About

A few years ago, at an infant hearing test clinic, a mom crossed a busy waiting room to introduce herself. She had spotted us, two dads with our newborn daughter, and just wanted to say hello. She was part of a new two-mom family. The whole exchange took maybe three minutes, and we've never forgotten it.

Since then, we've become the family that awkwardly introduces ourselves to other families at the grocery store, at the park, at school pickup, anywhere we think there might be another queer family in the room. Sometimes we're right. Sometimes we're not. We do it anyway, because we know what it felt like to be on the receiving end.

West End Family Pride started with a simple question: what if we didn't have to wait to bump into each other? What if there was one day, in our own neighbourhood, where queer families and the people who love them could find one another on purpose?

We are Jacob and John, two dads raising two daughters in Toronto's west end. This event is being built by us alongside a small group of other local queer families. We're parents who wanted this to exist for our kids and for our neighbours' kids, so we are making it.

On Saturday, June 13, 2026, Dovercourt Park will host a free outdoor celebration for queer families, our friends, our neighbours, and the west end 2SLGBTQIA+ community. It's a community picnic with drag storytime, face painting, crafts, music, and games. It is open to everyone.

We want our kids to grow up seeing their families reflected in the place they live, not just downtown for one weekend a year. We want other queer parents to walk into a park and find themselves immediately surrounded by people who get it. And we know that not every queer family has the kind of support around them that we have been lucky to find. A village isn't something you're handed. You build it, often by introducing yourself to a stranger across a waiting room.

West End Family Pride is our way of widening that room.