Ted Kerr Writing

POEM- (wiki)LEAKS and FIRE (in the belly) censorship is so 20th century.

2010-12-27T10:45:00.000-08:00

I.
(Wiki) Leaks
and Fire (in the Belly).
Prisons are so 20th century.
No one is illegal.
Let freedom (of information) reign.

Hide / Seek
Conceal / Reveal
Unlock it. Unlock it.

No one is really dead.
You can't hide anything.
Bars are meant to be bent.
Borders are so 20th century.

Ask David, ask Felix, ask Jesus, ask Mike
Ask Bronson, ask Assange, ask Clough, ask Sin, ask Warhol, ask Mapplethorpe, ask Manning
Ask the Guardian, Ask der Spiegel, Ask the Hammer, Ask the New Museum, Ask the Leslie / Lohman,
Ask yourself.
Ask Georgia.
Ask Tasha Diamant.
And as always
listen to Ms. Angela Davis
and then again
Ask yourself.

The harder you try to conceal
the louder it emerges.
Zits,
Farting during airport pat down,
Yoga in solitary confinement.
Take that you oppressivefuckers.

Common. Public. Shared. Open.
) common public shared open (
The broadcaster is dead.
We are all broadcasters.

The travel agent is dead.
We should all be agents.
We should all be travellers, residents, and citizens (if we want to be).

Our networked net / shared / self worth
on display in our bellies for
all to feel, discover, waste, spend, save, and suck
all to read, remix, blog, scan, and share.
Milk not jails.
Free instead of hidden.
Feel it in your gut.
Felix on display.
The more you try and conceal it
the louder it emerges.
Nothing can match curiosity.

II.
What lies within the godless vortex?
Flight or fight – what if such a question is unnecessary?
What if you stay and just dig deeper?
Dig deeper this time
below the surface, the cables, the news, the wheel of your chair, the keystroke within reach, the image in your head
It is there.
Not the truth that something has changed.
Truth in all its fallacy, and debatableness is always in plain sight.
Dig to find what is shared, what is failed.

III.
Remember stuffing yourself into supposed seclusion
yet desperately wanting to be found. The smell of your grandma's basement,
the woods behind the school, the sweat of the boy next to you.
Hide / Seek – an early lesson in desire , a cultivation of wanting to be hunted, wanted, and sought.
HIV has taught me so much – when do the ghosts get to rest? No one is really dead.
When will we learn
silence = death.

In Georgia there is a prisoner’s revolt. The time has come.
Prison is for no one, no thing.
Locks are useless, (especially in sentences – can't stand for everything, how can they explain how I feel).
Bars are meant to be bent.
Why are librarians so fucking cool?
Because they share information.
Freedom is now – but it means everybody,
it needs everybody.

Fire in the belly , leak your hot shit all over the place.
We wiki fun – the future is networked.
Your chains are someone's skipping ropes. Help your brother's mother get over herself, yourself,
the self that limits, the self that denies, the self that thinks it is alone.
(Why did you break up?
I got tired of being told no.)

In a few generations nary a human will believe a person such as Michael Jackson was alive.
Too perfect a lesson for our time to be real.
Dead and gone, now remixed and brought back to life.
No one is really dead.
You can't hide anything.
And lest we forget
You Are Not Alone.

Unpublished - Hot Tub Machine it is not.

2010-12-27T10:43:00.001-08:00

“ I hate this town in the Summer” she says. It begins. From the get go this trailer has me. It grips my heart and squeezes. First it just hits on my love / hate relationship with Edmonton, then digs deeper.

The trailer for OCTOBER COUNTRY is a little over 2 minutes but it took me over 5 minutes to watch it. I kept on pausing the You Tube clip to check in with myself, to question if I had to keep watching, convincing myself that as the local promoter for the DOC SOUP series it is my job to watch the film that we are bringing in, know what it is about and convince people to go.

But still.

My North American, pop culture, knee jerk reaction to be entertained rather than be engaged, enlightened or moved in general was getting the most of me. Alas I pushed through, pushed past the tyranny of happy ending films and easy to reconcile narratives that fill my unquestioned desires.

And I am better for it.

Its not like OCTOBER COUNTRY is violent, gory, scary or even sexually explicit. But for anyone that grew up middle class, in a blue collar home, in a mid sized city and has maybe attempted to distance themselves from the heartbreak of it all, the film hits home, kicks up the rug under which maybe much has been swept.

Rather than jolting or punching you with emotion or action the film is something else- it is unflinching, real, and close in its everydayness. It is like flipping through Nan Goldin photos from the late 80's, watching Roseanne with out the laugh track.

Hot Tub Time Machine it is not.

Co-Directed by photographer Donal Mosher and filmmaker Michael Palmieri, the official description provides a frank and poetic synopsis usually not found within the film world:

OCTOBER COUNTRY is a haunting multi-generational story of a working-class family coping with poverty, teen pregnancy, foster care and the ineffable horrors of child molestation and war. A co-directing effort by filmmaker Michael Palmieri and photographer and writer Donal Mosher, it follows Donal's family in Herkimer, New York from one Halloween to the next, resulting in a beautifully crafted film remarkable for its intimacy, sensitivity and textured portrait of a family in crisis that has become all too familiar, if not representative, of America's poor.

After watching I read up on the film. Read that someone at the Huffington Post categorized the film as an example of " Reality Televisions for Smart People" (maybe a populist way of saying Cinema Vertie), that it won the grand prize for a U.S. feature at the AFI/Discovery Silverdocs festival, that Palmieri met Mosher at a Drag bar in the US- conversations ensued, a project was born.

As someone who cares about moving images and worries that in the future all movies will contain a CGI'd Johnny Deep I am often very lazy and hypocritical in my film choices. OCTOBER COUNTRY at once reminded me to remember myself, but also that what I watch matters, that at times it is good to be challenged, good to walk away with question, a queery, a reason to call home.

Unpublished - WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE

2010-12-27T10:40:00.000-08:00

Next Friday you have been invited to attend Double Exposure: A Two-Spirit Experience and it dawned on me, maybe you think you have no reason to come, or for whatever reason are nervous or unsure if you are going to come. I want to take a few minutes to let you know that you are welcome and we all have reasons to attend.

My boyfriend Zach and I were on the escalator coming down and away from the theatre where we had just seen Where The Wild Things Are. A young mother was a few steps behind us, her 5year old (ish) son was a step above her. She turned her body a bit to face him. They were almost at eye level, “ I wanted us to see this movie so I could talk to you about what happens when you get so upset” she said to him.

The little boy wiggled in his body in reaction, sweet sounds came from him as he and his Mom hummed and talked. The boy and I made eye contact for a second and then I looked away. I got to the bottom of the escalator and by the time Zach was beside me I was near sobbing. Something about the scene between the Mother and the Son touched me, stopped me from being able to ignore the emotional pull the movie had on me.

This weekend I was talking to a friend about the movie and he thought that crux of the film was that line Max says to his island friends about how everyone needs a Mom. And although after witnessing the scene on the escalator I am apt to agree with him, I think it is more than that. I think the film is about loneliness and our need to have people to look after and look after us. We don’t seem to have the language or the history to really talk about loneliness or our need for physical touch, or a variety of forms of companionship in our culture. We are too busy buying into the myth of self-reliance.

In a way it is for this reason that the sleeping in a ‘real pile’ scene from Where the Wild Things Are was all the more touching. The idea of a mass-of-life-loving and breathing on top and intertwined with each other is possible- warms the heart. I have a friend who lives in Philadelphia and part of his self-care regiment is to attend a group doggy pile once a month. He gets there early so he can be the bottom and feel the weight of all the people he loves and doesn’t know weighing down on him, impacting him.

Later after he told me this I couldn’t help but think that for a man who lost so many of his friends to AIDS, the luxury of being crushed by live bodies must seem like riches. I think in a way my tears on the escalator were for my friend in Philly. And for me. And for people I know that died, and for friends who as they get older get less hugs, and for the people whose jokes I never get, and for the guy on the street who is asking for money and asking to be really truly seen and witnessed. It was a big cry because there are a lot of reasons to cry.

All of this was turning in my head today as I made my way to Richard’s house to meet up with him and the rest of the Double Exposure team to catch up and prepare the costumes for Friday. As we sat around the table talking I realized that so much of organizing is about creating small communities for a focused reason and how close during that organizing people can become. It is powerful to work on something together.
Sitting in Richard’s living room cutting strip for the costumes I noticed that as the strips piled up, the softness on the fabric weighing on itself looked so cozy. It was then it dawned on me that in many ways for me, Double Exposure is a lot like Where the Wild Things Are.

Double Exposure is about many things but in a small way it is really about creating a reason, a way for people to gather. There will be food, music, learnings, costumes, culture, new friends and old strangers coming together. And while we may not be piling on top of each other- we will be coming together and letting our energies meet and our experiences overlap.

I hope you come, I hope you brings so clean cloth to add to the costumes and I hope you eat, dance, play all that you need to. Invoke the Halloween spirits, get what you kindly need from community and give what you can.

I look forward to seeing you. Bring friends, kids, parents, loved ones...
Ted

Unpublished - High Level Michael Death

2010-12-27T10:39:00.000-08:00

At times the noise recedes. And it is beautiful. For the last 2 weeks I have taken up jogging. I like to say running but as my friend Marshall pointed out one has to be going a certain speed to be considered running, otherwise it is jogging.

On these jogs I plug in my ipod, cross the high level bridge, go down into the river valley then come back over on the LRT foot bridge, up the hill to Eziro Ferzone park and then make it home through back allies.

At first while jogging my mind was a wall of sound, all the voices of the day, emails not sent, gossip sites read and news of the world weighing on my head and so my shoulders, my body, my legs and seeping into the ground below. These early jogs were brutal.

Slowly, as I began to relax, the wall came down and my mind disappeared. I felt lighter. Sometimes it would be gone just for a moment, other times I would find myself on the final leg home and realize my mind had turned off, and I let my muscles do the work. Often times upon returning my mind would be singularly clear. One thought would be so sharp I would understand the totality of it.

The most reoccurring of thoughts when my mind would return was of death. One time specifically, then subsequently many times after, I thought about how of the 6 funerals I have attended in my adult life 3 have been for grown queer men who have taken their own lives.

How is this happening? I would think. Why are arguably the least oppressed and most supported group among the LGBT community the ones who are leaping to their death while others stay and solider on? What is missing in these men, in our communities and in our culture that these men, for whom life could be and should be easier than for most, cannot make it?

These thoughts and questions on death would follow me into my non-jogging day but not always cut through. Instead the memory of three men and the countless others like them, would simply become part of the noise-a frustrating fury echoing the state of things. In between cutting vegetables or while sitting on a bus, while reading a book or locking up my bike I would find myself getting upset at what I perceived to be the lack of coping skills of the 3 men and those like them born into relative privilege. I would think about how in the face of transphobia, racism and misogyny within the gay community, the growing number of queer homeless youth in Edmonton, and countless other issues, it was hard to focus on the needs or white middle class gay guys (my own needs included). Other times I would find myself getting mad at the world around that failed them and at my own assumptions that they should have been able to take care of themselves. I would wonder where my grace was.

And then from a pop symphony of discordant noises a clarifying beat took over, an aching yell called out, a chorus created a new unified wall of sound that cut through even the receding noise. Michael Jackson died and death was everywhere. His white, privileged, sexually ambiguous body was lifeless and I was beside myself. I was awash in possibly misplaced grief and the hypocrisy of my false hierarchy of needs. Not a week earlier I was trying to intellectualize the death of 3 men, while in the wake of Jackson’s death I was letting my emotions rule, mourning a man I never even knew. Again I had to ask- where was my grace?

As much as my simple mind would like to insert race, class and privilege in to the conversation around suicide and the needs of others, there is a time to look past these things. Living is a complex web of relations and reasons, desires and direction, hope and happenstance- all of which is often troubled by, among other factors, sexual orientation.

As queer people, regardless of what makes us different from each other, we have unique challenges we all share in staying alive, ones that are not as easy to articulate in an era of rights and freedoms on paper and often token tolerance. Regardless of the work we do, the communities we serve, the people we march for, the things we stand for, we need to look out for each other, put agendas aside and connect as people.

Maybe for people reading this column, this is stuff that they already knew, grace as something that comes second nature. For me as I continue my journey of letting the sun warm my face, my heart beat faster and my feet pound the pavement grace is something renewed inside of me, something I hope helps not only me but anyone else that needs it.

On both the north and south side of the High Level Bridge facing west someone has affixed a key lock. Sometimes when running my eye catches the gleam off the metal and I smile. I need to believe that the simple marker of a lock, something suppose to keep valuables safe, is a message to those who are feeling lost to hold on to not let go. Cue Michael Jackson: You Are Not Alone.

Edmonton Journal (Opinion) - AUGUST 28, 2010

2010-12-27T10:38:00.000-08:00

Forty-six years ago today, more than 200,000 people participated in the March on Washington, where Rev. Martin Luther King deliver the iconic I Have a Dream speech. It was a watershed moment that marked a tipping point in the growing awareness and action needed in the civil rights movement.

Thirty-eight years ago, the We Demand demonstration was held on Parliament Hill--the first large-scale lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans-gender (LGBT) demonstration in Canada. Activists gathered on the Hill to support a brief that had been submitted to the federal government by Toronto Gay Action, which called for equal and full rights for homosexuals in Canada.

As we can see today when we pull back the camera of history, these events built upon each other and events that came before. We can also see with an African-American president in the White House and sexual orientation protected in human-rights legislation across Canada, these events had a positive impact on the future, helping to shape leaders and the world we live in now. I suggest we build upon these milestones by rethinking how elections in our country happen and broaden our definition of voting.

With a civic election 13 months away and a federal election possible at any moment, now is the time that we need to start shaping the discourse that will make up the debates and dialogues in the next election cycle.

We need to actively be voting with our lives. This means gathering for community discussions, keeping up to date on current events, researching and teaching others about what has happened in the past, organizing and holding rallies to build momentum, running for elections, working with politicians to help shape platforms, and working with political parties to help mobilize communities to get involved.

From immigration to human rights to the environment, there are so many issues facing Canadians that we can ensure the coming elections are about more than just the economy. Gone can be the days when spin-doctors tell politicians what voters care about.

Starting on this anniversary of two historic moments--of movements calling governments to task for their failings--we need to ensure that our concerns are part of local and national conversations on election day.

Locus Suspectus. Follow that Phallus: Is Dimitre Andonov’s The Erection Series a Call for a Revolution?

2010-12-27T10:36:00.000-08:00

“I am a grown man,” starts the letter to the sex advice columnist in the December 06 issue of GQ Magazine, “I shouldn’t be getting erections in public anymore”. The grown man in question writes hoping for possible reasons as to why he experiences erections on airplanes. While reading the question, I assumed the response would include something about the effects of air pressure or maybe something about sitting for a long time; instead, the columnist takes the opportunity to make fun of him. She accuses him of bragging about his “brawn”. The closest she comes to providing an answer is offering: “You are hot for planes.” She consults Professor Eli Coleman who states that it is “normal for adult men to get random daytime erections” but goes on to discredit the professor and the grown man, “this I believe is a lie.” She jokingly suggests that he send her more information so that she may compile it “and have a really good laugh.”

I agree erections are funny but c’mon! -When did men lose the right to have erections for reasons other than sexual? Erections are nothing more than a swelled appendage caused by the pressure of blood flow. Erections are not solely an act of desire. They are not always attemptive insurgents hoping to overthrow the governing body to partake in acts of sexual terrorism. An erection is just (on average) 7inches of response to stimuli. Nothing in the penis handbook stipulates that stimuli must be sexual. Wind, pant material, tiredness, a good feeling are all plausible possibilities for getting a hard-on.

As children, guys have erections all the time for no reason and with arguably little attention. It is only as they get older through direct and indirect methods that they begin to understand that erections are something private and should be kept to themselves.

Getting caught in public with a stiff bulge in your pants is a rite of passage for most young men. Almost every Jr. High has their own legend about a guy having to walk up to the front of class with a book in front of their tented pants. One Edmonton-based teacher, (who wishes to remain anonymous as not to become the go-to teacher source for all erection questions) notices that as boys get older, and become more conscious of their bodies they switch from comfortable and roomy sweatpants to more constrictive pants like jeans. “We know why they switch” she says, “they become aware of the possible public embarrassment that would be caused from others seeing their erections.”

In his ongoing photographic work called The Erection Series (January 06-ongoing), Toronto based photographer Dimitre Andonov “addresses the awkwardness and shame felt by men in the instance of a public erection.” In the photos he poses as various teenage boys sportin woods in the most banal, common and therefore inappropriate of situations. Birthday is of a young man and his grandmother. His hopefully inconspicuous erection and her noisemaker are the only thing between them.

Taken with a typical, easy to use, point and shoot camera from the perspective predominantly of a family member, Andonov achieves the effect he was after: the photos come across as snapshots. Moments of mortification caught on film forever.

The most compelling portrait from The Erection Series is also the most close up. Congratulations is of a young man cut off, his face stiff in a perceived attempt to mask his vulnerability, his erection pointing in the opposite direction of a “congratulations” sign that is in partial view, his body slacks in resignation. Does he even realize he has an erection?

In Andonov’s work there is a possibility for erections to transcend the common view as metaphors for dominance. His work, unlike American photographer Anthony Goicolea, who uses himself as a subject to explore the adolescent male experience. is void of sexuality. Although influenced by Goicolea, Andonov takes a different more honest route, after all he says, “What is more honest than an erection?”

Goicolea produces slick almost commercial photographs that are thick with sexual suspense. The photos are often of young men in vulnerable situations in near nakedness with evolving musculature who’s future is unknown and compelling. In comparison, the young men in Andonov’s work are forgettable. They are not even gawky or kitsch enough to be objectified by the fringe. They are plain. Because there is no obvious sexual stimuli to cause the erection and the boys themselves are too boring to be sexualized the erections are rendered harmless. He has eliminated sexuality from the erection.

Now because they are neither threatening nor intimidating, the erections serve as a starting point in a possible paradigm shift regarding erections.

Over the past few decades everything from cranes, office towers and peppermills have become phallic symbols that point to the patriarchal leadership of the western world. It can be argued that many of the social ills we currently suffer through, namely war, are products of a man-centric world. To create a more balanced world order we could start by re-imagining the erection.

For Andonov “pants are symbols for culture and society, the penis is a symbol for nature” so erections in pants are symbolic for “ nature peeking through.” By having to control and suppress their nature men are in effect, asked to become insensitive to their own bodies and so to the outside world. As Andonov puts it, “men are taught to hide their true lives.”

Instead of maintaining the view that erections are meat thermometers letting men know when they are hot enough for a sexual encounter, erections should be seen as swords of sensitivity informing men when life in general is arousing them.

To me The Erection Series is a call for revolution- at least a suggestion for one. Andonov’s work blows the lid off the ridiculous practice of men suppressing their “nature” behind the confines, distractions and adornments of “society”. By exploring men’s shame and attempt to conceal their nature, Andonov is exploring the role of the masculine psyche in today’s society.

Skyscrapers, war, peppermills, are all attempts for men to express their nature that they are suppressing on a regular basis. Maybe if, as a society, we are able to reduce the stigma attached to erections, and become more comfortable with random public erections, we could reduce the desire in men to express/expend their nature on a grand scale.

Flex your dink not your might!
Pitch a tent, not another skyscraper!

Taking the photos, says Andonov, has allowed him to become more sympathetic towards men, made it easier to befriend men and forgive them for their “supposed cold ways.” He hopes for the same response from others.

Right now the world’s tallest building is being erected, continued penetration of the earth for non-renewable resources continues and wars are rage in almost every corner of the planet. An erection revolution is worth a try.

Viva la erection!
Long Live the Sword of Sensitivity!

POEM for VTAPE - WHITE BUFFALO'S RETURN TO EMERALD ISLAND

2010-12-27T10:33:00.000-08:00

White Buffalo's Return to Emerald Island

All Hail to the Queen
The fags bash the bulbs to make the starts brighter

All peace to the Earth
As orbs of white light moat Emerald Island

2,000 years ago a young woman appeared in the shape of a white buffalo and gave a family a sacred pipe and made them guardians of the Black Hills. Before leaving, she prophesized that one day she would return to purify the world, bringing back spiritual balance and harmony. The birth of a white buffalo calf would be a sign that her return was at hand.

In 1994 a white buffalo was born in Wisconsin. In many communities there is an aboriginal renaissance occurring, a return to the land is manifesting.

In 1998 Dry Bones Breathe: Gay Men Creating Post AIDS Identities and Cultures was published. Writer Eric Rofes put forward the idea that the AIDS-As-Crisis-Model was long outdated and a new era of focusing on gay men’s wellness had arrived.

Its now 2009, 200and mine and I wander the urban Canadian terrain for white buffalo tracks and modern gay male culture.
A pull back-A pull forward,
A pull within-A look outside.

Dry Bones Breathe
Gay men break backs
First Nation women get ignored
The land heaves and sighs.

PAUSE.
I got my panties in a knot a few months ago when I started visiting gay guy social networking sites like MANHUNT and DUDESNUDE. At first I was just jealous of all the lovely bodies that will never be mine, that I will never have.
Here they all are,
stretched,
flexed
out
aching to be clicked,
hooked,
favorited,
chatted and
poked.
I found myself heavy and full with minor outrage.
THE GAUL- WHERE DO THESE GUYS GET OFF?

But then I got over myself and I meant it…

Where do these boys get off?
Where is public sex?
Do these dudes nude know that their flesh is for the viral masses (if so GREAT)
Or do websites create a sense of enclosed space so they think that they are in some version of inside?

I had up into that point never seen a cock just hanging out for all to see
so sexually,
so publicly,
so in the realm for of all.

But there one was, attached to a barista I kind of knew, but now knew better. Tomorrow when I order my coffee I wondered, Would I feel a new intimacy with him? I kept clicking- there was his cock rock hard, there was him smiling with his arm draped around a friend (did she know that she was on this website?), there was his cock again.
With every image I saw I was getting to now him better. I knew what his bedroom looked like, that he had gone to Paris (and taken a dirty photo in the Louvre’s washroom) and that he was uncut. Is this now how gay community is formed? Is this the new 70’s? (if so great [?])

Last summer I was accepted to do a video curatorial residency in which I would use the moving image to explore how sites like MANHUNT and DUDES NUDE were changing the sexual landscape for gay men.

I had it on my mind that in the face of AIDS, in the face of the internet
sex had not only gone underground, it had gone post-ground and now cruising existed only in the ether.
I was wrong.
The beauty of me is my ability to be wrong, my ability as a vegetarian to eat bacon and crow.

Sitting after dark in Toronto’s Queen Park I befriended a man who had been cruising this park all his life. The year that Rock Hudson died of AIDS, he decided to come out. It has made him, if he does say so himself, an expert at giving blowjobs.

He tells me how he calls this park Emerald Island- cause it is- basically we are sitting in a large traffic circle in the middle of a city, permitered by trees, our feet thick in luscious grass and roots aching to come up.

