To show support for Calgary's LGBTQ+ community, a local Unitarian church will mark Easter with a drag performance during their Sunday service.
The “Drag Me to Church” event will happen on Easter Sunday and the International Trans Day of Visibility, which recognizes the contributions of trans people and the challenges they still face. The service will also protest the introduction of laws threatening the rights of transgender youth in Alberta, Canada.
“No matter what tradition you’re from, I guarantee you that you will have people in your community who identify on the 2SLGBTQIA+ spectrum — whether they are free to say it or not,” said Rev. Samaya Oakley, the minister of the Calgary Unitarians. told the Edmonton Journal. “If we are truly people who believe in the goodness and the inherent love that exists in this world, then we would extend that to people on that spectrum.”
In January, Alberta’s conservative government introduced a broad set of measures targeting LGBTQ+ rights and “woke” culture in the Canadian province.
The proposed laws include bans on gender reassignment surgery for minors and hormone therapy for children under 15, and restrictions on transgender students’ participation in sports. They would also require parental consent for a child to change their name or gender at school, as well as for kids to attend sex education classes. pronouns Alberta Premier Danielle Smith of the United Conservative Party also suggested creating “biological female-only” sports leagues in the province.
“Prematurely encouraging or enabling children to alter their very biology or natural growth, no matter how well-intentioned and sincere, poses a risk to that child’s future that I as premier am not comfortable with permitting in our province,” Smith said in a January announcement of the measures.
The all-ages Easter service, which the church calls a “sacred act of protest,” will feature drag performances, a drag queen storytime, and several speakers discussing the question, “What does TRANSformation mean today?” Unitarian minister Oakley stated that the event aims to support transgender Albertans amidst the “current political climate.”
“One of our principles is the inherent worth and dignity of every person,” Oakley said. “And that’s where we come from in terms of this work.”
Donations from Sunday's service will go to Skipping Stone, a local non-profit that helps trans and gender-diverse people in Calgary.
The Unitarian minister refers to the Drag Me to Church event as a “sacred act of protest.”
