In 2009, Karlene Williams-Clarke came to Canada in search of a safer, more authentic life, helped by The 519, a Toronto-based charity for LGBTQ2S+ refugees and newcomers. Now, she’s part of the team, helping to settle refugees at a time when the LGBTQ2S+ community is fighting against a resurgence in anti-LGBTQ2S+ hate across the globe.
that “people from the 2SLGBTQI+ community, particularly transgender people, are still facing a crisis of targeted violence in Canada and across the globe.”
“We run the largest 2SLGBTQ newcomer program’s refugee support program in Canada,” Williams-Clarke said. Clarke is Director of Operations, and is currently filling in as director of community programs and services. “We do try our very best to get people through the process as fast as possible,” Williams-Clarke said. “Though we try, there's always more coming and more coming.
The organization is physically based in Toronto, and primarily serves the surrounding area with in-person events and workshops at their community centre, but also runs virtual services, some of which were created to fill gaps in the pandemic. She started considering leaving the country for her own safety more seriously as her family’s fears ramped up. Her mother would call her anytime the media reported that an LGBTQ2S+ person had been attacked or killed, just to check on her.
“I started attending the program, and then started volunteering,” she said. Eventually, she was offered a job at the charity itself.There are services that The 519 is able to offer now that weren’t available when Williams-Clarke first came to Canada, such as mock hearings to walk refugees through some of the legal processes they may have to go through.
“I know firsthand what people were going through,” Williams-Clarke said. “I understood their experiences, their fear, wondering if going to the IRB, which is Immigration and Refugee Board, will this be a time when I get an opportunity to say ‘yes, you get to stay in Canada and be safe and have a better life while being myself, my true authentic self,’ right.”
Williams-Clarke said it’s exciting to see the government stepping up in such a partnership, but adds that support needs to continue in other ways as well. “It feels to me that this is more of a personal agenda than government policy, and so I really felt that we watered down a policy that was there to protect children,” Dorothy Shephard, former social development minister who quit cabinet in June, said on CTV’s PowerPlay on Tuesday.The shift in rhetoric surrounding LGBTQ2S+ rights, both globally and at home, has had a visible effect on the community The 519 serves.“We have to think about everything now when it comes to safety.
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