Pride Month kicks off in Toronto
Pride Month has officially kicked off in the city, with celebrations and events set to take place all throughout June. As Megan King reports, this year's Pride theme looks at inclusivity, togetherness and standing up for one another during difficult times.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Yahoo
Need a 'free dad hug' or 'free mom hug'? These parents are giving them out at Pride.
It all started with a homemade button with 'Free Mom Hugs' written on it in black Sharpie. Sara Cunningham, a mom of two from Oklahoma, wore it to a Pride festival in 2015, offering hugs to anyone who needed one. 'With anyone who made eye contact with me, I would say, 'Could I offer you a hug or a high five?''she tells Yahoo Life. 'The first girl I offered a hug to said it's been four years since she had a hug from her mother because she's a lesbian,' Cunnignham says. That ignited a spark in her to do more, leading her to found the nonprofit Free Mom Hugs. What started as just a few moms in Oklahoma City has turned into a national movement with more than 40,000 registered volunteers. Cunningham didn't start out as a fierce advocate, however. When her son came out to her years ago, she felt devastated and alone, something she wrote about in her book, How We Sleep at Night: A Mother's Memoir. 'I thought I was the only mother in the world, or at least Oklahoma anyway, with a gay kid,' she says. Cunningham wrestled with her conservative Christian faith and admits she didn't treat her son well, 'believing that [he] was condemned for eternity and that if I accepted him or even tolerated him, that made me a sinner too,' she says. 'I was frozen in that fear.' Over time, Cunningham educated herself and met other moms like her. 'It was a journey from the church to the Pride parade without losing my faith or my son,' she says. When her son invited her to join him at a Pride parade in 2014, she met his 'beautiful community' and saw how happy he was. It became a pivotal moment in Cunningham's life, and there was no going back after that. 'I know the power of fear and ignorance, and I know the power of love and education,' she says. Cunningham chose love. When Free Mom Hugs members like Cunningham give hugs, they also share words of encouragement. 'That is, in church words, 'the fruit of the spirit,'' she says. 'It's empowering and it's life-giving just by saying, 'I love you. I'm so glad you're here and you belong.'' Cunningham is one of thousands of moms and dads who show up at Pride celebrations across the country, ready to embrace anyone who needs it. Here, four others describe what giving out these hugs means to them — and why they matter. For as far back as he can remember, Sean Leacy has wanted to be a dad. The father of four, who lives in Washington with his wife, also organizes events for the Tacoma Dads Group, which has grown to 1,200 members. When the group decided to give out free dad hugs at the Tacoma Pride Festival a few years ago, 'we had a bit of pushback from people in the community that did not agree with that idea,' he tells Yahoo Life. The group lost some members, but at the same time 'we've gained in dads who believe in equal human rights for just people, regardless of their orientation.' Leacy cares about showing up as a parent, and giving hugs and high-fives at Pride is one way of doing that. 'If these parents are not going to be parents, if they're not going to step up and they're going to give in to their own selfishness and bigotry, then we'll be there.' That support is making a difference. Last year, his dads group got a booth at the entrance of the Pride festival. 'So you could not walk in without walking past us,' he says. 'We weren't pushy about it, but we wanted to make sure that everyone understood that we're here to give a hug.' And given their location, they gave a lot of them. A police officer stationed at the event came up to the group later on and said, 'I don't know if you really fully understand [the impact] because when people are walking away from you guys and walking toward us, they are just bawling. I'm touched by the impact this is making.' Leacy adds: 'That was a big deal for us.' Leacy acknowledges that with free dad hugs, fathers like him are 'stepping into a space that has been held very much so by mothers, and dads have not been out there doing it. I think that it's more expected for free mom hugs to be there. It's less expected that dads will be involved. I think that's probably where a lot of the impact is coming from — the idea that there is just a bunch of big, huggable guys that are literally just looking to give out a hug.' Five years ago, Erin Gambino-Russo, a Long Island mom of three, was watching a documentary about the LGBTQ community. She can't recall the name, but it left her feeling like she needed to act. 