Showing Up for Pride: Queer and Trans Resistance
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🌈 Abolition Pride 2026 🌈
In this year of Queer and Trans Insurgencies we say NO to Pride in Genocidal War! NO to Policing and Militarization! YES to Abolition Pride!
No Pride in Policing Coalition (NPPC), Queers 4 Palestine (Q4P), and Allies present Abolition Pride 2026! A Pride March and Rally on Sunday, June 28 from 12:30pm to 6:00pm at Grange Park (McCaul and Stephanie).
Opening Ceremony: 12:30pm at Grange Park with Brianna Olsen Pitawanakwat (Toronto Indigenous Harm Reduction) Officiating.
Street March: Leaves Park at 1:00pm
Rally: Grange Park 2:30pm to 6:00pm
Drums, art and creative and insurgent pedagogy, speakers, chants, Dj, poets, musicians and food.
As queers and trans people whose lives continue to be targeted for violence at every level we must refuse the corporatized and pinkwashing agendas of governments, organizations, and Pride Toronto. Pride Toronto’s major funder is TD Bank which is invested in Palantir, among other private corporations providing concrete supports for genocide. NPPC, Q4P and their allies refuse a Pride that does not denounce genocide, violence against trans and queers, policing and militarization, heteropatriarchal and gendered violence, imperialism and US imperialism and occupation, racism, facism, Islamaphobia, settler colonialism, destruction of Indigenous lands, mineral extraction and ethnic cleansing.
✨ SURJ Toronto 2025 Year in Review ✨
Every year, SURJ Toronto creates a Year in Review to recap what happened in our community, in partnership with movement partners.
In 2025, Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) Toronto organized in a moment defined by overlapping crises: rising authoritarianism and hate, deepening economic inequality, escalating state violence and growing global movements for liberation. Across Turtle Island and beyond, communities faced intensifying attacks on migrants, Indigenous sovereignty, disability justice, housing security and Palestinian life. At the same time, more people than ever were searching for ways to act collectively and resist systems that continue to prioritize punishment over care.
Within this context, SURJ Toronto remains committed to our core purpose: organizing white people into accountable action for racial justice while redistributing resources, strengthening movement infrastructure and showing up in principled solidarity with frontline communities. Throughout the year, we focused on deepening political education, building practical skills for collective care and safety as well as supporting grassroots organizers through fundraising, advocacy and sustained relationship-building.
In 2025, we moved over $82,500 to BIPOC movement partners in the GTA and internationally. We supported 23 organizations, largely grassroots and hard-to-fund groups.
We hosted 5 webinars as part of our Anti-Racism Series and 4 as part of the Alternatives to 911 Community Skillbuilding Series, and collaborated on events with partners across the city.
We organized internal social and educational events for SURJ members, creating space for connection, relationship-building, and learning.
We hosted phone and email zaps, bringing people together to take action on the police budget, supervised consumption sites, and Bill 5.
The Childminding Collective held 6 monthly training sessions, building skills for 20 new childminders, and offered childminding at 7 community events, removing one of the most common barriers to participation in organizing spaces.
We actively participated in the September Anti-Hate Rally and the Draw the Line Rally, supported the Kill Bill 5 Encampment and Camp Anjitoon, and aided with clean-up and painting at the Hummingbird Lodge in support of No More Silence.
Looking ahead, 2026 brings an extraordinary milestone: SURJ Toronto’s 10-year anniversary! Reaching a decade of grassroots organizing is no small feat. Many volunteer-driven movements struggle to sustain themselves over time, yet SURJ Toronto continues to grow because of the dedication, courage and commitment of our members, partners, and broader community. Over the past ten years, we learned, adapted and deepened our understanding of what it means to organize white communities in accountable solidarity, and we remain committed to evolving alongside the movements we support!
More Actions and Resources
This is where we link to external content we found interesting, challenging, or thought-provoking. Our movements are stronger when we listen to, learn from, and collaborate with folks whose perspectives and approaches are different from ours. Inclusion here does not imply endorsement.
Act:
This Pride Month, take action by redistributing funds to queer and trans BIPOC organizations:
Right now, queer and trans refugees are facing rising hate. The impacts of Bill C-12, cuts to healthcare, housing instability, and anti-immigrant sentiment are hurting our community. Canada promised to be a place of refuge. Yet too many members of our community are struggling in a refugee system that is becoming harder to navigate, harder to trust, and harder to survive. Join The 519’s Army of Lovers, Rainbow Railroad, and community partners by adding your name to an open letter to Prime Minister Carney.
RSVP for The River Run hosted by Grassy Narrows and Wabaseemoong First Nations. River Run 2026 will be on Wednesday, September 23 at noon. RSVP for yourself, and organize your friends, family, and work place to join in. Sign up for the newsletter to find out all the ways you can help out leading up to River Run 2026!
