Surrey Pride festival celebrates 27th anniversary

The Surrey Pride festival celebrated another year of joy and resilience on June 20 at Central City Plaza.

The festival, celebrating its 27th anniversary, welcomed hundreds to enjoy an afternoon of drag, live music, and meeting vendors.

“We believe in being seen and making a safe space for the people so they can be seen,” said Donald Crowe, president of the Surrey Pride Society, the event organizer.

Crowe said the idea for Surrey Pride started with a gay dance to raise funds and protest a Surrey Schools book ban.

On May 30, a rainbow crosswalk near Surrey City Hall was vandalized. The City of Surrey repainted the crosswalk, and two men were arrested and charged.

“There’s a rising rhetoric of hate and cruelty towards queer  people, particularly toward queer kids,” said Sean Moores, accommodation officer at the Surrey Teachers’ Association, who had a table at the festival.

Protests against the sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI 123) educational resource have been held in Surrey.

The presence of anti-SOGI protesters on school grounds creates a hostile environment for 2SLGBTQIA+ students, Moores said.

“As teachers, we want to show that there’s a different future for [queer] kids,” Moores said. “It doesn’t have to be a future of the pain that we were used to when we were growing up. There is love and acceptance.”

Val Innes was the first faculty LGBTQ representative at Kwantlen Polytechnic University. She co-founded Queer Imaging and Riting Kollective for Elder, or QUIRK-E. It is a writing group for queer elders, which had a booth at the festival.

“It didn’t hurt my career, but I stayed silent for a long time.” Innes said.

She adds that her message for young people is to not lose hope or the work that has been done by queer elders.

Pride is a celebration that welcomes everyone, Crowe said.

“You just know that you’ve done something that makes a difference, not only today, but for the rest of their lives,” Crowe said.