'I can't just sit here and feel sorry for people,' she recalls thinking. 'I need to do something.' An online search led her to Free Mom Hugs. 'I did not know that it was an organization,' she tells Yahoo Life. 'I thought it was just a shirt that people wore.' Gambino-Russo joined her local Free Mom Hugs chapter, eventually becoming the co-leader with Lisa Schlossberg (their chapter was even chosen to be grand marshals at Long Island Pride last Sunday). 'I tell people all the time that next to being a mom of three amazing kids, this is the thing I'm most proud of in my life,' Gambino-Russo says. Of all the hugs she has given, one stands out: 'I gave a hug to a 70-year-old trans woman who hadn't had contact with her mother since she came out 30 years prior,' she says. 'She wasn't even permitted to go to her mother's funeral service. This woman hugged me as if I were her mom. She needed a mom hug. She was old enough to be my parent, but it wasn't about that. It was about the love of a mom and the acceptance.' Gambino-Russo's husband joined her at Long Island Pride last year to give out dad hugs. 'He gave a lot of hugs because a lot of kids need the dad hug,' she says, adding that there was one person at Pride who hugged her husband and had a hard time letting go. 'They kept whispering apologies to him. I'm so sorry, but I just really need this. It was emotional.' While the hugs certainly feel good, Gambino-Russo says that's not the main point for her. She keeps showing up because of the statistic that LGBTQ youth who report having at least one accepting adult are 40% less likely to report a suicide attempt in the past year. 'To me, what's important is for every human to know that they're loved and beautiful and perfect the way they are,' she says. Lillian Godone-Maresca, a mom of eight who lives in Rhode Island, says that supporting the gay community aligns with how her parents raised her — and even her Catholic faith. While that might seem surprising given the church's stance on LGBTQ issues, Godone-Maresca says that her teachings were about seeing Jesus 'in the homeless, the hungry, the persecuted, the oppressed, the sick. So that's what moves me to do it.' Godone-Maresca, whose doormat by her front door bears the slogan, 'Hate has no home here,' tells Yahoo Life that her parents and grandparents were 'ahead of their time in matters of equality and social justice. We embrace everyone.' She adds, 'I grew up having been taught about kindness.' That inspired her to show up at her local Pride parade last year to give out hugs, wearing a 'Free Mom Hugs' T-shirt while holding up a handwritten sign that reads: 'I'm here because I'm a Catholic, but you don't need to be a Catholic to get a mom's hug.' 'I got interested in this mom hugs idea because I find it so regrettable that some parents may disown their own children, may not support them and may turn their back on them,' Godone-Maresca says. 'It's unthinkable that someone may not accept their own children.' She recalls a memorable moment at Pride when a young man in his early 20s came up to her for a hug. 'He gave me such a long hug,' she says. 'He really needed it.' Godone-Maresca says she's already signed up to attend two more Pride celebrations this year. 'You feel that you're doing something meaningful,' she says. During Pride month three years ago, Jackie Kaldon Burton watched the documentary Mama Bears, which follows conservative Christian moms whose lives change when they accept and advocate for their LGBTQ children. The film features the Mama Bears organization, founded by Liz Dyer, which supports LGBTQ families and even stands in for absent parents at weddings and other celebrations. 'I cried through the whole thing,' Burton, who has a gay son, tells Yahoo Life. 'I was so taken by this.' That same year, she and her best friend, Christine Dammann, marched with PFLAG, an organization for LGBTQ families and friends. As they walked, Burton says young people kept approaching them with hugs, thanking them for being supportive parents. 'It was so incredibly powerful and wonderful but also sad,' she says. 'Every time one of them would walk away, Christine and I would look at one another and be like, I can't fathom not embracing your child.' This past weekend, Burton's small town of Pleasantville, N.Y, held its first-ever Pride celebration. After reaching out to the founder of Mama Bears, Burton and her best friend set up a table at Pride to share information about the organization with others. 'I think the only way to make change is literally person by person,' she says. Burton acknowledges that as a stranger she can't make up for the acceptance and love of an actual parent. 'But if it helps bridge the gap just a little bit, then that's all that matters.'
