Our Blog
25 years of Rainbow Refugee
25 years of walking alongside LGBTQIA+ refugees and newcomers.
25 years of community, courage and collective care.
What started as a dream with a group of volunteers supporting queer couples in Vancouver, turned into who we are today: an organization of 15 staff with lived refugee experience, working together with broader 2SLGBTQIA+ community in Canada to create safer and equitable migration for queer refugees from around the world.
Over the years, we witnessed people arrive seeking a better future, and return as advocates, volunteers, board members and donors.
Your journeys are the heart of this work and your strength helps carry it forward.
Here to the past 25 years, and to a future shaped by all of us, together.
Chris Morrissey 1942 – 2025
With immense sorrow and love in our hearts, we share the news of our loss of Chris Morrissey on April 14, 2025.
The communities she built, served and fiercely loved will miss her intensely—she is much beloved. We share our love and deepest sympathies with all of you and with all members of Rainbow Refugee as well as Quirk-ee, and LEGIT who are her extended chosen family.
The ripples of impact of her feminist social justice and community building work reverberate. Lessons she learned organizing against dictatorship in Chile, travelled here to Vancouver, into transition homes for women leaving violence, into our local 2SLGBTQI community centre (now Qmunity), Queer seniors advocacy, and disability justice at the City of Vancouver.
By co-founding and leading LEGIT and Rainbow Refugee she changed laws and the lives of thousands, within the country and globally, creating pathways for people in queer relationships and people leaving SOGIESC persecution.
For now, we will mourn her in our beautifully queer ways—in the cherished memories, hugs, tears, and irreverent humor we share with each other.
We will honour her best by continuing to love and care for each other while standing up fiercely for practical justice.
Fly high our dearest Chris. Bridget is waiting for you