The Lesbian Gay Bi Trans Youth Line (LGBT YouthLine, "YouthLine"), founded in 1994, [1] is a peer support organization for LGBT youth across the province of Ontario. Although originally known for their phone support line, [2] [3] the organization also offers online chat, SMS and e-mail support services, as well as promoting and supporting other events and programs for 2SLGBTQ+ youth.
In 2011 the YouthLine, in conjunction with Toronto City Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam, created an award, named in memory of Toronto artist Will Munro, to honour LGBT youth involved in community arts projects in Ontario. [4]
In January 2021, YouthLine denounced the Toronto Catholic District School Board's decision to suddenly remove the service from their online mental health resource list for students. The removal was called "homophobic, transphobic, and racist." [5] [6] [7]
According to the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, Joseph Volpe, a former Liberal MP, published articles under his Italian-Canadian newspaper company, Corriere, with a number of homophobic comments and he called for the removal of the YouthLine's services. In May 2022, YouthLine and the other defendants won and all of Volpe's charges against them were dropped. [8]
See: TCDSB, Controversies, Elimination of LGBTQ+ Online Support
Church and Wellesley is an LGBT-oriented enclave in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is roughly bounded by Gerrard Street to the south, Yonge Street to the west, Charles Street to the north, and Jarvis Street to the east, with the core commercial strip located along Church Street from Wellesley south to Alexander. Though some LGBT-oriented establishments can be found outside this area, the general boundaries of this village have been defined by the Gay Toronto Tourism Guild.
A gay–straight alliance, gender–sexuality alliance (GSA) or queer–straight alliance (QSA) is a student-led or community-based organization, found in middle schools, high schools, colleges, and universities. These are primarily in the United States and Canada. Gay–straight alliance is intended to provide a safe and supportive environment for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and all LGBTQ+ individuals, children, teenagers, and youth as well as their cisgender heterosexual allies. The first GSAs were established in the 1980s. Scientific studies show that GSAs have positive academic, health, and social impacts on schoolchildren of a minority sexual orientation and/or gender identity. Numerous judicial decisions in United States federal and state court jurisdictions have upheld the establishment of GSAs in schools, and the right to use that name for them.
The Triangle Program is an alternative education program in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, designed for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students who are at risk of dropping because of homophobic and transphobic harassment in regular schools or need supports and flexibility around struggles with mental health, housing, or other social struggles.
The origin of the LGBT student movement can be linked to other activist movements from the mid-20th century in the United States. The Civil Rights Movement and Second-wave feminist movement were working towards equal rights for other minority groups in the United States. Though the student movement began a few years before the Stonewall riots, the riots helped to spur the student movement to take more action in the US. Despite this, the overall view of these gay liberation student organizations received minimal attention from contemporary LGBT historians. This oversight stems from the idea that the organizations were founded with haste as a result of the riots. Others historians argue that this group gives too much credit to groups that disagree with some of the basic principles of activist LGBT organizations.
The ArQuives: Canada's LGBTQ2+ Archives, formerly known as the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives, is a Canadian non-profit organization, founded in 1973 as the Canadian Gay Liberation Movement Archives. The ArQuives acquires, preserves, and provides public access to material and information by and about lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and two-spirit communities primarily in Canada.
The Toronto Catholic District School Board is an English-language public-separate school board for Toronto, Ontario, Canada, headquartered in North York. It is one of the two English boards of education serving the city of Toronto.
The 519, formerly known as The 519 Church Street Community Centre, is an agency by the City of Toronto. A Canadian charitable, non-profit organization, it operates a community centre in the Church and Wellesley neighbourhood of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The 519 serves both its local neighbourhood and the broader lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBTQ) communities in the Toronto area. The 519 defines its local neighbourhood by a catchment area that spans from Bloor Street to the north to Gerrard Street to the south, and from Bay Street in the west to Parliament Street in the east.
The Inside Out Film and Video Festival, also known as the Inside Out LGBT or LGBTQ Film Festival, is an annual Canadian film festival, which presents a program of LGBT-related film. The festival is staged in both Toronto and Ottawa. Founded in 1991, the festival is now the largest of its kind in Canada. Deadline dubbed it "Canada’s foremost LGBTQ film festival."
Supporting Our Youth (SOY) is an organization based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, which runs programs and events geared to supporting the special needs of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, transsexual and intersex youth. SOY gets support and involvement from local youth and adults that volunteer their time to help improve each other’s lives. SOY’s main focus points are helping the youth create healthy arts, recreational spaces, culture, supportive housing, and employment.
Corriere Canadese is an Italian-language daily newspaper published in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The publication is distributed exclusively in Ontario and Quebec, primarily throughout the Greater Toronto and the Greater Montreal areas.
This is a timeline of notable events in the history of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community in Canada. For a broad overview of LGBT history in Canada see LGBT history in Canada.
Tri-Pride, stylized tri-Pride, is an annual non-profit lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer Pride festival in the Waterloo Region of Ontario, encompassing the cities of Cambridge, Kitchener and Waterloo. Prior to the launch of Guelph Pride in 2003, the event also included the city of Guelph.
Kristyn Wong-Tam is a Canadian politician who has represented Toronto Centre in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario since 2022 as a member of the Ontario New Democratic Party (NDP).
Historically speaking, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBTQ) people have not been given equal treatment and rights by both governmental actions and society's general opinion. Much of the intolerance for LGBT individuals come from lack of education around the LGBT community, and contributes to the stigma that results in same-sex marriage being legal in few countries (31) and persistence of discrimination, such as in the workplace.
The Canadian Centre for Gender and Sexual Diversity (CCGSD) is a charitable organization which works towards stopping bullying, discrimination, and homophobia in schools and communities in Canada, and abroad. Through workshops, presentations, training conferences, and by supporting youth initiatives, they engage youth in celebrating diversity of gender identity, gender expression, and romantic orientation and/or sexual orientation.
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted inequities experienced by marginalized populations, and has had a significant impact on the LGBT community. Gay pride events were cancelled or postponed worldwide. More than 220 gay pride celebrations around the world were canceled or postponed in 2020, and in response a Global Pride event was hosted online. LGBTQ+ people also tend to be more likely to have pre-existing health conditions, such as asthma, HIV/AIDS, cancer, or obesity, that would worsen their chances of survival if they became infected with COVID-19. They are also more likely to smoke.
The LGBTQ2+ National Monument is a planned public monument in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, dedicated to the history of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and two-spirit communities in Canada. The monument was launched by the LGBT Purge Fund, an organization created from the 2018 settlement of the class action suit against the Government of Canada by victims of the purges of LGBTQ employees from the federal civil service in the 1960s.
David Douglas Kelley was a Canadian LGBT rights activist and organizer, AIDS educator, and youth worker.
But when the Gay Lesbian Bisexual Youth Line plugged in its phones in 1994 the situation began to look up...