More than a safe space: Calgary Rainbow Room

Acacia Carol, Layout Editor | 

This June, Calgary welcomed a new kind of community centre to the Beltline. Born out of a 50-year advocacy career with the End of the Rainbow Foundation, the Calgary Rainbow Room centre works alongside five partner organisations to provide language, medical support, social, and other services for all kinds of Calgarians.

The Rainbow Room service centre lead, Kerry Rasmussen, says that while the space isn’t “radical at all,” the Rainbow Room wants to focus on creating a centre that is safe and full of joy. 

However, some of the services offered by the Rainbow Room stand in direct opposition to legislation from the governing UCP. The outlink lending library is stocked with books that have been removed from shelves or banned following a ministerial order by the Minister of Education.

Rasmussen estimates that the space sees around 100 individuals per month. While she’s grateful for the community the space is currently supporting, she knows that there are more individuals that the space could help. 

The centre is also undergoing renovations to create a computer space for individuals to attend medical appointments or browse the web, and currently hosts a program three times a week for people to make or tailor gender-affirming clothing. 

“On the whole, this is a place that we can be very proud of,” she says. 

Unsafe spaces

As with many spaces created for marginalised populations, safety is a big consideration for the Rainbow Room. In 2024, a Leger poll found that half of 2SGBTQIA+ respondents felt unsafe in public. For queer students, an Egale poll found that 60 per cent felt unsafe in the classroom.

That unease isn’t just from policy changes, like the utilisation of the notwithstanding clause to pass Bill 9, either. 

According to a Government of Canada report on police reported hate crimes from 2014-2024, incidents motivated by sexual orientation were the third most commonly reported, following religion and ethnicity. In June, the odds of a sexual orientation-related hate incident doubled.

“Sometimes people will circle the building many times before they come in. And then when they do come in, they’re shy and nervous,” Rasmussen says. “We all work really hard to make sure everybody feels comfortable.”

Born from a personal experience, Rasmussen also says that creating relationships with the Calgary police’s diversity team is another avenue the centre explores to foster community.

Threats to the queer community aren’t new ground for the folks at both the Rainbow Room and the End of the Rainbow Foundation. Rasmussen says that before the centre, the End of the Rainbow Foundation focused on connecting LGBTQ+ refugees escaping persecution or death with local resources in Calgary.

But the struggles of the queer community aren’t what Rasmussen wants to focus on when speaking about the Rainbow Room. For her, the space is as much a social hub as it is a support network. 

With all the support the organisations inside the Rainbow Room receive, giving back is equally as important. Rainbow Elders, a group of 2SLGBTQIA+ seniors, meets within the centre to raise money for Camp fYrefly, a leadership retreat for queer and trans youth.

“It’s a really neat mix of people that are genuinely providing wonderful service for the community,” she says. 

Proud future

With Calgary Pride around the corner and warnings that 2026 could be the event’s last year due to a lack of corporate funding, other local companies and organisations have begun to band together.  

Local drag performer and MRU professor Karla Marx spoke in an Instagram video on August 22 about the collaboration between “local gals” to secure funding for the upcoming ticketed Pride on the Island event with headliner and RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars winner Trixie Mattel.

“We got together, and we decided we wanted to help Pride make some money this year because we knew that they were on some tough straits,” Marx said.

Rasmussen says that collaboration with other organisations is something the Rainbow Room also wants to focus on. Although it’s been an eventful year for the 2SLGBTQIA+ community, she believes putting in the work to create a safe space is important.

“We are not hiding who we are as a community and [we are] showing people where we’ve come from, where we are now, and how we are going to continue to grow and be there for each other,” she says.

Calgary’s new Rainbow Room in the Beltline provides a fun new atmosphere for queer
communities in the city. Photo courtesy of the Rainbow Room