St. John’s Pride wrapped its twelve day festival on July 19th with a parade through downtown, drawing thousands of people, among them newcomers who have settled in Newfoundland and Labrador from countries around the world. For many of them, walking in the parade carried a different weight than it did for people who grew up here, shaped by their own histories with safety, identity, and belonging in the places they left behind.
YWCA St. John’s runs a peer support group for 2SLGBTQIA plus newcomers, meant to give people a space where their immigration experience and their gender or sexual identity don’t have to be treated separately. Some newcomers say they left places where being openly queer wasn’t safe. Others say that even after arriving somewhere safer, building a new life and finding community still took time. For those who spoke with us on the record, the parade was one part of a longer process of settling in and finding people who understood
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