By Prema Kapoor

To end LGBT History Month, today we’re introducing you to one of the most influential people in Canadian LGBT history, Jeremy Dias. Jeremy was born in Edmonton, Alberta, and later moved to Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, where he then attended high school.

As a teen, he was always motivated and interested by social and political inequality and felt a desire to take action against it, volunteering with numerous organizations and charities. In high school, he took the lead a started numerous clubs, including Stop Racism and Ontario Students Against Impaired Driving. He also coordinated one of the first LGBT youth groups in Sault Ste. Marie.

After coming out, Jeremy faced extreme forms of discrimination in high school from not only students, but school officials too. When he was 17, he began a legal case against his school and the school board, and at 21, he won Canada’s second largest human rights case.

Jeremy used this money to found the Canadian Centre for Gender & Sexuality Diversity, the International Day of Pink and later, the Jeremy Dias Scholarship. Since he was young, he has done so much to pave the way for other LGBT youth, and continues to do so. He, along with many others, will go down in Canadian history for all of the work they’ve done.

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