Toronto Pride: All Year Long
0Sgt. Nancy McLean, a gay Toronto police officer, parked her bicycle in front of a coffee shop and surveyed the early morning crowd on Church Street.
Church-Wellesley--as Toronto's gay village is formally known--hosts Pride Week each summer. The street is closed to auto traffic. Visitors come from all over and the residents greet them with big-hearted smiles. On this particular summertime Saturday morning, some folks were waiting for the Dyke March to begin. Another event--the annual Pride Run--had just ended, and weary athletes were seeking shade and hydration. Nearby a throng of tourists took photos of two men dressed as Roman gladiators handing out free Trojan condoms. And on the steps of Woody's, a gay bar, several men in their Joe Boxer skivvies were boogying to techno-rock music. Sgt. McLean happily posed for snapshots, too, a paper rainbow flag sticking out of her bicycle helmet and her black flak jacket providing a stark contrast to her pair of rainbow socks.
"Last week in Toronto was brutal," she told me. "We needed this week and weekend to reclaim our humanity."
She was referring to the violence that erupted on the streets in downtown Toronto during the G20 summit. Rioters smashed storefront windows, set fire to police cars, and fought with police who pelted them with rubber bullets and beat them back with tear gas and truncheons.
But an entirely different mood prevailed for the 30th annual Pride Week. Over a million people flocked to Chuch-Wellesley and environs to attend a myriad free public events at various venues, culminating in an incident-free, two-hour parade that began at Toronto's seat of government and snaked down Yonge Street, its main artery.
Gay Pride, proclaimed by Toronto's Globe and Mail newspaper as "a Canadian institution," is ambitious, brash, crowded and raucous. It's a hyped-up, hopped-up carnival. And yet, the event and the community that promotes it has successfully transformed Toronto into a city that's accessible and welcoming at any time of year.
Gay rights: triumph over adversity
Yet it wasn't always so festive for Toronto's gay citizens.
Kyle Rae, who lives with his husband Mark Reid in the Church-Wellesley neighborhood and who represents Ward 27 on the Toronto City Council, recalled when police raids on gay bathhouses and barrooms were common occurrences. Police harassment against gays ended only when Canada decriminalized homosexual acts in 1969, in the wake of the Stonewall riots.
Rae also recalled the years he spent lobbying for gay marriage, until Canada passed the Civil Marriage Act in 2003 that legalized same-sex unions in all provinces (a battle their neighbors in the States are still waging).
"We've come a long way since the first Gay Day picnic of 1970," he said, with a heavy dose of irony in his voice. "Back in those early days, the City Councilors and the Mayor wouldn't recognize us. Now, all of them are clamoring to march at the head of the Pride parade."
These days, the battles the gay community wages is whether or not to include protest groups such as Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QuAIA), an anti-Israeli group who finally won the right to march only a day or two before the parade, resulting in their appearance almost alongside Kulanu, the pro-Israeli gay group.
How Toronto handles the unforeseen conflicts to come when the city hosts World Pride in 2014 remains an open question.
Neighborhood diversity
While Church Wellesley (http://www.churchwellesleyvillage.ca/) boasts that it is "Toronto's largest LGBT neighborhood," gay men, women, and families are by no means ghettoized.
An emerging mixed gay/straight neighborhood is Queen West, dubbed "Queer West" by Michael F. Par�, a former newspaper reporter who founded the Queer West Arts and culture Centre out of his home in that neighborhood a few years ago.
"Rents in areas like Church/Wellesley are forcing gay residents to investigate other parts of the city," Par� told me during a tour of the neighborhood. "And this area has been neglected for many years. Like the Church-Wellesley neighborhood, we want to support gay businesses so that they thrive."
His Queer West center (www.queerwest.org) schedules nights of poetry and spoken word, a film festival, an annual arts festival, and performing arts events.
"One of the most requested services we get is for a tour of gay neighborhoods and businesses in Toronto," said Liz Devine, president of Jeeves Travel (www.conxity.com).
Proclaiming that Toronto's "season of pride is year round," she and her staff are promoting "Rainbow High" vacation travel to Toronto with several packages, including a theatre and film festival, Halloweek (a week long party held every October in Church/Wellesley) and a "kink" package that includes the annual Fetish Fair, Leatherball and Mr. Leather Toronto Weekend.
Devine, who said she has participated in every Pride event during these last three decades, added that she's already fielding inquiries regarding tours for World Pride.
"Visitors from around the world are thrilled about coming to Toronto," she said. "And we are already making plans to ensure it is an exciting time."
Out in Toronto
Everywhere--from billboards celebrating the gay lifestyle to art shows, dance, music, theatre, and bars--Toronto embraces all things gay.
There is also a sense that the struggles to achieve gay rights have already been won here, making it easier to relax, and to be comfortably (and publicly) seen as you are and as you wish to be seen. And it must be noted that there is substantial public and private financing to make sure that Pride Week comes off successfully.
Toronto is a rational, clear-thinking place that promotes civilized behavior. And it takes its history seriously. A visit to the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives (www.clga.ca), a library open to the public at 34 Isabella Street, is a must. The library--open Tuesday-Thursday and by appointment--also houses an art gallery, currently displaying portraits of gay community leaders, including councilor Kyle Rae, who, over the years, have worked to make a difference. The Archives offers evidence that the gay community has roots, and ensures that the community will be thriving in Toronto for a long time to come.
Cornucopia of all things gay
Pride Week is a cornucopia of all things gay. At night, Church Street bustles with men and women, often semi- or fully nude, dancing to the throbbing techno-beat that is funneled into loudspeakers.
There's dancing everywhere: on rooftops, balconies, on the street, in barrooms and alleys. The city's numerous parks and parking lots are the scenes of large gatherings, including Aqua Pride (where most barely-clad participants are hosed down with water guns while they dance), the aforementioned Dyke March, the Trans March, and large scale concerts in Queen's Park, including this year's free concert by Cyndi Lauper and her blues band.
The night I attended the Lauper concert, I walked to the park from my room at the Sutton Place Hotel, a few blocks away, with a group of revelers. At the park, the overflow crowd spilled onto the streets. It may have been the biggest party on the block, but it certainly wasn't the only party.
Later, even though there is a curfew against noise after midnight, Church Street was aglow with celebrants dancing to that unrelenting thump-thump music, and it seemed everyone was wearing beads, wigs, spandex, and noshing on street food.
It is in this celebratory atmosphere that one speculates on Toronto's future and the extent of its influence. Will Toronto's spirit of inclusiveness rub off on other people? It just might, but only if its citizenry continues to diplomatically inspire others to abandon their exaggerated fears and to work to create a world that promotes, protects and ensures equal rights for all.
That's Toronto challenge. That's the lesson one walks away with after visiting this magnetic city.