International Day of Pink is an organization which was created to celebrate a more inclusive and diverse world. We do this by encouraging young people to challenge social norms, ask more of their educators, and stand up against bullying towards their 2SLGBTQIA+ peers. On April 9, this year’s International Day of Pink, the organization holds a gala to help raise funds for the 2SLGBTQIA+ community. Every year, on the second Wednesday of April, we urge people around the world to put on a pink shirt and stand in solidarity with the 2SLGBTQIA+ community to continue fighting for equality and acceptance.
Over the years International Day of Pink Organization has worked with countless educators, politicians and organizations around Canada to spread this message and create young activists for this mission. For 2025, the organization has chosen to honouring the anniversaries of key events that have shaped our community and the fight for equality that specifically touch on those of Indigenous heritage.
The LGBT Purge – 35 Years Later
In 1990, Michelle Douglas launched a landmark legal challenge against the Canadian military’s discriminatory policies. The case was successfully settled in 1992 and the discriminatory policy was removed as a result. In 2016, activists, Martine Roy, Todd Ross and Alida Satalic, led the 2016 LGBT Purge class-action lawsuit that brought significant justice for hundreds of Purge survivors.
Todd Ross has been touring with International day of Pink leading up to the gala speaking about the Purge. Todd shares “I’ve known about the International Day of Pink for some time and have had the opportunity to work with Jeremy Diaz of International Day of Pink in the past. Jeremy is based out of Winnipeg and as we’ve been doing a lot of work with the LGBT Purge Fund and the museum exhibit that’s just opened in January of this year at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. Jeremy wanted to use this opportunity to feature the LGBT purge and the effects of the purge on so many individuals in Canada who had worked for the federal government faced harassment and discrimination.”
Todd, who is Two-Spirited and Métis from his matriarchal lineage. 35 years ago marks both the term Two-Spirited being used in English vernacular and it was the day Todd was kicked out of the army for being Two-Spirited. “In 1990 Michelle Douglas started her court case against the federal government when she was kicked out of the militaryOf course this is all about the federal government discrimination that happened from the 1950s up into the 1990s. We still recognize that discrimination, homophobia and transphobia didn’t stop with the end of the official policies. The official policies in the Canadian military [against the queer community] ended in 1992 as a result of this case that Michelle Douglas launched in 1990. Over those almost 50 years of the LGBT purge, thousands of people were investigated. At one time, the RCMP had 30,000 files open on Canadians who were suspected of being homosexual. We know that thousands of people were interrogated, were harassed, as well as as many who lost their jobs simply because of the homophobia and transphobia within the military, within the federal government, and this belief that gay people were untrustworthy. There was this belief that if you were gay, that you were susceptible to espionage, meaning that you could easily be blackmailed. When we look back at history, that didn’t happen. LGBT people were not giving up secrets to the country. There were other non-gay people who were but the focus of the investigations was purely on 2SLGBTQI+ people over this period of time.”
Todd has been speaking to schools and groups in Calgary and Edmonton before heading to Winnipeg, doing an event at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights where there’s currently the exhibit on the LGBT purge before heading to Toronto for the gala.
Two-Spirit Communities
As Todd mentioned it has been 35 years since the term “Two-Spirit” was adopted by Indigenous leaders. It has also been 10 years since the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Final Report and its 94 Calls to Action and 5 years since the release of the Final Report on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two-Spirit Peoples and its 231 Calls for Justice.
One of the speakers and performers at the Gala is drag queen Chelazon Leroux who is thrilled to be participating after hearing positive things about the organization from other drag queens. “I had never really heard about International Day of Pink or what it meant growing up in Saskatchewan. I don’t think it reached us there yet. It was about this time last year that I got reached out to by the organization because their theme was going to be about two-spirit reemergence and I was very grateful to be thought of.”
As we’ve seen in Canada an increase in discussion around the rights of Indigenous communities, we’ve also learned more about their culture that possibly hadn’t been shared or considered previously. Chelazon shares that learning about Two-Spirited individuals has increased because of this. “I think a lot of conversation over the last five years on social media about Indigenous peoples has uncovered a lot of truths, and I think challenged a lot of what Canadians believe to be true. Native people have been saying these stories for years, and we’ve talked about identities and queerness long before the Western world’s understanding of LGBT or sexual and gender identities. As Indigenous people, we have always understood, that people that exist in between and have different identities that wouldn’t fit into what a typical man or woman exists as. Mm-hmm. In a lot of different First Nations groups, they have certain words and languages to describe these people that fit somewhere in between these spectrums. Two-Spirit is an English word, obviously, that was coined in 1990 by Elder Myra Laramie in Winnipeg at a lesbian and gay conference for natives. It was needed because they knew we needed a word to describe to the English world or settler world what we have known for years. It’s really important too, especially in the time we live in right now, with the political climate around gender identity and queerness and trans identities. I like to remind people that what we think we’re fighting to protect was here way before any form of colonialism. I like to remind people that two-Spirit and queerness has always existed on this land and always will.”
She adds that she is grateful to be bringing these historical understandings into modern day conversations so people can see what the true Canadian history is.
Cheri DiNovo: The Champion who Banned on Conversion Therapy
Ten years ago, Ontario became the first province in Canada to ban conversion therapy for LGBTQ youth, a significant step in protecting vulnerable children and affirming their identities. The ban was led by Cheri DiNovo, former Ontario NDP MPP, who introduced the bill to end the practice and remove it from healthcare coverage. Conversion therapy, widely condemned by mental health professionals, was shown to cause severe harm, including depression and increased suicide risk.
To join the festivities at International Day of Pink, and learn more about the Re-Emergence from Todd, Chelazon and other distinguished guests, get your tickets here.
Hillary LeBlanc
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