Students from Portage Collegiate had the chance to take in an LGBTQ2+ history conference put on by the Centre for Gender and Sexual Diversity.

The conference was hosted by PCI's Queer student's association.

Teacher Lisa Tessier-Burch talks about the event.

"This is the first time a conference of this magnitude is available to our students at PCI and in Canada. The presenters here were granted funds to create this conference, and travel around Canada promoting LGBTQ+ awareness."

The day-long conference hosted students from PCI, Yellowquill School, and École Arthur Meighen School. They had numerous interactive workshops and keynote speakers throughout the day.

Lorri Millan is an artist and one of the presenters at the conference. She outlines what the day was all about.

"We talked about what role art-making plays in the history of queer rights and how important it is to keep working for change. Despite changes to laws, there's still a lot of behaviour we need to have people examine."

The workshop also touched on the fact that this marks the 51st year that Canada adopted same-sex relationship rights.

Shawna Dempsey is an artist/ presenter. Here's what she hopes students took away from today.

"Is for young queers to realize they are not alone. They may feel isolated sometimes, they may feel not accepted sometimes, but in a room like this where's there's lots of queer kids and queer adults they can see that they're part of a community."