Ivey Pride Club members will be celebrating Pride from a distance today via a Zoom session where they’ll come together to watch the first-ever virtual Toronto Pride Parade.
The club is expecting about 20 Ivey students who identify as LGBTQ+ and allies to participate in the session where they’ll be screen sharing the virtual parade.
“For me, Pride parades are a display of unity and love in a positive, energized environment,” said Atticus Lyon, an HBA ’21 candidate who is Co-President of the Ivey Pride Club, along with fellow HBA student Bella Pick. “Although we will miss the in-person events, we’re so glad that Ivey’s LGBTQ+ community will be able to come together to experience Pride virtually.”
The Ivey Pride Club represents LGBTQ+ students in Ivey’s HBA, MBA, MSc, and PhD programs and offers mentoring, networking, and opportunities to engage with corporate partners.
Bringing Ivey’s LGBTQ+ community together virtually
The club is part of the LGBT+ Business Student Alliance, an LGBTQ+ oriented, undergraduate student pride organization, and is integrating its session with its alliance partners.
Lyon and Pick said bringing club members together to watch the virtual parade will create a collective atmosphere similar to attending it together in-person.
“We really want to put an emphasis on maintaining the community while we’re all so far apart,” said Pick. “We think that finding a way to still ‘go’ to Pride together is the perfect way to do that.”
The Toronto Pride Parade is traditionally one of the largest Pride parades in North America and is part of Pride Month 2020, which is dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots and the birth of the LGBTQ2+ movement.