Key takeaways:
- The email was in reply to a plea for sponsorship from Canmore Pride.
- Canmore Pride requested Valbella Gourmet Foods in Canmore, Alta., shown here, if it would support or make food donations to a Pride event and got a reply from one of the owners, Jeff von Rotz, including a series of conspiracy-laden, transphobic, and homophobic slurs.
A famous gourmet food supplier, caterer, and retailer in Canmore, Alta., has removed its president from operating the firm after he mailed a transphobic email to organizers of that town’s Pride occasions.
Canmore Pride had reached out to the ownership of Valbella Gourmet Foods to ask for backing or food donations for an “inclusive and free climb event” during Canmore Pride in mid-September.
The answer — including a series of conspiracy-laden, transphobic, and homophobic slurs — took Canmore Pride co-chair K Kealey aback.
“I was really stunned and very disappointed,” they stated. “I’m a trans individual myself, so it’s also perilous and always so disappointing when, you know, people still feel that way. And much of his message carries forward these terrible stigmas dangerous to our society.”
The email, signed by Jeff von Rotz, repeated lies regarding trans people as dangerous to kids and perpetrators of brutality.
Read more: Alberta entrepreneurs stress increased restrictions under grant program for $10-a-day childcare
But in reality, it is trans people who are at risk of being on the end of violence and abuse, Kealey said.
“It’s quite harmful and disturbing,” they said.
Kealey said they posted the email on a private message group of queer people who stay in the Bow Valley to let the community know how the company was treating trans people and that it may not be a secure space for them to patronize.
“Everyone was outraged and upset that someone would say something like that,” they added.
The message was finally posted on Twitter, where the wider society expressed backing for Canmore Pride, generating a social media storm.
Source – CBC News
