ARICHAT - Veronica Merryfield remembers how it felt to be uncomfortable in her own body, and she is using platforms such as those provided by Telile Community Television to ensure that no one else has to experience the trauma she felt as a child in the United Kingdom.
Now residing in Marion Bridge, Merryfield started making regular visits to the Telile Community Television studio in Arichat just over a year ago. As the founder of the Cape Breton Transgender Network and the education coordinator for Cape Breton Pride, Merryfield had years of experience assisting the LGBTQIA+ community in the heavily-populated Sydney area but felt her presence and her perspective could also help those in rural areas such as the Strait of Canso.
Her first interview with Telile's Local Journalism Initiative (LJI) reporter Adam Cooke saw Merryfield bravely revisiting her troubled childhood years and the difficulties she has experienced as a young trans woman. She would not have to wait long to return to Telile's airwaves, participating in the second Pride Panel for Cooke's weekly panel-discussion series Roundtable. Merryfield also appeared on the sister program TELILE 24/7 at the same time, in footage of her participation in - and address to - the first genuine Pride Parade held in the Town of Port Hawkesbury.
Since that time, Merryfield has returned to Telile and its studio on several occasions, with topics as diverse as her appearance before provincial legislature committees to promote gender-inclusive health-care delivery to her recent participation in a speaking tour by Martin Boyce, one of the last living participants in the 1969 Stonewall Riots that are widely considered to be the official launch of the LGBTQIA+ rights movement.
With Cooke's guidance and Telile's support, Merryfield has also encouraged a member of the local community to become a part-time interviewer and commentator for the station. Port Hawkesbury Pride facilitator Taylor Linloff has interviewed Merryfield twice, once on Zoom and once in the Telile studios. Their work is setting the bar high for other community-based volunteers who are now preparing to make their Telile debuts. These include Merryfield herself, who will soon launch a regular series examining LGBTQIA+ issues in our backyard and across Nova Scotia.
Through it all, Merryfield is hoping to make the immediate impacts on public policy and the general perception of the LGBTQIA+ community that will enable those experiencing discrimination and trauma to get the assistance they need right away, instead of simply hoping for improvements years - or even decades - down the road. Noting the high suicide rate among the transgender community in particular, Merryfield feels it is worth sharing her own stories to encourage others to get - and demand - the help and respect they need.
"I have issues with [phrases like] 'it gets better,' because that implies that it's not better now," she points out. "And it should be be better now."
Add new comment
About LJI
LJI Impact is the section of commediaportal.ca where the journalists and their organizations participating in CACTUS' Local Journalism Initiative can share their greatest successes.
Through the written stories, photos and videos you see in the LJI Impact section, you'll be able to read first hand accounts about how the presence of a community journalist is making a difference in communities across Canada through the Local Journalism Initiative and the Community Media Portal.
The Community Media Portal is a gateway to the audio-visual media created by community media centres across Canada. These include traditional community TV and radio stations, as well as online and new media production centres.
Community media are not-for-profit production hubs owned and operated by the communities they serve, established both to provide local content and reflection for their communities, as well as media training and access for ordinary citizens to the latest tools of media production, whether traditional TV and radio, social and online media, virtual reality, augmented reality or video games.
The Community Media Portal has been funded by the Local Journalism Initiative (the LJI) of the Department of Canadian Heritage, and administered by the Canadian Association of Community Television Users and Stations (CACTUS) in association with the Fédération des télévisions communautaires autonomes du Québec (the Fédération). Under the LJI, over 100 journalists have been placed in underserved communities and asked to produce civic content that underpins Canadian democratic life.
