A large crowd gathered around the Canadian Tribute to Human Rights Monument on Elgin Street Oct. 20 for a vigil to remember the suicides of several lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) youth.
The event came less than a week after the suicide of Jamie Hubley, a gay 15-year-old who took his own life, a decision influenced by being bullied at school. Hubley was a grade 10 student at A.Y. Jackson Secondary School in Kanata.
The vigil was held on Spirit Day, an event that began in 2010 to raise awareness for LGBTQ youth who have been bullied.
On this day, people wear purple to show their support for the youth.
“There are no queer teen suicides, only queer teen murders,” said Dillon Black, organizer of the vigil, to the crowd that was huddling together under umbrellas in the rain, holding candles to commemorate LGBTQ youth who have taken their own lives.
Several other people, including Rhonda Chamberlain and Erica Butler from Pink Triangle Services, spoke to the crowd on a megaphone.
Pink Triangle Services is an organization that supports LGBTQ people in Ottawa.
“Simply telling our youth that it gets better is not enough. We need to make it better, here and now,” said Chamberlain, referencing the “It Gets Better” campaign that was launched after a string of gay teen suicides.
Hubley was a focus of the event. Many people who spoke to the crowd either mentioned him, or had connections to him in some way.
Katie LeBrun and Stephanie Wheeler, two students at A.Y. Jackson who were friends of Hubley, described him as a “unicorn,” a term coined by Glee.
In the show, an openly gay character named Kurt describes himself as a unicorn — someone who’s special and not afraid to show it.
Black, 24, said Hubley’s story touched her, and though she already planned to hold a vigil, Hubley’s death made it more important.
“Last year, we organized this event for the same reason, for the youth suicides from the past year, but it was especially important to have it again this year, because of [Hubley], because it hit so close to home,” she said.
Paul Dewar, Ottawa Centre’s New Democratic Party (NDP) MP, said measures need to be taken to prevent something like this from happening again. Attending the event, he said, was not just to “talk about things getting better, but to make them better and taking action.”
“What that means is recognizing that it’s not OK for people to constantly make fun of people or to out people down or to basically question people’s humanity,” Dewar said.
Philip Toone, the NDP MP for Gaspésie-Îles-de-la-Madeleine, also attended the event.
“In this day and age, I can’t imagine that bullying is still being tolerated in high schools,” he said. “We were supposed to have this fixed when we started to become a little more enlightened in the ‘80s, when we said ‘everybody is equal.’ Well, apparently we’re not.”
Randall Garrison, MP for the Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca riding in British Columbia, is the NDP’s spokesperson for LGBTQ issues.
Garrison said he tabled a bill, entitled the Trans Rights Bill, that would take a step in helping those affected by bullying because of gender identity.
Garrison said the bill would add gender identity and gender expression to the human rights code, and would make any crime towards transgender people a hate crime.
During the vigil, a minute of silence was held, followed by a reading of the names of other teenagers who had committed suicide as a result of being bullied because of their sexual orientation.
Black said the event was a success.
“I think the turnout is amazing, especially considering the weather,” Black said.
“People came out anyway and the candles are burning so I’m happy that people came to hear youth stories.”
