Steinbach holds Queer Country Fair in lieu of Steinbach Pride

It was a day filled with love, joy, and resilience. The first ever Queer Country Fair was held in Steinbach on Oct. 25 where more than 100 people attended from the Southeast and Winnipeg.

“After Steinbach Pride was canceled on (Sept. 13), I was pretty upset and sad, and I thought, well, what can we do that would be meaningful to our community to show that we can rise up and say that we’re here and we want to be together and we can’t have that far right violence stop us. So I came up with the idea of a Queer Country Fair,” said Dr. T Sheppard-Luangkhot.

The organizers for Steinbach Pride were not involved in the Queer Country Fair.

Sheppard-Luangkhot is the founder of OPEN (Organization for Peace, Equity, and Nonviolence), which is a non-profit developing research, training, advocacy, policy, and programs to prevent hate and extremism towards victims and to prevent and exit perpetrators of extremist violence. The non-profit also created Awesome Queer Kids, a group for trans and queer gender expansive kids in Steinbach.

“They go through a special kind of bullying and extra levels of discrimination,” said Sheppard-Luangkhot.

Steinbach Pride was cancelled due to threats around the killing of far right media personality Charlie Kirk. Kirk was killed by Tyler Robinson while speaking at Utah Valley University. Kirk was often critical of the LGTBQ community.

“People assuming that there were queer trans people involved in the killing of Charlie Kirk. Those assumptions or that prejudice led to those threats that led to (them canceling) Pride. So, I think, ultimately, our community has wonderful people in it here, but we also have people who really need to check that thinking (at) the door and remember that queer and trans people aren’t dangerous.”

A RCMP spokesperson said the Steinbach Pride matter was closed as there were no threats found on social media. The RCMP and the Ste Anne police were present at the event to provide security. The organizers kept the location of the event secret and only sold tickets to a select few in order to keep everybody safe from any violence that might arise from those who are anti-queer. There were no protesters.

One of the organizers to work with Sheppard-Luangkhot is Angelica Brunger, executive director of the queer resource centre Band of Colours.

“I want the public to know that there are safe spaces in Steinbach for the queer community and that we are working very hard to provide those spaces and to continue to provide those spaces. And hopefully this isn’t a one-time event,” she said.

Sheppard-Luangkhot, who had one month to prepare for the event, said she will continue to hold the Queer Country Fair every year, perhaps in a larger venue as the event grows in popularity.

Brunger and Sheppard-Luangkhot said allies are very important to the LGBTQ movement.

“Allies are a key point in the system for the queer community. Without allies, it would be hard for people who are less educated to get that education and knowledge and understanding of what being queer is. And when you have allies, you have people who can connect to the other community, the non-queer community, and are able to basically help pave the road to acceptance,” said Brunger.

Town of Ste Anne Deputy Mayor Jason Einarson said he doesn’t believe a Pride event will happen in Ste Anne as it is a small community, but he said he wanted to attend the Queer Country Fair because he wanted to stand by the queer community after the cancellation of Steinbach Pride.

“I am bisexual, and the queer community is very important, and I think it’s important that we’re seen here in Steinbach, and that we can live our lives,” he said.

“I think it’s important to know that our goal is just to live in society and to be free to express ourselves as we are, with our families, and enjoy the world around us, like everyone else.”

Minister of Health and Deputy Premier Uzoma Asagwara decided to attend the event after caucus members and organizers told them about it. Asagwara uses the pronouns they/them.

“Yeah, I absolutely love it. This is the first and only Queer Country Fair that I’ve ever been to. I’m pretty blown away. It’s so important that we don’t just celebrate Pride in big urban centers. It’s really important that rural communities, smaller communities, know that they can celebrate Pride, they can bring people together, they can educate, they can inform, and they can be visible safely.”

Winnipeggers Kate Tate and Cheryl Costen have been partners for three years and friends for a decade. Costen came out in her 50s and now in her 60s she has found love with Tate. The couple decided to come to the Queer Country Fair to show their support of the Steinbach queer community.

“I was here for the first Steinbach Pride march, which was awesome, and it really seemed quite accepting at the time, but this year with the cancellation and the threats, kind of changed my view of the whole thing, that made us come out and support,” said Tate.

Winnipegger Sally Papso, who identifies as a lesbian, a feminist, a social and political activist in both queer communities and the women’s community at large, said there have always been threats to the LGBTQ community. She shared that at the first Winnipeg Pride in 1987 there were people who marched with bags over their heads because they were afraid to be outed with the consequences being the loss of their families, jobs, or their lives. She said hate has always come in “peaks and valleys.”

“I think what’s different for me now is we have tons and tons and tons more straight allies that we didn’t have when I was doing the work. It was just us…we’re really in a very tough time now in terms of the hatred (from) the far right and religious right that are coming after us, particularly our trans communities and young trans people. But this too shall pass, we shall overcome.”

Drag queen Miss Pocket said she moved from Toronto to Anola when she was a teen and was shell shocked by the intolerance she felt in her small rural community against the LGBTQ community.

“It was shell shocked for sure of figuring out, ‘Oh my gosh, not everyone is accepting and cool.’ You will have people who are not totally aligning with your values, even if that means that your values is your own life. I made it a point to be a person in my community no matter how much it may have bothered people. To be queer to be openly queer and to be openly a performer and to be openly experimenting with my gender just to openly do all those things in that small town community has done way more than if I was to squish it down and not talk about it.”

One of the main themes of the event was community, which was the theme for this year’s Pride. MLA Logan Oxenham, the first trans MLA in Manitoba who introduced a bill that was passed in the legislature on June 3, 2024, that proclaimed March 31 as Two-Spirit and Transgender Day of Visibility, spoke about community and resilience. He spoke on behalf of Minister of Families Nahanni Fontaine, who was not able to attend the event.

“Because today we are here, we are here in joy, we’re here in defiance, and we are here in community.”

Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra violinist Trevor Kirczenow spoke about how he found community in his journey as a trans man.

“So, I guess what I’m trying to say here is that, yeah, community events can obviously be like this one, that’s a ton of work to organize, and they can also be a cup of tea with two people. That is also a community event and a safe space, and I think it’s really important right now that we do a lot of those as well, that we look out for each other, that we ask each other how everybody’s doing.”