How to be a better LGBTQ ally

It's Pride Month in Canada — colourful pride flags are flying, drag events are popping up and parades are being planned.

If you're not part of the LGBTQ community, you can be an ally. But what does that really mean? 

CBC News asked Lucky Fusca, board chair of Pride P.E.I. and the executive director of the P.E.I. Transgender Network (pronouns are they/them), and Scott Alan from PEERS Alliance, a harm reduction and education group (formerly AIDS P.E.I.). Alan's pronouns are they/them and he/him, interchangeably.

"There's really only two ways in this world: the way of love and the way of fear," Fusca said. "I think that's a super important thing to kind of keep in mind as we're talking about allyship." 

Fusca said another important assumption to maintain is that "we're all doing the best that we can, and we can all do better" as allies. 

"We are seeing an uptick in a lot of homophobia and especially transphobia," Alan said, so allies are more important than ever, especially for queer youth. 

"Listen with loving ears," said Fusca. "When it comes to being an ally, to come into it knowing we can still feel fear and still hold love and approach it with love, then we can listen with open ears, we can listen and be open to feeling uncomfortable and work through that." 

Parents of children who are coming out as queer, for instance, can simply tell that child "I love you" and not qualify it by saying, "I love you anyway."

PEERS Alliance has support groups for Island parents of queer kids and can help with how to listen supportively, Fusca said. 

Recognize the difference between sympathy and empathy, Alan said — LGBTQ folk don't need your pity and judgment, they need you to understand and share their feelings. Try to practice radical empathy, he said.

"Radical empathy is actively striving to better understand and share the feelings of others," Alan said, while acknowledging this takes a lot of sometimes uncomfortable work.

Fusca encourages allies to self-educate, to reduce that burden on LGBTQ community members. 

They said PEERS Alliance, the P.E.I. Transgender Network and Pride P.E.I. all have educational resources: check out their websites and Facebook pages. 

Vet your sources for information on LGBTQ issues, Fusca added — there's lots of misinformation out there.