Elliot Page Slams ‘Devastating’ Crackdown on LGBTQ Rights at Juno Awards
Karen Bliss Elliot Page criticized Canada’s rollback of LGBTQ rights on the stage of the Juno Awards in Halifax, Nova Scotia on Sunday night. “We are at a time in history where the rights of LGBTQ2+ people are being revoked, restricted and eliminated throughout the world, and the effects are devastating,” Page, a transgender Halifax native, said in a speech presenting twin singer-songwriters Tegan and Sara with the Junos’ humanitarian award.
Page praised the work of the Tegan and Sara Foundation for 2SLGBTQ+ youth, supporting health care services to youth programs.
Earlier in the week, he said at BFI Flare, London’s LGBTQ film festival, that “30% of young people identify as LGBTQ,” referring to a survey released earlier this year about Gen Z adults in the U.S. “So I’m sorry, but this is not niche.” “If the world was not so hostile to LGBTQ2+ people, we would see ourselves purely as musicians,” Sara Quin told the audience, singling out the Canadian province of Alberta for proposing to restrict health care for transgender youth. “Advocating for our community’s rights is a great privilege and we are dedicated to confronting any form of discrimination that threatens the well-being of our community.” Page talked with Variety about the duo earlier in the evening on the red carpet of the event, which is Canada’s equivalent of the Grammys. “I remember seeing them play in Halifax at a church nearby in my early 20s, and met them a few years later,” Page said. “They have inspired me throughout my life.
They’re who I’ve admired and looked up to. What they’ve done with their foundation is extraordinary and deeply impactful and far-reaching.” Tegan told Variety that one of the foundation’s key programs is “every summer camp that supports 2SLGBTQ people in North America, we are granting to all of those camps.
