In London, Ontario, Pride is held in July. The suburb of Wortley Village held its first Pride last weekend, and it included a drag queen storytime. The event was disrupted when a truck with Canadian flags on it circled the event honking continuously, and then a man got out of the truck and allegedly began swinging a flagpole at attendees. Police arrived within minutes and arrested him. The incident is being investigated as a hate crime.
No one was injured, and the Pride celebration continued, including a small parade. The organizers say that despite the incident, overall they had positive feedback and plan to hold another Pride event next year.
Some attendees pointed to this attack as proving the need for Pride events, while others expressed concern for the safety of their LGBTQ children.
Homophobic rhetoric has increased in the U.S. in recent years — seen in transphobic and homophobic bills like Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill and Texas’s bill endangering gender-affirming care as well as an increase in anti-LGBTQ book bans — and this inevitably seeps into Canadian discourse as well, especially in terms of social media.
Read the whole story at CBC.
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