Yellowknife LGBTQ champion to be a grand marshal at Montreal Pride

Jacq Brasseur, known for working with LGBTQyouth in Yellowknife, will be a grand marshal at this year's Montreal Pride event.

Brasseur who uses the gender neutral pronoun 'they' is a bigender, bisexualand queer activist, who co-founded the Rainbow Coalition of Yellowknife, an organization dedicated to LGBTQyouth in the North in 2011.

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Brasseurnow works as the northern regional director of Fiert Canada Pride, the national association of Canadian Pride organizations, and is also executive director of the UR Pride Centre for Sexuality and Gender Diversityin Regina.

Brasseursaid they were excited after learning they would be a grand marshal at FiertMontreal.

"When they approached me about possibly being a co-grand marshal at the festival I was really just like, 'Oh! Like why?'" said Brasseur.

"It was an honour to be asked by them. Montreal Pride does a lot of work to support pride all across Canada and it's really awesome to be a part of that."

FiertMontreal is the largest LGBTQ festival in Canada and the biggest LGBTQ festival in the Francophoneworld. It aimsto support and promote diverse communities includingtrans, lesbian, non-binary, people of colour and Indigenous people.

Me Jean-Sebastien Boudreault, vice president of FiertMontreal, saidthey chose Brasseur as one of this year's grand marshals after meeting Brasseur at FiertCanada Pride a few years ago.

There'sLGBTQin every part of this world, we are present everywhere and we have to recognize this.-Me-Jean-SebastienBoudreault, FierteMontreal

"[Brasseur was]basically supporting and organizing a Pride in an environment in the Northwest Territories that is not necessarily easy. They really took upon themselves to make sure that both languages were represented and minorities were represented," saidBoudreault.

"We [are] always looking to encourage and reward and thank people who are from minorities that are from the LGBTQ communities. Jacq being a non-binary person, it's still difficult, probably even more difficult in a rural environment and we thought that they deserve to be recognised for everything they have done."

Opportunity for the North

Boudreaultsaid that having Brasseur be one of the grand marshals is also an opportunity for greater representation of LGBTQ communities in the North,alongside larger cities and urban communities.

"There's LGBTQ in every part of this world, we are present everywhere and we have to recognize this," Boudreault said.

"We hope that giving a microphone and a space for the people from the North, to be able to express themselves, will help other people that think that, 'I might be alone, I might be the only non-binary, I might be the only lesbian, I might be the only gay in my small rural village.'"

Brasseur said theyhope to use their visibility as one of the grand marshals to raise $20,000for the Rainbow Coalition of Yellowknife.

FiertMontreal takesplace from Aug. 9 19.