Queermonton Vue Weekly Week of December 12, 2007, Issue #634

On a Wednesday afternoon with the low winter sun washing a warm hue over the front room of the Pride Centre of Edmonton (PCE), Brendan Van Alstine has tucked himself into the corner of a couch. He is relaxed yet upright. He shifts every once and a while to grab his NAIT travel mug, which will hold his four cups of coffee that day. His grin relays slight puzzlement and his face seems prepared to spring sceptic at any moment.

Brendan is not overly comfortable or excited talking about himself. He prefers group dynamics and consensus building; he is a social worker by trade. It is with slight bewilderment and humour that he jokingly talks about how he has been “forced into a community leadership role.” Considering his work at the Pride Centre, to say nothing of his extracurricular activities, which include volunteering with Youth Understanding Youth and Camp fYerfly, helping to relaunch Guerilla Gay Bars in Edmonton and helping to found the Transit Riders Union of Edmonton (TRUE), it’s not hard to see how he has found himself in the position. Entrenched at the centre of important issues like mentorship, mobility, diversity and inclusiveness, it’s no wonder Brendan would rather get back to work than sit and talk.

As the Youth Programs Coordinator at the PCE, Brendan finds himself responsible for fun stuff like hanging out, watching movies and creating leadership activities with queer youth from all over Edmonton that drop in, as well as the more mundane tasks of filling out reports, paperwork and networking.
He has worked at “the centre” for two years, the last year as a full-time member of the staff. In that time he has helped move the centre from its previous location to its current home on 111 Ave and 95 Street, where they have a great landlord. He has seen life at the centre “crystallize.”

“There used to be this perception that the centre was just for LGBTT people who were in need of help,” but now, he says, people of all ages as well as gender and orientation identities, “come to the centre because they want to be a part of the community. They come to drink coffee, chat, watch a movie.”
Brendan first gained experience working with youth as a volunteer with Rave Safe, a group that aims to promote a healthy dance and techno culture by educating youth about drugs, sex and addictions through a harm-reduction based approach.

It was through Rave Safe that he realized he wanted to become a social worker, thinking that he wanted to come out of school as an addictions counsellor. After a work placement with an addictions counsellor he realized that it wasn’t what he wanted and that he would much rather work with youth. “It’s good to know that I am a positive person [in their lives] when they have no other adults around ... it’s good to be the role model you never had.”

He wishes more young people would get involved in politics like he has, canvassing for both Malcolm Azania and Linda Duncan during federal elections, but understands that “it’s easy to take things for granted if you haven’t had to fight for anything.”

Through his work and as an “all-around queer guy,” Brendan recognizes that although things are getting better, “There is still homophobia, and as invisible minorities, we are so easy to ignore.” Involved with the same-sex marriage debate, Brendan thinks that the next fight on the horizon is around maintaining rights. “If you’re not exercising your rights then they disappear.”

Around 3 pm, when people start filtering in to the Pride Centre to snuggle up with a book from the LGBT library or make their way downstairs to the youth space, Brendan begins to get distracted from our conversation. Without having to say a word he excuses himself and begins to do the small things around the centre he needs to do to make a difference. It’s while turning on computers, giving advice to an intern social work student or planning for the next week that, for the first time all day, Brendan seems genuinely comfortable.

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It would be remiss of Queermonton not to mention the passing of the trail-blazing writer and activist Jane Rule. Queermonton resident, artist, curator and writer Anthony Easton writes in her obituary:

“Jane Rule lived with her partner Helen for 50 years, mostly on Galiano Island. During that time, she lectured on composition, lent Atwood a set of dishes, fought censorship, taught local kids how to swim, placed herself in the centre of radical gay male sexual culture, smoked, drank, cursed and wrote. Her writing was wise, learned, wry, very very funny and on fire for a justice that shot through with a WASP's sense of ambiguity. Writing will be her legacy, including the novel Desert of the Hearts, and essay collections like Lesbian Images and Hot-Eyed Moderate. But in so many other tangible ways, she was den mother to us (queers, Canadians, writers, westerners) all.”