'Never forget where we started': Pride Toronto's Grand Marshal on honouring the past & celebrating the future

She played a pivotal role in New Zealand's fight to legalize same sex marriage back in 2013. And now Louisa Wall is being honored right here in Toronto as PRIDES International Grand Marshall and Louisa joins us now. And Cedar, thank you so much for being here with us. It's really an honor to have you here. My glitch. Thank you. It's a pleasure for me to be here. And can I first start with an acknowledgement of your First Peoples First Nations, your matey Inuit, and all the people that call this beautiful city Toronto home. It's an absolute pleasure for me to join you. Thank you so much. I want to know first about your role with Pride Toronto as part of Pride celebrations. So I think the International Grand Marshall is somebody who brings an international perspective to our issues as a community. It's an ability for us to, I guess, share the dreams and aspirations we have for our community, but also the challenges. And so a lot of the work has been about discussing what those dreams and aspirations and challenges are and trying to work through and share the knowledge that I have from from Altierra, New Zealand and the Pacific with the community here in Toronto, which I must say is thriving. It's vibrant and there's so many people doing so much work. So it's been a real pleasure to engage. And obviously I want to thank Pride Toronto for bringing me here. And particularly I want to acknowledge Kojo, who's the executive director and his board. I think they do a fantastic job. And so it's, it's a humbling experience to come to another country and to share the stories of the local people and, and actually just to, to, to talk about how we resist and how we rise up through the challenges that we're all facing at the moment. And you talk about having to highlight some of these issues that are really happening on an international stage and also bringing a focus here in Toronto. What are some of those those issues? Well, we've seen globally, and I've kind of framed it now as a commodification of the particularly the trans community. It's been used as a rallying point for the far right, for those who hate, can I say to mobilize, to use us as a group to to create activism from people who seek to destroy what we've been progressing toward. You know, there's a lot to celebrate during Pride, but there's so many sides to Pride here. Why is it so important for people not to only join in on the celebrations, but to also understand the history and how far we still have to go? Well, I mean, historically for all of us, and we're all tiered on. New Zealand was colonized, so our indigenous peoples, our takatapui, we're part of community, part of family. We were celebrated, we were nurtured. We had specific roles and responsibilities. But through colonialism and the importation of religious values, something was wrong with us. We were broken through the laws that we inherited from the British. We were criminalized, you know, consenting same sex adults were criminalized for showing love to one another. And so over time, we've obviously had to fight against those laws. And we did that in New Zealand in 1986 to a place now where, you know, we're protected in human rights legislation and Bill of Rights legislation. We've dealt with conversion practices which were apparent. We shouldn't try to change people because they're not broken. We're having legislation before our parliament that allows gay families to add to those families by having children. So we have surrogacy laws. So there's a a number of things that have happened, but we must never forget where we started from, which was from a place where fundamentally we were seen as criminals, where we didn't have a right to exist, where we had to hide. We were forced in in the closet and underground because if we were exposed, we were beaten and abused. I mean, so much violence has been perpetrated against our community. And what we're all striving for is to create an environment where we, why would we hide? Because there's an appreciation and a celebration of the contribution that we bring to families, to community. And that's what we want for particularly our young people. I mean, at the heart of everything I do, and all of us do really, we want to strive to create that environment where our young people just can be from the time they're born. It's really needed. Absolutely, absolutely. And I, I know that a lot of those young folks are going to be watching you during the Sunday's Pride parade. You're going to be right up front. You can catch Louisa there. Tell me a little bit about how you're preparing and what people can expect. That's very interesting. How do you prepare to party? How do you prepare to celebrate? You prepare by being with the community. I mean at the heart of what we do as the community. And I probably do want to emphasize that we're so diverse. Like there isn't a homogeneous LGBTQIA +2 spirit community. So there'll be different voices and they will be standing up for different things. All of those voices are valid and authentic. Some of them will be challenging, some of them will be celebrating, but what you will see is the full range of human expression at the at the festival, at the celebration, at the different mark Pride marches and celebrations. So but we, we are inclusive. Yeah, this isn't just for us. This is for all of us. This is for everybody who wants to be part of the celebrations. There's obviously a lot of entertainment. So you will see the full range of skills and culture. And that's the other thing I've appreciated is that the beginning of all the ceremonies has been our two spirit voices, our indigenous voices who who helped set the scene and bring the ancestors to make us all safe. So that's what you'll see. So we say in an Altair or what? Know my height, am I come? You're welcome. Please be part of this celebration. Well, we're certainly excited to be celebrating Pride and especially on that Sunday. Luisa Wall, this year's International Grand Marshall for Toronto Pride. Thank you so much for being here with us. Thank you very much. My wish. Thank you.