Every few years he tells me the city tries to make the park less welcoming by taking down trees or adding more lights. He laughs and says it doesn’t matter- the fags just bash the bulbs to make the starts brighter.

Sitting there frustrated by the lack of play, the willy-nilly fear of men to man up and hook up we start talking. Darting hungry eyes shoot us dirty looks. “WHAT?” I say with my mouth and shoulder, its not like you are doing anything.

We watch for a while as the little guy who wants to be the big guy circles the big guy who wants to get with the little guy.
It is as boring as shit but counts for action tonight.
Finally against a tree, the big guy lets go (did I mention he is on roller blades), the little guy wins and a crowd gathers to watch, stare and play.

The beauty of dry bones breathing is tempered only by the fact that parks such as this still echo all that is hurt inside of gay bones.
Not only is this place a hunt for the great white cock, leaving brown, yellow red cocks dangling in the wind- there is no room for dudes without cocks or cocks without dudes.
Desires are still so repressed that getting laid under the stars, white buffalos winking from the road, is still a revolutionary act. And there is no room for openness, no room for further transgression. We have done our part by coming out they seem to say.

Before I ever went to cruising park I romanced the idea that in such places you fucked what was there. That beauty became relative and a bell curve of hotness was recreated every time someone came or left.
And this is true.
And this is not true.
Our culturally informed idea of beauty still permeates past the trees.
Old guys walk around with nary a wink,
Fat guys sit dejected, staying in the background instead of being rejected.

White buffalo breath revives dry bones.
But animals we are not.
But just spirits we are not.
But online profiles we are not.
But post-AIDS we are not.

Take off your shoes, your socks, your shirt and your pants.
Walk barefoot on the land. Naked.
Find a place to lie down in the grass.
Press your sex to the ground and feel the flex flux of 6 billion souls.
Get off
Get up
Keep going.

White buffalo breath revives dry bones.
Fucking strangers revives faith in humanity.
Being outside reminds you that you are human.

Take off your shoes, your socks, your shirt and your pants.
Walk barefoot on the land. Naked.
Find a place to lie down in the grass.
Press your sex to the ground and feel the flex flux of 6 billion souls.
Get off
Get up
Keep going.

Take off your shoes, your socks, your shirt and your pants.
Walk barefoot on the land. Naked.
Find a place to lie down in the grass.
Press your sex to the ground and feel the flex flux of 6 billion souls.
Get off
Get up
Keep going.
Sept 2009

Lifelube.org - I Hear What You Are Saying Reflecting on how we as gay men converse together...August 31, 2009

2010-12-27T10:32:00.000-08:00

Who gets to disagree with perceived progress within gay communities?

Sitting in a workshop entitled Bringing Sexy Back at the recent National LGBTI Health Summit in the US, the room was engaged largely in a sexy conversation on the semantics on how much they agreed that polyamory should be re-welcomed back into queer culture until one young man swam against the verbal current of the room and stood up for monogamy. The 30 or so people gathered at the session were respectful of him but you could feel even the air in the room seemed to pity him after he spoke.

We live in an age still influenced by homophobia, AIDS phobia and intolerance of difference that leaves gay men to explain to society including the medical profession, the government and the media what they do with their bodies. This tension to report adds stress to conversations within gay communities regarding topics such as barebacking, and polyamory relations. These internal conversations are further troubled by what a friend pointed out to me during the summit, there has been the intellectualization of queer (ness) and AIDS that has emerged in the last 20 years. In light of this I think there is a sense of surveillance within these conversations people are careful to be credible, wanting to be able to justify and validate what they are saying.

In a way, gone is discussion steeped in first person experiences and feelings, in place are theories, and stats. In a way this move towards intellectualizing queer (ness) has benefited progressive thinkers who can reach for academia and queer theory to help back up what they are saying. What I am noticing during many discussion is that largely it is conservative voices that are at a disadvantage since many of them are basing their positions in the personal- their values, their experiences, and their fears. In the face of cool, calm, backed-up, liberal voices, conservative voices often come across as misguided and/or ineffectual. This has got me thinking about the question; who gets to disagree with perceived progress within gay communities?

In theory the answer is everyone is able to disagree. But I think that this is not entirely true. I think that it takes a large amount of social and supportive capital to disagree or share conservative values within the gay/queer context. This capital I mention is what provides someone with the confidence to stand up for what they believe in and know they will be supported if they are ostracized within the discussion. Capital is also the confidence of knowing that you could be right.

I also think that for the most part conservative voices within the gay/queer context come from marginalized communities from within and so are further disadvantaged. The politics of oppression come into play and conservative voices are labeled, judged as being reactionary or to a degree homophobic. Because gay men are being attacked en mass for issues concerning what they do with their body if voices within the gay community then also question what other gay men do with their bodies they are seen as being a voice of the oppressed and are seen to be homophobic and oppressive themselves.

If we step back we can see that there is a thin line between what the majority may be judging gay men for and what gay men may be questioning themselves. But there is a line and as gay men we have the opportunity to question and converse among ourselves about what we do.

I think again about the young man in the Sexy Back session. Sitting there it was obvious that he was overwhelmed by what he was hearing. You could see that notions of sexual liberation 2.0 were bruising the very foundations he had built his gay identity on. In a way coming up and out as gay is for some a series of negotiations of self-acceptance as well as hand picking which lies, myths and truths about the gay experience you are willing to deal with.

For the most part these lies, myths and truths center on promiscuity. In the shadow of AIDS-as-a-crisis there is a mainstream judgment of gay men who have many sexual partners as irresponsible and at the same time there is a fetishization of perceived slutdom both within the gay community and from the straight community. There is a sense for some gay men that having many sexual partners is expected. The young man in the Sexy Back session mentioned this pressure and alluded to the internal work he has had to do to find the truth of the matter for himself along with finding his own personal comfort around articulating that monogamy is important to him. He did not have intellectually rigorous arguments to back himself up. He had his morals and his upbringing to guide him.

I return to the thin line and suggest that for the young man sitting in the Sexy Back room the act of a gay man sleeping around because he feels that society expects it of him and a gay man sleeping around because he wants to looks the same- and maybe it is. The room although respectful of difference was also obviously frustrated with him and his point of view.

I couldn’t help but think that we often confuse localized, internal, focused, conversations about ourselves with larger issues around defying or craving legitimacy from society at large. So engrained in some queer men’s minds are their desires to either oppose or accept mainstream legitimacy that all issues funnel into their relationship with society. Sometimes when we are talking about monogamy or barebacking that is all we are taking about. Maybe we do a disservice by always bringing in a holistic worldview. Sometimes smaller is better.

In the end, in an era where many men bemoan the lack of ‘community’ it is incumbent on us to hear out diverse and opposing voices. While community is built on people coming together it is congealed by diversity and opposing dynamics. Tension creates bonds if respected. As gay men we do not need to justify our actions. We do have an opportunity to silence the surveillance and have conversations among ourselves and be there for each other to see other points of view.

POESM- Silence Weighs Heavy

2010-12-27T10:28:00.000-08:00

I am watching my friends and people I know and care about
recede into themselves
because of words.

Lines are being drawn and people are
retreating inwardly because
no one,
no one thing
is employing words to help them out.

We of all people know that SILENCE = DEATH
so why is no one talking, why aren’t we talking,
why are so many people asking people not to talk?

Even if it is is not true,
the collateral damage of the mere suggestion
is enough
to rock us
back
into our pre-talking days.

It is past the point of judgment,
we are all too raw in pain.

Inside ourselves.

Maybe this is how victims get forgotten,
people get overwhelmed by association
and so the mere suggestion that
one could help
leaves them
panting for the door.

Regardless- we did this. No one person is guilty,
hurt, victimized. We are all implicit in the pain,
gore, suffering and in the point of no return. We
he went too far. Others have not gone far enough.

We can’t just let people be, let them be
alone.

I recognize the simpleness of the statement – but maybe-
that is what got us into t his mess in the first place.

(Spineless bodies, with endless limbs holding monolithic fingers over tiny mouths- you should be ashamed for yourselves.)

September 2009

XTRA.ca Hundreds rally against censorship Smithsonian pulls work in face of funding threat December 20, 2010

2010-12-27T10:22:00.000-08:00

About 500 people took to the streets of New York City on Dec 19 as part of an intensifying global response to the decision by administrators of the Smithsonian Institute to censor a video installation by queer icon David Wojnarowicz.

The work, Fire in My Belly, was part of an exhibition called Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture at the National Portrait Gallery (NGP) in Washington, DC.

Smithsonian secretary G Wayne Clough ordered Fire in My Belly pulled on Dec 1. Neither the curators of the show nor the director of the NPG – a division of the Smithsonian, consented to the removal. The decision came after a group calling itself the Catholic League referred to Fire in My Belly as anti-Christian because of an 11-second clip in which ants crawl over a depiction of Jesus on the cross. In response, US congressmen John Boehner and Eric Cantor threatened to call for hearings on the NPG's future funding.

Outcry over the Smithsonian's decision to censor was swift and far-reaching. The American Civil Liberties Union, the Association of Art Museum Directors and media such as The New York Times and Art Info spoke out against the move. Galleries and museums around the world are showing Fire in My Belly free for the general public. Representatives from the Warhol Foundation and the Mapplethorpe foundation have said that they will make no future donations to the Smithsonian until the video is reinstated.

Canadian-born artist AA Bronson requested in protest that his work, Felix, June 5, 1994, be removed from Hide/Seek. Bronson's work is on loan to the Smithsonian from the National Gallery of Canada. As reported in The Globe and Mail, the National Gallery of Canada CEO Marc Mayer has asked NPG director Martin Sullivan to “please consider [Bronson’s] request to withdraw” because “AA Bronson perceives the continued presence of his work in the exhibition makes him an accessory to censorship.”

Wojnarowicz died from AIDS in 1997. A prolific artist and writer, his work explores issues of queerness, sexuality, HIV/AIDS, power and the erotic. In 1989 Donald Wildmon, founder of the American Family Association, used Wojnarowicz's work to question the funding of the US National Endowment of the Arts.

At the New York protest, people chanted, “Ho, ho! Censorship has got to go!” and “Ants in our pants! Fire in our bellies,” as they marched down Fifth Avenue from the Metropolitan Museum to the Cooper – Hewitt Museum, a New York division of the Smithsonian.

The direct action in New York City was organized by ART + (art positive), a new activist group that includes many members of New York’s large art community. At the rally, organizers asked that people go to artpositive.org, sign up and be part of the ongoing protest to reinstate the video and stop the censorship.

THE NEW GAY : Revisiting the Foul! Visual AIDS broadside-13 SEPTEMBER 2010

2010-12-27T10:15:00.000-08:00

A few months ago I wrote a lengthy piece about Visual AIDS’s latest broadside PLAY SMART. After some feedback from a friend I edited it down to be a more suitable, shorter, blog length. What was published was a focused critique regarding issues of representation within PLAY SMART. What I edited out was nuances, and questions about context, the complexity of creating a campaign for unknown audiences and praise for past Visual AIDS broadsides which I compared to PLAY SMART.

I made a mistake in editing the piece. Too much was lost, the piece came across as confrontational rather than promoting conversation, gone was the opportunity to discuss the difficulty in making and disseminating gay men’s health promotion to an interested and under-served global audience and missing was a chance to consider the need for context when judging a campaign.

Upon reading the first draft I realize I edited out an important section where Amy Sadao, Executive Director of Visual AIDS speaks at greater length about the impetus of the PLAY SAFE campaign beyond what I included in the shorter piece. She mentions the impact of eight years of Bush and states that PLAY SAFE was one of Visual AIDS’ first explicitly sexy campaigns – a point I failed to fully grasp. What does it mean to be able to do a sexy campaign after years of feeling oppressed?

Related, Nelson Santos in a conversation I had with him regarding PLAY SAFE, felt as though it was also the first campaign in a long time to target gay men that may have been left out in the past decade due to the need to focus on specific under-served communities. For me I take this now to mean – what about the Chelsea boys? The gym bunnies and middle class gay men well served by the market place and culture in general but perhaps because of their privilege are forgotten by health and real wellness providers. What about the gay men who are now entering a new stage of life and maybe need to be reminded of safer sex messages and learn about new developments? What about the gay men who have left the AIDS community because a place they once felt so at home at – now seems to have no room for them? PLAY SMART falls in the tradition of Visual AIDS reaching out, commissioning and creating work to speak to a specific community. It just so happens that the community is one that is very dominate, often at the cost of other communities. One of the obstacles in all community work is to remember the diversity within diversity.

By not fully including Sadao and Santos’ points I replicated the problem of the Internet – removing context. It is impossible to think that Visual AIDS should be able to create a broadside that responds to all the diverse and possibly conflicting needs of gay men everywhere. Nor were they trying to. The Internet , and maybe even Visual AIDS’s warranted excitement, made what I can now see as a community specific broadside into a campaign with international reach, stretched beyond the broadside’s capabilities. I did the campaign no favours by failing to see the scope while focusing on only one important- yet ultimately singular- aspect of the campaign.

Issues of representation are important. The tyranny of the white fit body in gay male culture is a real factor in gay men’s health and undermines a lot of the good we may be trying to do. It is something that should be discussed and considered in our work. I did not fail by bringing up the subject. I failed when I did not include as much context to the PLAY SMART broadside as I could have. Visual AIDS is a small, hard working arts organization that is committed to using art to create awareness and opportunities around HIV and AIDS. While we should hold people and organizations within our communities responsible for their actions – and I say this to myself – it is also wise to view their choices within larger contexts and provide those bigger pictures to each other so that we can grow and evaluate and grow some more together.

What do you think of the PLAY SMART campaign?

Does it work for you?

Where do you think I missed the point? Or have I still?

To read the original unedited draft of the piece, please click here.

QUEERMONTON Opening religion- Nov 17. 2010

2010-12-27T10:06:00.000-08:00

Lampman Chapel is narrow space within the hallowed halls of Union Theological Seminary School—part of Columbia University on Manhattan's Upper West Side. All design considerations in the tight room are in honour of the altar at the front of the room. Tonight a little table is tucked in near the altar and is packed with snacks. There are 14 of us sitting in an elongated circle, some of us with our backs to the altar. One of the facilitators calls the meeting to order with the promise that tonight will be a little less business, a little more fun. Everyone agrees this is a good idea.

Like other post-secondary schools Union has student groups, which they call caucuses. Caucuses host at least one of the daily Chapel Services a year—a chance for caucuses to share their vision of Church with the rest of the student body. Queer caucus hosted last week. Part of the meeting tonight will be to talk about how it went. I am at the meeting because as part of my residency at Union's Institute for Art, Religion and Social Justice I want to get involved and get a sense of queerness at a religious—albeit notoriously progressive—institution.

The meeting being "a little more fun" allows for conversation to flow freely. At one point it meanders to Union history. In the 1960s there was a letter sent from a prominent community member asking for all gay students to be outed and expelled from the school. Tensions were high. People were scared. In response all the faculty signed an open letter stating that if the request went forward they would resign. Proverbial chests puff out around the circle as the story is told. People feel proud of their brave academic linage. Later the conversation steers to the everyday—the hassle of having to come out as a theological student. Almost everyone has a story about chatting up a potential date when the unavoidable question of "what do you do?" comes up. Some stall, others disclose quickly. All agree reactions are the same: drinks become hidden, swearing disappears, and in some cases what was a flirt turns into a request to be ministered to. As one guy shares, nothing gets an unwanted hand off your thigh faster than, "I am not sure how my seminary advisor would feel about this." Everyone laughs.

In time, business arises. Consensus is queer caucus service was a success. Stories are shared of students enjoying the inclusion of secular modern pop music (Lady Gaga) and the dance party vibe. Upsetting though was how some Union people openly refused to come to service because it was hosted by Queer Caucus. For some of the Queer Caucus members this highlights how open hostility towards LGBT people, in a way that is no longer accepted towards other communities, is still part of the Union culture and the larger religious world. Last week Rev Gene Robinson, the first openly gay Bishop in the Episcopal Church announced in the face of death threats and unrelenting pressure since he was elected he would be retiring. An underpinning of tonight's conversations seems to be queer theologians are isolated within their selected vocation, in some cases their calling, for being queer, and then marginalized within queer communities for belonging to religion. While there is a lot of work being done to better queer theology, there is a long road ahead and an even larger road from the past to contend with.

For all the ground breaking faculty, wise students and decades of progressive milestones, Union is governed by the larger oppressive, heterosexist, structures of academia, church, America and western culture that, in part, keep us all down. Thinking about this I realize that Union is a place where being LGBT is still a queer thing to be.

Up until now I have conflated religion with conservatism and oppression (for good reason). The time has come for me to unbraid this narrow view of religion. Be more open. It seems that beyond faith, Union has a lot to teach me.

QUEERMONTON The Popular thing to do Being an outsider is experienced differently by everyone Nov 3, 2010

2010-12-27T10:04:00.000-08:00

Popular theatre turns the phrase "can't see the forest for the trees" on its head by asking—if we are all trees, what kind of forest do we live in, do we want to live in, can we live in? In popular theatre different points of view are considered, collaboration through the process of creation is encouraged and dialogue in all forms is the basis for the resulting play.

In 1987 as a community engagement project in a University of Alberta theatre class, Concrete Theatre was formed, rooted in popular theatre, collaborating first with girls and women living and working on the streets. Long after the school year ended the project continued and Concrete opened up to other communities, looking at issues like dating violence, media awareness and sexuality. Finding success and fulfilment working largely with youth, by 1998 Concrete was a professional theatre for young audiences, working within a popular theatre framework. Last week launching it's 21st season Concrete is premiering Under Cover, a play exploring challenges faced by teenagers of Middle Eastern descent in Canada told primarily through the story of Ella. Under Cover is directed by a founding member of Concrete, current Artistic Director Mieko Ouchi, and written by Mark Haroun.

At first blush Haroun, a white, half Egyptian, late twenties gay guy from St Albert well known for his award winning writing on a CBC prairie drama, may seem like a strange fit to tell the story of Ella, a young Muslim woman navigating reactions from her high school peers after she decides to wear the hijab. For Ouchi, who has worked with him before, Haroun is a perfect fit, having a great ear for writing dialogue for young people she says, and because of his own experiences. "Mark took a trip to Egypt, when he came back I remember him talking about how the experience made him feel isolated in St Albert. That trip was an awaking," Ouchi recalls.

Of course as Haroun and Ouchi know, being a good writer, and experiencing "otherhood" is not enough. What is needed in Popular Theatre is an understanding that a play is a living thing, an opportunity to give life to complexity, and that creation cannot be done in isolation. As part of the writing process Haroun did research through blogs and social networking to gain insight into the lives of young Muslim women. Through Concretre, he also teamed up with Edmonton's Centre for Race and Culture (CRC), meeting many young women who engaged in dialogue with CRC and Haroun. I asked Haroun if he drew parallels between the young women he was hearing from and his experiences growing up, thinking it might be easy to draw on his own feelings of otherness in writing about someone else. "It's hard to compare or generalize ... maybe on a metaphorical level like the frustrations," he answered When I asked Ouchi a similar question she agreed with Haroun: "Even within Islam, each country, region have their own stories" pointing out that to generalize would be to misrepresent. Both resisted the temptation to universalize the play for all minorities. Instead in keeping with Popular Theatre and Concrete's ethos, both went back to the notion of complexity and a desire not to portray stereotypes on the stage. While both hope youth will find something they can relate to in Under Cover, the goal is not to put forward a parable, but rather that youth will have a greater understanding of the realities faced by Middle Eastern youths and will question whether tolerance is enough.

It is easy as a "minority" to assume an understanding of other communities' issues—to over identify and assume all our problems are the same. This is dangerous to do even within a community. Over simplification leads to problems down the road: the devil, as they say, is in the details. What the process of Under Cover highlights is that being a minority one's self is not carte blanche into the experience of others. It is through listening, supporting and getting out of the way—of the story or otherwise—that is the best we often can do for each other.

QUEERMONTON Letting sex circulate- Oct 20, 2010

2010-12-27T10:01:00.000-08:00

Sitting there at the back of the bar a few years ago watching the dancing, the music more of an echo than a pulse, the solitude of being alone with everyone was broken as he slid across the booth next to me. His thick denim-clad thigh was quickly against mine. He smelled the same brutish way he had 10 years ago. The throw of the gyrating dance floor lights cast hypnotically against his familiar face—wrinkles falling into shadows highlighting dimples. There was no need for the theatrics of catching up or being surprised. We smiled. Even after it all just faded away years ago we were still happy to see each other. They were about to leave, he said gesturing towards some hot young guy, face illuminated by his text screen, waiting by the door but he didn't want to go with out saying 'Hi,' nor without saying something he had wanted to for a while. With his hand on my leg, I reached for my drink, securing my lips against the straw as I moved in. The front of his face saddled up to the side of mine. With the brush of his stubble against the top of my jaw, his warm beer breath awash across my ear, he whispered slowly "We should have had more sex," stretching out each syllable, "I would have gone–further."

His bottom lip touched my earlobe on his last word. My breath gave out, I swallowed hard, choking on my ginger ale, letting the hard plastic cup find its own way back to the table top nearby as ice flew across our laps. I pulled back to face him. His eyes were a bit drunk but focused. He held eye contact as he slid away. With his hands beneath him he lifted himself up to go, his shoulders coming together, his button-up shirt went slack exposing the top of his chest. It looked different, less perfect, more inviting. The tattoo above his heart was obscured by hair I couldn't remember being there. Before he turned and walked away he cocked his head and dialed his smile up a few watts, his eyebrows arching to the heavens. All of it had worked. He had won. I sat there feeling wide-eyed, slightly winded, hot with desire, regret and wonder. It had not just faded away years ago as I liked to tell myself. I had killed it—tormented by what I wanted, and obsessed with not being one of "those gays" who let sex run their lives, I was too afraid of my own body and desires to let go. I watched him leave, desperately wanting sex to run my life.

I left the bar, letting the Edmonton autumn night air bite at, and then numb my ears as I walked down Jasper Avenue alone, remembering how I use to revel in watching other people walk towards parked cars, waiting cabs or the bathhouse, imagining what they would do to each other as soon they could. I would halt my growing excitement with judgment, consoling myself into thinking going home alone was the right thing to do, choosing to forget my fear of taking off my shirt or how I would let my dread and desire of what might happen stop me from indulging.

Even now, again, years later, walking home from the bar, Gaga echoing in the ether, Britney and Xtina busy with babies and Jasper Ave more alive than I ever, I pass the Macs on 113th and the glow of the telephone booth out front reminds the more things change, the more they stay the same. Sex and shame remain together. For all the leaps forward I make, or advances the gay rights movement puts forward as success, the most radical and enduring thing I can do is own my sex. Barrelling through my 30s memories of what could have been pile up in the recess of my mind: I don't want to get stuck. I want to let go, move forward, not be afraid of being "one of those gays" but rather enjoy being the queer man that I am. I think this means opening up, letting go, letting sex in and ensuring that sex circulates.

