where community champions choose changemaking charities from the queer community to uplift and amplify. In 2024 we celebrated champions writer/actor/producer Elliot Page, musician/composer Jeremy Dutcher, activist Latoya Nugent, athlete Marie-Philip Poulin, musician/composer Rufus Wainwright and our legacy award winner philanthropist Salah Bachir. Join host Daniel MacIvor where he shares unforgettable moments from the awards and interviews where he sits down for honest and insightful conversations with our Champions and their chosen charities. Experience Queer Joy with Daniel MacIvor, some true queer Champions and our PTP Pink Awards with host Queen Priyanka
Pink Triangle Press formed in 1971 as a collective to publish The Body Politic – a monthly newspaper that is regarded today as a game-changer in the queer media landscape. And in 1984 as an offshoot of The Body Politic PTP formed Xtra Magazine, more focused on social life and culture, lighter fare, available free in bars. And when The Body Politic closed its operation in 1987 Xtra took over as PTP’s main publication mixing arts and culture coverage with harder news stories. There were print editions published out of Toronto, Vancouver and Ottawa. In 2015 Xtra moved entirely online where it continues the legacy of the original publication with award-winning journalism that strives to be – as its banner proudly states – queering the conversation. Check them out at xtramagazine.com.
Hello, I'm Daniel MacIvor, and this is Queer Joy, celebrating the champions
and changemakers of the 2024 PTP Pink Awards.
Of all the inaugural year champions, Latoya Nugent, best exemplifies the
pay it forward nature of the Pink Awards as well as the connectivity
of our community. When we were first looking for an activist to celebrate,
we were immediately drawn to the organization Rainbow Railroad and the folks
who work there. Rainbow Railroad is an organization based in Canada and
the US, that helps people worldwide who are facing persecution due to systemic
state sanctioned homophobia and transphobia. Rainbow Railroad helps people
find safety through various avenues such as emergency relocation or crisis
response on the ground. In 2023 alone, Rainbow Railroad received 15,000
requests for help from LGBTQI people whose lives were in danger.
The folks at Rainbow Railroad are a dedicated team of human rights defenders
and advocates. And one of those advocates is the wonderful, warm,
generous, and self described hugger, Latoya Nugent. I spoke with Latoya
in the Rainbow Railroad offices in downtown Toronto about her own remarkable
story. Can you tell me about your work as an educator and activist
in Jamaica and what happened to you there? Jamaica is a difficult place
to live as an LGBTQI+ person, you experience discrimination in the education
system, at work, in housing, in health care, in law. You know,
you don't have full access to your rights as a human being because
of your queer and trans identity. There's a lot of stigma and violence
that many people in the LGBTQI+ community experience.
But despite that, people are looking for community. And so, one of the
things that I focused on in my advocacy when I was in Jamaica
is creating multiple, diverse opportunities for the queer and trans community
to come together to celebrate each other and to affirm each other,
and in doing that, to also advocate for the rights of people in
the community. And that involved a lot of community organizing. There's
quite a bit of grassroots organizing that I was engaged in,
partnership building with other groups that were considered allies of the
Queer Liberation Movement in Jamaica and the wider Caribbean. And it also
included policy and legislative advocacy, because we also want to change
the legislative framework that was contributing to the kind of stigma and
discrimination that queer people were experiencing as citizens of Jamaica.
And one of the things that I felt really proud about is how
in the programs that we developed for the community, we focused as well
on the financial inclusion of queer people because
discrimination led to poverty creating circumstances for the community.
And so including that in the kinds of advocacy that I would lead
was also very important for the work that I was interested in doing.
And then you found yourself in a situation where you yourself
didn't feel safe anymore. I realized in the course of my work,
because I was seen as a beacon of hope,
I buried a lot of the experiences I had with discrimination.
So a lot happened to me that I didn't talk about,
that I didn't even acknowledge until after I relocated to Canada.
But the thing that struck me the most was
how violent of an experience I had when I was arrested,
you know, in the course of my activism.
And that kind of violent arrest that I experienced
silenced me. It made me almost despise my own self for doing the
kind of work I was trying to do. Because in a lot of
ways, the system makes you feel as if you brought this onto yourself.
That is what I experienced. And the violent nature of the arrest
was very traumatizing. And because of that traumatizing experience, and
because of the silencing that came with the violent nature of the arrest,
I stopped doing the work. I had no interest at all in activism.
I hated it because I blamed my activism for my experience.
Not just that singular experience of a violent arrest, but also the years
of discrimination and other forms of violence that I had experienced,
but buried in the name of being an activist and doing the work
for the community. And that's where I was for a very long time.
I was very depressed, didn't even want to acknowledge it, and was in
a really, really dark place. But again, not acknowledging that.
