Schools are the second important space for children (the first being home) which affects their overall growth and it plays a vital role in directing their mental development. It is important to look into how these schools work in nurturing and mentoring a healthy and socially responsible group of youth.

As Canada is a country that has a law and society that accepts the LGBTQ community, Canadian schools are also required to be inclusive in nature with regard to gender diversity and sexuality. With the law enforced and several efforts taken to make sure everything is perfectly executed, do all of the schools in Canada follow the provincial law and the right curriculum when it comes to LGBTQ? 

Unfortunately, the answer is NO.

There are a lot of issues in schools that need to be addressed. The root cause of most of the problems is lack of awareness. Some of the visible problems are discrimination against LGBTQ kids from other students as well as teachers, bullying, discrimination...

                                         CHOOSING TO BE GOOD PARENTS

As someone has said, parenting is the easiest thing in the world to have an opinion about, but the hardest thing in the world to actually do.

In India, parenting is something everybody around you involved in; the grandparents, uncles, aunts, neighbours and the list goes on. This is because there is an unofficial fundamental right to peep into how others are raising their children and make comments and suggestions and also teach them religious and ‘traditional values’ if they get a chance. 

Yes, it is stupid, but unfortunately true. Joint families still exist in India, hesitating to break into nuclear ones. This makes it more common to have a lot of people getting involved in the process of raising a child. Even if the family is a nuclear one, the grandparents never step back from their...

It takes insight and intelligence to know our ‘self’. Not everyone dares to discover it and embrace their real whole self. Because it takes immense strength too.

 As a straight ally, I have tried to know the puzzle and pain one has to go through in the process of finding one’s ‘self’. It is quite a baffling state of existence where you don’t identify with the terms society has attributed to you. Because for the majority of the society, sexuality is something to be attributed to a person based on the biological or physical appearance they can interpret. For them, everything is either black or white, no greys in between.

Coming out for LGBTQ people would have been an easier process if their society would start to understand that sexuality never exists in binary. It’s a spectrum of different shades.

I have friends who ended up in forced marriages against their will and got...

Editor's Note:   On September 22, 2017, Sarah Hegazi attended a concert for Mashrou' Leila whose lead singer, Hamed Sinno, is openly gay. She was arrested along with a group of others for waving a rainbow flag in support of LGBT rights. Her arrest coincided with Egypt's zero-tolerance crackdown response to end public support for LGBT rights in the country.  She recalled being jailed, beaten, and abused by inmates. 

Sarah (Zarah) was granted asylum in Canada but lived with the PTSD from her experience.  

“To my siblings,

I tried to survive and I failed, forgive me.

To my friends,

The experience was cruel and I’m too weak

to resist it, forgive me.

To the world,

You were awfully cruel, but I forgive.”

This is the last note left behind by Zarah Hijazi, an Egyptian LGBTQ rights activist who committed suicide last week in Canada. She was raped and tortured in the prison by the US-backed Sisi government for her...

This week, here at the Pride and Joy Foundation, we are exploring the theme of "PRIDE: What does it mean to you?"  In this essay our intern Gopika offers her take as an Indian woman...

Pride month 2020 has been flagged off and it’s time to celebrate the equality, visibility, and dignity of LGBTQ people all over the world.

Wait!!!

I think I got it wrong by using the phrase ‘All over the world’.  While Pride parades are in full swing and people celebrate the existence and acceptance of their identity in countries like the U.S, France, Canada, Belgium, etc, there is a harsh truth on the other side that there are numerous countries which still criminalize homosexuality and deny LGBTQ identity. There are people who still march on streets amidst violence from authority just like the Stonewall riot. For them, nothing has changed yet. 

As an Indian girl, I grew up hearing the term “Unnatural relationships” as whispers and...

As a straight person, I have always been curious to know about homosexual relationships, how they meet, how they hook up, how they know whether the other person is straight or not, and a lot of ‘HOWs’ to be honest. It doesn’t mean peeping into others’ private life, but just curious to know how someone could get attracted to a person of same-sex and have a crush on him/her without being sure of their sexuality. How can they approach the other person being unsure where to stand, in the border of friendship and romance? 

While all these questions excited me, I started thinking of it in a more focused way. I realized that these are not only the concerns of LGBTQ people but everyone out there including myself. How can I crush on a man without knowing his sexuality?

Love is in its most beautiful and purest form when an individual finds their soulmate in another individual regardless of their gender. 

So, let’s accept the fact that LGBTQ...