I want to start this update off with a clear, concise message  - the hate being spewed at the 2SLGBTQIA+ community over these past months is completely unacceptable. I know deep inside that there are bright shining days ahead, but right now it feels so doom and gloom. The heaviness I feel inside has taken root in my dreams, which is why I have taken to writing this and sharing how I feel more openly. 

While typically I use ChatGPT to write blogs like this or event descriptions, today I am choosing to write this directly from my heart. 

As a queer millennial I want to recognize and appreciate those before us that have fought long and hard for the rights and opportunities that most of us take for granted today. Being 37, I cannot and won’t pretend to understand the hardship that our queer elders have had to deal with to allow many of us today, in many parts of the world, to enjoy the rights and liberties that we enjoy. We need to recognize that these freedoms can be taken away from us and we are starting to see this in many parts of the USA. 

I don’t feel safe. I am scared. 

Canada is supposed to be a safe place for us to be authentic selves. The hate being spewed by a VERY small but incredibly vocal part of the population is being felt by many. Social media isn’t a safe place anymore as the platforms continue to allow hateful messages to be spread and let's be honest, they really don’t care about us. They want things go viral on their networks so they can make more money and feed off of us, but prefer automated appeal processes that allow these hate groups to mass report and queer-driven content – effectively silencing our voices.

I won’t pretend to have a solution for this, but I know that I cannot just sit here and not do anything. It’s not who I am nor what Rebellious Unicorns stands for. 

We need to feel safe. We need to support each other. We are going to get through this. 

There are a couple things that we have been working on behind the scenes and while none of this is really ready for launching, I am going to say screw it and do it anyway. It isn’t going to be perfect, it’s going to be bumpy but I believe these are small things that can help bring our community together. 

Our Unicorn Community - On Unicorns.LIVE we have had the ability for a bit now to have an internal social media functionality that is NOT controlled by greedy massive corporations where it's impossible to talk to a human. I haven’t felt we were fully prepared to roll this out but since Facebook has blocked our Ad account and deleted our master Page and forced us to start over I am just done with them.  Our Community inside of Unicorns.LIVE is like Twitter (now X) in terms of the threads but with the ability to break out groups like Facebook. There is a feed but no private messaging. 

Everything is monitored by REAL PEOPLE and not by bots. Hate will not be tolerated but ignorant questions seeking to understand will be. It’s available to all Unicorns.LIVE members effective immediately. We have strong Community Standards and we will hold everyone accountable. Thanks to friends in the community who have contributed to this and helped develop it. A couple things to note about Unicorns.LIVE:

• - A membership fee is required and is currently $12.99 per month or $99.99 per year. This is what pays for the platform and pays creators who host video content with us. 
• - We have expanded the free trial to be for 30 days instead of 7 for a limited time.
• - There are no ads and this is not a place to promote your business. It's about community and is about bringing us together
• - Any content you post within the community is yours, we don’t own it, we don’t track it and mine your information. We do track stats of people using the Community but that's the extent of it. 
• - The “public” channels can be viewed by the anyone on our website but only those who are members of Unicorns.LIVE can engage. “Private” channels can only be viewed and interacted with by our members
• - We are working to make Unicorns.LIVE more accessible with features such as closed captioning and also with a scholarship program that goes to cover a portion or all of peoples membership fee’s. 
• Start your 30 day Free Trial now.

Introducing Our Agenda:

• - The MX event series we previously ran needed a refresh and needed more substance to it. It was great to get people together but I felt there was more we could do with it. While The Agenda is still evolving but it is replacing the MX for in person networking.
• - The in person networking component will come back and we will move back to a revolving nature. I appreciate the support of Rudy and Friends of Dorothy in both Victoria and Kelowna for providing a welcoming environment for us to host the MX last year and we will continue to engage with them but we do want to get back out to include more 2SLGBTQ+ owned businesses and ally businesses. 
• - I am very excited to introduce the Queerpreneurs Unleashed podcast, as one of our first series of The Agenda. I have had this burning desire to start a podcast for quite some time and this focus on fellow 2SLGBTQ+ entrepreneurs is so aligned with Our Agenda and everything we do at Rebellious Unicorns. We don’t have a brand fully established yet, and that’s ok. I am sticking with the theme of ripping the bandaid off. It will evolve over time and I am so excited to get out and learn from fellow queepreneurs. There are so many uplighting stories out there that need to be brought up. 
  Submit your information to be interviewed on the podcast here. 
• - The Agenda will grow it to include discussions, panels, debates and more over time both in virtual, in person and hybrid formats.

There are a lot of varied emotions moving through our community right now and we need to support each other. We will get through this. It is not going to be easy but we are a strong resilient community. 

Yours in solidarity

Dustyn

PS - Here is a sneak peak of the Agenda logo