This year’s edition of Carleton Pride Week, taking place from Jan. 21-25, has been able to feature a much larger number of events than in previous years due in large part to a new $4,000 line of funding from Carleton University Students’ Associaton (CUSA), according to GLBTQ centre co-ordinator Erica Butler.
This is the first year the GLBTQ centre has received dedicated funding for Pride Week itself. This funding was promised during last year’s election platform of current vice-president (student services) Fatima Hassan, Butler said.
The $4,000 allocation for Pride Week is in addition to the $4,300 projects funding the centre received from CUSA for the rest of the 2012-13 year to participate in events such as Pride Ottawa, according to Butler.
“Certainly having a dedicated Pride budget line makes it easier for us because trying to cover the cost of Pride and every other event would be pretty much impossible,” Butler said.
CUSA vice-president (finance) Michael De Luca said the allocation was due to Pride Week’s significance on campus, noting that it was part of a widespread increase in all service centre funding.
“Our team generally feels that Pride is an important event,” De Luca said. “It’s still not enough,” he added.
Events, of which there are about two per day, include a drag show, a communication and consent workshop, and a two-spirit workshop.
The two-spirit workshop focused on an aboriginal concept that is used to “define people in the community who have both a male and female spirit that coincide within them equally,” according to Gabrielle Castilloux, who led the program.
“It’s not as popular of a thing to talk about as gay or lesbians,” Castilloux said. “People don’t necessarily [say] ‘I have a friend who’s two-spirit,’ so [the idea is to] create a dialogue about this.”
The GLBTQ Centre allocation is four times the amount of money given to the Womyn’s Centre, which received $1,000, to host their Consent is Sexy Week, according to De Luca.
“The Womyn’s Centre only asked for $1,000,” De Luca said. “If they wanted more money they could have asked for it in the budget. We probably would have given it to them, but that’s all they asked for.”
The extra funding for Pride Week has particularly helped in paying for events such as a panel discussion set to take place on Jan. 25, featuring activists Janet Mock, Wade Davis, and Darnell Moore, Butler said.
“Janet Mock is arguably the most famous trans-activist in North America right now, so being able to bring in somebody that visible I think is really awesome,” Butler said. “It’s definitely always a bit of a struggle to figure out how to cover costs. I think even just double what we have now would make a huge difference.”
Carleton student Beth Thompson-Chase, who hosted CUSA Live program called “1 Raven 5 Queers,” based on the talk show “1 Girl 5 Gays,” said she has felt a “positive experience” so far during Pride Week.
“This year’s theme of being unapologetic is really important,” Thompson-Chase said. “With the politics and the divisiveness on our campus, just being able to say that ‘I will exist and my existence is resisting, and I’m not going to be sorry for anything that I do or am,’ is great.”