QUEERMONTON Neither suicide nor false hope- Oct 05, 2010

2010-12-27T09:59:00.000-08:00

When I lived in London, England I spent a lot of time in the tube stations getting high off the winds that would suck through as trains passed, the smell of newspapers, history and people. I would look down at the tracks from the safety of the "mind the gap" line trying to see and unsee all the rats scurrying across the lines. Not seeing rats made them more dangerous in my head while seeing them—their damp bodies, their slimy long tails—made them more real and so less scary, and helped me understand rats would not find their way into my bag without me knowing, or that if one was nibbling at my feet, even if I dozed off, I would feel them and wake up.

Often while staring down at the tracks I would think about all the stories I heard of people taking their own lives by jumping in front of the trains. I would think about the conductors who would be powerless to react in time, the high pitched sequel of the sudden stop, the ghost-faced bystanders witnessing the end of someone's life while on their way to work. I remember thinking how tumultuous it must have been for bystanders who turned away, possibly also feeling hopeless but who would not/could not kill themselves. And of course I would think about the people who jumped, wishing them love and wanting something different for them.

I started to get obsessed and would bring up the subject of train suicides with everyone, everywhere: crowded pubs, hot water flats, sitting in Soho park. I was collecting an oral history because nowhere else could I find any information. One day a lady in a lunch room got mad when I brought it up, saying the reason authorities don't publicize train jumps was because they don't want to give anyone any ideas. She called me selfish for talking about the jumping. She was not wrong. We ate our lunches in silence after that; I soon quit the job.

For much of my time in London I was broke, largely alone and physically unwell. Everything felt damp and stale. I struggled to find purpose. I never thought about killing myself but enjoyed thinking about suicide. Talking about death gave me insight into how people actually value life, being able to say suicide without it being a call for help allowed me to consider different ways to think about it, and sense how it impacted others. Later I realized I had grown as person, found out about myself along the way. In the same way seeing the rats made me less afraid, taking about suicide gave me something to live for.

Last week at least nine queer youth took their own lives and the worst we can do is act like this too shall pass. We need to own the pain that caused the deaths and talk about the sense of loss we may feel. Let the nine lives remind us the status quo fails us all—even the bullies. One of the most violent aspects of the current gay rights movement is the selling of the lie that gays can be just like everyone else, that we can be normal. How has this actually made life harder for queer kids who want something different, better, more, who have lost the freedom of outsider status as gay enters the mainstream (and with it pressure to be normal and happy)? As queers we have to make space for lives to be lived wonderfully imperfect, and ensure people can be a variety of themselves in what ever way that manifests. Fuck resiliency. I want a world which allows the weakest to thrive and the freakiest as much latitude as they need.

No one is normal. Things will not get better until things change. As queers we know this and hopefully find strength in seeing the rats, gain hope in the knowledge that since we all travel with pain we need to devise more just and sensitive tracks. We need to help queer kids prepare for being different in an often unforgiving society, meanwhile keep working to change our unforgiving society.

QUEERMONTON Cruel summer Queer activists find solace in active creation- Sept 21/20101

2010-12-27T09:57:00.000-08:00

The attack on Shannon Barry and the robust conversation-changing response by Edmonton queers last April kicked off what ended up being a long hard summer that grew to include solidarity work with Queers Against Israeli Apartheid when it was almost censored from participating in Toronto's Pride Parade, and a rally and fundraiser in support of G20 protesters. To sum up this triad of actions in one sentence does not capture the unrelenting sense of being attacked and called to action that the summer's heat brought—nor the emotional and energetic cost paid for being active by people who can often least afford it. It was a summer where capital city queers and activists put their skills to the mat for the betterment of their city and country. But at what cost? As summer fades and winter begins many queers are left wondering if they can continue to live in such a harsh climate.

While many local queers were buoyed by the activism of this summer, and have a new sense of pride in their community and new connections and friends, the others are left hurt, angry and disillusioned. It is exhausting for those always on the defence, unearthing injustice, educating others and working to call people out on it. What is it worth for these queers to always be fighting? Where is the pay off for them when at most "greater awareness" is created but nothing really changes? Often these people best able to identify inequality are most negatively impacted by it so the cost of sticking one's neck out when they are already targeted for their queerness or otherness is higher than for others. For many, the depths of disappointment are reached not when dominant forces fail to evolve but when there is insufficient support from the queer/activist community, or when the communities replicate the oppression they are supposedly fighting against.

In some ways queer activism can be understood as disrupting current and insufficient ways of doing things based on a ideals of normality (rooted often in heterosexuality) that cause violence against those that do not fit into the definition of normal. Be it questioning the police state, challenging notions of free speech, or working to defy the consolidation of power, queers work to complicate the way that power works. What would it mean then if queers were not always activating against something and rather were working for something? In reading the essay "Sex in Public" I feel as though authors Lauren Berlant and Michael Warner make such a case when they talk about queer world-making, or queer culture-building—creating a world in which heterosexism and the domination of norms are removed and replaced with "changed possibilities of identity, intelligibility, publics, culture and sex."

For a while I thought maybe queer world-making was the way forward. I could see the burn out in my friends and the way we had become more negative, suspicious and always ready for a fight. I thought if there was a way to get out of the cycle of fighting, ditching the world and starting our own was the way out.

One day as I was contemplating this around the bases to a conclusion, a guy in a pick-up truck yelled "QUEER!" out of his window at me. It was as if the universe didn't believe I was going to get the right conclusion and sent the bluntest, dumbest instrument it could to teach me that while queer world-making is not a waste of time, it is not the final answer. We cannot escape the larger systems in which we exist. The problem is that these queer worlds still exist within violent and oppressive systems.

Yet not all is lost: hearty Edmonton queers fear not, starting this summer and continuing into the depths of winter a group has sprung up to address the violence of inaccessibility within Edmonton's queer community. The group will audit venues, rating places based on their accessibility for the community to reference when hosting or attending events. This group highlights that in the end there may not be a final answer in demolishing violence, but along the way, through support, queer worlds can be made. So, yes, we live in a harsh world, but it can be made a bit softer by small interventions.

QUEERMONTON Value in unexpected places- Sept 14, 2010

2010-12-27T09:55:00.000-08:00

Last week, after HIV Edmonton's AIDS Walk for Life the Metro newspaper ran the unfortunate headline "Walking for those who cannot." The poor article that followed equated HIV with death and failed to illustrate that in the nearly 30 years society has been living with HIV much has happened, including the introduction of universal precautions, activism around global health and equality and quality-of-life improvements for people living with HIV while overall new infection rates have dropped. While there is still so much still to do, in the grand scheme of things when it comes to AIDS, we are winning.

A week earlier on gayedmonton.com's cruiseboard, a lengthy thread was started by a man living with HIV looking for love and tired of guys using his HIV status as a cop out for why they can't have sex or get into a long-term relationship with him. In the subsequent posts people debated viral load, undetectability and transmission of HIV. Running through the posts are guys' honest admissions that they are afraid of sleeping with dudes living with HIV and the frustration over the misconceptions of HIV. What is never made clear is that people living with HIV can have fulfilling sex lives with both people living with and people living without HIV.

It is often lamented that the public has grown apathetic around HIV and AIDS. But as the two incidents reveal I think we are all actually overwhelmed. We are stuck in antiquated ways of thinking and we don't know how to move forward. At the heart of the problem is the foolish higher standard of scrutiny HIV is held to over any other aspect of the human experience. Why do we expect HIV to make more sense than any other aspect of being alive? We will be better off when we accept HIV as part of our lives the way we accept airplanes, cancer, Fruit Loops, the Rolling Stones and any number of other things. There will be less stigma and discrimination related to people impacted with HIV, and we will move on to see HIV not as something to be afraid of, but rather as something that is part of us.

In this coming age gay men can be the leaders in this paradigm shift. As it has been scandalously reported out of proportion, there are gay men who want to have HIV. While one may disagree with their desire it does herald a different way of looking at HIV.

Right now almost everything one consumes around HIV is based on the premise that no one wants HIV, and that we should avoid it at all costs. What this very tiny group of men illustrates is that the belief that HIV is bad is not a universal truth. For some HIV provides a way to create bonds, family and identity. While I am not encouraging this line of thinking, I think it is terrible to ignore or dismiss it.

Other gay men living with HIV credit the incurable fatal virus with saving their lives, stating that due to the reckless ways they were living before they knew they had HIV—often as a way of dealing with heterosexism and discrimination—getting news that they were positive was a wake up call for them to value life.

HIV is in our shared system so it will continue to circulate, at least into the foreseeable future, be it in poorly written articles or in our blood. This is nothing to be afraid of—it is something to know. It is too late to think we can curb HIV from existence—that moment passed when systemic discrimination was selected over proactive and decisive leadership. What we need now is helpful, frank, compassionate, informative conversations with space for questions so we can move forward to respect and understand we live with HIV. We love, have fun, escape, feed our babies, inject, give birth, cope, fall off wagons, fall in love, trust, thrust, gamble, search, ache, hope, receive close our eyes and sometimes we emerge with nary a scratch, sometimes not. HIV does not make sense, but there is value in HIV.

VUE WEEKLY VUEPOINT Game changers - Aug. 25, 2010

2010-12-27T09:54:00.000-08:00

On July 31 at a Golden Baseball League game in Orange County the Edmonton Capitals field manager Brent Bowers released a tirade of homophobic insults at umpire Bill Van Raaphorst. In his vitriolic outburst it is clear that he and others partook in gossiping about Van Raaphorst's sexual orientation. International sports media criticized Bower's actions. The Capitals, part of the sports organizations including the Edmonton Oilers owned by the Katz Group, reacted swiftly along with the League. Bowers was fined $5000, and suspended for the remainder of the season, shortly thereafter Bowers resigned. Within days the Oilers and Capitals—under the leadership of President and CEO Patrick LaForge were consulting with gay and lesbian community members. Last week the Oilers invited Van Raaphorst to Edmonton. He spoke to the Capitals, met with members of Edmonton's sexual minority and human rights communities, and participated in a press conference.

Understanding the Bowers/Van Raaphorst incident as an issue of homophobia would be to miss bigger issues of diversity in general and the role sports play in shaping our culture.

LaForge has a history of using his influence as a civic leader and respected voice within the patriarchal world of sports and business to discuss taboo topics such as drugs in sports and domestic violence. And he again recognized the opportunity to explore and change how those issues along with homophobia flourish within sports culture.

In the wake of Van Raaphorst speaking tour here in Edmonton we have a greater opportunity to look at larger issues within sports: how does the hyper-masculine world of sports lead to drug use, violence, discrimination and abuses of power? In what ways can the Oilers use its resources to create cultural change, ushering in a more balanced view of what an athlete, a competitor can be? How can difference be better understood as a competitive edge?

The Oilers have handled the situation well and what may make future Oilers and Capitals events continue to be worth the price of admission is how the organization continues to use these opportunities as a positive game changer.

QUEERMONTON Paths to progress Debate over marriage laws misses the bigger issues- Aug 25 2010

2010-12-27T09:52:00.000-08:00

While I am partial to queer, militant anti-marriage views that question why anybody (queers specifically) would want to be part of something that replicates the problems of heterosexism—or further invite capitalism and the state into the fabric of their personal lives—I cannot get wholly behind them when faced with real people getting married. Marriage is one of those acts in which I don't expect people to make sense or live up to what I perceive to be their politics.

For me being against same sex marriage in practice limits the ways I can understand queerness, life and love to work. While I am cautious of how marriage—as queer theorist David Halperin may suggest—can get us too "knit up in a web of mutuality," not being anti-same sex marriage is my way of being open to the ways people—queers—can tinker with marriage that will eventually result in new, better and various ways marriage can be inhabited. I think about performance artist Keith Murray who married himself, or the straight hippie couple from Edmonton that in a wrist tying ceremony have committed to each other for only a finite span of time.

Do these possibly lax and romantic considerations make me a disappointing queer? I don't think so. Participating in the complexity of an issue while making space for humanness is part of cultivating a good queer. In terms of marriage I think many of us are being rail-roaded into simplicity, choosing a side and along the way missing a chance to dive into bigger issues. The tyrannical way marriage dominates the American LGBT discussion—being misrepresented as fundamental to equality—is the problem, not merely marriage. One of the only reasons I bring up marriage, living in a country where same sex union legislation was passed five years ago, is because it has become an issue from which we understand and measure other queer concerns. The energy spent on fighting for and against marriage pushes important issues to the margins. With marriage we are being manipulated by states, supposed gay rights groups and the marketplace to focus on ramifications of heterosexism and conservatism rather working towards removing "isms" at the core. Talking about marriage distracts us from challenging the limited acceptable ways of being that enact violence on how we actually live.

One need look no further than current headlines in Canada about the ship from Sri Lanka to see how larger issues are compartmentalized to pit people against each other. Rather than a national debate about what Canada is doing to ensure no one feels so unsafe they must flee their home, we instead debate the merits of turning the boat away. How is that even up for discussion?
Earlier this year Shannon Barry was assaulted while walking home. Rather than succumbing to the typical fear-motivated conversation of minority as victim, people—primarily through the Community Response Project—took the opportunity to focus on the Canadian prison industrial complex, queer's complicity if we play the Hate Crime card and the different ways we can conceive of justice. This moved the discussion from constructed, played-out scripts of bad guys, cops and victims that maintain status quo power, to real action and conciseness around broken systems, our own roles and a questioning of where we can go from here, an understanding that change can come and queers can power it.

It is the seed of action like the Community Response Project, not that binary dynamics being sown in debates like Same Sex Marriage, that queers have the opportunity to nurture. Instead of fighting against those we may oppose—like those who may choose to get married—queers have an opportunity to respect perceivable gains made within the LGBT rights movement—like marriage—by using the successes, improving/queering them and moving beyond to ensure real equality for all. Let's leave behind the pettiness of one way or another and move forward with queer complexity guiding many ways forward.

QUEERMONTON Long live the Queenie Fringe play queers up the Royal Family to explore identity - AUG 4 / 2010

2010-12-27T09:47:00.000-08:00

Writer, performer and educator Valerie Mason John, better known as Queenie, was given her nickname a while ago by a group of gay male friends from San Francisco who said that she was the biggest queen they had ever known. Years later, while maybe not as wild as she once was (who is?) but just as fabulous, the name Queenie has stuck.

This year, as part of the 29th annual Edmonton International Fringe Festival, Queenie will be bringing her camp sensibilities to tackle another royal highness, the Queen of England. In the North American premiere of her one-woman show, Brown Girl in the Ring—Queenie will be playing a black woman who has the duration of the play to convince the audience that she is the Queen of England.

Helping Queenie's character out on stage is a small cast of identities, including a young , innocent and black Michael Jackson performing lines such as "You'll be all white in the morning." While the play has a humorous premise, queers will pick up on the interesting ideas around history, family, citizenship, belonging, people and populations being disappeared and the ways institutions such as the Royal Family replicate and inflict societal violence that come up in the play, making Brown Girl in the Ring a funny and thought-provoking experience.

Queenie wrote the first incarnation of Brown Girl in the Ring more than 10 years ago in the UK where she lived. The play was part of a theatre experience in which playwrights created work around their own cultural references. At the time she was thinking about how growing up the Royal Family (all white) dominated the cultural space, and how being the only black person in her adoptive white family was impacting her. Questions came up: how does the dominant, omnipresent image of the Queen in schools and on our money inform those who cannot see themselves in her majesty's portrait? How is the Royal Family the ultimate symbol of heterosexism? Not only do they reproduce, they reproduce living gods. And, what can be gained by queering who gets to be the Queen? How do our own complicated identities get bleached out in the face of dominance as the Royal Family?

Through doing the work to write the play she started to understand herself better. "I am not black, I am coloured, we are all coloured," says Queenie, sharing something she realized at the time. She also started to see how people of colour are disappeared from history including African descendant Princess Sophie Charlotte who upon marrying King George III of England became the Black Queen of England. She has been nearly written out of history. Queen Sophie's story helped inspire Queenie to imagine and play on the theme, "What if a black woman really was the next Queen of England?" The play, braiding together humour, facts and contemplation, premiered in London to one critic writing that Brown Girl in the Ring is, "A royal meditation of bigotry from a royal highness with a difference."

A decade later, now located in Edmonton, Queenie decided to revisit the play and rework it for Canadian audiences. Along the way, Queenie has provided herself a chance to learn more about Canada including the pride of Tim Horton's and the shame of how aboriginals are treated. She sees how Canada is no different than the UK in the ways we wish—as a society—to not discuss some things. "Sweep it under the rug" is a reoccurring line in Brown Girl in the Ring referring to the ways in which difference—all kinds of difference: race, sexuality, religion, class and others—are not properly discussed in polite society. Through her art Queenie carves out a space for people to have these discussions.

While it is ultimately up to you whether you believe that Queenie's character is the Queen of England the journey that leads you there may tell you a lot about yourself and the society you live in. The Queen is Dead, Long Live Queenie.

QUEERMONTON All together now Marginalized groups need to connect to fight for health- July 21, 2010

2010-12-27T09:44:00.000-08:00

Early in 2009 six queer Canadians filed a complaint with the Canadian Human Rights Commission stating that the Canadian healthcare system is homophobic. In their filing document they provided a list of health issues affecting queer Canadians, including lower life expectancy than the average Canadian, higher rates of substance abuse, depression, and inadequate access to care and HIV/AIDS. While G20 countries work to make good on their pledge to cut deficits in half in the next three years, a broad coalition needs to act and raise awareness on how the G20 negatively impacts health.

Looking at current statistics, budget cuts will only worsen a bad situation. According to Health Canada "although they represent only 3.3 percent of the Canadian population, aboriginal persons comprised five to eight percent of existing [HIV] infections and six to 12 percent of new HIV infections." In 2008 gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men made up 45 percent of new HIV infections in Alberta, an increase from the previous year. "Prior to 1996," reports AVERT, "females comprised 14 percent of HIV diagnoses in the age group 15 – 29, whereas in 2007 this proportion was 36 percent." It could be estimated that racailized people are also over represented in HIV cases, but not confirmed as many test sites do not collect information on ethnicity—in many ways a practise that silences or disappears a group of people.

Looking at this collection of statistics and considering the work of early AIDS activists you can understand the devastation they would feel of having worked to ensure those who came after would live longer and with less stigma only to have them harassed by police, suffering greater health risks and caught in judicial purgatory for exercising their democratic freedoms. What is the point of fighting for life when the quality of those lives is comprised?

It is not just through HIV rates that we know minorities are under attack in Canada. If we take a social determinants of health approach to looking at the quality of life for Canadians—the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age—then we see that the Government of Canada is putting our health at risk. The cuts to the Status of Women department, Jason Kenney's editing out of same-sex marriage in immigration documents, the ongoing treatment of aboriginals in Canada, the delisting of gender reassignment surgery and the handling of the G20 arrests and profiling of queer activists all point to the fact that our well being is being ignored.

As queers in some cases we are under attack on multiple sides. Not just for our sexuality or our politics, but also for our economic beliefs, our gender, our skin colour, our background, our definition of family and so on. With this in mind, maybe it's time to pool resources and create our own reality to ensure that all peoples are being taken care of.

In his book Pleasure Consuming Medicine Kane Race advances the idea of "counterpublic health"—a take off from Michael Warner's work on publics/counter publics. In an interview with activist Trevor Hoppe he discusses how creating counterpublic healthcare highlights the limitations of 'public' health care when dictated by a mainstream moral ideology as we have in Canada and points to the benefits of collective organizing, “So much health work and health education today advocates individual solutions to public health problems. But if we think about the early response to HIV/AIDS, it is quite clear that much of its success depended upon creating a shared horizon of concern about the threat, as well as specific contexts of collective self-activity.”

In truth we have to do both. We have to hold governments accountable—as not play into the neo-liberal dream that all individuals will just take care of themselves leaving governments to spend all our taxes on "security"—and we have to work together to ensure we all have the possibility for healthy vital lives.

QUEERMONTON All ages - June 30, 2010

2010-12-27T09:42:00.000-08:00

In 1979 Boots n' Saddles opened and became one of Canada's longest running gay bars. Boots, as it came to be known, became the home for Edmonton's Bears, a community typified by big-bodied furry men, as well as older gentlemen and their admirers.

On March 13 of this year Boots majority owner Jim Schafer passed away. A large, loud and sometimes cantankerous figure, Jim also had a sweetness about him that shone through when he wanted it to. Since his death, rumors have been circulating about who received Jim's stake in the businesses (Boots as well as the neighboring Garage Burger). Is it Jim's long time business partner? His recent boyfriend? Did Jim have a will? For many, at the end of the day it does not matter. The doors are closed, "for lease" signs hang in the window and good old gays looking to grab a beer, or a conversation are left to find another place. Some have done the once unthinkable and started going to Woody's, the gay pub above Buddy's on Jasper and 117th. It's not that there is anything wrong with Woody's, more that a turf war is alive in Edmonton's gay watering hole communities. To cross the threshold of a competitor's doorway is a transgression that speaks more of the need for companionship than it does of realigned loyalty.

Others not able or willing to make the eastern trek have relocated a few blocks from Boots to Prism on 101 Street and 105 Avenue, coincidentally a stone's throw from Mila's Pub, what may have almost been Edmonton's first gay space. Known primarily as a lesbian bar, Prism has the same sort of earthy, regulars-based vibe that Boots had.

The seemingly inconsequential dilemma of where to drink may register as small, but for men who found friendship, community and validation at Boots it can be a serious issue. Many of these men grew up pre-Stonewall where the idea of gay acceptance was never something they considered, let alone have fully embraced. Some have families, ex-wives and children that may not talk to them, others may have lost life partners and/or groups of friends to AIDS, and others could see their friends now dealing with other health issues and no longer be around. All of this can be isolating—complicated by society's heterosexism and ageism, which is often intensified within the gay community. While I am not one to be a bleeding heart for able-bodied white gay men in light of the poor quality of life facing many queers of color, those living with disabilities and trans folks, the fact is old age is the great bitch-slap of injustice, especially if you do not have money or status. Having a place to go and belong can mean the difference between life and death.

In 2008 the Government of Canada released a health survey in which they found "People who are socially isolated and have few ties to other individuals are more likely to suffer form poor physical and mental health and to die prematurely." For a regular at a bar the people that sit in the stool beside you become your family, bartenders become trusted confidants and anyone new who walks in becomes a possible future friend—all of it working together to stave off social isolation, providing something to look forward to, a reason get up and take care of one's self. When a bar closes this can all disappear.

In general Edmonton has become more hospitable for gays and lesbians since Boots opened up more than 30 years ago. But just because the times have changed, it does not mean that the lived reality for many individuals has. If we as a city are to continue to evolve there needs to be meaningful ways for LGBTQ seniors to participate, engage and feel apart of communities. This means groups need to become more open for people of all ages to participate, communities need to work to eradicate ageism, venue owners and event planners have to consider both physical and cultural accessibility and more intentional, safe and welcoming places need to open up. If we are lucky we will all grow old; let's think about the kind of world we will want.

