Queer in Canton Community Center to open Aug. 25
Canton, which hosted its second annual Stark Pride Festival Saturday, soon will become home to Stark County’s first LGBTQIA+ community center.
Abby Henry, founder of Queer in Canton, announced Saturday that her nonprofit organization has raised the $20,000 it needs to open the area’s first community center to support those who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, queer, intersex and asexual, as well as their allies.
The Queer in Canton Community Center will host a grand opening event from 4 to 6 p.m. on Aug. 25 at 2663 Cleveland Ave. NW, which is the same building as Planned Parenthood.
The center will include a hangout space, a community closet where visitors can find clothes that help affirm their gender presentation or allow them to try a new look and programs and resources such as a monthly support group, youth programming, kickball, a book club and social events.
The 2017 Jackson High School graduate hopes the center will allow queer residents to find their community, something that took her leaving Ohio to find.
Henry’s announcement drew cheers from the thousands of people gathered at Centennial Plaza for the Stark Pride Festival.
The festival, which doubled in the number of visitors, exhibitor booths and performers this year compared to its inaugural year, carried the atmosphere of a celebration with music, drag performances and children's activities.
But it also served as part protest, as lawmakers in Ohio and across the nation are considering legislation that targets transgender men and women by restricting their access to health care and which bathrooms they use.
Stark Pride Festival started with a Pride Walk
A Pride Walk of more than 100 people kicked off the festival with members of the Canton Bluecoats leading them to Centennial Plaza while playing Lady Gaga’s “Born this way.”
Event organizer T.J. Horwood said the walk was added this year at the request of last year’s festival participants. He said the walk embraces the origin of Pride events that followed the 1969 riot by queer patrons at the Stonewall Inn in New York City who fought against police mistreatment.
“It’s like how Pride started,” Horwood said. “It’s important for visibility and celebration. It’s also a way for organizations and companies to show their support, in addition to exhibiting and their sponsorships.”
Leo Walsh, who will be a senior at Jackson High School this fall, delivered a fiery speech on the Centennial Plaza stage that decried how those seeking to restrict the rights of transgender men and women have been treating him and his supporters as less than human.
“I’m here with my parents who would give anything to make sure I feel safe and happy with who I am,” Walsh said. “But their love and their support are now being called grooming, child abuse and, sometimes, even torture. Their love is being compared to the most deplorable acts. I don’t demand for everyone to understand. But I do demand respect."
The 17-year-old called on those gathered to come together to support each other and push back against those who have made trans rights a talking point, a debate and a joke.
“We are not monsters, we are not groomers, we are not delusional,” he said. “We are people. We are proud of our existence.”
Canton City school board member Eric Resnick, who described himself as the first and only publicly gay Stark County elected official, called on the audience to stand up against lawmakers like Canton residents did after someone set fire to a housing complex for people with HIV or AIDS in 1991.
“The tragedy drew people out, out of their closets, and they stood up,” Resnick said. “Silence was not an option in Canton, Ohio, then, and it’s not an option in Canton, Ohio, even today.”
The arson of the St. HOPE – Stark County Helping Our People Endure – complex remains unsolved.
Resnick’s speech was temporarily interrupted by cheers when Tony Collins-Sibley of Alliance strategically planted a pole holding a large American flag and a gay pride flag in front of a man who had been holding a sign that called homosexuality a threat to national security.
Reach Repository staff writer Kelli Weir at 330-580-8339 or kelli.weir@cantonrep.com.
On Twitter: @kweirREP
This article originally appeared on The Repository: Queer in Canton Community Center to open in Canton
