Monthly Archives: June 2016

TORONTO, ON — Asian Community AIDS Services (ACAS) and Queer Asian Youth (QAY) are inviting you to COME MARCH with US at this year’s Pride 2016 Festival! With a host of activities planned for Pride Month in June, ACAS is mixing community building, activism, and celebrating the diversity of the LGBTQQI2S to showcase Asian Pride at its best! Our theme, COME MARCH with US is a play on words off this year’s Pride Toronto theme: You Can Sit with Us. With Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau marching at this year’s Pride Parade and Toronto Police Chief Saunders making a public apology of the Toronto Bathhouse Raids 30 years ago, this year’s Pride in Toronto is promised to be an especially special one post-Orlando Shooting. “Our sincere and heartfelt condolences to the families & friends of victims of violence at the Pulse bar in Orlando, Florida,” says ACAS Execuitive Director Noulmook Sutdhibhasilp. “We at ACAS are in solitary with the LGBT communities all around the world in an effort to bringing an end to homophobia and the senseless use of violence towards innocent and vulnerable people.” With two pre-Pride Events already completed, the ACAS Pride Celebration during Pride Weekend is promised to be a festive one. ACAS first launched an anthology “Telling Our Own Stories” written by 11 queer Asian youth who have been mentored by acclaimed LGBTQ Asian writers Carrianne Leung, Rain Chan, and Kym Elisse Nacita at the historic Glad Day Bookshop on June 15, 2016. The book launch took place with award-winning writer Wayson Choy and Councilor Kristyn Wong-Tam with queer Asian youth reading their work informed by their own lived experiences, ranging from realization of one’s queer identity, to struggling through turmoil as queer Asian youth as they relate with the outside world, and ultimately finding hope and healing. [...]

You have last heard from us with our ACAS CelebrAsian Banquet Update in early May. May and June have truly an extremely busy time at ACAS with many amazing events taking place: Celebrating Asian Heritage Month; #PinkDotTO2016; the 2nd Annual OPA+ Gathering 2016; Apologies that the update came a bit later than usual, but we hope you will enjoy the updates nonetheless!   Celebrating Asian Heritage Month with the Toronto Police Services Chinese Consultative Committee ACAS would like to thank the Toronto Police Divison 42 Chinese Consultative Committee for hosting an amazing and festive Asian Heritage Month Celebration at Canadian Immigrant and Cultural Service (CISC) on May 7. The event included many amazing cultural performances including a lion dance, acrobatic performances and many cultural dances and songs performed by many Chinese community performance groups. The Toronto Police   ACAS celebrates IDAHOT with Mayor John Tory! ACAS was invited to the breakfast with Mayor John Tory on May 17, 2016 to honour the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia (IDHOT). Our board members joined the table and had a chat with city councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam, the mayor, and other notable figures in the community like Rev. Brent Hawkes, senior pastor of Metropolitan Community Church of Toronto who performed the first same-sex wedding ceremony in Canada. Along with the new bill that gives transgender Canadians equal rights, today is a great step forward!   PinkDotTO2016! About 100 members of the Asian LGBTQ community along with supporters and allies wore pink and showed their pride that there is love across generations for queer Asians marching through Chinatown on Saturday, May 21, at a highly successful ‪#‎PinkDotTO2016: Chinatown Pride March! We would like to thank Kristyn Wong-Tam for City Councillor, Ward 27 (Toronto Centre - Rosedale) for speaking at the event, along with Alvis Choi and [...]