The co-chair of St. John’s Pride is reminding people who may feel uneasy following messaging by US President Donald Trump that there is a supportive community locally to help them through.

Trump’s inaugural speech included a reference to bringing in an official policy that there are only two genders – male and female.

Eddy St. Coeur says Trump’s comments make him think about members of the LGBTQ community in the States whose “mere existence is being denied.”

St. Coeur says he finds it interesting that gender identity was a focus in the speech when there are other issues such as housing, cost of living, healthcare, and wars going on.

He argues that Trump’s focus on gender is a ploy to distract from other issues that are happening in Western societies.

He believes it underscores why Pride initiatives are still necessary. He says they see that kind of rhetoric trickle in to Canada and in to Newfoundland and Labrador. “luckily, especially here….we have community organizers who very, very assertively made it quite clear that there’s no place for that kind of rhetoric within our province.”)

St. Coeur says the messaging from the Trump administration is starting to take on a “really dark sense of reality.”

He says it is important for the broader community to rally behind those who feel affected by that kind of messaging, and show them that “we won’t tolerate this.” St. Coeur says that type of messaging gets pulled out of political playbooks every couple of decades, and they have overcome it before.