By Denise Holliday
Published :December Wayves 2005
After
months of preparations and hours of work at the national and local levels an
event to be Prideful about took place in
The final count was reckoned to be 225 delegates and they had two full days of Maritime hospitality to keep them happy while they attended many of the 54 assorted workshops. Truly the colours of the GLBT Communities Rainbow were held high and as distinct as every colour is, they blended perfectly.
The event was held at the Casino Nova Scotian Hotel so adding a truly Maritime flavour to the delegates stay that was only outdone by the Maritime hospitality shown by the organizing groups and hotel staff. There was one volunteer who was waiting for someone at the check-in desk and was drawn into a conversation with a hotel staff member. “Oh” she said, “you folk have been so quiet we almost forget you were up there.” Another great compliment to the dedication of not only the organizers but to the delegates in attendance as they moved flawlessly from one workshop time frame to another.
The Conference was titled Rainbow Health 2005, Developing Capacity to Address Our Health and Wellness. The handout about the conference explains that each year over 5500 gay men, Lesbians, Bisexual or Transgendered (GLBT) Canadians die a premature death as a result of the intolerable levels of homophobia that still exist in this country. Those deaths result from the stress of living in a climate that does not value the lives of GLBT people. Unable to see how they can survive in this atmosphere, many GLBT people commit suicide and since they often usually feel isolated and unsafe the reason for the death is not always apparent. This often leads to the published number of deaths being much lower than the actual death toll.
Recently I experienced this homophobic attitude myself when I asked a man I knew if he cared to sponsor me in the AIDS Walk for Life. “No Way, Let em all die” he said. Fortunately, his was not the most common response. During conversations in workshops and during breaks, a common thread seemed to keep evolving. Gay men who explained situations where doctors upon learning they were gay, refused to take them on or keep them as patients and often made assessments based on the patients sexuality without proper examination,
Native Two Spirited and Transgendered people shared some common ground in the fact that the majority of the medical professionals know little or nothing of their issues and while some social, educational and government groups have collected information, as one person with letters after their name said “no-one shares relevant data”.
A total of 54 workshops provided an amazing menu of subjects to sit in and learn about. The issues regarding GLBT communities and how stress creates additional problems such as medication abuse, self abuse, spouse abuse and in particular same sex (male abuse) was looked at in depth. Effects that spiritual conflicts cause; as in the case of Christian gays and other mainline religious groups were examined and how this leads to added health care costs and premature death. The average gay man is expected to die at age 55 according to the conference hand out. “Great” rings in my ears as the response I would expect from that man I spoke of earlier. It is to be hoped he never experiences losing a child or grandchild who was “foolish enough to choose to be a Rainbow Child.”
While I have no idea who the average delegate was, the ages
in attendance were from early twenties to over sixties and they blended and
shared on an ongoing basis. Possibly more was learned between workshops from
each other than in the actual workshops as each one discussed what they had learnt
and shared their true life experiences in this light. As a 58 year old Transsexual I was amazed
that people in
Peer helping was promoted as one of the strongest ways of assisting members of our community. Self identification was also discussed, since not everyone likes to be classified as under simply G, L, B or T. It was noted that we are as diversified in self identification as we are in social and health issues. Another common theme was that Transgender issues were often perceived by the TG community as being tagged on the end of GLB while receiving no real identity. Hand in hand with that it was also plainly understood by many that while Sexual orientation is widely discussed and promoted inside and outside the rainbow community, many people treating or supporting transgendered people including the GLB community, get sidetracked by the word sexuality and totally miss the gender identity issues, simply adding one more letter to their Title without clarification or real support and understanding adds one more stress factor to their load.
CRHC ended the conference by having their Annual General Meeting on the Saturday afternoon and took the opportunity to announce their theme campaign for 2006 OUTLIVE HOMOPHOBIA. They handed out posters and rubber wristbands proclaiming the aims of the campaign. Watch for more details in the near future in this paper.