Darlene Bown

Darlene Bown (she/her/hers) is based in the municipality of Saanich, on Vancouver Island. For the past three decades Darlene has worked in acute and long-term care. She currently works at Victoria General Hospital in the post-operative care unit as an aide to nursing staff. 

At the beginning of her career, Darlene was outed in the workplace and experienced negative treatment from homophobic coworkers which inspired her to become active within her union fighting for equity. Darlene has represented her union on the CUPE National Pink Triangle Committee for the past 6 years.

Darlene’s accomplishments include chairing the HEU Pink Triangle Standing Committee; a provincial committee of 2SLGBTQIA+ members and of which she is currently the Co-Chair.

Darlene has addressed audiences of thousands about 2SLGBTQIA+ people. She has researched and written dozens of resolutions to improve the rights and the needs of our community members.

Darlene has facilitated educational courses on allyship to 2SLGBTQIA+ people within the workplace, and served a term on Egale Canada’s seniors advisory council.

For two years she was a board member of the Vancouver Island Lesbian Seniors Care Society, at which time she partnered with Qmunity facilitating a 2-day roundtable in Victoria to discuss the needs of 2SLGBTQIA+ seniors and how to network resources.

Currently, Darlene is the Chair of the Provincial Toxicology Centre (PTC) at her hospital and has been working on pronouns being added to staff ID’s.

During COVID-19, she advocated for Island Health to expand their volunteers to include 2SLGBTQIA+ volunteers that could be made available to pair with 2SLGBTQIA+ patients and residents.

In October 2022, Darlene was elected as the first Hospital Employees Union Diversity Vice-President. This 2-year term allows her to represent 2SLGBTQIA+ members across BC.

Darlene also sits on the board of the Rainbow Advocacy Society of BC, a not for profit society with a focus on healthcare, mental health, housing and social sustainability for 2SLGBTQIA+ people.