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Yahoo
My dad was an artist and alcoholic. I didn't understand him until he died.
I wasn't sure I really wanted another box of my dad's things. That's not true. I knew I didn't want them. His friends and family, historically, tend to give me what once belonged to him. His memories. His jokes. His artwork. They think I want these because I'm his son. I've always resented that. I saw it differently – more of a one-way transaction of a burden. 'Take these off my hands,' they seemed to say. 'Let me let this go.' These feelings swelled, like clockwork, the closer I got every year to Father's Day. We all have our dates, our burdens, that land less gently than the others. And Father's Day always landed like a heavy yoke over my shoulders. Opinion: Father's Day and Pride Month merged for me when my dad came out and met a man he loved I carried the grief because I thought I had to. I was his son – so wasn't it my responsibility? I took it on like a debt – though it was one I, myself, had never incurred. He left when I was 8 years old. My only sin was being his son. Somebody had to be there in a way he never had been, right? I started running out of spaces to tuck the plastic containers and cardboard boxes where I couldn't see them. I exhausted verbal sidesteps of comparisons between us. My resentment toward them – the old belongings, the people who gave them to me, my dear old dad – just grew. Tucked into one of those boxes is his coroner's report. It says what I already knew: chronic ethanolism. My dad was an alcoholic. What had long been coming finally came, and suddenly everyone was released from their obligation to hold on to what had once been his. So I waffled between acceptance and resentment. After he exited my life, he spent the better part of a decade homeless on the streets of Phoenix before my own sense of obligation brought me back to him. I should talk to him, I thought, just in case something changed. It didn't. Of course it didn't. Certainly not the stories, at least. When we talked on the phone, those fleeting few times between reconnecting and the death, I listened dutifully to the same repetitive narratives about concerts he'd worked security for. Songs I should check out. Movies I should watch. Things that slipped through the grasp of my memory – or concern – almost the moment he uttered them. Those stories – they were exhausting to listen to, but I entertained them. Perhaps out of the same sense of obligation of everyone else. Or maybe they genuinely cared. The myopia of my resentment precluded me from knowing one way or the other. Opinion: Another person I love has died. I've developed a horrible fear of death. One of the greatest cruelties of caring for someone with addiction is the cycles of grief before they're ever truly gone. I spent days, weeks, months, stuck in the spiral of bargaining. What if I could think of the perfect thing to say to him to pull him from his own pattern, addiction, and bring him back to reality? What if I could accomplish what all his other friends and family couldn't achieve – what if I could be a hero in his story? Who was to blame? What could I do? But those perfect answers, perfect lines of thought, perfect lines of action never came to me. And then he died. There was no closure. There were just questions I had no answers to and the ache of loss – sore and throbbing and made no less cruel by the passage of time. Opinion alerts: Get columns from your favorite columnists + expert analysis on top issues, delivered straight to your device through the USA TODAY app. Don't have the app? Download it for free from your app store. I resigned myself to the unknowing until I got a Facebook message from the owner of the autobody shop my dad frequented. He was closing his shop. He had a box of Dad's things. He wanted to send them to me. It wasn't a question of if I wanted them. Like everything else, of course I'd take them. Maybe they would make sense to me, someday. When the package arrived, I peeled back the packing tape. The note – scrawled all-caps in bold black marker on a manila file folder: 'We all loved Doug – he was my best friend.' Inside: Smeared, nasty pieces of paper stuck together in heaps. Composition notebooks with just the first two pages full. Notes from doctor appointments: no sardines, no bologna, salami or stews. Smoked baby clams and albacore tuna, though, are perfectly OK. Shopping lists, started over and over again like he kept misplacing what he wanted: honey mustard, Snyder's BIG (underlined, three times) sourdough pretzels, and salt and vinegar chips. And the art. One thing about my father: He was an artist of undeniable talent. A nearly photorealistic chalk pastel portrait hangs in a cracked frame on my wall. On another, a pen-and-ink sketch of a skier, crouched low and skis together as if in mid-flight. And even as his disease ate away at his brain, his artistic talents persisted. Colored pencil-clowns, bold marker caricatures of Rambo and mockups of greeting cards he thought he could sell to some of the big-name companies filled this box, so overflowing from their own file folders that fitting them back in proved impossible. And lists. 