When The 519 was established as a space for 2SLGBTQ+ communities in 1976, queer and trans people in Toronto faced widespread discrimination, police harassment, and few legal protections. Simply existing openly could be an act of courage. Life has changed profoundly for many 2SLGBTQ+ people. Yet as we celebrate that progress, we must also recognize that the work of achieving true liberation, safety, and equity is far from over.
50 years later, everything is different, and the fight is the same.
One person with a profound understanding of this ongoing struggle is The 519’s Education and Training Specialist, Jo.
Secrecy, shame: these were key features for Jo, growing up as a queer kid in the Maritimes in the 1970s. These experiences persisted in many ways after Jo came out, too, well into the 1980s and beyond. Jo knew they were bisexual but didn’t know exactly how their gender identity fit into things. They wanted to belong to the lesbian community but felt they didn’t, and they felt a lot of bisexual erasure even in queer and feminist organizing spaces.
It was only decades later, in conversation with other bisexual community members, that Jo discovered how widely shared those experiences of erasure truly were. That arc of awareness has shaped Jo’s work at The 519, first as a program assistant for The 519’s 2SLGBTQ+ Older Adults Program, and now as a specialist in our Education and Training department.
Jo’s work at The 519 exemplifies the range of crucial intergenerational community supports we offer, from low-barrier drop-ins for our elders to educational capacity building that uplifts our community as a whole.
Jo brings to your community centre a commitment to affirming diverse lived experiences.
They are creating that kind of space at The 519 in concrete, impactful ways: in 2025, 2,727 people attended The 519’s Education and Training workshops, designed to help other organizations become more 2SLGBTQ+ competent and welcoming. Crucially, these participants included 812 City of Toronto shelter staff, who serve some of our most vulnerable neighbours. Such education and awareness-building work is more critical than ever today, as attacks on 2SLGBTQ+ communities increase both locally and around the world. For 2SLGBTQ+ people experiencing homelessness, this can mean heightened exposure to hate-motivated violence, harassment, and barriers to accessing safe housing, healthcare, and support services.
“The 519 remains worthy of support partly because of the rise of deliberate and very determined anti-2SLGBTQ+ hate, in legislative and cultural forms,” Jo says. “Protecting the gains we’ve made is crucial—and so is pushing back against all the fear and misinformation.”
At The 519, that struggle isn’t abstract. It plays out every day as our team works to maintain a refuge and a place of pleasure for our communities.
“The amount of experience and expertise and knowledge that lives at The 519 from week to week is incredible,” Jo says. “It’s incomprehensible. And that gives us this power to speak to the current situation, the threats we face, and demand change.”
“We’re not just an education centre,” says Jo, “not just an advocacy centre, not just a program centre, but we’re doing it all at the same time.”
The 519 is a repository of 2SLGBTQ+ community wisdom because generations of people have kept showing up for each other within and beyond its walls. As we celebrate our 50th anniversary, people like Jo are ensuring that The 519 remains a place where people can live fully and authentically, challenging discrimination, exclusion, and injustice that seek to diminish them, for the next 50 years and beyond.
