RebeccaRose

At the March 14, 2015 NSRAP "Four Decades Of Activism" event, Rebecca introduced herself like this:

I was *almost* the youngest person here today at 30 -- but then Greg showed up after all.

My activism followed on from Kevin's work.

In Toronto, as an activist, that's what you did, protest for LGBT marriage. I understand why people want to get married. But I was also critical of how many resources went into this vs, trans right or racial rights and also, protesting the corporatization of Pride and other LGBT organizations.

I was involved in the Dyke March initially - which had a bumpy start; now known as the Dyke & Trans march, founded by a lesbian librarian and her partner, for women loving women, and a few of us had a problem with the scope of that queerness.

FLAP was a women-and-trans-only space, or really Women & Jake only. We wanted to be trans inclusive but we weren't really sure how to do that, we were reacting to "manarchists", CISgender male activists. And then a lot of us got involved in the Dyke March, including quite a few transfolk including one who was black and native. A lot of our friends were trans or in a relationship with them, so we got involved and changed it to the Dyke & Trans March.

Back at the Youth Project, the trans youth were not sure if they wanted to be involved because they felt it was a T-Tack - the T was just tacked on with no actual effort to include the Trans community. Myself, Jean Steinberg, Mary Burnett and some of the youth transfolk decided to have a public meeting in a back room at Menz Bar, and it was very well attended. By they way, there are cameras in the washrooms at Menz. Just a word of advice. Anyway it was packed, the meeting was three hours long Initially we were going to only not going to allow CIS gay men or CIS straight women; we would put the allies on the side. But, we didn't have the numbers for that. In the end we decided to allow the trans folk to decide what the march would be - and they decided that it would be just a Dyke March - no T Tack. The next year we had a real, really well attended, dyke and trans march.

It's odd that I'm up there speaking, because I'm the cis fem queer woman. It would be good to see someone organize an all-trans panel. Anyway, we took several meetings just to decide what the thing would be called. We were against the corporatization / mainstreaming of Pride; the Chair of Pride said they were working on making Pride less ... promiscuous? What? and more family friendly - perhaps making gender non conforming folks under the carpet. There were many Pride meetings when we'd have the Youth Project packed, and a bunch of us would have a meeting beforehand. From those groups we had the Trans Liberation League and NSRAP did a lot of work to make the trans legislation happen, but it was a group of young trans acivists who declared, "No, we need to make this a big deal."1

Her 2016 bio line in The Coast reads, "Rebecca Rose is a queer freelance writer and community organizer currently living in Halifax. She is a member of the Canadian Freelance Union."

BeforeTheParade began as a six thousand word article The Coast, July 21, 2016, City Guides >> Halifax Pride >> Before The Parade https://www.thecoast.ca/halifax/before-the-parade/Content?oid=5523368

On 2022-11-24, following the Colorado Springs Club Q shooting, Rebecca and DanielMacKay were interviewed by Alex Mason of Halifax CBC Mainstreet about historical queer spaces in Halifax.

On November 24, 2024, Rebecca announced on Facebook that she and Jillian were 5 months pregnant.