Raymond Taavel

Raymond Taavel (June 9, 1962 – April 17, 2012)[1] was a Canadian LGBTQ rights activist[2] who was attacked and killed by Andre Noel Denny on April 17, 2012[3] outside Menz Bar, Gottingen Street while protecting another person.[4] He was thereafter posthumously awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee medal.[5] He played a key role in the Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM)’s first ever Pride Week publication.[6] He worked toward having the rainbow flag raised at Halifax City Hall.[7] During his lifetime he also engaged in endeavors to legitimize equal marriage and transgender rights in Nova Scotia’s Human Rights Act.[8] In 2017, the Department of Heritage and Culture Committee of the Halifax Regional Council selected Taavel as one of 30 Nova Scotians from the last century-and-a-half to be celebrated in the Vanguard exhibition at the Nova Scotia Museum for his “innovation and change in the face of diversity.”[9] In 2019 Inglis Street Park was renamed the Raymond Taavel Park in his honor.[10]