QUEERMONTON Whose Pride? Identity struggles emerge as corporate sponsorship gains ground - June 2, 2010

2010-12-27T09:40:00.000-08:00

On March 10 of this year Pride Toronto (PT) released a notice regarding the Pride Parade stating "Participating groups must agree ... to have their messages and signage approved by the ethics committee of Pride Toronto in advance of the event." Due to public outcry, PT reversed its decision saying that it would no longer be vetting content before the parade. Sadly the victory was short lived.
From the beginning it was clear to members of Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QuAIA) that PT's attempt to control messaging was related to them. Last year, after marching in 2008, it was suggested that QuAIA be banned from the parade. Funders, supporters and PT got nervous. In a letter reviewing a conversation that the City of Toronto had with PT, Executive Director of Culture for the City of Toronto stated, "A review will be made as to whether they can ban a group on the basis of being called 'Queers Against Israeli Apartheid.'"

Formed in 2008 during Toronto's Israeli Apartheid Week, QuAIA has worked to draw attention to the Palestinian cause, calling out those who may defend Israel's actions due to their (limited) support of gay rights and illustrates the ways in which race, statehood and sexuality are interrelated. This rubbed many people the wrong way including Toronto mayoral candidate Giorgio Mammoliti who helped reignite the issue by putting forward a motion for the City to de-fund Pride—a move that made PT scared again, considering that if the motion passes on June 14 it would mean a loss of over $200 000 in cash and in-kind city services to PT.

In light of the threat to funding, the PT board in a four-to-three decision banned the use of the phrase "Israeli Apartheid" from the parade, thus for all intents and purposes banning QuAIA from participating. With this move it seems PT has put the future of Pride in greater peril than just the possible loss of income. In an open letter to PT, founders of Pride have called on PT to rescind the ban, stating, "This sets a very dangerous precedent for the exclusion of certain political perspectives within our movements and communities from Pride events."

A generous reading of PT's decision and even Edmonton Pride Week Society's decision last year to give parade title sponsorship to TD Trust (something the group has not repeated this year) suggests that groups are accepting money with strings attached, implicit or otherwise, to ensure that they will be able to provide ever-lasting positive experiences for those that they think they are serving.

Most LGBT endeavors, like Pride, start with the mission to improve lives. Quickly the pressure to grow and succeed becomes distractionary. Suddenly mandates can be corrupted by outcomes and supposed community expectations, resulting in knee jerk reactions to continue and get bigger. Unquestioned growth in the modern queer context creates over-simplified fabled ideals around a monolithic LGBT community and while there is a possibility of a greater majority being served due to growth, how are some being excluded? Who needs Pride more? Straight people? Enshrined prosperous gays? Or marginalized queers navigating an often subtly yet undeniably violently oppressive world?

In reality, immigration, discrimination and patriarchy are all real battles being waged by queers everyday in Canada. Is Pride with its roots in activism, acting around current issues or is it just leveraging its past success to act now as a vehicle of the marketplace? What LGBT organizations, including Pride, should be considering is: who benefits from growth and how can growth corrupt once noble intentions?

Locally as Edmonton Pride continues to grow there is an evolving feeling that it is becoming less accessible for some, both physically and culturally. In the end, support, sponsorship, nor the threat of losing either, should overly impact LGBTQ endeavors. Sure money matters, growth has it benefits, but in the end neither should not be the factor that reigns on our parade.

QUEERMONTON We’re all in this together- May 19, 2010

2010-12-27T09:37:00.000-08:00

For his talk delivered last week in Edmonton entitled "Whose Streets?" writer, activist and executive director of Queers for Economic Justice (New York), Kenyon Farrow weaved together urban renewal, race, class, gender, sexual orientation, global markets, hate crime legislation, labour, media, HIV/AIDS and a warning to be leery of World Fairs (Expos) into a relatable way of understanding the world and along with it illustrated questions on how the status quo allows for the violences of injustice to continue. And it made sense.

Farrow points to the way we understand urban development and a failure to see impacts of race and sexual orientation on where we live. He provided the example of realtors driving through a largely lower income and racialized neighborhood. If they see even one white person they will be inclined to think that that area is the new, up-and-coming neighbourhood. The wheels of gentrification begin as the realtor helps first hipsters, gays and artists to move in and soon actively recruits more affluent demographics to buy property. This out prices people who may have lived there for generations and have a whole network of survival set up that is slowly and systematically dismantled in the name of development. Farrow is not suggesting white people are bad, rather he points out the ways in which our bodies and realities are interconnected and responsible for each other in ways we fail to fully realize.

As we organize and assist each other in the face of these interconnections, what does it mean to be an ally? If our issues are interdependent then the notion that you elect to be involved becomes impossible to be true.

I recall at a meeting having a conversation with a gay man who said he would never get too deep into trans issues because it does not personally affect him. At first blush this might sound like a noble thing to say, almost anti-colonial, but once it sits for a while, you begin to see how, as a gay man, trans has a lot to do with him. By being a gay man he, like a trans person, is likely to evoke gender controversy in the world around him. While he may be masculine and wear gender conforming clothes, by virtue of wanting to get with another man he is challenging gender. Gender then is not only the concern for trans people in Alberta or poor women in Africa, it is something we all live with and should not attempt to make it a private issue for those who have to deal with it in an often hurtful way everyday. We all have an interest in investigating and challenging dominant ideas of gender for the further liberation of all.

For the Farrow talk I wanted to make the event accessible to all. With a slowly evolving understanding of issues around ablism and disability, thanks to some patient people, I thought maybe I could get it right and as one of the organizers select an accessible location to ensure people often systemically excluded could be part of the event. But I didn't get it right. I found a space that had the ideas of accessibility but not the lived reality—a difference between someone being able to seamlessly and fully participate and someone having to be conscious of their movements, needs and the comfort of others. I settled on a place only fulfilling bare requirements because I did not embody the idea of ablism and disability. I saw myself as an ally rather than a person impacted.

Adding to the problem is the current neo-liberal equation where regimes remove responsibility from the state and push ideas of individual responsibility and capitalism as the answer onto citizens, subsequently issues become ghettoized. Lap dogs and victims of neo-liberalism hear the call and work to create institutes and organizations that serve niche groups ensuring a privileged, private few move ahead, leaving those who can't or won't garner institutional support to fight for scraps provided by the state.

If Farrow's talk and my own mistakes taught me anything last weekend it was that the answer to the question "Whose Streets?" is obvious: our streets. The damage of privatization, of focusing only on one group and seeing "accommodation" as a checklist is it leads us to believe that other people's troubles are not our own, that through resiliency, everyone should be able to overcome. It removes from the equation the very real systemic barriers that exist institutionally, interpersonally and beyond. There are no allies when you are all in it together.

VUE WEEKLY Rethinking justice Communities stand up to examine underlying causes of violence- May 2010

2010-12-27T09:33:00.000-08:00

Last February in a public panel discussion Professor Cressida Hayes reminded the audience of the 2004 incident in which then-premier Ralph Klein was asked to comment on funding for AISH (Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped) and responded by saying, "I'm sure none of you want to talk to me about AISH, do you? No, because you're normal. Severely normal." In recounting the incident Hayes reminded the audience how normal-centric services and mentalities are in Alberta. Recent acts of violence serve to remind us how ill-equipped institutions such as the Edmonton Police Service are in dealing with issues beyond the normal.

Two months ago an 18-year-old aboriginal man was abducted on Jasper Avenue by a group of men. He was taken beyond city limits, beaten, burned, had racist symbols carved into the flesh of his back and then abandoned, left to make his way to a farmhouse to get help. The people at the farm took care of him as they waited for the police to arrive. His mother says that dealing with the police left her son re-traumatized. A family friend says that the police have treated him "as if he was the criminal" because they suspect the violence was related to gang retaliation. The young man and his mother are now currently working with the Wicihitowin Justice System Action Circle, which is part of the larger Wicihitowin: Shared Responsibility & Stewardship organization, designed to create a dialogue with the EPS to change how police handle first contact with aboriginals.

In Alberta over the last five years, 23 Somali men have been brutally murdered. The last case was in late November 2010 when 23-year-old Robleh Ali Mohamed was shot in the head in broad daylight. When asked by the CBC about steps the EPS is taking to solve the crime, Constable Ken Smith, a community liaison officer with Edmonton Police said, "The police aren't there when it happens. We need people to come forward to us and tell us what happened." The Alberta Somali community is not satisfied with how the EPS is handling the case. There is a petition circulating asking for the Alberta government to form a task force to find ways to solve the murders. So far it has over 2000 signatures.

Last month Shannon Barry, a lesbian, was violently attacked while walking home from Whyte Ave with some of her friends. Barry was beaten so badly she needed reconstructive surgery. A 14-year-old boy has been charged in the assault. Within 12 hours of a photo of her bruised and dazed appearing on Facebook her friends formed the Community Response Project with over 800 members to react to the brutal crime and incompetence of the Edmonton Police Service. The attending officer the night of the attack failed to file a report until five days later, after CBC Edmonton's Charles Rusnell broke the story.

Barry has said that since news of the assault broke she has received messages from over 150 people from all walks of life sharing their own stories of being attacked and systems in place offering little or no satisfactory service.

At the end of the first Community Response Project meeting, held in the cramped, partially flooded Pride Centre basement—which had been broken into a few days earlier—Barry donated a modest sum to the Centre, which had been donated to her by a group in Jasper who heard of her attack. Barry said that she could not, as an individual, accept the donation considering the state the Centre was in. Barry's generosity is noteworthy considering that she will be out of work for a while due to the attack, and that, historically, women earn less than men, and lesbians earn less than their heterosexual counterparts.

While each of the violent attacks—be them physical, verbal or systemic—warrant their own specific understanding in terms of the personal, societal and systemic issues at play it is important to pull back and see the incidents of violence in context of each other. When you do so it is clear that difference is still under attack in Alberta.

Despite initiatives such as the EPS Chief's Community Advisory Council—meant to "foster a climate of safety, security and mutual respect" in diverse communities—in all the above cases there is a dissatisfaction with the systems in place to deal with the violence. Instead, it is community members and grassroots organizations that are coming forward to provide support, work to achieve satisfying versions of justice and address larger issues that result in violence. While the work and effort of community members like Shannon and organizations like the Wicihitowin group, the Somalis who have started the petition and the Community Response Project should be applauded, it's fair to ask what the implications of private citizens and small organizations using their limited resources to meet the needs that the organizations are funded to provide are. In what ways are communities subsidizing the bad work of government funded institutions like the EPS which put forward a proposed budget of $238.6 million for 2010 (an 11 percent increase from the previous year)? In what ways could those funds be reallocated for more truly community-based, approaches to justice? How would establishing such approaches help alleviate some of the work of the EPS, thus enabling it to do a better job of serving the public without increasing its budget and turning Edmonton into a more-dysfunctional police state?

Overwhelmingly there seems to be a desire to rethink justice, be it the violent attackers who are arguably avenging their own sense of order, or the victims of such attacks who want more than just jail time for those that hurt them. In Edmonton, as across Alberta, the fallacy of normal continues to be obliterated as we grow more diverse. As this continues, more work needs to be done to understand how race, class, orientation, gender and other factors intersect not only to prevent further acts of violence but also to learn how to properly deal with incidents when they occur. In 21st-century Alberta, nothing should be considered normal.

QUEERMONTON Let the rain fall- April 28, 2010

2010-12-27T09:32:00.001-08:00

In Edmonton it is impossible not to think about dust. It is so dry here. Visions of dust bowls, real or imagined, factor into our being a northern prairie outpost near the top of the melting world, not even benefiting from trickling down moisture, the sun absorbing it before it reaches us. Even the snow we do endure does not absorb into our soil. Once the snow disappears dust blankets the city leaving a thin brown layer over our stretched-out, already brown town. Dust forms like sand rivers between our sidewalks and the streets making it harder to bike. Dust gets into our teeth as the wind slaps across our mouths. Dust buries itself into our scalps, lover's fingers unearthing it as we lay in bed—if we should be so lucky.

By early last week we had all seen the worn down, beaten woman's face and heard the story of what had happened to Shannon Barry—how her and her friends had been walking home and had been attacked by a group of men, how being a woman had saved her to a degree. Her friend yelling to the attackers that Barry—already on the ground inhaling dust, as her body was being kicked—was a woman. The attackers stopped, fled. As the joke has been inappropriately made: who said chivalry is dead in tumbleweed Alberta?

As news of what happened to Shannon circulated, so did anger at how the Edmonton Police Service mishandled the attack. Not arriving until 30 minutes after the ambulance, the responding officer did not interview witnesses, nor file a report until four or five days later and thus did not put into play resources that the EPS has. On Thursday Police Chief Mike Boyd refuted a report that an internal investigation was underway to understand why procedure had not been followed, instead he categorized it as a review, a downgrade that mocked the fact that it was National Victim Awareness Week, with a theme of "Every Victim Matters."

As if all of that was not enough, earlier in the week Edmonton's Pride Centre was broken into, a window smashed and among other things the computer containing payroll information was stolen, a poetic injustice considering the Centre is in financial need, barely able some months to make payroll.

By the end of the week an updated face of Shannon Barry emerged post reconstructive surgery. Her face looked tender, more painful. A photo by Larry Wong in The Edmonton Journal attempted to pick up the angry colors of her bruises and the brutality of the attack by juxtaposing Barry in between blooming flowers—a kind gesture, a nod to a fertile future.

On Thursday two women, friends of Shannon started the Community Response Project, a Facebook group "dedicated to crafting a queer, systemic response to the recent assault against Shannon Barry (and others)."

It rained on Friday night, cloud coverage providing shelter for expression, hungry vegetation soaking up the moisture. As the city streets grew slick with rain the Community Response Project gained steam with over 400, 500, 600 members and counting. The Facebook wall filled up with messages of support, suggested next steps, plans to meet up, links about hate crime framework and stories of violent attacks including the brutal story of a young aboriginal man who was abducted, beaten, scarred, burned and abandoned.

On Saturday afternoon the EPS released information that a 14-year-old boy had been charged in Shannon's attack. The news made nothing better. No longer was it just about the awful one-way brutality absorbed by Barry but rather now it was the network of violence that hangs over all of us. The air felt dry again.

"Let the dust settle" is a phrase meant to suggest one should wait before taking action. This is impossible when the dust is unrelenting. Edmonton is a young city- still shifting in its own footprint, kicking up earth as it decides who it wants to be. In response us queers have a chance to mould this place, secure a better foundation for everyone. With a radical questioning queer approach we can work this land and make it hospitable for all. What can we grow here? Where do we want to go from here?

QUEERMONTON Protesting Pride engages diversity- April 07, 2010

2010-12-27T09:30:00.001-08:00

There was a time when Edmonton's Pride Festivities were not sanctioned by City Hall. For many this reduced the legitimacy of the events, the ease with which Pride could attract a strong audience, sponsorship, pool of volunteers and diminished its ability to secure a sustainable future. This of course did not stop members of Edmonton's LGBT communities from putting on and attending Pride all the while also lobbying Edmonton City Hall to reconsider. Under threat of a human rights complaint, former Mayor Bill Smith begrudgingly granted Edmonton's Pride celebration a proclamation in 2003. The year after, then-new mayor Stephen Mandel fully supported Pride by providing the proclamation as well as partaking in the parade. Since 2004, under the hard work of committed volunteers and one paid staff, Pride has grown into a more legitimized event attracting thousands in audience numbers and sponsorship dollars.

As part of 2009's Edmonton Pride there were three separate acts of peaceful protest at the parade, and following, facilitated by queer groups. The first, the Queer Liberation Army marched in the parade with placards that read "My Pride is Not for Sale" in protest to the parade's naming rights being given over to TD Canada Trust and the overt commercialization of the event. The second action, also part of the parade, was walking entry partners Exposure: Edmonton's Queer Arts and Culture Festival (of which I am a member) and Mile Zero Dance's various improvised movements such as die-ins in protest, and in front of, the manned military tank entered into the parade by Edmonton Police Service. The groups questioned the involvement of such an aggressive weapon as part of an LGBT event. The last act of civil disobedience was the placard and megaphone interruption of Progressive Conservative MLA Heather Klimchuk's speech by the Queer Allied Network during the celebrations after the Parade due to the PC party's delisting of sexual reassignment surgery and passing of Bill 44, which at once finally and tardily enshrined sexual minorities into Alberta's human rights legislation while limiting the ways in which Alberta teachers can teach important topics such as sexuality.

Last month Pride Toronto, in preparation for 2010 Pride, as well as thinking about World Pride 2014, which Toronto will be hosting, announced that all signs in the Pride parade must be vetted by a Pride Toronto ethics committee to, "ensure that messages support the theme of the 2010 festival." In reaction to the attempt to curb freedom of speech, "Social media exploded" writes XTRA.ca's Marcus McCann who summarized what happened in a great article entitled "How a Queer Protest Pushed Pride Toronto to Withdraw its Censorship Policy." Facebook groups were started, letter writing began and Twitter was used all resulting in Pride Toronto rescinding the idea.

Above the tact or content of the protests in Edmonton and Toronto, the fact they exist is a sign of progress and a direct link to Pride's riot roots. In the past the act of producing Pride in Edmonton was a form of activism as a result to the hostility from the City of Edmonton. Once the City provided it with its seal of approval activist energy, as experienced in 2009, could shift from a united front to have Pride happen to spread to multiple focuses that serve to question Pride as well as see Pride as a site for bigger conversations that affect queer people.

Moving forward protests of Pride are important because they provide an example of the ways in which we, who it can be argued have shared and/or overlapping identities (LGBT and Queer people), can oppose each other, have conversations with each other and articulate our important differences.

For me this is an important realization. More and more I find myself disengaged by the current gay and lesbian groups and movement that in some ways are typified by the existing incarnation of Pride. I feel that much of the work being done in terms of gay rights is coming at the expense of segments of society and limit true gains for everyone. I feel that by virtue of being same sex attracted I am lumped into these conversations and provided a point of view I don't agree with in the same way people walk away from Pride thinking that being gay is just about hot boys in booty shorts and biker ladies with no bras.

In thinking about a queer future I think Pride is a perfect shared site to dismantle ideas of a homogenous homosexual community. For me it is also a good time to engage in dialogue on the ways queer identities are disappeared, misused, and assumed within the larger LGBT context, how our queer consent has been assumed or misappropriated to push ideals we may not believe in.

The act of questioning and pushing forward is at the heart of Pride. Lest we forget Stonewall '69: Pride was born a protest.

QUEERMONTON Why limit the win? Health equality for gay men should be health equality for all - May 17, 2010

2010-12-27T09:27:00.000-08:00

"Where is the anger?" was a recurring question a few weeks ago at the Deliberative Dialogue on Gay Men’s Health – a conversation in Montréal that brought together some men working on health and gay issues from across the country in one room. A few of those assembled wanted to know where the fire that once fueled the gay rights movement had gone. Throughout the day my often already rosy face moved to violent shades of red. When I spoke it felt as though a caged bird was let out, too dizzy with space to do much more than flap its wings. These were the ways I answered the question—the anger is here.

At one point the anger was raised right after someone rightfully bemoaned the fact that same sex marriage had assuaged a large portion of the gay community who now felt there was nothing more to fight for. The search for the anger was thick with the implied idea that some gays are now so enshrined in the system that they don't even know the ways they are still repressed and disadvantaged. On this we all agreed.
At this point, sensing an opening, I spoke up and shared that, as far as I could tell, the anger regarding health and other inequalities existed in the belly of emerging queers and other diverse communities. From across the room someone agreed. Where he is from, he said, the anger is being directed towards gentrification and other issues that affect queers and marginalized communities in insidious ways, including and beyond homophobia and heterosexism. Our bridged comments held the air for a few seconds and then collapsed, whisked away by the flow of conversation—going the opposite direction.

The thrust of people's comments kept relating back to the ways in which gay men were disadvantaged within the Canadian health and education systems—true, but not just true for gay men. The remedies being volleyed about to increase healthy outcomes seemed, to privileged gay men, to be addressing only the ways in which gay men were being disadvantaged. Focusing only on gay issues with an inability to see how struggles are interconnected, nor able to recognize the strides forward that have been made in the last 30 years, along with their collateral implications and complexities, seemed archaic to me, and ironic since so many of the men in the room were responsible for the leaps forward that gays have made. It was like talking to soldiers who could not see the victories for their own wounds (later this in itself seemed like an issue worth talking about).

Earlier in the day, when we were all still defining ourselves within the group dynamics, I said the only way I can conceive of focusing on gay men's health was if I understood the work was being done in concert with other groups working to establish health equity. The comment was informed by the idea that if you solve a simple problem you only positively affect those directly involved; if you solve a more complex problem you help those directly involved and those affected by related issues that are less complex. Why limit the win? If we are working towards health equality for gay men and we understand we must improve the overall quality of life for gay men to improve health, why just open the door enough for ourselves? Why not work with others to take apart the doorframe, ensuring everyone can get in? This may sound overly simplistic but so too is focusing on just one community or hoping that anger will push us forward.

In a speech entitled "At the Same Time," collected in a book by the same name, writer Susan Sontag shares her thoughts on what it takes to be a great writer. Happening to read the speech upon returning from Montreal I can’t help but apply her wisdom for authors to some gay men's health advocates who may be singly focused: "A great writer of fiction both creates—through acts of imagination, through language that feels inevitable, through vivid forms—a new world, a world that is unique, individual: and responds to a world, the world a writer shares with other people ..." With the gains gay men have made in the last 30 years it is not enough to continue forward in just our own name. We need to work at creating a world for gay men to flourish, where others can thrive, and at the same time, be responsive to a world that both wants, and does not want, true progress. Gay men will succeed. We are strong. But if gay men do not work with other communities for health equality the question will not be about where is the anger, but rather, why are they angry with us?

QUEERMONTON Resisting the brand Equality for all is the freedom to choose- Feb 24, 2010

2010-12-27T09:25:00.000-08:00

Last week a friend told me the story of a Surrey-based businessman named T.J. Johal, who donated outfits to the Indian Olympic team when he heard they would not be wearing official uniforms for the Games’ opening ceremonies. He was crestfallen when he saw the team wearing regular street clothes and tracksuits, rather than the clothes he had given them. Commenting on how the team looked as they marched into BC Place Johal said, "I don’t think it was up to par." Talking to the CBC, R.K. Gupta, the Indian team’s Chef De Mission said the team did not wear the donated outfits because the team is not a charity. For me this story is a tale of a person with means who tried to input his ideas on how things should be upon a group of people he thought he could speak for, for whom he thought he was doing right by.

Hearing this story I thought of how Mr. Johal can be seen as a metaphor for LGBT advocates and organizations who like him use resources they have access to, that others don't, to work, and push others towards embracing sameness and maintaining the status quo in the name of equality (or being "up to par").

