Ellie Avishai      Deb Parent       Cori  Sandler     Jessie Steinberg

Deb Parent winner of the Pride Award as part of the Access, Equity and Human Rights Awards 2007 issued by the Mayor David Miller of Toronto:

Deb Parent has been an out and proud lesbian 'creating community' in Toronto for over 35 years.

During the late 1970's, Deb Parent was the first lesbian on staff with the Toronto Rape Crisis Centre (TRCC), building consciousness about violence against women through a lens of diversity. In addition to serving four terms on the Board of Directors, Deb developed ground-breaking Wen Do self-defence programs, which not only empowered women, but made a point of embracing lesbians as part of the program.

Through the 1980's, Deb was an active, public member of Lesbians Against The Right, which helped spearhead protests against the appearance of homophobes in Toronto. She also established the Lesbian Speakers Bureau, a collective devoted to public education and to putting a human face on lesbianism.

Deb Parent most surely knows that 'creating community' includes music. She helped organized dyke dances in Toronto from 1983 to 1993 and led Take Back the Night Marches with her sound truck for 20 years. Since 1996, when the Dyke March was established as part of Pride celebrations, Deb has been cranking out the tunes in the lead sound truck, urging her sisters to rise up - and to celebrate our lives. She is a founding member of two lesbian drumming collectives, Joyful Resistance and WombBOOM, which released 2 cds.

The following is the speech given by Deb at the City of Toronto Awards ceremony December 10, 2007

I consider myself to be extremely fortunate – I’m well love, I was born queer in Canada, and lucky to have come out in 1969. In June of 1969 dykes, fags, drag queens and trannies fought back against the police when they raided the Stonewall bar in New York. Learning from and building on the civil rights movement, the era of “Gay Power” was born, just as I was coming out at the age of 12. A few years later, Gays of Ottawa gave me my first taste of community and an opportunity for my experience to make a difference.

My good fortune continued for as I came into early adulthood the 2nd wave of the women’s movement was underway and that wave carried me to the Toronto Rape Crisis Centre, Wen-Do Women’s Self Defence, the 519 Community Centre, and many organizations who valued my experience speaking as a young dyke, and my willingness to stand publicly and make “good trouble”. I began to let go of the life I had planned in order to make way for the life I was meant to live. The activist in me had found a home.

It’s very fitting that my mother is here tonight to share this award with me. Our relationship embodies the growing consciousness and societal shifts of the past 40 years. When my parents were told by the guidance counselor that I had a “gender identity crisis”, for that’s how homosexuality was seen – and dangerously continues to be seen by institutions like the Gender Identity Clinic at Cam H – they reacted with confusion, fear, sadness and guilt. All the things they had been taught to feel about queers – how could they put that together with their feelings about their eldest daughter? Wasn’t I the same child today as I was yesterday? My family resolved that question for themselves long before organizations such as PFLAG (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) and in spite of the “professionals” who told them something was wrong with me.

Mom, you say that I’ve always been proud of being a lesbian, even as a young girl. Truthfully, I don’t know how to be anything but myself, and thankfully, you chose to love me for who I was, not for who you thought I should be.

Flannery O’Connor was an American writer, popular with misfits and fanatics. She once said “You shall know the truth and it shall make you odd”. Indeed, as queers we often answer questions of the soul in a way that puts us outside the status quo. According to Harry Hay, who first proposed the idea of gay men and lesbians as a cultural minority, “queer sexuality has an essential outsider quality that makes us the perfect prophet for a world lost in strict gender roles and enforced reproductive sexuality”.

Whenever we decide to follow our hearts, we risk giving up a simple life for one that is complex and demanding – yet hasn’t every movement for social change flowered from the seeds of wanting more, wanting different, longing for something yet unnamed?

I want to thank Susan Cole and Darlene Lawson for their nomination, the committee for selecting me and the City of Toronto for your acknowledgement of my work and that of the thousands of you who have marched and danced with me, who have raised your voices in joy and outrage, who have mourned and celebrated, fought back and kicked ass….many of you are here today on stage and in the audience. Of all the things we’ve accomplished, I am most proud of how we struggle year after year to not only change the world, but to also change ourselves.

Thank you for embracing me as I am and loving me into myself. Thank you for making the space for me on the sound truck, and for stepping into that space with me. Each time we meet in the music, I wonder where we will go, and consistently it’s magic. Music, dancing, singing, our bodies moving with power and grace, we touch a place of joy and greatness and for a time we live the revolution, the vision of what could be has become what is, this moment is all. Tens of thousands of us in our bodies, in our power, in our glory. What a sight we are, what a message we send out to the world.

While we have much to celebrate, more remains to be done. There are still over 70 countries worldwide where being gay, lesbian or transgender is illegal and 9 where it’s a death sentence.

When I’m asked if anything will really change, I quote Harry Belafonte.
As he said, “I don’t dwell on the question because I have no alternative. Everyone has a choice as to how they see the world. I
choose to see the world through a prism of hope and optimism, and I will linger here until the day I die”.

RHV Vacations now called Conxity
Deb, when not drumming, or winning human rights awards, or teaching women the benifits of self defence through WENDO, helps both gay, lesbian, straight, bi, trans well, everyone, find joy in travelling. She'll book you your flights, accomodations, and the whole kit and kaboodle so to speak. Visit Conxity for all your travel and adventure needs.

Wendo
WEN-DO is an organization dedicated to webhand holding self-defence courses by and for women. These courses are based on a variety of martial arts techniques which accommodate women's and girls' size and strength differences. Basic courses also cover avoidance and verbal self-defence strategies. Courses are taught year round by certified Wen-Do instructors.

Although we are based primarily in Toronto and Vancouver, our courses have been taught throughout Canada as well as internationally. Our instructors will come to your workplace, school, or community to lead courses or workshops.

For more information on course locations and times, or booking introductory workshops and instructors, call (416) 929-3636 or 92-Wen-Do!
You can also reach us via e-mail: info@wendo.ca