Pride: A personal story from Rebecca Lockyer

Coordinator, White Hat Volunteers, The Calgary Airport Authority

My family – Alan, Ali, Sawyer and I love family vacations. I mean we LOVE it! We love deciding where to travel, when and for how long. We love road trips, we loves trains, we love planes, we even love ….. AIRPORTS! We get just as excited about researching and planning the trip as we do about the trip itself.

This year we had the privilege of planning a trip to Iceland. As you can imagine – we were very excited. While putting the finishing touches on our plans I did something I have never done before. I thought about the fact that we were traveling with our transgender child. Would my child be welcomed to our destination? Would my child have a bathroom they could use at the airport? Essentially, is Iceland a safe place for my family to travel with an LGBTQ2S+ child?

We were pleased to discover that Iceland is one of the most welcoming places to travel! Unfortunately we found it challenging to confirm where and if there were all gender washrooms. With that challenge in mind we employed one of our vacation traditions as part of the journey – an all gender washroom scavenger hunt.

Working at the airport and being on the new YYC Pride Committee gives me a unique opportunity to share my story and to help move the needle about welcoming other LGBTQ2S+ members to our airport and our city. I hope to have many more family vacations where I know my child will be safe and welcomed.

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Thank you Rebecca for sharing such a personal and insightful story. Did you know we have all-gender bathrooms at YYC? There are about 40 single occupancy washrooms currently with varying labels including: accessible, family, men or women.　These have new signs that focus on function rather than gender, using symbols that are commonly understood to prevent any communication barriers with our guests.

All inclusive! Pride Week runs from Aug. 23 to Sept. 2. At YYC, we want everyone to feel included when they visit our airport as it’s a reflection on how welcome they’ll be in our city. Stay tuned to teamyyc.com to see how we’re celebrating Pride Week and building awareness throughout the year. If you’d like to share a personal story about what Pride means to you, please contact YYCCommunications@yyc.com. Together we can build an inclusive community here at YYC!