Pushing against the notion of equality as a brand rather than for it, activists and writers Yasmin Nair and Ryan Conrad have collaborated with others to begin Against Equality (AE), an online archival, publishing and arts collective focused on critiquing mainstream gay and lesbian politics. The cornerstone of their work is their website (www.againstequality.org) which is, as Nair puts it, "An archive for radical potential."

The impetus of the group, which also informed the name, is born out of Nair and Conrad's desire to point out the empty rhetoric and potential injustice stemming from groups like Human Rights Committee's (HRC) use of "equality." "On the face of it who could be against equality? Equality seems so self-evident as a 'movement' and it does appear that what the gay movement is asking for is simply inclusion and equal rights. However, equality in this framework is a way to increase the inequality in society."

An example of how equality can work as inequality, says Nair, is the LGBT pro-same-sex marriage argument that suggests marriage is a way for many LGBT people to get health care coverage in the U.S., where it is not universal. Critics of this argument like AE as well as groups like the U.S.-based Sylvia Rivera Law Project reject this line of thinking, and instead ask why the act of marriage should privilege someone to get what should be available to all.

"I think it is really important to break the spectacle of silent consent around all this equality garbage. There is literally no time or space to have conversations about whether blindly marching in the direction of some vague notion of equality is actually progress. Is inclusion in the military or the institution of marriage progress? Or should we be imagining a queer world that dismantles militarism and honors all people's rights to freedom of movement, access health care, defining their own family, et cetera" explains Conrad.

While focusing on challenging LGBT mainstream beliefs on current hot button issues in the U.S. like same sex marriage and the possible repeal of "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" within the U.S. military, AE also focuses attention on the total injustice of prison systems. The AE website provides links to organizations like the Canadian-based Prisoner Correspondence Project, which coordinates a direct-correspondence program for gay, lesbian, transsexual, transgender, gender variant, two-spirit, intersex, bisexual and queer inmates.

Against Equality have launched a postcard project, have a Facebook group and are working on creating a book. By providing information in various forms Nair and Conrad hope to put the onus on the queer community to engage in conversation and action around, as Conrad hopes, "Imagining and even attempting to realize more fantastic queer futures."

As AE reminds us, we have a choice to blindly accept the notion of equality as it is sold to us and for us in our name, or like the Indian Olympic team declined the outfits, we can meet in the world in our street clothes and work towards real progress.

PRARIE ARTSTERS.com Re-Drawing the Line, Art Gallery of Alberta, January 19 - February 17, 2008

2010-12-27T09:24:00.000-08:00

, by Guest Artster Ted Kerr
Joan Greer and Helen Gerritzen from the University of Alberta’s Department of Art & Design have for the third year in a row curated an exhibit consisting of work from Artists residing in the U of A’s Graduate Studios. The exhibit as a whole aims to highlight “the innovation and diversity of contemporary drawing and related design practices.”

Running the gamut of mediums from Caitlin Wells’s video installation, "Time Line" to Eric Steenbergen’s etching, "2’ Mantras," all seemingly respond to the question, "What does 'line' mean to you?"

Scott Cumberland’s "Carnival," a collection of colorful, rounded blob forms seem to dare the viewer to remember that lines do not have to be straight. A similar theme is explored in Elaine Wannechko’s movement filled photograph “Drips in a Cracked Wall." Both explore line as it relates to chaos and control.

Maria Z Madacky’s meticulously created "Listen" offers through her craftsmanship of taught parallels the idea that line is essentially about creating order. Leslie Robinson’s "Instructions for tying ties" which includes instructions sheets complete with color coded diagrams, a mirror and a selection of black ties allows, one to come to the same conclusion, but this time it is up to you to do the work.

As a product of drawing attention to the various forms that line can take, Greer and Gerritzen invite the viewer to see how “line” exists all around us, first in the gallery itself and then beyond in the world at large. Suddenly the river of cracks in the old Bay building floor seem ripe for contemplation as do the white weedy cords that take up the space between the electrical outlet and bottom of Andrea Pinheiro’s light box installation, "Not so much the things."

And Pinheiro is right. As successful as the collected work is in examining line, it is not so much the things on display that are exciting as are the processes that led to their creation.

Pinheiro’s work is as much about the exquisite moments she captured on film as it is about the “marks created during the development”. The small yet transportive moments embedded in the 6x6x4 LED boxes; crossing the Atlantic, finding a clearing in the woods, are for me emblematic of those that almost pass you by before you pause, realize the beauty and vow to never forget them. By layering these experiences with the moment of development the viewer is brought in to witness not only the physical lines of the work but also to relate line in reference to time and thought.

The colorful and evocative, “Still Life” a mixed media piece by Gillian Willans was for me the most refreshing moment of the exhibit. Planted deeply in un-precious narrative, the 24” by 32 1/4'’ image unleashes the viewer away from the considerations of line and places them in a fluid world that could be as easily inhabited by a sleeping grunge princess as with a dead witch.

Re-drawing the line takes viewers to a point. It is a formal show in an established gallery with well thought–out work by talented artists, curated by intelligent people and as the case with lines--can only go so far.

As Antoni Gaudi said, “The straight line belongs to man, the curve to God”. Upon leaving the gallery, thanks to the comprehensive exhibit, one is more aware of the line based, designed world we live in and left with an almost insatiable craving for curve.

Re-Drawing the line
Works from the University of Alberta Graduate Studios
Art Gallery of Alberta
19 January to 17 February, 2008

Ted Kerr is the first Artster Co-orespondent to contribute to the growth of Prairie Artsters.com

PRAIRIE ARTSTERS.com Screening the Dance from "Collison" Choreographed by Kathy Ochoa.

2010-12-27T09:20:00.000-08:00

Screening the Dance from "Collison" Choreographed by Kathy Ochoa. Written By Ted Kerr*

It seems that contemporary dance is at a crossroads. It is continuing to find itself while also attempting to define itself during a time when more people are mediating culture through screens (often times in private), thus adding to the visual world where more is being seen and less is being holistically experienced.

This comes at a time when some dancers and dance companies in Edmonton are figuring out how to allow the camera in, to be part of their process. In a way they are trying to figure out how to ensure dance continues to move with the culture.

Bringing the camera into dance is in part about the need to document but also the desire to create something less ephemeral, if only for funders and future generations.

For dance artist Kathy Ochoa, it seems to me as someone who has watched her work for a while; the camera also provides an opportunity to engage the audience. For Ochoa the camera often serves as another presence ‘on stage’ as well as a cue or reminder to the audience to consider process.

Process is important to Ochoa- in part one could argue it is Ochoa’s suggestion for how to make dance more accessible. By bringing the audience into the process, Ochoa’s seems to say, the audience gets a more connected idea of what is happening ‘on stage’ and off stage (thus finding value in dance). With this in mind it is no shock that her work has lead to considerations around collision.

At the heart of the issue of filming dance is the inherent male gaze that comes with the camera. The symbolic nature of a protruding lens following (often) young women’s moving bodies is not lost on anyone. This is not to say that all cameras – be them film, digital or moving- are being held by perverts, it is more to say that the feminine energy that is so vital to being part of a dance is lost once the form becomes 2D, commodified, more easily objectified.

Dance is a full experience- it is as much about the breath of the person beside you as it is about the breath of the dancers. The moment a dance becomes alive for any given person can be the way the light hits a dancer’s ankle or the way the score sounds coming of a the speakers. These are moments that might be caught on camera but never with the same back-story, intensity and organic arising as it does for a person truly in a space.

Having a chance to witness, and in a way contribute to the process of Collision, I see how this project is a departure for Ochoa but also in a way- a response to the question of dance on film.

There is an obvious fullness and femininity that is apparent in Collision. You can feel the softness in the flower references and the way the bodies move in seasons.

It is in this softness, in relation to the title of the work, and the work itself, that the coming together of dance and film can be understood not to be of just two solid forms figuring out how to relate but the delicate colliding and meshing of elements and qualities to create something new.

“It doesn’t have to make sense” is all she said to me and I believed it.

XTRA.ca / Edmonton panel to discuss anti- queer actions by Provincial Government

2010-12-27T09:18:00.000-08:00

"Any social justice issue is a queer issue," says Gaywire producer and community organizer Michelle Thomarat.

This week Thomarat will join community members and activists for a panel discussion called Legislating Sexualities in Alberta at the University of Alberta.

Conceived by Alexa Degagne and Thomarat — both political science students — the discussion will focus on anti-queer actions by the Alberta Progressive Conservative Party, including section 9 of Bill 44 and the de-listing of gender reassignment surgery in 2009.

Taking part in the discussion will be NDP Alberta MLA for Edmonton-Strathcona Rachel Notley, former Edmonton city councillor Michael Phair and professor Lois Harder. Other issues up for discussion will be the growing power of the right-wing Wild Rose Party of Alberta and community self-representation in the media.

Thomarat hopes Edmonton queers walk away from the discussion ready to take action.

"I want to light a fire under our asses — including my own — to get up and take action," she says. "People think stuff like writing their MLAs or calling their offices are over-rated actions. I don't think it is. I think it annoys them and that has an impact on change."

QUEERMONTON Horny is irrelevant Rape culture in the queer community- Feb 3, 10

2010-12-27T09:17:00.000-08:00

It was a typical high school day; my friend and I were walking away from school towards the mall. We were playing a guessing game. She was thinking of a word that she said was largely associated with gay people and frogs. I was racking my brain trying to figure it out. Her face was turning red with frustration. "It is so obvious!" she squealed. Finally after me guessing wrong a thousand times she shouted "HORNY." "Horny?" I giggled. At that point in my life horny was the last thing I was. At that time the only action I had ever had was a Jr. High spin-the-bottle kiss with a girl named Cleo. Sex was something I thought I had the privilege of avoiding because I was gay. I felt lucky that I didn't have to deal with it. Sure I was boy crazy but I didn't want to make out with them, I just wanted them to like me. And yet here was one of my best friends, who I saw everyday, assuming that all I ever thought about was sex. When I think about it now I understand. Our dominant culture was louder than her ability to witness my lived experience. Movies, the Internet, magazines, gossip, ideas around pornography, all dictated and still does, that gay guys are first and foremost sexual beings. And some are. But I wasn't.

A few weeks ago at Dr. Lise Gotell's talk about Canadian sexual assault law I thought about how the perception of gay guys as "horny" (so what if we are!) affects how we think about sexual assault and gay men, especially considering the lack of understanding around women and sexual assault. I wonder if the way people wrongly justify rape through excuses like, "She was asking for it" factor into how people view the possibility of a gay man being raped? I wonder if people who have a hard time understanding a man, any man, can be raped, have an easier or harder time thinking of a gay man being raped? If one can conceive of a gay man being raped how do they categorize him? Not masculine? Assume it was anal sex? Would they write it off as a function of gay culture?

I started thinking about how gay guys think about their own experiences and their ability, and possible inability, to recognize when they may have been assaulted. I was thinking about this after the talk when I ran into a wise friend. We started talking and he said that when he thinks back at stories he told and has heard he realizes for sure that assaults have happened and gone unnoticed, unlabeled and unreported. It was clear through our conversation that too often assaults are not seen as such and rather are chalked up to "an experience."

In thinking about one's own experience it might be helpful to know that in Canada a sexual assault is not understood based on "no means no" but rather an affirmative consent standard or "only yes means yes." This means, and I quote from a presentation given by Gotell, "Consent is specific. After someone has said no, one must take active steps to re-establish agreement. Silence and ambiguous conduct do not constitute consent."

In Gotell's talk she shared information on the Sadaatmandi 2008 case where a woman met two guys online, went over to their house, was drugged and raped while being filmed. The woman charged the men. In my mind it is easy to imagine this story with a man in place of the woman but with a different outcome. I wonder if this had been a Manhunt hook up if the victim would have seen it as an assault. If they did, would they have reported it? I can imagine this story being told over drinks, no one batting an eyelash, everyone relating to it in our own way. This is not to pathologize online sex or state that everyone should report everything to the police or a therapist. This is not even to suggest that one needs to label what may have legally been an assault as such. Instead this is an understanding that unresolved trauma exists within the gay community and affects people. I wonder what the long-term effects for individuals and a community are if trauma is left to fester and becomes an unspoken norm. The possibilities, which I am sure we live with everyday, are bigger than I dare guess in this small column.

XTRA.ca Edmonton queers get involved in the Olympics January 22, 2010

2010-12-27T09:15:00.000-08:00

Edmonton may be a few hundred kilometres away from Vancouver, but queers in Alberta's capital city are getting involved in the lead-up to the Winter Olympics.

Last week, as the Olympic torch came through Edmonton, a local prominent queer was an official torchbearer, a group of activists staged an anti-Olympic protest, and a queer artist was putting the final touches on his bronze statue that will be seen by thousands at Whistler's Pride House.

Danielle Peers won bronze at the 2004 Athens Paralympics for wheelchair basketball. Last week she represented the University of Alberta as an official torchbearer.

"There are many different readings one can have of the Olympics — from an idealized version of peace to a symbol of corporate greed," says Peers. "The Olympics become a stage where we can engage through sports on topics of community."

Peers is a well-known Edmonton artist, academic and activist on many fronts including ableism and queer issues. She and members of her family have competed in the Games.

"Wheeling with the torch I could sense the projected feelings people have for Olympians and the Olympics," recalls Peers of the opportunity. "I feel honoured that the University of Alberta — my community of scholars, students and professors — chose me to represent them. It is in addition to the support the U of A has given to disabled activism."

Across the North Saskatchewan River from the University of Alberta, at the Alberta Legislature grounds, crowds gathered in support of the Olympics but also in protest. Holding signs that read "homes not games," "people before profit" and "environmental destruction is not a game," the rally was a chance for Edmontonians opposed to the Olympics to gather. Among those in attendance was Sahana Parameswara who felt that it was important to be a "part of the vocal dissent."

Organized as part of the larger "No 2010" movement, the rally was just one Olympic resistance event leading up to the Games, including an upcoming screening of the film Five Ring Circus: The True Cost of the Olympics.

Edmonton artist Edmund Haakonson's bronze statue of a naked hockey player entitled Slapshotolus will be on display at Whistler's Pride House, "an open and welcoming venue for the LGBT community and their allies to celebrate together diversity and inclusiveness through sport."

Thanks to a grant from the Alberta Foundation's Arts Cultural Relations Fund Haakonson will be able to go to Whistler to help install the piece. He is happy with the venue for Slapshotolus, he likes the synergy of being linked with Pride House, the first of its kind.

QUEERMONTON Alberta: what the f*** Reading between the lines of banner's asterix - Jan 23, 2010

2010-12-27T09:07:00.000-08:00

In Helvetica type, written on pantone 226 "dusk" coloured nylon, set against our brown urban prairie landscape, a banner affixed to a lamppost overlooking the fountain in front of the Alberta Legislature reads: "Alberta is open." The laughable phrase is punctuated with a period and an asterisk leading the eye underneath, to more comedy, "Because we embrace diversity." In the Corporate Identity Manual chapter 3.4.1 Punctuation (from which I gleamed the typeface name and proper color of the banner) it is written "the use of punctuation re-enforces this as a personal brand, helping us to tell the whole story of Alberta." Indeed it does, especially the asterisk.

In 1998 the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in Vriend v. Alberta that all jurisdictions across the country should include sexual orientation under protected grounds in their Human Rights legislation. This was the result of the Edmonton-based case in which Delwin Vriend sued the Alberta government for failing to protect him when he was fired by King's College for being gay. All provinces and territories fully complied at the time—except Alberta. The Progressive Conservative government did not write in the ruling. It was left to sympathetic and industrious, yet hand-tied, staff at the Alberta Human Rights Commission to note the ruling in printed material using an asterisk. So, if after being discriminated against for your sexual orientation you were so wise, bold, enabled or empowered to look up covered grounds for protection you would not see sexual orientation listed along with gender, physical disability, race and other protected grounds, rather you may have noticed an asterisk. If you were not too deflated or frustrated you may have followed it and eventually you would see in small type a line noting that sexual orientation was also covered. Seeing the asterisk was like a second-rate consolation prize, an add-on to assuage the suffering. Now seeing the asterisk waving from its improbable queer pink backdrop is like an ironic slap in the face. Does someone at Alberta's Public Affairs Bureau, responsible for the creation of this banner as part of Alberta's new brand, have no knowledge of the province's recent history? Or is this piece of Alberta corporate identity a sly and/or hurtful wink to the decade-long foot dragging of the Progressive Conservative's failure to fully enshrine sexual orientation into the Alberta Human Rights Act? I can't tell.

What is more offensive than the words, which have been attributed to local, national and international focus groups, is the use of the asterisk.
How is it possible that a symbol that for so long directed many Albertans to acknowledge their government did not embrace them has come to highlight a lie that the province is hoping to pin its reputation on. More than 10 years after the Vriend decision—and mere months after the banner was put up in front of the Legislature—the province, after much activism and lobbying from various LGBT groups, moved to finally fully include sexual orientation into the Alberta Human Rights Act through Bill 44.

Sadly, yet not surprisingly for Alberta queers, the long overdue recognition came with a price—Section 9. The section creates a provision, already similarly included in the Alberta School Act, which allows parents to pull students out of class if they do not agree with what is being taught. Proponents of the clause point out this can include sexual diversity. At the same time as the province was supposedly making inroads at embracing sexual orientation it created an opening in which diversity could be censored. Adding insult to injury, Section 9 came shortly on the heels of the province's announcement that it was no longer funding gender reassignment surgery (GRS), thus further reducing the ways in which Alberta was embracing diversity.

While the asterisk-as-stand-in for the province's lack of tolerance may be removed from the Alberta Human Rights Act it lives on symbolically through systemically anti-diverse practices such as Section 9 and the delisting of GRS and physically as part of Alberta's brand. In hoping to tell us the whole story of Alberta though the use of the asterisk, the brand does so by reminding Albertans that no matter what is sold to us through branding exercises Alberta is not open. Because it does not embrace diversity.

QUEERMONTON Resolutions - Dec 23, 2009

2010-12-27T09:05:00.000-08:00

In 2010 ...

• I resolve not to forget where I came from and hope that the memory will not stop me from going where I want. I will remember that the New Year will be that of construction. I won't second-guess myself so much; I will eat like a champion. I will Internet less, human contact more.

• My personal goal is to create more life-affirming art, to lose 30 pounds (one does not need to be the biggest bear in the world), to live more honestly, less in my head, trust myself, to be as couture, colorful, and layered as my drawings and to construct a solid working class discourse that allows for autonomous voices to emerge from a discourse that previously talked down to those people.

• My wish is that the queer community would stop fighting itself and focus on combating heteronormativity and hate. I would love to see compassion, creativity and a strong sense of community flourish in place of blind consumption and unrestrained capitalism. As Alberta moves to the right LGBTQ people must get involved and vote. It would be nice to have a meaningful relationship that lasts more than three months.

• I want more images of queers lying down on the street to resist tanks in the Pride parade, more of the Samarasekera Response Team, more radical queer politics (less talk of gay marriage), more inventive use of public space (less retreat from it) and more civic-mindedness (less individualism). I want empowered promiscuity, a chance to fuck my enemies, better time management skills, more time spent outside, Bill 44 to be repealed, gender reassignment surgery funding to be reinstated, to get elected, to tease an aerie-faerie aristocratic chitter-chatter out of the bourgeoisie corporate discourse of contemporary consumer culture, to be very busy, to focus focus focus on my work, to keep standing, walking and then running (stopping only to help and breathe), to fully embrace my journey, continue to be proactive in my life and the greater queer community, to affect and seek positive change, to learn how to be more sexually expressive, liberal and how to better communicate, to make some noise, join a parade, and cause some tumult for a good cause, to explore and discover why we need art, why we continue to destroy ourselves (and hug everyone who understands), to have more passionate, engaging and fun sex with my spouse, to embrace a more holistic view of health and get back into cooking and church. I want a new underground / above ground home for queer kids (of all ages) to dance to mid '90s hip-hop, R&B and Lady Gaga. I want another year as good as 2009 was. I want to heal.

• I hope to see more public displays of dissent and outrage in response to terrible decisions and policies in Alberta. The Crash has already happened in many places around the world, I hope next year The Crash happens here and then we'll all have to start community gardens and learn how to can. One can only hope, and work towards educating the populace on why they need to be angry and afraid of Section 9 of Bill 44. I love the way Edmonton's queer community has galvanized this past year, my sincere hope for 2010 is that we build on this momentum—Queer Summit anyone? I hope love becomes a greater part in people's lives, that we learn to not only love each other more, but ourselves as well. I hope for the return of that certain someone that stole my heart from Toronto—he had to run for his life from his homeland because of his lifestyle. I hope that the lives of queers living in developing countries with homophobic policies are made significantly better in 2010. (I don't live there and can't know what "better" would look like, so that's all I'll say). I hope we continue to infuse queer mainstream with the diverse queer voices of different cultures around the world, to be proud of our heritages and to let our histories empower our voices. I hope my parents will hear about their son doing something queer and wonderful and will come to show their support. I hope my father will accept me when I confront him about my eight-year secret of being gay. I hope to be a part of a parent support group for school aged children that have gay/lesbian parents and are subjected to bullying. I hope people become kinder and less fearful and that '80s techno pop makes a comeback. I hope we survive the bureaucratic nonsense of the Australian immigration department. I hope 2010 will bring authentic healing to our community, that we'll be good to each other, supportive of each other and become more of who we are truly meant to be. I hope I feel less hopeless a year from now than I do today—pleasant surprises would be welcome. I feel ready to begin.

The above is a collection of queer resolutions, wants, goals, wishes and hopes for the coming year from a multitude of queer voices. V

QUEERMONTON Queer Activism Queerly needed- Nov 25, 09

2010-12-27T08:56:00.000-08:00

I have been involved with Exposure: Edmonton’s Queer Arts and Culture Festival since it began three years ago; first as secretary, then for the last two years as producer. For me the most rewarding elements of the festival are the conversations that occur as part, and as a result of Exposure.

On the first Sunday of Exposure 2009 the festival hosted a small conversation between old-school Edmonton LGBT activists who worked on issues like Vriend v. Alberta, same-sex marriage and new school activists working on topics like getting gender reassignment surgery (GRS) re-listed and having Bill 44 repealed. For an hour-and-a-half, the gathered minds probed and responded to questions like, “How do I talk to you?” “What purpose does it serve to meet with politicians?” and “How does GRS affect me?” By the end ideas had blossomed, connections were made, inroads were paved, plans were hatched and queer Edmonton activism seemed a little more cohesive, inspired and informed.

A few days later, gathered in the cozy home of the Edmonton Community Foundation, an event was held to raise awareness of the Rainbow Fund—a pot of money created to help brighten Edmonton’s queer community. Edmonton-based filmmaker Trevor Anderson showed one of his latest films The Island to a belly laughing audience including vice-president of philanthropic advisory services at TD Waterhouse Canada, Jo-Anne Ryan. In her brief and impactful speech, Ryan made the case that philanthropy is not just the providence of the rich but a way for people to exercise and express their values through giving. As the night unfolded it became clear to me that in light of Edmonton’s many LGBT and queer communities it makes sense to identify some common interests that have the potential to benefit everyone—like the Rainbow Fund. The more it grows, the more the community can access it. The more it is accessed, the more diversity in voices, programming and events that will happen in Edmonton.

