All anyone who comes out wants, is love, support and acceptance from their family. But what if that is met with negativity or shame and you need someone to talk to, or a safe place to go to and be around people your own age? in Toronto there are many places you can go to like the 519 club on Church street, but for Tress and Jason who live in Rexdale the options are slim. They found love and support at RexPride where they can talk to others their same age and get the support they need.

Tress explains “RedPride is that place, you know when people put that triple the wall? and you go into it and you think safe space? that is RexPride for Rexdale. Being able to find other people that live in your community that identify in all different ways in which you do, is very very important. RexPride puts you back in Rexdale, like, it’s your community and you feel that because you can see everyone that you just talked to go back to that same community that you’re from.”

There are people on tress’ family that are not ok with who he is “At first it was one of those things I thought about, but it was also because at the same time I thought that nobody felt that I deserved the kind of love that I felt for me. I was essentially deemed as less by everybody. For me, I thought I was the one that was flawed, so for the longest time, that was my belief.”

In 1998, When Terrence Rodriquez came out there was no one for him to turn to, or no place to go and feel welcome around people just like him. He founded RexPride in 2012 to give youth that safe place he never had. “My generation when I came out there was absolutely nothing, there wasn’t even law that they had to have GSA’s” ( GSA’s stands for Gay-Straight Alliance)

Filed under: pride, Pride Toronto