'For the record: Places I've been to,' one reads. Chicago, Tucson, Pittsburgh, Las Vegas. 'War favs,' reads another: A Bridge Too Far. Apocolypse Now (sic). The Wind Talkers (sic, again). 'In Your Ear DJ Service,' one piece of dirty notebook paper reads. 'Doug's Pix ‒ Dance.' I queued up Frankie Valli and The Clash and Iggy Pop while I sorted through the detritus of a life in decline. His drawings, his sketches, his notes and jokes scrawled in his spaced-out, all-caps scribble vary from nonsensical to outright crude. But buried in the piles of dirty, disintegrating papers were the lists of those concerts he worked security for. Songs I should check out. Movies I should watch. I could imagine him writing those out, holding on to those scraps of himself, running his finger down the list and telling his son. I had back what I thought I'd long lost. It is the closest I can ever get to him again. 'Hey buddy,' he used to say. 'Have you ever heard of …' It took the least polished assembly of his work to finally get the full picture of his portfolio. I could understand much better now what everybody else had tried to get me to see with all of his belongings. The full weight of his illness finally sunk in. Here was a person who was trying, in his own, broken way, to make things right – like he used to promise me in the letters he sent when he moved, before they eventually stopped. I had always just been grieving what I had already lost. These people weren't trying to pass on their obligations. They just wanted me to see him with the kindness they did. And really, I couldn't. Not fully. Not until now. Drew Atkins is an opinion digital producer for USA TODAY and the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at aatkins@ You can read diverse opinions from our USA TODAY columnists and other writers on the Opinion front page, on X, formerly Twitter, @usatodayopinion and in our Opinion newsletter. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Father's Day reminds me of addiction, loss and healing | Opinion
USA Today
5 hours ago
- USA Today
My dad was an artist and alcoholic. I didn't understand him until he died.
My dad was an artist and alcoholic. I didn't understand him until he died. | Opinion There was no closure. There were just questions I had no answers to and the ache of loss – sore and throbbing and made no less cruel by the passage of time. Show Caption Hide Caption The surprising origins of Father's Day The very first Father's Day in America was celebrated on June 19, 1910, in the state of Washington. unbranded - Lifestyle I wasn't sure I really wanted another box of my dad's things. That's not true. I knew I didn't want them. His friends and family, historically, tend to give me what once belonged to him. His memories. His jokes. His artwork. They think I want these because I'm his son. I've always resented that. I saw it differently – more of a one-way transaction of a burden. 'Take these off my hands,' they seemed to say. 'Let me let this go.' Father's Day intensifies my grief These feelings swelled, like clockwork, the closer I got every year to Father's Day. We all have our dates, our burdens, that land less gently than the others. And Father's Day always landed like a heavy yoke over my shoulders. Opinion: Father's Day and Pride Month merged for me when my dad came out and met a man he loved I carried the grief because I thought I had to. I was his son – so wasn't it my responsibility? I took it on like a debt – though it was one I, myself, had never incurred. He left when I was 8 years old. My only sin was being his son. Somebody had to be there in a way he never had been, right? I started running out of spaces to tuck the plastic containers and cardboard boxes where I couldn't see them. I exhausted verbal sidesteps of comparisons between us. My resentment toward them – the old belongings, the people who gave them to me, my dear old dad – just grew. Tucked into one of those boxes is his coroner's report. It says what I already knew: chronic ethanolism. My dad was an alcoholic. What had long been coming finally came, and suddenly everyone was released from their obligation to hold on to what had once been his. So I waffled between acceptance and resentment. After he exited my life, he spent the better part of a decade homeless on the streets of Phoenix before my own sense of obligation brought me back to him. I should talk to him, I thought, just in case something changed. It didn't. Of course it didn't. Certainly not the stories, at