signed an executive order and eliminated a number of policies designed to protect 2SLGBTQ+ rights<\/a> just hours after his inauguration.\u00a0<\/p>\nWATCH | Why this queer couple moved from the U.S. to Canada:![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1784291530_532_default.jpg\")
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How a small-town Pride parade was a ‘powerful experience’ for this American<\/p>\n
Grace Mahoney and her spouse moved from the U.S. to Nova Scotia to distance themselves from growing anti-queer rhetoric. She explains to the CBC’s Andrew Sampson the complexities of such a big transition and the joy of experiencing her first Pride parade in Windsor, N.S.<\/p>\n
After moving to Canada, Mahoney said it feels like she can finally exhale. <\/p>\n
“I said to Kayden\u00a0… I think my favourite part of Nova Scotia so far is the fact that we can go out and I can hold your hand, and I can like put my arm around you and like touch you and be just normal with you, and I don\u2019t feel scared and you don\u2019t feel scared, we can just be together,” she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mahoney said she never quite felt safe holding hands with Burns \u2014 a simple act of affection that many straight couples take for granted \u2014 when they lived in Worcester.<\/p>\n
“You could just feel how not welcoming, how not safe it was,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019d get dirty looks, sometimes people would say stuff \u2026 it\u2019s hard to tell, but you know it\u2019s not kind, and it\u2019s feeling on the edge of [it] could be something worse, and that\u2019s scary.”<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1784291530_965_default.jpg\")
The couple arrived in Nova Scotia in the middle of winter. ‘Having a province that was very welcoming of us being queer was very important,’ says Mahoney. (Submitted by Grace Mahoney)<\/p>\n
Canada quickly rose to the top of their list as they explored options for places to live outside of the United States. When Burns, a licensed social worker,\u00a0was offered a job in Dartmouth, the couple decided to sell their homes in Worcester and commit to moving some 1,100 kilometres away to Nova Scotia.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
As the mother of a six-year-old, Mahoney said she was thinking about what atmosphere she wanted to raise her child in. Worcester was no longer the right fit.<\/p>\n
“They’re not banging down our door trying to arrest us at this point for being queer, but it gets to the point of like, what kind of energy do you actually want … to spend your life living within, and that question is even more amplified when you have a little kid,” she said.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1784291531_758_default.jpg\")
Mahoney attended her first Pride in June in Windsor, N.S. ‘Canada is not perfect \u2014 no country is \u2014 [but] it is heads and tails above what we were experiencing in the U.S.,’ she says. ‘If you want to live somewhere else that feels like more at home, then you should go for it.’ (Submitted by Grace Mahoney)<\/p>\n
Last month, when Mahoney’s partner took her on a surprise road trip to the small town of Windsor, N.S., she found more proof she’d made the right choice.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As they sat down for lunch at a restaurant near Main Street, she realized they were surrounded by rainbow flags. They had front-row seats for the town’s annual Pride parade \u2014 “a powerful experience,” recalled Mahoney.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
That her first ever Pride took place in a small town in her new adopted country felt like kismet.\u00a0<\/p>\n
At 37, she’s grateful to have the chance for a fresh start, but the reality that she had to leave home to find it makes it bittersweet.<\/p>\n
“Even though somehow this place feels much more home to me than the U.S. ever felt … there’s still grief for what we had to leave, and grief around the reasons why we had to leave,” she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“And it’s just like processing all of that, while being with the joy and elation of being here in Canada and being in this wonderful country with all these really wonderful people.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
MORE TOP STORIES<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 4 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":807820,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[49,48,44],"class_list":["post-807819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=807819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807819\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/807820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=807819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=807819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=807819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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