#473 Capital Pride

 

Together, We Shine

 

to be safe, to be seen for who she actually is, and to be able to walk through this city — any city — without having to brace herself for what a stranger might say.

Today, thousands of people are walking down Wellington and Bank Street for the Capital Pride Parade. This year's theme is "Together, We Shine" — a small phrase that says something bigger than any single event can hold.

I'm writing this as a father.

I have a daughter who is trans. Like any parent, what I want for her is what I want for both my kids: to be safe, to be seen for who she actually is, and to be able to walk through this city — her city — without having to brace herself for what a stranger might say.

That shouldn't be a controversial thing to want. But I know that for a lot of families, it still feels like one. I know because I've felt the tension myself — the small calculations parents of trans kids make before a school event, a family gathering, a doctor's appointment. Whether this is a room where we can just be a family, or a room where we have to explain, defend, or brace.

Pride, at its best, is a day where that bracing gets to stop. Where a parade route through the middle of our capital says, out loud and in public, that trans kids and trans adults belong here as fully as anyone else. Not as a special accommodation. Not as a debate to be settled. Just as neighbours.

I don't think support for a once child (now an adult) like mine should require anyone to abandon their own beliefs or their own faith. I've met people across the political spectrum, from every kind of background, who don't always agree on the politics of gender — and who are still, without exception, kind to my daughter when they meet her. That's the version of respect I actually think this city runs on: not uniform agreement, but a basic decency that holds even when we don't see eye to eye.

So today, on the day this city celebrates its 2SLGBTQIA+ community, here's what I'm asking for — not as a candidate, just as a dad:

For families like mine: you're not alone, and you don't owe anyone an explanation for loving your kid exactly as she is.

For neighbours who are uncertain or unfamiliar: curiosity offered in good faith is always welcome. Judgment isn't. There's a difference, and most people can tell which one they're bringing into a room.

For everyone in Ward 13 and across Ottawa: whatever our politics, whatever our disagreements about how this city should be run — and I have plenty of those — we can hold a hard line on respect for each other's kids. That one shouldn't be negotiable.

Pride isn't really asking anyone to change their mind about anything. It's asking for something smaller and, I'd argue, more achievable: peace, goodwill, and the ordinary respect owed to any neighbour walking down the street. My daughter deserves that. So does everyone else's kid, out there today, watching the parade go by.

Together, we shine — or we don't, all of us, at once.