On the last Friday of Exposure, as part of the festival, eight people attended an all-day intensive workshop with international artist and facilitator Valerie Mason-John (a.k.a. Queenie) to explore the multiple identities one can subscribe to/be a part of, at any one moment. By the end of the day each person created a written performative piece that was shared that night as part of Queerly I Am Nothing New at the Jubilee Auditorium Rehearsal Hall. Hosted by deadpan funny Laurie MacFayden and vivacious Teen Jesus Barbie (a.k.a. Joshua Carter), the salon featured singer Althea Cunningham, the workshop participants, spoken word artist Derek Warwick, writer Hiromi Goto and pop artist Vivek Shraya. Full of wisdom, hilarity, poignancy and community the evening erased the myth of the gay monolith, the fallacy that all “sexual minorities” can be caged under the same umbrella. What emerged was the complicated, sexy truth that we are all different, complex, nuanced and ripe for discovery; that if we are going to function as a community it will take work.

Shraya ended the night with a song in Sanskrit. His rich voice amplified by modern technology, singing ancient words, absorbed by contemporary queer bodies in the audience animated the truth that queerly we are nothing new and in the face of ever-evolving, fluid understandings of sex and gender we have work to do. For us to move forward, thanks to the work of those that came before us, make best use of the resources available to us, and ensure that all can access whatever we are working towards, we need times like Exposure; times to gather, talk and listen.

QUEERMONTON Drinking and driving Gay home safe - Dec 09, 09

2010-12-26T08:42:00.000-08:00

Two months ago a friend confided that both he and another friend, independent of each other, drove home drunk after Beers for Queers. Historically this friend had been very conscious of taking a cab home, but that night his desire to leave, mixed with Edmonton's poor public transportation and his lack of plan around taking a cab, led to him taking his life and those of others into his own inebriated hands.

His admission confirmed for me that drunk driving is on the rise in Edmonton. For the week ending December 2 almost one third more drivers were deemed impaired by the Edmonton Police Service than during the same week in 2008. Of those, 43 received 24-hour suspended licenses, two had their licenses totally suspended and three were charged with other criminal offences, which may have included assault and/or other traffic violations. Of course statistics only count those who were caught—they ado not include people, like my friends, who were on the same roads as you driving blurry-eyed with compromised motor skills, commandeering 4000-pound machines at breakneck speeds. Maybe it has to be re-stated: drunk driving is dangerous. At best it results in cheating fate, or having your licence suspended. At worst it means one's own death, or knowing that you caused someone else's death.

The thing that is difficult about preventing drunk driving is that the very factor that makes someone a possible menace is the very thing that allows them to think that they can drive. Further complicating the issue is the fact that we are often too drunk ourselves to know how drunk someone else is or we are dependant on them to get home. Sometimes we need friends, bouncers, bartenders and strangers to tell us not to drive.

One of the most obvious ways around drunk driving is to call a cab. HIV Edmonton budgets for staff cab fare as part of their holiday party planning. Eric Storey, part of Big Brothers and Big Sisters, recommends leaving cab fare at your front door and then bringing it to the driver after you have been dropped off. Leaving the fare at home prevents you from spending it during the night.

Sometimes budgeting for a whole cab ride isn't an option. Edmonton queer party planner Karen Campos suggests planning a sleepover ahead of time with a trusted friend, thus sharing cab fare, reducing the risk of going home with someone undesirable and potentially having a snuggle partner to fall asleep next to. Other options on the cheap include appointing a designated driver, utilizing Operation Red Nose, which has volunteers who will drive drunk people home in their own cars, partying close to home and making plans with the party host beforehand to stay over.

Beers for Queers organizer Sean Thompson wants people to have a great time and does not want drinking and driving. "There are enough options to get home safely," he says. "Why risk it?"

QUEERMONTON Queerly Webb Brian Webb - Nov 11/ 2009

2010-12-26T08:40:00.000-08:00

Brian Webb's cultural impact on Edmonton is undeniable. Every MacEwan student has a Webb-related story from Webb's days as chair of the dance program. Attending a Brian Webb Dance Company show seems like a rite of passage if one wants to be consider a cultured Edmontonian. Now in the position of artistic producer of the Canada Dance Festival in Ottawa, where he lives part time, Webb's influence is national. "After pop music" Webb likes to school, "contemporary dance is Canada's largest cultural export."

Known as the man who dances in white underwear, Webb also looms large in Edmonton's gay psyche. As I was growing up, an exposed man dancing in public was too much to take at times, in part because Webb's comfort with his body crystallized my own discomfort. But more fundamentally, until recently, there was a disconnect in my mind with the space he took up as a gay figure and the lack of a role he played in Edmonton as a gay man. I assumed, like some other gay men of his age and stature, he didn't discuss sexuality, see it as relevant or have thoughts about what it was to be gay or otherwise.

I was wrong. Talking with Webb over coffee recently, I was pleasantly surprised to hear that he had lots to say about queerness and Edmonton.
Webb grew up around Morin, Alberta, graduated from the University of Alberta in the class of '73 and spent years working, learning and living in New York and Los Angeles, travelling back and forth even after he made Edmonton his home in 1979, the same year he formed the Brian Webb Dance Company.

Just as his dance career was taking off, he was also awakening sexually. "I came out as I was becoming professional. Dealing with my body and who I am are interrelated," explains Webb.

In the early '80s he traveled to LA, getting his fine arts degree in choreography at the California Institute of the Arts. The years he spent in the US are iconic times in queer history. Reagan was in power, the legacy of Anita Bryant's homophobia was ripening and the AIDS crisis was new, devastating and unavoidable. "Being there I was very aware that the political is the personal and that we must get involved," remembers Webb.
West Coast movements focused on rights, freedoms and one's duty to work in the community at large influenced Webb. In part it was the community at large that seems to have left the richest imprint, one that makes Webb skeptical of the need or existence of a gay community. Having lived in a gay epicentre Webb seems to prefer a world where he is not wholly understood or permeated by homosexuality, yet can still be open about it. "I lived in a gay ghetto. I am not part of some community just because I take it up the ass," explains Webb. "I am defined by the work I do as a human being, not my sexual practices."

In Edmonton he thinks that there is a lack of intellectual dialogue on queerness. "There is a broad schism between gay and queer," Webb argues, a gap he thinks many Edmontonians don't get, further misconstruing their confusion between demography and community. "Oh how the gays have bought into the bourgeoisie," laments Webb, specifically pointing to what he sees as the futility of marriage, although acknowledging its importance as a right to have. Conscious of his own upper-middle class standing, his pricey sweater a soft barrier between what he just said and what is complexly true he smiles, "I have never been good as the starving artist."

Throughout the conversation everything comes back to his art. I recently came across a question posed by Eric Rofes: "What if what we've named gay men were actually a grown-up clan of active resistors to heteronormative and patriarchal values?" It made me think of Webb. As homonormativity expands, those who have created identities as outlaws will need to find new terrain beyond sexuality to set up camp. Webb takes well-deserved pride in the fact he has been able to create his art for over 30 years, especially in a conservative province like Alberta. "Alberta respects mavericks," Webb says, his barrel chest expanding.

In a place and time when progress and apathy can look the same yet feel so different it's no wonder Webb returns to art. It is where people engage him. Speaking with Webb I get the sense that unless he is willing to talk about how great the gay community is people don't want to listen.

He maintains his outlaw status by not curtailing.

As the conversation wraps up, there is a moment where I catch Webb at his most giddy. He is thinking back on his wild New York days, sharing stories too good to cement in print. "Being the other was fun," he flirts.

QUEERMONTON Violence Against Queers Queer harm - Oct 28 , 2009

2010-12-26T08:37:00.000-08:00

There seem to be only two voices emerging in reaction to violence against queers: the police and limited gay media. Both are inadequate sources for providing a full conversation at a time when queer bodies are becoming more visible and, therefore, in some ways, more vulnerable.

In the last decade police have worked through training, outreach and other means to be seen as allies to LGBT communities. This alignment has allowed the police to do a better job of protecting citizens and helped members of the gay community feel safer.

Critics of neoliberalism, like Dean Spade, articulate problems with queers allying closely with the police (and so the state) better than I can. The caution for me is that while I respect the job police do, I understand their loyalty is to uphold laws that are not and more obviously in the past, have not been, queer-friendly. The police exist to maintain order, and this is inherently anti-queer. How can a force that is tasked with enforcing the status quo ever be fully available for people who by their very nature question it, work against it?

While the police's anti-queer existence does not stop them from serving and protecting gay citizens it does stump the institution in how it can conceive and react to violence. Frameworks like hate crime legislation are helpful when violence is a clear-cut homophobic attack but not useful when dealing with other violence directed towards queers such as systemic discrimination, homelessness and drug laws.

Police are also not overly useful when violence is directed towards marginalized people within the LGBT community. I helped organize last year's Edmonton's Transgender Day of Remembrance. At first I was shocked but happy to hear that over the past decade there was only one reported death that could be attributed to someone's transgender identity. But through conversation I was then sobered; talking to members of the trans community, there is a resistance to report acts of violence to the police.

While the Edmonton Police Service (EPS) does attempt to make inroads to make it more approachable to the trans community, living in a province where sexual reassignment surgery has been delisted, some within the community cannot see any arm of the state as possibly being available to them. This unfortunately undoes much of the good work that members of the EPS do. It also highlights the limited role that police can have around violence towards queers.

"Is Gay Bashing on the Rise?" asked a headline appearing last week on XTRA.ca in reaction to a recent wave of violence directed towards gay men in Ontario, including the death of Chris Skinner. Born out of the influential publication Body Politic, XTRA is a rare gay media outlet that actually covers queer news. It provides national, balanced news coverage by including queer-lensed stories on politics, current events and entertainment. In thinking about the above headline, I wonder if it serves to undermine XTRA's big picture work by stalling the conversation of violence towards queers by highlighting only physical attacks. This limited casting of violence, possibly resulting in too shallow a field of outrage, creates a limited reaction and does not get into the everyday violence that queers experience.

Such news stories also provide too narrow a view of who is being affected by violence. The other day a friend pointed out how often when "hate crimes" are reported in the gay media the victim is almost always a young white male. While someone could argue this is because most homophobic violence is directed towards visibly gay men, a more complex reading is useful.

We live in a culture, writer Sarah Schulman points out, obsessed with the coming-of-age story of white males—a tale as old as Jesus. When something interrupts this narrative, even if the protagonist happens to be gay, it is news. When a woman is attacked, unless she's a celebrity or a mom, it goes unreported. This is mirrored in gay media. The only high-profile story appearing last year in the gay media looking at violence towards lesbians was when a couple was assaulted in front of their children.

Common sense tells us in a culture that does not understand trans lives or value women more attacks happen than are being reported. This makes the proliferation of reports and articles about hurt white gay male bodies all the more upsetting and highlights the limited ways—due to a lack of resources—media, like the police, cover violence.

Seemingly at the heart of police and gay media's response to violence is the question of how it can be stopped. Due to the limited ways in which media and police can and should conceive and intervene in queer lives, maybe a useful question we can all ask, as suggested by Dean Spade, would instead be: what makes harm possible?

QUEERMONTON Gay Men’s Health Playing for keeps - Oct 14, 09

2010-12-26T08:35:00.000-08:00

Every time my friend Charles uploads photos on Facebook I pore over them in the way one used to watch soap operas. I don't want to live his life, I just want to witness it and remark on its loveliness. Charles is smiling in photo after photo, his handsome broad face alive with joy and surrounded by other radiating faces, as if happiness is infectious. Looking through his photos I realize an LGBT-focused stock photography agency would kill for such shots: happy, healthy, seemingly well-adjusted queer folks living their young urban lives to the fullest.

The majority of Charles' shots are from time spent with Team Edmonton, a group that acts as an umbrella organization for Edmonton-based queer sport and recreation groups. I ask Charles why he spends so much time with the other members, to which he replies, "Team Edmonton provides an ideal platform for like-minded people to simply meet, do stuff together and have fun. It emphasizes a lot on support, openness and respect that I think in some sense, contributes to the positive development of local community." Through his earnest response he articulates what is at the heart of current approaches to gay men's health: it is holistic-based and focuses on wellness and lived lives rather than just on pushing condoms. Organizations like HIM (Health Initiatives for Men) out of Vancouver, and increasingly HIV Edmonton, are looking to help men invest in total healthy lives, along the way preventing new cases of HIV and STIs.

Before HIV and the resulting AIDS crisis, there was not much in the way of gay men's health, sexual or otherwise. Michael Phair, the founder of HIV Edmonton and five-time Edmonton city councillor, says he remembers very little beyond STI nurses doing a bit of outreach at the gay bars and bathhouses. But then AIDS hit, and people like Phair grabbed their friends and hit the ground running, working quickly to organize help for those dying, public education and support for those losing loved ones.

Grassroots efforts like these soon ballooned and blossomed into organizations and became institutionalized, as the response to AIDS quickly became larger than could be handled in a living room or around a kitchen table. Grassroots organizers and members felt pushed aside, left behind. Soon the scope of AIDS was no longer primarily gay men; it needed to grow to meet the needs of women, people of diverse race and cultures, people with addictions and those living in poverty. Many gay men and their communities felt disenfranchised by what they saw as AIDS Inc.

Activist and writer Eric Rofes recognized the dissatisfaction and early on raised his concern that the AIDS-as-crisis model was no longer appropriate for the wellness of gay men. In his books Reviving the Tribe ('96) and Dry Bones Breathe ('98) Rofes advocated for a wellness model rather than one focused on a virus (HIV). He knew that gay men needed to refocus and begin creating what he called "post-AIDS identities."

In AIDS service organizations (ASOs) it was common a few years ago to hear about condom fatigue—a school of thought that suggested HIV and STI rates among gay men were not going down because gay dudes were tired of hearing safer-sex messages and were no longer heeding the warning. In Thriving ('07) Rofes addressed this notion, writing "When are we going to admit that HIV disease among gay men of all colors is not going away anytime soon, and create long-term strategies to promote sexual health, instead of repeatedly defaulting to the same tired state of emergency approaches which haven't worked? Health advocates frequently mistake our boredom at their superficial and vapid analysis for complacency about the health of our communities. We care deeply about the well-being of gay men's communities ... we hunger for a new vision of gay men's health and wellness."

Sadly Rofes died in 2006 and so has not been able to see the emerging tipping point of his work taking hold. We are at an interesting time for gay men's health that I think reflects much of Rofes' work. Organizations like HIM and Gay City out of Seattle bring together grassroots instincts and tactics born at the start of the AIDS crisis and combine them with the resources and institutional support that corporatized-AIDS can provide.

Team Edmonton is a volunteer-run LGBT sports and recreation group, not a gay men's wellness centre, yet people like Charles illustrate that what Team Edmonton is doing works for them. So while myself and stock photography agencies pour over Charles' photos, maybe Pride Centres, health organizations and ASOs around Alberta will steal a page out of Team Edmonton's playbook and begin delivering services that work for gay men in their communities. As they may say at Team Edmonton, the ball is in your court!

QUEERMONTON Role Models Engaging leaders- Sept 30 / 09

2010-12-26T08:33:00.000-08:00

Figure skater Johnny Weir is a perfect role model because he refuses to be one. In the documentary Pop Star on Ice, screening at this year's Edmonton International Film Festival, we get an intimate on- and off-ice look at Weir as he goes through the ups and downs of success, failure and the surrounding culture's attempt to nail him down as something of a role model.

Weir is a handsome-faced flamboyant bad boy with a healthy sense of humour and a worldview that seems to come as a product of overly nurturing parents—one that leads him to think the world around him will accept him no matter what. It is with this view on life that Weir is so willingly able to be unapologetically himself. This makes him stand out, both for good and bad.

As is much-publicized in the marketing of Pop Star, Jon Heder's character in the Will Ferrell comedy Blades of Glory is based on Weir, and after watching Pop Star you realize that Blades is as funny as it is accurate. Weir really did don a swan costume on ice—a move that was chuckled at by commentators, but which made Weir a legend for fans and skating aficionados.

Weir was under constant scrutiny because of his celebrity, and much of Pop Star uses clips of Weir at press conferences. Early in the film we see Weir being asked about some drug-related, off-colour analogies he made to describe his poor performance, his competitor's better performance and how it all relates to his position as a role model. With sweat and product-slicked hair, still fresh off the ice, he responds, "I don't think there should be one role model—no one is Jesus."

In his refreshing candour and label refusal Weir is able to put into words a more loving framework for admired people, one that does not set the people who look up to them up for disappointment. There is almost always a desire to canonize prominent, highly-functioning and/or successful people like Weir. In doing so we isolate them and create different rules and expectations of them, from which they are bound to fail and disappoint us. By labelling someone exceptional or better we exempt them from being able to indulge in their humanity. We take away their ability to fail, change or not know better. As any cautionary tale about celebrity or power will tell you, it's lonely at the top.

For me, the best example of this remains the case of Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton. At the heart of the story is a man and a women engaging in sexual relations, but this simple story as old as time is confused by the fact that the man was not just a man but the president of the United States, and therefore held to a higher standard. While I would love to argue that he was just reaching out for some warm flesh in a world that I assume is cold and lonely, the truth is that he found himself, through his own hard work and that of others, to be in a position where he had to be different, better. He was not supposed to indulge in his earthly desires, or, more accurately, he was not supposed to get caught. That is part of the isolation and the different set of rules that comes with respected difference. We all make space for indiscretions by our leaders, but we hope that they will be smart enough to choose their indiscretions carefully, not put younger people with less power in harm's way, not cover up what they have done and, when caught, to admit, repent and disappear for a while.

I see in Weir a better way of dealing with being perceived as exceptional: fight the rap and enjoy being human. During Pop Star we see Weir living up to his statement that no one is Jesus by not being Jesus himself. While we never see him being totally un-Christlike we do see him giving up on himself, treating some people as dispensable and indulging in his own celebrity, and it's fine because he never pretends to be anything other than he is. This makes it possible for people to forgive, look past or even celebrate the ways in which Weir makes his way through the world.

Too many awesome people get derailed by thinking they have to be beyond reproach, or be better than they are. Too many people who have done great work for the community find themselves isolated and trapped by work. This leaves our leaders and our role models lonely and prime for mental health issues and burnout.

Leave well enough alone, the saying goes, but what we should be doing with people who excel is engage with them. The best thing we can do for people we really admire, the community and ourselves is to treat them as we would treat anyone else. Reach out to them, be there as a support for them and let them know that we only expect from them what we would expect from anyone else.

QUEERMONTON Male Privilege Learning to share - Sept 16 / 09

2010-12-26T08:29:00.000-08:00

It was 1987, and Debra Jakubec was working in a restaurant kitchen when the father of one of her co-workers died of AIDS. The family wouldn't help clean out his apartment after he died because they were afraid of AIDS. Jakubec befriended her co-worker as a way to support her, seeing as no one at work was talking with her about her father's death. Although Jakubec had never met her co-worker's dad and didn't know her co-worker all that well, she helped clean up the dead man's apartment. This was her first experience in dealing with HIV/AIDS.

Around 10 years later, Joyce LaBriola was enrolled in a small theatre school in New Jersey, where she made a great group of friends, including James Tolin. While they were attending school together Tolin was diagnosed as living with HIV and LaBriola was able to be a grounding support for Tolin. He got sick in 2001, was admitted to a hospice and from there quickly passed. Tolin's hospice bill almost bankrupted his parents.

Sitting around with her theatre friends over beers at a gathering after James's funeral, reunited almost 10 years after graduation, they brainstormed on what they could do to honour Tolin's life and support his parents. The idea came to hold a fundraising event. Donating their time, skills and connections they pulled together a silent auction and a theatrical production of Jeffery, raising $75 000 to donate to the hospice.

Exhausted but exhilarated, the groupmembers decided that they would make it an annual event, and seven years later are still at it. Now living in Edmonton LaBriola helps out with what is now called the James Tolin Memorial Fund, and she is planning a satellite event in Edmonton this spring.

It is a Friday morning at the offices of HIV Edmonton, and Jakubec, the executive director, and LaBriola, the fund developer coordinator, are gathered around a computer screen, going over last-minute details of the upcoming AIDS Walk for Life. Through their history and their current work Jakubec and LaBriola represent the under-acknowledged work of women who have been caregivers, fighters, advocates and, perhaps hardest of all, the survivors within the AIDS movement.

While there is no doubt that in the face of AIDS gay men fought back, worked hard and saved lives, what is often forgotten is that beside them in the struggle were women. This lack of acknowledgement from gay men about the work of women within the HIV/AIDS movement is symbolic of a larger issue with the gay community: the inability for gay men to share and acknowledge their power specifically with "groups" such as women who were so instrumental in the support of gay men when they needed it the most.

In spite of HIV—some have argued because of it—gay men have made tremendous strides towards equality in recent times. The experience of a gay, white, middle-class man bears no significant difference in terms of privilege compared to a straight, white, middle-class man. Pair two men together, as happens in a gay relationship, and they arguably have more accessible privilege than a heterosexual couple, and seemingly infinitely more possible power than a lesbian couple, a mixed-race couple or any pairing of a visible-minority couple. Gay men have a larger amount of social, economic and political power than they ever had before. Because of this, and to celebrate it, gay men should consider how they can give back within gay communities and throughout society.

An obstacle gay men may have in sharing their privilege is continued heterosexism and homophobia, but what we forget is we are men—a privileged status in our world. For those of us who are white and able-bodied our privilege increases tenfold. Our gender and our colour will always read louder than our gayness. What matters now, and how we will be judged, is what we do with our privilege.

Gay men rose up during the AIDS crisis and changed the world. Through passion and strength and love and support of allies, gay men fought for accessible drugs and woke the world up to a complex health crisis unparalleled in modern times. This should be in every history book ever printed and every gay man should swell with pride at the accomplishment. But let us also write the next chapter, the one in which we as gay men acknowledge our privilege, honour women like Jakubec and LaBriola for the role they play in our lives, and use our ever-growing clout to make the world a better place for women and all of society.

QUEERMONTON Public Sex The trees are alive - Sept 2, 2009

2010-12-26T08:15:00.000-08:00

A cool wind was breezing up Yonge Street from Lake Ontario, relieving me from the urban heat still trapped between the buildings. It was after midnight and I was looking for public sex in Toronto, resolved not to use the Internet to find the cruising park I've been told exists downtown. At the time I had been thinking a lot about how online hook up sites like Manhunt were changing the geography of desire. Had everyone abandoned the physical for the virtual? Was the thrill of happenstance encounters being replaced by online browsing and choosing?

I called a bathhouse listed in the free queer paper, worried the person on the other end wouldn't want to give me directions to the park lest it take away from his business. Instead he responded wistfully, as if he too would rather be outside playing.