And someone who had supported me throughout the arrest and that period in
my life was responsible for leading this annual conference that's usually
hosted in the Caribbean for queer women and gender non conforming people.
And she was visiting Jamaica and said she wanted to connect with me
'cause, you know, we hadn't connected for a while and we got to
talking and she was telling me that the conference was coming up.
And I decided that, "Okay, I'm going to go". Because by then I
was slowly healing. During this period, I was working with a group of
university students, many of them queer women. I went to the conference.
The conference was hosted in Barbados, and I got a really warm reception
because a lot of the people who were participating in the conference are
people I would have worked with in the past. And they had not
seen me for several years. And I had got a really warm reception.
I think it was maybe the first night of the conference,
I found myself walking along the beach and just crying and being grateful
for that kind of reception. But the thing that really stood out for
me at the conference was there's this panel that focused on the intersection
of queer identity and forced displacement. There was someone there from
Rainbow Railroad who was talking about her own experience with forced displacement
and was now working with the organization. And so after I listened to
the presentation, I reached out to the panelist who was from Rainbow Railroad,
and I was talking with her, and I was saying, that I think
some of the women I work with, they could benefit from this organization.
And she said to me that, I didn't know her, but she knew
me. She knew of me, knew of my work, and that the person
who was standing before her at the conference was really just a shell
of the person she knew, you know, this warrior woman, this activist that
she knew. And she said to me that she thought I needed this
program for myself. And because of the impact of that violent duress,
I really... It was true. I became a shell of who I was. And
I remember going home, and I just couldn't stop thinking about it.
And I reached out and I said, "I think I'm going to go
for it. I think I need this for my own healing".
And I did it, because despite some of the difficulties with relocation,
I say to myself all the time, "This is the best decision that
I've ever made". And I've so grateful to her and to Rainbow Railroad
because I don't think I would have made the move if I didn't
have that exchange at the conference. And to be here now working with
the organization, supporting people in this way, in a lot of ways,
it reminds me of the award because it's also paying it forward, having
benefited from this kind of work myself. When we come back,
Latoya gets to keep paying it forward, and we're gonna spend some time
among friends. I'm Daniel MacIvor, and this is Queer Joy.
The 2024 PTP Pink Awards was made possible by the generous support of
our sponsors. And we are deeply grateful for the generosity of our title
sponsor, DECIEM, THE ABNORMAL BEAUTY COMPANY. Thanks to Sara Fromstein and
the entire DECIEM team. Here we are this evening celebrating Latoya.
So as I think about this, from Latoya being a recipient of help
from Rainbow Railroad to working at Rainbow Railroad, it's a chain of pay
it forward. And if there's any time we need that, it is right
now. So, Latoya, you are somebody who exemplifies beautifully, pay it forward
with the work that you do. And it's time to celebrate you.
Come on up, Latoya. Welcome back to Queer Joy. I'm Daniel MacIvor, and
that was John McNain, BMO's Chief Operating Officer of North American personal
and business banking, presenting Latoya with her Pink award. The pay it
forward that John talks about goes back even further than Latoya and Rainbow
Railroad. BMO launched a pride initiative called Rainbow Deposits to benefit
Rainbow Railroad. And in 2024, BMO partnered with Pink Triangle Press on
the third of the Rainbow Deposit campaigns, which, all totalled, raised
$150,000 for Rainbow Railroad. It's pay it forward all over the place.
And John also mentions the pay it forward of Among Friends.
So now we're going to pay a visit to 519 Church Street in
Toronto, the home of the 519 Community Centre and also the home of
Latoya's changemaker. Among Friends is a social informational community
building space for queer and trans refugees from all over the world.
I'm Lisa Duplessis. I am the director of programs and community services
here at the 519. But more importantly, I first walked into this building
as a refugee claimant from Jamaica, and Among Friends was my support.
So I moved from client to volunteer to actual staff. Among Friends holds
an incredible special place for me in my career at 519 and personally
in my own activism for queer and trans refugee claimants who come here
from all over the world, and start with us as members of Among
Friends. Can you tell us about what Among Friends does? The thing we
get asked to do as a service is to provide settlement and integration.
Settlement is most of what we do in the group, which is to
create spaces to get questions answered and to manage legal bits related
to their refugee hearing. The integration is the hard lift. And equally
important, or more important, this is where people get a chance to build
community and develop a sense of belonging in Canada. So we offer other
social activities that allow people to meet others, meet people from their
own country, in their own language group, in their own identity groups to
build community. I asked Latoya to tell me about her experience of Among
Friends. I didn't know about that particular program until after I relocated.
