The organizers of Edmonton Pride Corner’s weekly outdoor gatherings say they are shaken after violent threats, but won’t back down, according to the Edmonton Journal.
On Sept. 9 during a TikTok livestream of their weekly event, a social media user posted comments threatening Pride Corner with gun violence, prompting the gathering to disperse immediately. Just a week earlier, someone had threatened attendees in person with a baseball bat.
“We are feeling many emotions—fear and anger definitely being at the forefront,” Claire Pearen, one of the founders of Pride Corner, told CBC News. “But [we are] also feeling disheartened, knowing that there are humans out there that want to do harm to others simply for our existence.”
Sept. 16’s rally was moved to an undisclosed location over safety concerns, with regular events planned to return to the normal Pride Corner location this week. Volunteer Erynn Christie said the back-to-back threats were alarming.
“I was very scared, to be honest. I’ve never dealt with something like that in my life. Even right now I want to cry about it,” she told the Edmonton Journal. “I don’t know why this continues to happen. If you don’t like the way somebody lives their life, if they’re not hurting you, then it doesn’t affect you.”
Edmonton Police Service (EPS) say one man has been arrested in relation to the baseball bat incident, while the investigation into the online threat is ongoing.
For the past 18 months, dozens of people have been meeting at Pride Corner every Friday to dance, rally and find community.
Pearen originally started Pride Corner in early 2020 as a response to the homophobic and transphobic street preachers who often gathered at the intersection of Whyte Avenue and 104 Street. Her counterprotest took off, with more people joining her and a regular event taking shape.
Part of Pearen’s impetus for starting Pride Corner was rising suicide rates among unhoused queer youth in the city, and she worried that hearing homophobic screeds might be the final straw for vulnerable young LGBTQ2S+ people in distress.
Many participants are queer youth and their friends, and the neighbourhood is home to Edmonton’s services for unhoused queer youth.
Pride Corner became a place where queer and trans teens could find community and hang out in a safe space. Alberta’s Bill 8 allows schools to contact parents of students who join gay-straight alliances, meaning teens seeking support in schools can be forcibly outed to unsupportive families—and establishing the need for non-school communities.
Edmonton mayor Amarjeet Sohi officially proclaimed the intersection Pride Corner in May 2022, after a petition calling for it gained over 10,000 signatures.
Pearen told Xtra earlier this year that the EPS have kept an eye on altercations between the street preachers and Pride Corner counter-protestors for a while, though nobody had been arrested.
The threats against Pride Corner come as part of a rise in anti-LGBTQ2S+ crime in Canada. This summer, anti-LGBTQ2S+ threats were levelled against targets including a youth group in North Bay, Ontario, and a drag show in Victoria, British Columbia. Edmonton has also seen almost twice as many hate crimes in 2022 as compared to the same period in 2021, according to the EPS.
Despite the threats, Pride Corner organizers say they will not be silenced. In an Instagram post dated Sept. 16, they wrote, “We started Pride Corner on Whyte to make Edmonton a safer and more inclusive place for all. There are people who cannot stand seeing us live with joy and comfort and we have always been privy to the risks of front line activism. We will not shrink into the background just because of hatred.”
Why you can trust Xtra