The bathhouse I had called was off the beaten path, and what was interesting about the directions he gave me was that they weren't based on where he was, nor did he ask where I was; rather he oriented me as if I was standing at ground zero in Toronto's gay ghetto. He, in a way, assimilated my location or my knowledge of geography with my desires.

As I entered the park I started to have second thoughts, worried about getting arrested, that there would be no action or that the action would be more than I was prepared to see. For all my thinking about queerness and sex I still find myself easily shocked, jarred and sometimes under-experienced, fumbling in an attempt to look like I know what I'm seeing or doing.

At first I felt disappointedly vindicated. The park looked empty save for the men who had found benches and picnic tables and converted them into homes, shopping carts parked where a garage would be. I had been thinking that maybe cruising parks—historically important places for men who want to have sex with men to meet—were becoming less relevant, a place only for those who did not have or chose not to use the Internet. As my eyes adjusted to the dark it was older bodies that began to surface. I felt for a moment like a pompous anthropologist who just had his life's work validated. My phone vibrated. It was a friend. I began speaking with her as I walked around the park, thinking that my adventure was over.

The park, which is basically a large traffic circle perimetered with streetlights and trees, is divided into quadrants by a big heroic statue in the middle. As I left the quadrant I began in and enter on to the other side, the population of the park began to change. Soon a plethora of bodies were emerging from the trees and the shadows. I cut my friend short, put my phone away and joined them.

At first it was comical, yet unnerving. All these men cruising around loaded with curiosity and sex but no one doing anything. Some guys leaned against the trees, waiting for someone they liked to approach them; avoiding eye contact with those they weren't interest in. Other guys just hovered near the trees, hoping, I think, to live vicariously through whatever happened to others. Some guys just sauntered around as if they weren't in a cruising park, as if they had somehow found themselves in the park and were trying to figure out what was going on.

In between the trees are benches. It seemed to me this was were the cool and collected guys sat to watch the action, and then acted accordingly. I wanted to be in this crowd so I sat down. It was from this vantage point that I began to see how beautiful the physical space of the park was. We were basically in a grove of trees that created a frame of the night sky, ablaze with stars. The ground was lush with grass and the occasional texture of roots. The guy beside me started telling me that every few years the city cuts down some trees or puts up more lights in an effort to curb the use of the park as an outdoor sex space. He laughed as he said this and then with a boastful grin said, "They are wasting their time, the queens just smash the bulbs."

Sometimes the lights from cars that circled the park cut through the trees and illuminated details and faces. I could see for a flash that the guy beside me was in his early 30s. The movement of his face and his voice younger than how his face looked.

He tells me how he has been coming to the park since he was 16, since before he lived his life as a gay man. It was in the park where he learned to give hand jobs, blow jobs and talk with other guys who liked to have sex with men. He calls it Emerald Island, and it is his favourite place in the city. Sitting there with him, the white noise of the city muffled by the rustling of trees, breathing and sighs of anxiety and ecstasy, I realized that the Internet and all that it offers for dudes who want to hook up poses no threat to the lure of nature. It's just another plain on which men can find each other and explore. There is no either/or, there is just more.

Yanking kids from sex ed EDUCATION / Implementation of Alberta's Bill 44 delayed one year August 31, 2009

2010-12-26T08:12:00.000-08:00

As the contentious Bill 44 entered final reading in the Alberta Legislature, Culture Minister Lindsey Blackett was quoted saying, "This will come to pass — you guys will forget about this in another month."

More than three months have passed and members of the Queer Allied Network (QAN) organized a protest on Sep 1, the day before school started across much of the province, to prove Blackett wrong — people have not forgotten. Bill 44 contains a provision — Section 9 — that enshrines the "parental right" to pull children from class discussions on sex, sexual orientation or religion.

Queer Albertans have been among the strongest opponents of Section 9, even though, at first glance, Bill 44 was supposed to benefit them. In a separate section within Bill 44, the Alberta government was finally fully enshrining sexual orientation into Alberta's Human Rights Act.

Posing the question "What will students learn?" the QAN-organized protest aimed at fuelling the anger and outrage about Bill 44 says co-organizer Tam Gorzalka.

"As people are getting ready for back-to-school they are being reminded that Bill 44 affects them," she says.

Gorzalka hopes that while activists put pressure on the Progressive Conservative government to consider repealing Section 9, the Tories can also be made responsible to provide clarity and details. "What is affected here?" asks Gorzalka about the specifics and scope of the controversial provision. "Does it refer only to curriculum or anything that the teacher says?"

Gorzalka says she has spoken to high school students across the province and many are concerned about the fate of Gay Straight Alliances, which are typically run and supervised by teachers. When Section 9 is fully implemented, Gorzalka wonders if some teachers will be too afraid to keep GSAs up and running.

The news of the protest coincided last week with Education Minister Dave Hancock publicly asking Blackett to delay Section 9 for a year so that "protocols" could be put in place to implement the changes. Just before the school year was set to begin, according to the Edmonton Journal, Blackett agreed.

"The school boards need time to streamline their process and make sure that the process that they go through is uniform," said Blackett. "Our intention was never to create any undue hardship on them, so I think it's a reasonable accommodation." Blackett pledged that the bill would become law this fall, with Section 9 going into effect on Sep 1, 2010.

The protest won endorsements from prominent Albertans, including Strathcona NDP MLA Rachel Notley, human rights lawyer Julie Lloyd, social worker and Edmonton City Council candidate Brendan Van Alstine, and transgender teacher Jan Buterman.

QUEERMONTON nggrfg Powerful words - Aug 19, 2009

2010-12-26T08:09:00.000-08:00

NGGRFG. It's the name of the play. Picture the title in neon, all lit up except for the vowels, which you can't see. The words are there, lit up waiting for you to acknowledge them. Look up and try to sound it out. Let the consonants fill up your throat, push your upper palate out and then lead your top teeth to drag over your bottom lip. How did that feel? Did you say the words? Did you say Nigger? Fag? Did you just say one of them? Neither of them? After saying either of these words most people can't deny the power of language, the inherent strength and history that comes with each sound compounded on top of each other, echoing the vileness from all ages. And these are just two of many words—fat, retarded, ugly, dyke, stupid, sick, pervert, sissy, queer, homo, wop, terrorist, redskin, lazy, chink, stupid, paki—that make up the endless list of hurtful words hurled by others towards us in our lifetimes, words we would rather forget than ever read or hear again. But as Berend McKenzie, playwright and performer of NGGRFG, currently playing at the Edmonton Fringe suggests, if we banish these words it is those of us on the receiving end of them that lose power.

"I had wariness about these words and had thought about banning nigger and fag. But now I question if we ban these words what happens to our stories? How do I tell my stories?" wonders McKenzie, "If these words disappear will we forget about slavery, about hate crimes? We have to talk about these words, use them with intention and not hide behind them. We have to chew on them, see how they feel in our mouths and in our hearts."

Using stories from his real life, thought-provoking writing and humour, McKenzie's one-man show explores the realities of being both black and queer growing up in rural Alberta before making it in the entertainment industry in Vancouver. Adding a layer to his story is the fact that growing up McKenzie was the only black child in his family and often the only—sometimes the first—black person in the various towns where he and his family lived. When the TV miniseries Roots came out, heralded at the time by some as a landmark for race relations in the US, his life in small-town Alberta got worse. Whereas kids at school previously knew he was different and treated him with indifference, now they had references to use and names to call him. With each new episode came a new word to throw at him. First it was Kunta Kinte, the black protagonist of the story, then Toby, the slave name that Kunta Kinte would not accept. For him, and for reasons he could not articulate at the time, the worst was when they began calling him Kizzy, a daughter born into slavery. It wasn't until writing NGGRFG, revisiting the childhood trauma, that he realized the pain of someone else (a bully, no worse) pointing out something that made him different beyond his skin colour was more than he could accept at the time. Being black was hard enough, he thought to himself at the time, he wasn't ready to deal with more.

"I thought God didn't like me, that he was punishing me," McKenzie recalls. "He took away my birth family, made me live in a cold climate in isolated places far from the arts, and he made me different."

While being black was not something he could resist or deny, being gay was. He assumed at first that on top of all the other injustices bestowed upon him, that God had also confused his gender. It was not until he attended college in Edmonton that he began to claim his manhood.

As time passed McKenzie grew into himself, and through performing and acting and then writing was able to find outlets to express himself. In a powerful vignette in NGGRFG McKenzie shares the story of meeting his birth father, and the excitement of finding out he shared a bond with him since they were both performers, only to be rejected by him soon after making contact due to his birth father's inability to get past his own homophobic upbringing.

Sitting in the audience, enraptured by McKenzie's weaving and expelling of stories, energy and emotion, one can tell that in the telling and the using, questioning and sharing of words there is healing for him.

"I have been a fighter since birth, I have screamed my whole life to be validated for my skin colour and my sexuality. The worst thing in the world is for me to feel as if I don't exist," McKenzie explains, before adding that the feeling is undergoing a change. "This need for validation in every moment is finally subsiding, and now I am exploring what has brought be to this point."

QUEERMONTON Using Condoms Talking from the bottom up- Aug 5, 2009

2010-12-26T08:08:00.001-08:00

"I adore bottoming," my friend pronounces as the downtown café fills up with the lunch crowd. Mere metres away lanyarded ladies in waist-creased skirts and running shoes, change purses in hand, look over and smile. Although I would love to believe otherwise, they have no idea what he just said, their facial muscles just joyfully reacting to the infectious intonation in his voice.

My friend and I have met up to discuss his trials and tribulations in getting off. He's a bit of a stud; he frequently hooks up online and has become a pro at it. He starts his online conversations with potential sex partners by discussing likes, dislikes, deal-breakers and turn-ons long before either person leaves the keyboard. My friend is also responsible. He goes for STI testing every three months, endures the wisecracks from one particular nurse at the STD clinic and makes sure he is taking care of his health so he can have a sexually adventurous life. Paramount for him is the use of condoms. Like me, he grew up already submerged in the age of AIDS. Rock Hudson was long dead by the time we began contemplating the power of our own jizz. We knew that cum could be awesome but it could also be deadly. With that in mind we entered our sexual adulthood with safe sex strategies in hand passed down from older lovers, mentors and brave teachers.

Condom use has never been negotiable for my friend and it was never an issue—until now. More frequently for the guys he meets online—some of them younger, some of them bisexual, some of them more experienced than him—condoms are arguable. This throws my friend for a loop. A tear begins in the lining of what he thought he knew.

Because of his allure, his sexiness and his persuasiveness he can get guys to wear a condom. But then one time he didn't. The guy came over, they played around and soon it was hammer time. He went to get the condom. The guy was reluctant and started giving cliché excuses. Finally he relented and put on a condom. They started going at it. My friend was already feeling off, having had to work to get the condom on. He looked back, pushed away and could see that the guy had taken the condom off.

Exits were pointed to, doors were slammed, texts were exchanged, emails sent and threats levelled. "Go get tested," my friend demanded. The guy initially refused, but eventually did so. Thankfully for both of them, he didn't have HIV or other STIs.

But that wasn't the only point. Trust had been broken, a violation had occurred. As a result he got sex-scared for a while, afraid to get back into the swing of things. Sex wasn't supposed to be a war, but there he was feeling like it was him against them.

"All guys do these days," he laments "is ask, 'Are you clean?' Then the other person is expected to answer, 'Sure, I'm clean, let's bareback.' I feel like I am the only one asking guys out there to wear a condom and it makes me feel like a freak."

I don't think he should feel like a freak. I think he should be given a medal for manning up enough to have the conversation about condoms. I suggest with every new partner, and with every new experience with a partner you've slept with before, if either of you sleep around, there should be a talk about condom use. Make a choice for yourself understanding the ramifications of your choice, about whether to use condoms.

The same day I had coffee with my friend I ended up going to another friend's house for a dinner party. I brought up the topic of condoms and the conversation turned to the word barebacking, a word used exclusively to describe condomless anal sex between men. "Why is it only called barebacking when two men have unprotected anal sex?" a friend asked. "We don't we use it when we talk about men and a women." It was the partygoer's theory that the answer is the culture is using language to distance homosexual acts, even if they are the same, from heterosexual sex and further othering sex between men.

Seemingly absent from conversations around condomless anal sex are issues of trust, choice, love, consent and the difference between the fantasy of porn and the reality of flesh. Barebacking has either been demonized as a one-way ticket to being HIV+ or vaulted as the holy grail of new queer sex. This seeps into our queer heads and we feel the collective shame the culture puts on us of our natural inclinations, our older-than-time desires. We're made to feel that what we do needs to be policed, sanctioned, protected. What affect does this have on the gay male psyche? On how we exercise our desires? On how we treat one another? We need look no further than my friend's recent experiences of hooking up to see the answer. We need to talk about sex. We need to talk about condoms. We need to decide for ourselves, with ourselves.

XTRA.ca Edmonton queer artists tell their stories at Fringe August 17, 2009

2010-12-26T08:01:00.000-08:00

For local theatre artists, the Edmonton International Fringe Festival is more than just another chance to perform. It is a chance for artists to take risks and spread their wings.

For Edmonton queer theatre artists, Fringe is also a chance to dive deeper into the stories they want to tell and to share them with audiences that are willing and interested.

Over the past three years, Nick Green has used the Fringe Festival to flex his artistic muscle. In 2007, he wrote and co-starred in Gayface, a satirical two-person show that looked at the various ways we has humans create our personas and identities. After graduating from the University of Alberta bachelor of fine arts program, Green established himself as a committed and talented artist. In 2008, he wrote the sleeper hit Coffee Dad, Chicken Mom and the Fabulous Buddha Boi while appearing in Two Queens and a Joker — both produced by Edmonton legend Darrin Hagen and partner Kevin Hendricks under their production companies Guys Undisguised and Guys in Disguise Classic. Buddha Boi won three trophies at the Edmonton Sterling Awards (the city's equivalent to the Tony's) and has opened doors of collaboration for Green. It also marked an important distinction in the type of artist that Green wants to be. Whereas Gayface was very much focussed on gay identity, Green feels Buddha Boi had a more universal appeal.

"I am not creating theatre for gay people, I am creating queer theatre for everyone," says Green. "There is nothing to be gained by ghettoizing what you are doing. I want diverse audiences who can relate with experiences beyond their own identity. I want to create conversation."

This year, Green is once again working with Hagen and Hendricks, as well as Edmonton theatre powerhouse Trevor Schmidt in a piece called Triple Platinum. The brainchild of Schmidt, the piece is not really a play per say. The show introduces three characters — a musical group known as the Boyce Sisters — who have reunited for their farewell tour. In a neat twist, Hagen says the characters may host real-world events and reappear in future shows.

Since the '90s, Hagen and Hendricks have made the Fringe Festival the center of their creative year. This strategy started when Hagen premiered the Edmonton Queen: Not a Riverboat Story at the 1996 Fringe Festival. It was a wild success and has gone on to be performed on many stages and was published in book form, updated last year.

Hagen credits much of his early success to those who guided him. "Darrin is a mentor," gushes Green. "For rehearsals he would pick me up from work with a slurpee in hand and we would just talk as he drove. He is so willing and ready to share his experiences. Those car rides were like master's classes in of themselves."

Aside from Triple Platinum, Hagen and Hendricks are also producing Berend McKenzie's provoking and well-received one man show NGGRFG as well as The Sequin staring Edmonton favourites Binki, Chanelta and Krystal.

When asked how he does so much, Hagen laughs. "Please, the Fringe is in our blood," he says

VUEPOINT / VUE WEEKLY Props or co-opts? - Aug 5, 2009

2010-12-26T07:58:00.000-08:00

Speaking in Edmonton on July 31 to an audience of over 500 delegates at the Global Youth Assembly, Governor General Michaëlle Jean was generous in her praise of "urban culture" as a strategy for reaching and serving "at-risk youth" across Canada. While it is unquestionably positive that the Governor General is casting her spotlight on the innovative work being done by often cash-strapped and over-stretched endeavours like Edmonton’s own iHuman and Blue Print for Life, it is also unsettling.

Street dancing, hip hop and graffiti—all art forms which Jean praised by name—have their roots as forms of expression created and used by oppressed people who felt they had no voice. Because of this, organizations around the world have embraced hip-hop culture as a strategy to help lift the spirits and capacity of individuals who, due to a variety of reasons including systemic discrimination, injustice and inequity, find themselves needing assistance.

Why should the Governor General, the Canadian representative of our head of state, be able to, arguably, co-opt the hard work of such organizations and by nature of her highly regarded reputation, stature and celebrity, put their work on the agenda for future leaders to duplicate? It is, after all, the failures of the current and past federal governments, which Jean is the figurehead of, that bear a significant portion of the responsibility for the deficiencies in the system that not only cause a myriad of the issues faced by at-risk youth, but have also reduced the services that are funded and available to meet their needs.

Giving Jean the benefit of the doubt because of her past work, at best her motivation in celebrating urban culture can be seen as a call to use art to rise up and draw attention to the many injustices and inequalities being experienced in Canada. But at worst what the Governor General is doing is institutionalizing the fetishization of urban culture as a strategy, thus moving the onus of the significant work that needs to be done to achieve "positive change" away from government, business and other powerful sectors of society and putting it unfairly and almost solely on the shoulders of artists, cultural workers and social workers.

XTRA- Satirical short film pokes fun at Alberta's Bill 44 July 20, 2009

2010-12-26T07:55:00.000-08:00

A new satirical short film pokes fun at Alberta's Bill 44 — legislation that allows parents to pull their kids from classes on sexuality and sexual orientation.

Although Bill 44 became law last month, a group of artists recently produced a humorous video — in the style of a public service announcement — to express their dissent. Entitled Smaller Classes, Smaller Minds, the film suggests teachers can use the new law to reduce class sizes, simply by adding queer content to every lesson plan.

Alberta-based artist and writer T L Cowan came up with the idea, and the project quickly took shape after she approached Alissa Overend, Danielle Peers and Melisa Brittain to see if they wanted to commit the concept to video. Together the group worked on the script over email for a few days, shot and edited the film over two weeks, and then released the video via YouTube.

For Peers, the project was a chance to discuss Bill 44 in a different and refreshing way. As she describes it, "it was a relief to engage [with Bill 44] beyond frustration."

Passed into law last month by the Alberta Progressive Conservative government, Bill 44 fully enshrines sexual orientation into Alberta's Human Rights, Citizenship and Multiculturalism Act (HRCMA) more than a decade after the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the province must do so. However, the bill also created a provision under the HRCMA that allows parents to take their children out of classes on religion, sexuality or sexual orientation. This provision is already part of the provinces' school act.

Reaction to Smaller Classes, Smaller Minds so far has been positive. Jennifer Alabiso, board chair of Exposure: Edmonton's Queer Arts and Culture Festival thinks that using art to create dissent is the way to go. "These artists use the perfect tools: humour and honesty to deflate an untenable situation," says Alabiso of the filmmakers. "I say brava!"

As a mother and a lesbian, Alabiso is not done discussing Bill 44, even though the bill is now law. "As a mum, especially a mum with a 13-year-old son whose classmates regularly use language which denies or denigrates his mother, I find Bill 44 mind boggling," says Albiso. "How will students ever learn that fag is not just another word for lame, if whenever we discuss the topic of homosexuality?"

Playing off the idea of DIY culture, Peers describes the process of making the film as DIWYC (do it with your community), noting that the film would not have been possible without the help of fellow collaborators, friends who let them use space at the University of Alberta, and the assistance of the Intermedia Research Studio.

Peers, Brittain, Overend and Cowan have worked together before on a video titled GIMP Boot Camp, which looks at able-bodiedness and disability using humour and the PSA format. Peers and Brittain run King Crip Productions, and in collaboration with writer and artist Shani Mootoo, the group is in post production for their documentary ...And the Rest is Drag. According to their website, the doc "explores the sub-cultural performance genre of drag kinging through the eyes of the Alberta Beef Drag King Troupe."

Watch the film here:

QUEERMONTON Action for Human Rights Party like it's August 28! - July 22, 2009

2010-12-26T07:51:00.000-08:00

French Artist Robert Filliou decided in 1963 that "One million years ago, art was born." So he, along with others, began celebrating art's birthday around January 17. His idea was that everyone should take a holiday on art's birthday and little by little art's impact would be understood and acknowledged.

"Close the schools and the factories!" Filliou declared. "Let them eat cake and make art! And the next year let it be two days of holiday, then three days, then four, five, six and so on, until every day is art's birthday, at which point we can all get on with life".

Here in the city the Edmonton Arts Council celebrates art's birthday. Last year they invited people to show up in their prom best to dive in fully clothed for a swimming pool party. Bands played, Mile Zero Dance performed, dudes dressed up as Vikings, cool projections animated the walls and hipster's wet packages were on display everywhere—happy birthday indeed.

For those with knowledge of the civil rights movement 1963 may strike a more poignant cord than the conception of art's birthday. On August 28 of that year a quarter of a million people participated on the March on Washington, ending up in front of Washington D.C.'s Lincoln Memorial to hear the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. deliver his powerful "I Have A Dream" speech. The day marked a turning point in the civil rights movement and has left for future generations a powerful image of people coming together for change.

A turning point for the gay rights movement in Canada came eight years later to the day, when on August 28, 1971 100 to 200 people participated in the "We Demand" demonstration on Parliament Hill. It was the first large-scale public homosexual demonstration and for a decade after it was the date that queer Canadians used to celebrate their pride.

Led by activists Charlie Hill, George Hislop, Pierre Masson and others, the gathering was an action to animate a letter prepared and submitted to the federal government by Toronto Gay Action. Also entitled "We Demand," the brief outlined 10 demands that the group had for the good of all "homosexual men and women" living in Canada. Included in the demands was "#9. All legal rights for homosexuals which currently exist for heterosexuals" and "#10. All public officials and law enforcement agents to employ the full force of their office to bring about changes in the negative attitudes and de facto expressions of discrimination and prejudice against homosexuals." "We Demand," also published a few days earlier in the Body Politic, was signed in name by the August 28 Gay Day Committee. Upon looking at the demands, (which you can view at the Canadian Gay and Lesbian Archives website clga.ca), you can see that as a community we have achieved many of the demands, but others remain outstanding.

When we look at the March on Washington and the "We Demand" actions together we see a line in time that ties the events together. While there are certainly differences between the goals, reasons and outcomes of the two actions, both events were messages from repressed members of the society to their governments that things had to change, and both are now viewed as important dates for the communities they represented. Both also used the significance of the capital as a staging ground for their message, and both provided a roadmap of action for future generation to refer to. Fundamentally both were also calls for more inclusive human rights.

Forty-six and 38 years later, respectively, the August 28 calendar coincidence of the two actions seems an opportune time to celebrate and exploit for ongoing gains in the fight for human rights for all. I am thinking that if art can have a birthday, most certainly Action for Human Rights can have a birthday—and can we think of a more perfect day than the already historically loaded day of August 28? Happy birthday, Action for Human Rights!

