Multi-award winning musicians Tegan and Sara have met with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Parliament Hill to lobby for LGBTQ people facing discrimination -- especially women and girls.
The twin sisters, who are gay and have been out since they were teenagers, told CTV’s Power Play that their efforts were based on personal experience and listening to their fans.
The 38-year-old pair, who were born in Calgary, set up the Tegan and Sara Foundation in recent years to fight for health, economic justice and representation for LGBTQ girls and women.
“LGBTQ people, specifically women and girls, are under-represented, under-researched and under-funded,” Tegan Quin told host Don Martin.
“We want to really inspire our community, our allies also outside the community and the government here in Canada to continue to focus on giving back to the most marginalized within that community.”
Sara Quin said their focus with the government was on youth and protecting the Gay-Straight Alliances already in high schools.
“We need to show that we trust and care for the teenagers when they are figuring out their identity,” Sara said.
LGBTQ people aren’t represented in the curriculum, Tegan said.
“We have a rich, vibrant history, we should learn about our history in school,” she said.
“We talked about all of that with the prime minister and he was extremely receptive.”
She said the U.S. faced different problems, where Tegan said rights were being stripped away.
“I like to think of it like some of the problems that Canadian LGBTQ people could potentially face, it’s sort of a cloud off in the distance,” Sara said.
“Whereas right now in the United States we’re bringing sandbags and the waters are flooding in.”
