Is Pride Toronto ready for a trans woman of colour to be its executive director?
After a tumultuous summer marked by Black Lives Matter’s controversial sit-in during the annual parade and the resignation of executive director Mathieu Chantelois amid unspecified “serious allegations,” the group’s board of directors welcomed community feedback at town halls August 30 and 31 on how to make the organization more inclusive.
More than 600 people participated in the at times testy debate at Ada Slaight Hall in Daniels Spectrum in Regent Park. A number of ideas were discussed at round-tables afterwards.
One of the more interesting proposals came after the August 30 meeting from Pride board member Biko Beauttah, who suggested a trans woman of colour be the next executive director.
“Our time has come. It is literally the last glass ceiling in the gay liberation movement,” says Beauttah, a trans woman and founder of Trans Workforce, a job fair for trans people.
It’s common to see gays and lesbians on boards and corporations, says Beauttah. But “you never see in those same spaces the faces of trans people.”
Chantelois, who resigned August 10, left without fulfilling his promise to meet Black Lives Matter’s list of demands, signed by Chantelois with ample pomp and circumstance with a large feathered fountain pen, during their sit-in at the parade.
At the town hall, Pride Toronto board co-chair Alica Hall reiterated the organization’s intention to honour its agreement to most of the group’s nine demands.
Number six on that list is “a commitment to increase representation amongst Pride Toronto staffing/hiring, prioritizing Black trans women, Black queer people, Indigenous folk and others from vulnerable communities.”
Speaking after the August 30 town hall, Black Lives Matter Toronto co-founder Rodney Diverlus joined Beauttah in making the case for a trans executive director for Pride.
“There are hundreds of qualified, beautiful, brilliant and exciting energetic Black and Indigenous people and people of colour who are trans and can actually do that job. It is offensive to the plurality of our community to think that the only people who can continue to control queer organizations are cis white dudes.”
Chantelois was hired after Pride Toronto retained consultants the Four Corners Group to conduct a search for a new executive director from outside the organization in 2014.
Then board chair Shelley Craig argued that Four Corners had successfully recruited employees for a number of similar community agencies and non-profits in Toronto.
At the time, questions were raised about how much influence Pride’s corporate sponsors had on its decision-making process. (Paul Saguil, the board secretary at the time, also happened to be legal counsel for TD Bank, Pride’s largest sponsor.)
The relationship between Pride Toronto and the trans community has traditionally been adversarial. It wasn’t until 2013 that the Trans March was officially allowed to take over Yonge Street, the same route used by the Pride Parade and Dyke March. Toronto’s Trans Pride March has since grown into possibly the largest trans parade in the world.
As Pride Toronto goes about recruiting its next executive director, Diverlus says, “We’ll be watching.”
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