June 11th is Global Lipedema Awareness Day, and this year, Canada is glowing up! More than 85 landmarks across the country will turn purple to raise awareness for a condition that affects millions of Canadians. Lipedema impacts as many as one in nine women and those assigned female at birth, yet many remain unaware of it. Visibility is crucial; when a landmark lights up, it sparks curiosity and conversation. Join us in this national effort to shed light on lipedema, show your support, and help those affected feel seen. Find your city and be part of this transformative movement!
June 11th is Global Lipedema Awareness Day, and this year, Canada is glowing up.
Last year, it started with a handful of cities. The CN Tower and Brant Street Pier in Ontario. The Esplanade Bridge in Winnipeg. This year, more than 85 landmarks across Canada will turn purple for Lipedema Awareness Day. From the east coast to the west, cities are joining a growing national effort to make a condition that affects millions of Canadians impossible to ignore.
Lipedema affects as many as one in nine women and those assigned female at birth, yet most Canadians, including most doctors, have never heard of it. People spend years, sometimes decades, being told their pain and swelling are the result of their weight or their habits. They leave appointments without answers. They go home and search the internet at midnight, trying to name what their body has been telling them for years. Many are still waiting for a diagnosis today.
Visibility is not a cure. But it is something. When a landmark turns purple, people ask why. That question is an opening. That is how awareness moves from a community of people who already know to the people who need to. A doctor who sees a purple bridge and gets curious. A friend who shares a photo and tags someone who recognizes their own symptoms in the caption. These moments add up. They change things.
Lit Up for Lipedema is not a rally or a fundraiser. There is no stage, no program, no agenda. It is simply people showing up in public, together, for a condition that has spent too long in the shadows. Local advocates do the work of reaching out to cities and landmarks, making the case, and coordinating the purple lights. Volunteers across the country make it happen from coast to coast, in communities of every size. From east to west, cities are joining something that started small and is becoming impossible to ignore. You can feel the difference.
If you have ever wondered what you can do to help build awareness for lipedema, this is it. Find your city on the list. Look up the time. Then gather your people. A friend, a family member, someone who has never heard of lipedema and is about to learn why it matters. Show up at dusk and watch something large and public turn the colour of this community. Take a photo in front of it. Share it. Tag Lipedema Canada FB@lipedemacanada and IG @lipedema_canada and use #LitUpForLipedema so we can find you.
If you have lipedema, or love someone who does, you know what it means to finally be seen. That is what June 11th is about. Not just the purple lights, but the people standing under them, saying: we are here, this is real, and we are not going away.
And while we have your attention: head on over to the official petition for federal recognition of lipedema in Canada. The more people who sign their name, the greater the impact. These are little things that you can do, and get others you know to do, to change the lives of those living with this painful condition.
To make an even bigger impression, head on over to lipedemacanada.org/shop to purchase a cool lipedema t-shirt. We’ve had many requests to make them available and we have obliged! Order by tomorrow and get them in time for Lit Up Events, and wear them throughout the year to keep people asking questions.
None of this happens without the volunteers who spend months researching and reaching out, building relationships with government officials, city halls and landmarks, chasing down approvals, and coordinating events where they often know every single person who will show up. It is quiet, unglamorous work, and it is changing what lipedema awareness looks like in this country.
More than 85 landmarks. June 11-13, 2026.
Find your event at Lit Up Events. Bring someone new. Show up under the purple lights.
Learn more and find your event at lipedemacanada.org.
