Surrogacy Under the Rainbow
By Linsay Ambeault
My hometown is a little place called Sault Ste. Marie, situated in Northern Ontario right on the Michigan border. We have only 70,000 residents, and didn’t have our first Pride until 2014.
It started as a protest when the then-city council refused to fly the rainbow flag in support of Canada’s LGBTQ athletes who were facing discrimination in Russia during the 2014 Sochi Olympics. I had just been matched with an incredible gay couple for my second surrogacy journey and wanted to support the LGBTQ community in any way possible. I attended the flag-raising, a small affair with only the organizers and a few community members. That same day, I ended up doing an impromptu interview with our local newspaper about how important it was to see the city moving forward. I felt in my heart I needed to do more, and so, following the birth of my second surrogate baby, I joined the Sault Pride Committee.
Pride is put together every year by a grassroots group of about a half dozen dedicated individuals. This year for our 6th official Pride celebration I was asked to co-coordinate the largest event, the Loud & Proud Family Fun Day, which took place at the Canadian Bushplane Heritage Centre.
JA Surrogacy Consulting stepped up as a sponsor almost right away and had a table at the event to spread the word about building families through surrogacy for the LGBTQ community. Unlike big cities, we don’t get a large amount of corporate sponsorship for Pride so having JA backing us as a sponsor was huge. I’m proud to work for a company whose support of the LGBTQ community extends far beyond major cities and who also supports its employees’ passions and endeavours.
It was a lot of work, but we pulled it off and had well over 1000 attendees this year at Loud & Proud. This was at least a 30-40% increase from last year and well over double the attendance from the first year. Included amongst attendees this year was not only our Mayor and Chief of Police, but also our Member of Parliament, Terry Sheehan, and Canada’s Minister of Justice and Attorney General, David Lametti, who had a brief conversation with me about his support of surrogacy and what it means to the LGBT community.
Cities change, hearts change, and new families are made. It’s been an honour to not only bear witness to such prolific social change, but also to be a part of it.
Photographs by Lindsay Rae Photography