Attend:
June 25
TRANScendTO - workshops, meet-ups, and ball
Celebrate PRIDE with Community - community events & activities
Ericka Hart, Nasty Work - book discussion & interview
June 26
Gaysian Comedy All-Stars - comedy revue
June 27
Safe in Sound - harm reduction / O.D. response training
June 28
ABOLITION PRIDE 2026 - march & rally
June 29
Ford Must Go – Toronto (and other locations across Ontario) - protest
Beyond Pride: Trans & Queer Voices from the Freedom Flotilla - online panel with q&a
June 30
East End Vigil for Palestine - vigil
Sharing Radical Messages: Making Wheatpaste - workshop
July 1
Anti-Canada Day Gathering - fundraiser, speakers, live music, art, info tables
Read:
Queer Resistance
For queer Palestinians, storytelling isn’t optional -- it’s a way to exist, resist, and be heard. Reading as Resistance: Queer Palestinian Voices reclaiming story, identity, and power.
alQaws explores how recognizing pinkwashing as colonial violence can help us understand how Israel divides, oppresses, and erases Palestinians on the basis of gender and sexuality in Beyond Propaganda: Pinkwashing as Colonial Violence.
A Liberatory Demand from Queers in Palestine: Queer Palestinians call on queer and feminist activists to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people in their resistance to displacement, land theft, and ethnic cleansing and their struggle for the liberation of their lands and futures from Zionist settler-colonialism.
Rainbow Railroad helps 2SLGBTQIA+ people escape violence worldwide. It has been in operation for 20 years and is currently experiencing the highest demand ever in the face of reduced global funding and supports for refugees.
‘There’s a reason for our existence’: revisiting the meaning of Two Spirit. “Because… although Two Spirit is an identity, it’s also a role and responsibility to an entire community.”
By Any Media Necessary: Fighting Fascism With Local Queer Media. At a time when queer and trans voices are being suppressed, doing whatever you can to amplify local issues is really important, no matter the medium.
This Pride, Disabled LGBTQ+ People Don’t Need Your Apologies. We don’t need another explanation. We don’t need to be told that people are listening. Disabled people have been explaining ourselves for years. We’re done having this “ongoing conversation.” We’ve spent enough years understanding. It’s your turn.
Queer Toronto: Pride, Protest, & Policing
45 years ago, 200 cops stormed several of Toronto’s gay bathhouses, bashing in walls and mass arresting the people inside. The raids were part of what police called Operation Soap. What we can learn from ‘Canada’s Stonewall’ more than 40 years later.
The Pussy Palace Oral History Project has preserved and animated the oral histories of 36 former patrons, organizers, and allies of Toronto’s infamous queer women and trans bathhouse.
Queer activists share their experiences during the Toronto Bathhouse Raids and remind us why we need Pride.
Activist and writer Makeda Silvera recounts the revolutionary history of the house for chosen family in ‘Grand Central Station for Toronto’s queers of colour’: The inside history of Dewson House.
ArQuives examines the activities of Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QuAIA) during the time of their operation, documenting Palestinian solidarity within queer spaces and the suppression of activism at Pride events. Queers Against Israeli Apartheid: Censorship and Pride
Marvellous Grounds Issue #1: QTBIPOC Space – Remapping Belonging in Toronto invites diverse insights about QTBIPOC belonging and (re)claiming space in the city of Toronto.
It only took 30 minutes. Thirty minutes to plunge Toronto’s queer community into a Queer Civil War. Black Lives Matter, police and Pride: Toronto activists spark a movement.
Queer and trans Black people have often been at the forefront of Black and LGBT liberation movements. But their contributions and accomplishments are often pushed to the side in media reports and popular culture. Why Black Lives Matter is Toronto’s most effective LGBT movement
As a review into the Toronto Police Service’s turbulent relationship with the city’s marginalized communities and how the force handles missing persons cases wrapped up, one recommendation kept emerging: Community calls for alternative policing models at Toronto police town hall.
The cost of policing public sex places police crackdowns on park cruising in a broader context of police misconduct targeting Toronto’s queer and trans communities.
Watch
The No Pride in Policing Collective hosted a series of teach-ins on Queer and Trans Insurgencies in the Time of War, Imperialism, Policing and Militarization.
Michelle Ross defined Toronto’s drag scene. The documentary Michelle Ross, Unknown Icon explores her layered legacy and how her sudden death revealed a person who lived between two worlds.
The Breach Show explored how hosting a NATO-aligned bank will make Canada’s economy reliant on endless war.
Desmond Cole and El Jones discuss the expansion of policing in Canada by governments that refuse to better fund social services: Canada’s police are deadlier and less accountable, but budgets keep growing.
In No Such Thing as a Lone Wolf: Unveiling Hate Networks, Imara Jones looks at the various responses and solutions to terrorist violence fueled by anti-trans hate.
Listen
The Supreme Court is about to rule on whether states can ban transfeminine student athletes from playing on girls' and women's teams. But Code Switch is talking to journalist Imara Jones about why these cases aren't just about school sports.
Joelle Espeut currently serves as the Program Director at the Normal Anomaly Initiative in Houston, overseeing their advocacy and leadership programs. Listen as she discusses her experiences with community love and bidirectional allyship.