It's such an important learning opportunity for somebody who is new to a
country, not having a network here, not knowing many people. Some people
who relocate don't know anyone at all, you know, living in Canada or
living in Toronto more specifically. And so the kind of community you're
able to find at Among Friends really makes a significant difference in the
kind of relocation outcomes you're able to have in Canada. And so,
I credit a lot to Among Friends. It's needed, and I know that
it has impacted thousands and thousands of lives of refugees. So did you
know Lisa before you relocated? I met Lisa on a previous trip to
Toronto. And after I relocated, we became close. You know, we are close
friends now. We're also close in the work, you know, because the work
that the organization does at the 519 is also connected to the work
that we do at Rainbow Railroad. So through that, we've gotten closer,
and Lisa in a lot of ways, has been there for me since
I first relocated here in 2022. And sometimes I will joke that she
was a part of my welcoming committee, you know,
trying to provide space for me or create room for me to be
able to have a positive relocation outcome. And where I am today,
I do credit some of that to the support that Lisa provided in
those initial few months. So it really is Among Friends. Yeah,
Among Friends. That's what it is. And I was really excited about the
fact that this award is really about paying it forward to a community
organization that's doing exceptional and much needed work for the queer
community. I asked Lisa to tell me about Latoya. Latoya. I first met
Latoya online. I came across a number of posts about someone who had
taken on a challenge in Jamaica defending someone who was being persecuted.
I was awestruck by this incredible warrior, this person who reminded me
of all the things I wanted to do in my life in terms
of my advocacy in Jamaica. I put her as my Facebook profile picture,
sight unseen. I'd never met her. I remained in awe of her work.
And when WorldPride came along and I was asked to help support the
organization of the WorldPride panels for human rights, I immediately thought
of Latoya. I thought, this amazing human. We need to hear this amazing
story of advocacy for women, for queer people in Jamaica. And we,
as a committee, invited Latoya to join us. So I first met Latoya
when she came to Canada for this event. And I was immediately awestruck
with this human. We became fast friends, and we kept in touch over
the years. When she called me and told me she was coming,
I remember my first reaction was, it's time.
Based upon my own experience, I knew that her activism would lead to
a place where she would face harsh persecution and perhaps have her life
in danger. So it wasn't a surprise to me when she came.
I felt the loss for Jamaica as a place that needed continual advocacy
from a warrior like her. But I understood the gain for us in
the continued fight for international rights. So I was pleased with her
arrival. And we have been friends ever since. We are partnered on many
small initiatives, personally and professionally. And it's a very valued
professional connection and friendship for me. And what was your response
when Latoya selected Among Friends as her changemaker? When I heard that
Latoya picked Among Friends, I had multiple physical and emotional reactions.
What an honor to have someone like Latoya say that this space,
this group, this action, helped her feel at home in Canada.
That was an incredible honor. It's a very thing that we hope for,
that someone who comes to us for service feels. But I also know
the story of Among Friends hasn't been fully told. The depth of our
impact has largely been untold. So this, for her to do,
this was in such an incredible honor. It's incredible. It's an incredible
feeling, both professionally and personally. It's an incredible pride.
During our interviews, I was lucky enough to spend time with Latoya and
Lisa together. Their friendship is a beautiful thing to witness. They laugh
easily, they hug often. They can become suddenly serious and then tease
one another with glee. They clearly have great respect for one another,
like warriors for a shared cosmite. You can see their strength and their
love side by side. I feel lucky to have met them.
And as Canadians, we are lucky they chose this country as their home.
When Latoya presented Lisa the Pink Award for Among Friends, she called
Lisa up on stage with her and spoke directly to her so we
could witness the pay it forward person to person. This is that moment.
I know everyone has been giving speeches, but I think it's important for
people to understand really why I chose Among Friends. And I want to
say that to you, Lisa, because it's two days before my two year
anniversary in Canada. I felt home the very first day I arrived because
the staff at Rainbow Railroad, who was on my case, took me straight
to the 519 after we left the airport. And today, I'm able to
be in this moment to celebrate with the queer community because of the
work that Lisa does, because of the work of Among Friends.
And I want to celebrate this moment with you and thank you for
closing the circle of support that is so important to queer newcomers.
Many of us, we relocate alone. We are here as strangers.
And to have a program like Among Friends create that sense of home
is so important. And so thank you, and you deserve it.
And then they hugged. It was Queer Joy.
Thanks to Polina Teif in Toronto. Join us for our next episode,
hockey superstar Marie Philip Poulin, the You Can Play Project. And a very
special guest from Up the Creek. Thanks to our presenting sponsor,
DECIEM, THE ABNORMAL BEAUTY COMPANY, along with category award sponsor BMO
and media sponsors iHeartRadio, The Globe and Mail and Everything podcasts.
And to our publicists, Rocket Promotions. And this has been Queer Joy.
I'm Daniel MacIvor. Thanks for listening. Queer Joy is a production of Pink
Triangle Press.