Pride in the struggle for full equality

At Pride events across the country we are celebrating struggle: the defiant, collective fight that birthed Pride and sustains it. The Communist Party of Canada stands in firm solidarity with all 2SLGBTQI+ people celebrating and organizing, especially those on the front lines of today’s attacks.

Pride was born in the fightback against police brutality during the Stonewall raids of 1969 in New York and the Toronto bathhouse raids of 1981. Pride is rooted in resistance to oppression, and its spirit is reflected in a celebration of community solidarity, not a corporate parade.

While polls show that a clear majority of Canadians support equality, we cannot afford complacency: far‑right and fundamentalist groups are intensifying their campaigns against 2SLGBTQI+ communities. They are disrupting school boards, demanding book bans, attacking inclusive curricula, and targeting drag storytimes. Hate crimes have risen for four consecutive years, stoked by reactionary politicians who scapegoat trans women in sports and public spaces. The Canadian Labour Congress reports that gender‑diverse workers are 82% more likely to experience workplace harassment and that 73% have faced sexual violence on the job.

Meanwhile, the attack on Charter rights is deepening: in late 2025, the UCP invoked Section 33 four times in two months to shield anti‑trans laws from judicial review. This misuse of the notwithstanding clause endangers all democratic and labour rights, in addition to those of queer and trans people. Yet we face these challenges not with despair, but with the knowledge that our strength lies in solidarity, and that the majority who stand with us give us the power to push back.

Homophobia and transphobia serve the bosses’ agenda. Reactionary sections of the ruling class use anti‑trans and anti‑queer bigotry to divide the working class. They scapegoat trans people, immigrants, and racialized communities to deflect anger from falling living standards, the housing crisis, and wage suppression.

Patriarchy serves capitalism by enforcing rigid gender roles, segregating labour by gender, and disproportionately burdening women with domestic work within the heterosexual nuclear family. Attacks on 2SLGBTQI+ people reinforce patriarchy by discriminating against people who defy these roles. That is why queer and trans rights are inherently unstable under capitalism: “rainbow capitalism” offers superficial gains, but capitalism’s logic tends toward reaction against any challenge to its gendered order.

The Communist Party stands with 2SLGBTQI+ struggles internationally, inseparable from the fight against imperialism. U.S. imperialism is growing more aggressive as it tries to maintain its hegemony. It is imposing reactionary, anti-2SLGBTQI+ puppets across Latin America and elsewhere. In Palestine, Lebanon, Iran, and the Caribbean, 2SLGBTQI+ people are killed and suffer within their communities under imperialist violence. We reject pinkwashing, whether by police, the Israeli apartheid state, or military recruiters at Pride.

We also salute socialist Cuba. Despite over 60 years of brutal U.S. blockade, Cuba has provided free gender‑affirming surgery since 2008 and, in 2022, enacted a Family Code that enshrines same‑sex marriage, adoption, fertility rights, and protections for 2SLGBTQ+ youth. The Trump administration’s total fuel blockade is an act of genocide against the Cuban revolution. We call on the Carney government to end its complicity and silence and send oil to Cuba.

True solidarity means continuing the struggle. The Communist Party therefore demands:

• Full legal protections for sexual orientation and gender identity; strengthen hate‑crime enforcement and ban hate groups.
• Repeal anti‑trans laws that forcibly out trans kids; ensure safe haven for refugees fleeing persecution.
• Expand Medicare to include gender‑affirming care, pharmacare, dental, vision, long‑term care, and mental health; stop privatization.
• Fully fund inclusive public education and libraries; end far‑right censorship; mandate SOGI programs; end public funding for private/religious schools and create a single secular system.
• Raise wages, roll back prices on essentials, implement a livable annual minimum income, and build social housing as a public utility as well as emergency shelters, especially for 2SLGBTQI+ youth, who are overrepresented among homeless youth.
• Enforce employment equity for 2SLGBTQI+ people, Indigenous Peoples, women, disabled people, and racialized people; regulate care facilities to stop elder abuse and “re‑closeting.”
• Cut military spending and redirect funds to health, education, housing, and social programs: peace and prosperity, not war and austerity.

An injury to one is an injury to all! For full equality and socialism!

Central Executive Committee, Communist Party of Canada