{"id":29377,"date":"2021-05-28T19:46:00","date_gmt":"2021-05-28T23:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=29377"},"modified":"2021-05-28T19:46:29","modified_gmt":"2021-05-28T23:46:29","slug":"york-region-kicks-off-digital-pride-this-wednesday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/york-region-kicks-off-digital-pride-this-wednesday\/","title":{"rendered":"York Region kicks off Digital Pride this Wednesday"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We still have to keep our distance, but the community is set to come together virtually this Wednesday, June 2, for the kick-off of Digital Pride in York Region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Spearheaded by the York Pride Festival and community partners, this will be the second year running that events have had to take place in the virtual realm, but organizers have come up with new ways to keep the event fresh throughout the month of June.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs the sun sets to the west, Digital Pride is getting fired up on the east side of Newmarket as we prepare to rock the Digital Stage for opening night of York Pride,\u201d say organizers. \u201cWe\u2019ve seriously drawn some wildcards for this evening packed with stellar performances. In the artist lineup, you can expect various styles of drag, involving vogueing and untamed outfit realness. Who knows, you might even catch a king on site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cContinuing into the night, we feature home-grown talent from the north of York Region as we dabble in the catchy tunes of country along with performances from another band that\u2019s sure to get you on your feet. And to top it all off, we go behind the intense heat and witness the deadly art of fire dancing as they lash out some extremely incredible visual displays. Anticipate wicked lighting, bursts of smoke, confetti and pyrotechnics as we celebrate the first night of Season Two of Digital Pride Live with you from the comfort of your own home.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fun continues with the distribution of \u201cexperiences boxes\u201d on June 4, which encourages people to share in the same culinary experiences from their own homes \u2013 cooking and eating together \u201clike a true family.\u201d Proceeds from the sale of these \u201cexperience boxes\u201d will go towards Rainbow Camp to help send 2SLGBTQ+ Canadians to camp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Further programs include Express Yourself on June 7, a workshop focused on self expression, body positivity and \u201clife-affirming and creative movement exercises\u201d all with an aim of helping you uncover \u201cmore authentic versions of you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your Voice is the theme for June 9, a time for \u201cyoung 2SLGBTQ+ Canadians to have their voices \u201cheard loud and clear.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThrough passionate conversations and real lived experiences, youth within the Greater Toronto Area and York Region will share real fears, constructive criticisms and their feelings on the ever-changing landscape of our communities,\u201d say organizers. \u201cThis is your chance to be unapologetically truthful, to spark change, and make strides to raise awareness on ongoing issues in our community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Programming will continue through June 30 and, in the coming weeks, The Auroran will share more of what\u2019s to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These conversations, however, are not only being sparked by York Pride. Pflag York Region is also hard at work during Pride Month to provide programs and services to the 2SLGBTQ+ community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

June marks the first anniversary that Pflag York Region has had to reconfigure their events for virtual participants and while there have been some challenges, Pflag president Tristan Coolman says opportunities have presented themselves as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur Coffee Night \u2018Let\u2019s Chat\u2019 events that we have monthly now is really a reflection of that,\u201d says Mr. Coolman on the discussion forum hosted in partnership with the Aurora Public Library. \u201cWe\u2019ve been able to do different webinars and educational seminars and for the first time we\u2019re actually streaming live, too. We\u2019re trying to make these events as accessible as possible because people are going to be celebrating Pride from home this year and we want to make it as successful as it can be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think about what Pride means to me. Regardless of the efforts we are all trying to do to make these online events special, I still think about how special it was to participate in the capacity of Pflag [being] out at Pride and having that perspective, versus just visiting casually, almost as a tourist. There is no replacing what in-person Pride is and these events are not trying to replace it, but they are meant to be as much about the community as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more on the events York Pride has to offer for the second annual Digital Pride Festival, visit YorkPride.ca. Further information on Pflag York Region, including virtual Coffee Nights, head over to pflagyork.ca.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong>
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter<\/em><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We still have to keep our distance, but the community is set to come together virtually this Wednesday, June 2, for the kick-off of Digital Pride in York Region. Spearheaded by the York Pride Festival and community partners, this will be the second year running that events have had to take place in the virtual […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-7DP","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-14 09:06:59","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29377\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}