least. When we talked on the phone, those fleeting few times between reconnecting and the death, I listened dutifully to the same repetitive narratives about concerts he'd worked security for. Songs I should check out. Movies I should watch. Things that slipped through the grasp of my memory – or concern – almost the moment he uttered them. Those stories – they were exhausting to listen to, but I entertained them. Perhaps out of the same sense of obligation of everyone else. Or maybe they genuinely cared. The myopia of my resentment precluded me from knowing one way or the other. Opinion: Another person I love has died. I've developed a horrible fear of death. There is pain in caring for someone in the cycle of addiction One of the greatest cruelties of caring for someone with addiction is the cycles of grief before they're ever truly gone. I spent days, weeks, months, stuck in the spiral of bargaining. What if I could think of the perfect thing to say to him to pull him from his own pattern, addiction, and bring him back to reality? What if I could accomplish what all his other friends and family couldn't achieve – what if I could be a hero in his story? Who was to blame? What could I do? But those perfect answers, perfect lines of thought, perfect lines of action never came to me. And then he died. There was no closure. There were just questions I had no answers to and the ache of loss – sore and throbbing and made no less cruel by the passage of time. I resigned myself to the unknowing until I got a Facebook message from the owner of the autobody shop my dad frequented. He was closing his shop. He had a box of Dad's things. He wanted to send them to me. It wasn't a question of if I wanted them. Like everything else, of course I'd take them. Maybe they would make sense to me, someday. When the package arrived, I peeled back the packing tape. The note – scrawled all-caps in bold black marker on a manila file folder: 'We all loved Doug – he was my best friend.' Inside: Smeared, nasty pieces of paper stuck together in heaps. Composition notebooks with just the first two pages full. Notes from doctor appointments: no sardines, no bologna, salami or stews. Smoked baby clams and albacore tuna, though, are perfectly OK. Shopping lists, started over and over again like he kept misplacing what he wanted: honey mustard, Snyder's BIG (underlined, three times) sourdough pretzels, and salt and vinegar chips. And the art. My father was an artist. These works painted a different picture. One thing about my father: He was an artist of undeniable talent. A nearly photorealistic chalk pastel portrait hangs in a cracked frame on my wall. On another, a pen-and-ink sketch of a skier, crouched low and skis together as if in mid-flight. And even as his disease ate away at his brain, his artistic talents persisted. Colored pencil-clowns, bold marker caricatures of Rambo and mockups of greeting cards he thought he could sell to some of the big-name companies filled this box, so overflowing from their own file folders that fitting them back in proved impossible. And lists. 'For the record: Places I've been to,' one reads. Chicago, Tucson, Pittsburgh, Las Vegas. 'War favs,' reads another: A Bridge Too Far. Apocolypse Now (sic). The Wind Talkers (sic, again). 'In Your Ear DJ Service,' one piece of dirty notebook paper reads. 'Doug's Pix ‒ Dance.' I queued up Frankie Valli and The Clash and Iggy Pop while I sorted through the detritus of a life in decline. I found my dad in what he left behind His drawings, his sketches, his notes and jokes scrawled in his spaced-out, all-caps scribble vary from nonsensical to outright crude. But buried in the piles of dirty, disintegrating papers were the lists of those concerts he worked security for. Songs I should check out. Movies I should watch. I could imagine him writing those out, holding on to those scraps of himself, running his finger down the list and telling his son. I had back what I thought I'd long lost. It is the closest I can ever get to him again. 'Hey buddy,' he used to say. 'Have you ever heard of …' It took the least polished assembly of his work to finally get the full picture of his portfolio. I could understand much better now what everybody else had tried to get me to see with all of his belongings. The full weight of his illness finally sunk in. Here was a person who was trying, in his own, broken way, to make things right – like he used to promise me in the letters he sent when he moved, before they eventually stopped. I had always just been grieving what I had already lost. These people weren't trying to pass on their obligations. They just wanted me to see him with the kindness they did. And really, I couldn't. Not fully. Not until now. Drew Atkins is an opinion digital producer for USA TODAY and the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at aatkins@