In a year that saw diversity come under attack through the passing of Bill 44 and the delisting of gender reassignment surgery, Alberta is a great location for the party! Picture it: birthday cake for everyone, people walking down Jasper Ave in a funny hats that say Happy Birthday, Action for Human Rights, a rousing game of pin the article on the UN Declaration of Human Rights, an exhausting round of musical privileges (so everyone gets a turn). In lieu of presents donations could be made to various local non-profits that work for human rights. The day could culminate with a multicultural, multilingual chorus of voices singing "Happy Birthday, Action for Human Rights" outside of Lindsay Blackett's office (we'll even save him a piece of cake).

So what are you doing on August 28?

Edmonton activists protest corporate Pride - June 30, 2009

2010-12-26T07:48:00.000-08:00

On Jun 28, the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots in New York City, a group of Edmonton-based queer activists recreated their city's first Pride march, hoping to reclaim the spirit of Stonewall.

The Queer Recruitment Army, along with 40 other people, marched the original Edmonton Pride route from Corbett Hall on the University of Alberta campus, down 10 blocks along Whyte Ave, a popular strip on the city's south side that has become gentrified since the original march in the summer of 1981. As they made their way on foot and bikes, they handed out flyers that read, "Stonewall Liberation! Resist! Revolt! Celebrate!" while chanting slogans such as "Say No to Bigotry, Yes to Diversity."

In a statement released to gay media outlets the group indicated that, "In reclaiming the spirit of the Stonewall rebellion, the Queer Recruitment Army (QRA) will also be taking a stand against the increasing commercialization of Pride."

The march ended with the group gathering in a green space just off of Whyte Ave where posters were set up so that marchers could write what Pride means to them.

This was the QRA's second action. Carrying signs that read "My Pride is Not for Sale" and "Stonewall was not sponsored by TD," the QRA first made their presence known June 12 when they marched in Edmonton's Pride Parade protesting the renaming and branding of the event as the TD Canada Trust Pride Parade.

Careful not to be seen as attacking the organizers of Edmonton's Pride Week Festival, QRA member Monika Penner explains the group's intentions are "not to put down the Pride Week committee, who I know care about equality" but rather, she says, "to challenge the impact and extent of sponsorship. I think it is great that a business wants to support Pride. In fact, all businesses — and individuals — should support Pride. But this rebranding turns a queer event into a corporate event. And this has got to stop."

In part, the QRA's reclaiming of the spirit of Stonewall is an effort to remind people of the diversity of participants in the Stonewall riots of 1969. Those riots included gay men, hustlers, leather dykes, the homeless, drag queens, drug addicts, people of all races and others.

"In fact the modern gay movement and the whole rainbow flag thing really seems only to serve the most normative of homosexuals — out, white, gay American or European able-bodied men between the ages of 18 to 50," says Mitchell.

Formed, as Mitchell explains, "in a very sort of knee-jerk response to the term TD Canada Trust Pride Parade" the QRA will now be meeting often to discuss and act on issues facing various queer communities. Aiming to represent more diverse queer communities, Mitchell explains the goals of the QRA and why it was formed.

"For the past 50 years or so, many gay activists, by in large, have continued to fight for mainstream acceptance by comparing gayness to straightness — that is, monogamous people struggling for the right to marry and raise families, look and act normal, occupy a certain position in consumerist society, etcetera. And this has been a very successful tactic, but at what cost? Who gets left behind, and who is further marginalized?"

The forming of the QRA and the rolling out of their actions comes at a time where Edmonton's queer community is becoming increasingly active in recent months and more closely linked to the city's activist and do-it-yourself (DIY) communities. The summer has seen organized protests against the Alberta government from many different groups. Queer activists rallied against the delisting of gender reassignment surgery and the perceived backhanded way in which sexual orientation was finally recognized in the province's human rights act.

QUEERMONTON Speaking more queerly - July 08, 2009

2010-12-26T07:45:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago Adam Nagourney of the New York Times explained on the front page of the paper that "Even as cultural acceptance of homosexuality increases ... the politics of gay rights remains full of crosscurrents."

I read this sentence in a coffee shop and it took everything inside of me not to stand up and yell, "Amen brother!" At the heart of Nagourney's words is an understanding of the fact that while stigma and outright hatred of homosexuality has decreased, and rights and freedoms have increased, the reality for people of diverse sexual and gender orientations is much more complex. There are more inroads to make, and it is at these inroads that paths begin to diverge and the crosscurrents begin. We see this clearly in Edmonton in the dynamic that exists between the queers and the gays.

To start with, gay can be implied to mean homosexual, while queer suggests a more fluid and/or complex notion of sexual orientation. Someone who describes themselves as gay can be assumed to engage in same-sex activities whereas the same thing cannot be assumed of someone who describes themselves as queer.

Queer was historically used to describe things that were abnormal, and gay to describe someone who was happy. It is funny how queer and gay—that is to say abnormal and happy—can now lend themselves to be identifying political labels. It's possible that a gay person may not see their sexual orientation as being political, while someone who is queer would most likely understand that inherent in their declared orientation is the political.

A politically active gay person can be understood as someone who is looking for happiness in the full acceptance by the mainstream of their sexual orientation, whereas a queer person can often be categorized as one which is comfortable challenging notions of normal and finds strength in abnormality. Marriage, equal opportunity at work and in the marketplace are the main concerns of many gay people's activism, while for many queer people the notion of marriage is troubling and systems of capitalism and the like must be questioned.

While I believe gay and queer can exist on the same spectrum, increasingly gay and queer are coming to ideological loggerheads. For an example, one need look no further than this year's Pride parade celebrations in Edmonton. For many gays the news that TD Bank was sponsoring Edmonton's Pride parade heralded a new era of support. Gays saw TD Bank's sponsorship as increased legitimacy of homosexuality and the accompanying lifestyle. As one person wrote on the Edmonton Pride Festival facebook wall, "It's awesome to see that large companies such as TD are able to open up and be progressive enough to support such an event as Edmonton Pride."

For Edmonton queers, however, the TD Bank sponsorship pointed to the growing commercialization of Pride and the gay lifestyle. Many queers in Edmonton were specifically disturbed by the renaming of the Pride Parade to the TD Bank Pride Parade. Members of the Queer Recruitment Army, a new activist group in the city, carried signs during the parade that read things such as "Stonewall was not sponsored by TD" and "My Pride is not for sale."

Cliché would dictate that what potentially divides queers and gays is nothing compared to what unites them, but that is only true in the same way it is true of all human diversity. In practice the differences in queer and gay identities are substantive. They speak to different ways of seeing and being seen in the world. They reflect different values and, ultimately, very different goals.

It was not that long ago that queer was rarely used. During the first year of Exposure I was invited to speak about our upcoming festival on a local radio show. The announcer, a homosexual himself, refused to use the event's full title, Exposure: Edmonton's Queer Arts and Culture Festival, saying that he did not feel comfortable using the word queer. That same year our board chair was the recipient of a very nasty email from a former resident of Edmonton who violently objected to the use of the word queer. For some the word queer still stings from back in the day when it was used to disparage people, not used by people for empowerment.

Fast forward to present day, when people's use of the word gay is being policed to ensure that they are not being homophobic, while queer rolls off people's tongues without a second thought. It is used to sell beer, describe youth events and increasingly as a label to describe one's self.

If things continue to progress the way I think they will in the future gay will remain for the most part a word used to describe a man's same-sex orientation whereas queer will become less associated with sexual identity and more about political ideas and alternative ways of being. In the meantime, pay attention. V

QUEERMONTON HIV and Sex Poz sex-positive - June 24, 2009

2010-12-26T07:40:00.000-08:00

The music is loud. A continuous stream of great songs keeps you on the dance floor. Moving closer all night is a guy you are totally attracted to. Your eyes lock a few times and then you both explode in giddy shy smiles. You turn away and hope your boner dies down. It is near the end of the night, and by now you and the guy are dancing close, brushing up against each other. Soon his hands are on your body. You can smell his clean skin. His cool breath is on your sweaty neck. He tells you that he wants to take you home. You lean in close. His chest meets yours. "I would love to," you say. You kiss.

For the next song you smile at each other and dance as you finish your drink. You can tell there's something he wants to say. You wait in anticipation. The sexual chemistry between you is so much you think that if you were a different type of guy you would take him into a washroom stall right now. You feel his breath again on your neck. Your body is moving perfectly with the music. He seems a bit hesitant. He opens his mouth and you are expecting him to say that he has a boyfriend or his place is mess. Instead he says, "I should let you know—I have HIV."

Do you pull him close, whisper seductively in his ear, "I always play safe," and then make your way together to the door? Or do you try to suppress a thick gulp as your mind rushes to find a "nice" way out of the situation?

A few weeks ago I was sitting around a table taking to friends about hookups and one-night stands. We all agreed it is best to start finding out about a person before you take them home. One guy readily admitted that if someone disclosed they were HIV+ he would no longer be interested in sleeping with him. This guy who said this is not a bad guy, he's a regular good guy who thought his self-protective stance was informed. The fact is if you both protect yourselves there is no danger to you or the person living with HIV in having sex.

We have been taught to protect ourselves against HIV, but along the way we've forgotten that nothing is ever just one thing. Human Immunodeficiency Virus does not live in isolation. It is contained in human bodies, human bodies we sometimes want to fuck, human bodies we should not be afraid of, human bodies we should embrace if we want to.

A quarter-century into the AIDS crisis people living with HIV lead long, healthy lives. While living with HIV may mean a cocktail of drugs everyday with nasty side affects, it can also mean a satisfying and varied sex life. While there still is no cure for HIV, the reality of living with the virus has gone from rapidly progressing into AIDS and dying soon after, to now being a chronic, manageable disease. So while science may have progressed to a point to better serve people living with HIV, our culture and government, it could be easily argued, has not.

Right now in Canada, a person living with HIV is legally obligated to inform a potential sex partner that they are living with HIV. Not doing so, regardless of what sexually transpires, can result in the person living with HIV being charged with aggravated sexual assault to attempted murder (even if the potential partner is not infected and possibly even if the person living with HIV was not aware of their HIV status at the time).

In cases where the sex partner is infected with HIV and subsequently dies, the person living with HIV can be charged with first-degree murder.

The Canadian government is by far one of the most bullish and aggressive countries in its policing of people living with HIV. For example, the UN takes a more prosaic approach, suggesting only in cases where HIV transmission actually occurred and the person with HIV intentionally infected someone should a person be criminally charged. Last week Justice Edwin Cameron from South Africa was quoted in the Toronto Star as saying, "Canada's wide approach to exposure offences is sending out a terribly retrograde message to other countries, especially on my own continent, in Africa."

For people living with the virus, Canada's criminalization of HIV is just a curb stomp blow to the already crippling stigma related to HIV. Last year the publishers of Xtra.ca were involved in a forum that looked at HIV disclosure and the law. At the event Derek Yee, a man living with HIV stated, "I'm branded as a criminal ... now they tell me my body is a weapon."

So back to the club—the pulsating beat, the dangling offer. Did you decide what you are going to do? Does our culture's lack of openness in dealing with HIV impact whether you go home with the guy? Does society's ignorance about what it is to be living with HIV play a part in your knowledge of what is safe and what isn't? Does having a law in place reduce the responsibility you need to take for yourself? Should the state ever police what goes on in a bedroom between two consenting adults?

Fear and ignorance rob people of experiences and create space for those in power to oppress. As sexual minorities we have an opportunity to make choices for ourselves. Get informed. Have fun.

VUE WEEKLY Looking back, moving forward Stonewall Riots, Canada and Edmonton's own histories inspire Pride Week 2009 - June 10, 2009

2010-12-26T07:39:00.000-08:00

Love is in the air for this year's Edmonton Pride Festival, as organizers try to get the mojo flowing with the festival's 1960s Stonewall-Riots-era-inspired theme of "Age of Aqueerious." But some artists, academics and activists hope that this year's Pride is also an opportunity for the city's LGBTQ community to remember its own national and local queer roots, and possibly learn from them to help usher in the dawning of a new era in the province.

In a widely circulated email last week, doctoral researcher and LGBTQ activist Kris Wells shared his thoughts on why Pride mattered this year especially, writing, "The Stonewall Riots took the fight for equality to the streets of New York City during a time when we were deemed to be degenerates and criminals. It is time to return to the streets and to tell the citizens of Alberta that our identities will not be assaulted."

The impact of the June 1969 events in New York cannot be understated explains David Carter, author of Stonewall: The Riots that Sparked the Gay Revolution.

"It is common today to trace the tremendous gains made for lesbian and gay rights since the early 1970s back to the Stonewall Riots of 1969, when gay men, transvestites and lesbians fought the police during a routine raid on a popular gay club in Greenwich Village," he says. "It is also commonly asserted that the riots, which continued on and off for six days, marked the beginning of the gay rights movement."

While the streets of New York were alive with rioters, here in Canada the words of then-Minister of Justice Pierre Elliot Trudeau were echoing in the ears of Canadians. With his famous "there's no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation" speech, Trudeau and his omnibus Bill C-150 ushered in a new era in which abortion, contraception and homosexual acts between consenting adults was no longer illegal.

"It was an important shift not just for lesbians and gays, but also to the police," says Miriam Smith, author of Political Institutions and Lesbian and Gay Rights in the United States and Canada, of the cultural shifts that happened in the wake of Bill C-150. "Their power to arrest people for particular acts was gone. Of course there was still policing of queer sexuality, there were other laws they could use."
Almost two years after bill passed, on August 28, 1971, George Hill and a handful of other activists from around Ontario gathered on Parliament Hill to demand the federal government make changes to how the country viewed and ruled over gay and lesbian people. It was this demonstration that put in motion how Canadians would celebrate Pride for the next decade.

"[In cities across Canada] a loose coalition of gay and lesbian activists would meet for an annual national conference and hold a march around that same August date every year," Smith says, adding that she think it's critically important to remember the roots of Canada's Pride celebrations. "These days we've lost sight of that early history, of that first demonstration in August 1971 and what a turning point that was in Canadian history for people to be able to stand on Parliament Hill and hold signs that said Gay is Good, Crush Heterosexual Imperialism. It was a major turning point."

Edmonton also has its own largely unrecognized queer roots, which will be highlighted during this year's festival on the Queer Edmonton Historical Bus Tour (Wed, Jun 17, hosted by Darrin Hagen), which will explore Edmonton's LGBT past as far back as the late 1960s. One the many stops on the tour will be the location of the now long-gone Pisces Bathhouse, which was raided by police in 1981. According to Tom Warner in his book Never Going Back: A History of Queer Activism in Canada, and conformed by Edmonton LGBT expert Michael Phair, Edmonton had a gay liberation group as far back as 1971, but like Stonewall in the US it was the bathhouse raid that started the gay rights movement in Edmonton. About a month after the raid, in which 56 men were charged with being "found-ins" at a "bawdyhouse"—an example of how queer sexuality was still policed in the early '80s—Edmonton had its first Pride parade.

With crowds along Jasper Avenue on Pride parade day (Sat, Jun 13) expected to hit 12 000, a lot has changed since those early days of the parade, showing just how far the movement has come in the city.
"It was about 40 people walking down Whyte Avenue," recalls Phair, "15 of which were wearing bags over their heads."

QUEERMONTON Sissy power! - June 10 , 09

2010-12-26T07:32:00.000-08:00

The first summer after I moved out of my parent's house and into a tiny apartment in downtown Edmonton I read The Autobiography of Malcolm X. His story about journeying to a place of peace within a world that was against him resonated with me. Although I am not comfortable with reductionist comparisons between black and queer experiences, I do see similarities and am still moved as a queer man by a speech Malcolm X gave in which he asked the audience, "Who taught you to hate the colour of your skin to such extent that you bleach it to get it like the white man? Who taught you to hate your own kind so much so that you don't even want to be around each other?" 

 When I first heard these questions I easily applied them to my relationship with the gay community and my own queerness. That first summer alone I was both so enthralled yet scared of who I was and the world I could belong to that I would wait until 2 or 3 am on Friday and Saturday nights to walk down Jasper Ave, circling around 104th Street just to catch a glimpse of people leaving The Roost. I remember the tired, alive smiles of handsome boys I thought I would never get to kiss illuminated by the collateral light of phone booths and outdoor store signs, the sounds of diva shouts and eruptive laughter, the smell of booze and too much cologne wafting in the cool summer air. Years of feeling trapped in suburbia made those nights seem surreal—so much so that I couldn't allow myself to be a part of them. I worked at being invisible, never saying "hi" or even smiling at my queer bothers and sisters as we passed each other in the night.  So much of my fear and loathing around the gay community and myself has been, and continues to be, my own sliding scale of discomfort in my queer body; my funny voice, my nelly mannerisms, my often uncontrollable exuberance. Who taught me to hate this about myself?

Malcolm X was assassinated in 1965 at a meeting in Upper Manhattan. Across town at the Stonewall Inn in the West Village four years later (still part of the same turbulent decade), a riot broke out. A motley crew of queers, queens, freaks and their admirers refused to let cops prematurely end their night at one of the few places where they could gather in private. Back then there were no gay clubs, only Mafia-owned holes-in-the-wall that made quick cash on watered-down drinks served on the bar owner's terms: no touching, no dancing and expect to be blackmailed at any time if you weren't willing to pay or play by the rules. The bar owners were in cahoots with the cops and some of the cops were corrupt. But on June 29, 1969 at the Stonewall Inn, the gays disrupted this power sharing by fighting back, by refusing to go quietly into the night. Cars were overturned, bricks were thrown, crowds gathered, bodies were slammed and the gay rights movement, already well underway, found its tipping point. Interestingly, mere months earlier Canada, thanks to Bill C-150, had decriminalized homosexuality. 

 Leading the way that night at the Stonewall Inn were the limp-wristed of the bunch, the squeaky-voiced slight boys with the least to lose since they had nothing anyway. It was the gayest of the bunch that refused to get up, be strip searched to have their gender confirmed. Isn't that always the way? Think today on elementary school fields; who's the first to get picked on, have insults hurled at them before anyone else? Sissies, always the sissies—and yet gay culture increasingly attempts to mock the sissy, ignore the sissy in representation unless they are the butt of the joke. 

 In part it is this denouncing and ignoring of the sissy that answers Malcolm X's questions that echo in my head. It is a culture, both gay and straight, that tells me that sissies are bad, that effeminate is ineffectual. Part of what we have lost in the fight for gay rights is the ability to be different. With growing acceptance has come increased assimilation. For some this is comforting, for me it is sad because it is the sissy that is being left behind, and lest we forget, sissies led the revolution. 

 We need sissies now more than ever. Decades after the civil rights movement began, 40 years after Stonewall, America may have elected their first black president and Canada may be home to same-sex marriage and gays in the military, but we in Alberta are still living with a government that seems hell bent on being on the wrong side of history by denying life-saving services to transgender people and making room for teachers to continue to disappear homosexuality away. 

 As we revel this week in all the glory that is the Edmonton Pride Festival we need to get our sissy on and fight for our rights to be flamboyant, fabulous and free! How we show our pride, change this province for the better and make the world a more tolerant place is by allowing ourselves to be as gay as we want.

QUEERMONTON Goodbye, Gilbert - May 27, 2009

2010-12-26T07:26:00.000-08:00

A few days after hearing Edmonton arts writer Gilbert Bouchard was missing I read a friend's comment on Facebook in which he expressed hope that Gilbert was not really missing but was actually just hanging out in a hotel room "watching cable and ordering room service." 

 Sadly, as I think my friend knew on some level and as many feared, this was not the case. Last week police found Gilbert's body in the North Saskatchewan River, another kindred creative queer brother drawn to the murky darkness of the mud-bottomed river. 

 Years ago I remember reading Gilbert's food reviews and being so annoyed by them, yet every week leafing through the pages to find them. I devoured them, secretly loving them, wanting to belong to the funny cosmopolitan world he created, full of great restaurants and Scooby-Doo friends. 

 Once when I was trying to figure out how I could get involved in the Edmonton arts and culture scene I waited outside the sound booth at CJSR until the end of Acultural Cocktail, a radio show Gilbert hosted with his friend Suzette Chan, to ask them if I could help out somehow. In my mind I can still see how adult and cool they looked to me—a world beyond what I knew. I think they were wearing all black and had sophisticated smiles on their faces. We chatted for a minute. They gave me some quick advice and suggested I contact them at a later date. I never did get back to them. I think I was intimidated. I never asked Gilbert if he remembered this incident. 

 Years later I had a chance to meet Gilbert again when he reviewed one of my art shows. We met for lunch to discuss the art and it was obvious within minutes that he had already taken the time to view the show, and had put some thought into what he wanted to say about it. In many respects he knew more about the themes that I was working with at the time than I did. Upon reading the article that came from that lunch I remember wishing I were as smart as Gilbert made me sound. 

 From then on in we would see each other around. We would have quick little conversations at art openings, restaurants, theatre lobbies, and I would always leave these tiny times wiser than when we first said hello. I left every conversation I had with Gilbert amazed at his breadth and depth of knowledge on any number of topics, and glad for his generosity in sharing what he knew, what he thought. 

 One time specifically I ran into him before I was about see the film 300. I remember wondering to myself afterwards if I would have hated the film so intelligently and fully if it hadn't been for the brief history lesson he gave me beforehand. 

 It was also during that same conversation that Gilbert gave me two gifts that have made me a better writer. The first gift was the only lesson in journalism I had ever received up to that point; how to write articles in a pyramid structure—the most important information at the beginning of the article and the least important (and therefore the easiest to edit out for space) at the end of the article. 

 The second gift was a piece of advice he gave me that I never figured out how to take. It was after we had discussed 300 and I told him that I would be contributing to Queermonton. He expressed his misgivings to me about writing a queer-focused column, warning me not to become a "gay writer." He said I ran the risk of being pigeonholed as a writer, that once I started with such a specific focus it would be hard to branch out. His words have stuck with me ever since. At times they haunt me and now, in the face of his death, the words hover just out of reach. 

 In many ways I think Gilbert was always looking to mentor developing and ever-expanding minds. I think part of my own grief in Gilbert's passing is that I never fully took him up on his kindness.  One of the most rewarding conversations I had with Gilbert was one in which he told me what he remembers of when the AIDS crisis began. He shared with me that he, like many of the men and women he marched with, cried with and struggled against the silence with, were socially progressive but privately conservative when it came to matters of the heart and sexuality. 

 There was something so tender, real and sweet about this admission that in that moment I saw Gilbert more clearly than I ever had before. Goodbye, Gilbert. You are missed.

VUE WEEKLY - Students will lose - May 27 2009

2010-12-26T07:24:00.000-08:00

Doctors with a limited education in science, social workers who believe that homosexuality is a choice and leaders with disdain for logical thought will in the future make up Alberta’s social fabric thanks to the Stelmach government's controversial Bill 44. 

Despite the myth that the bill is simply about parental rights, as well as a step forward for gay rights, the bill is in fact neither. It is instead an amendment which seeks to limit information to students and promises to pit teachers against parents and school boards against teachers. 

Officially called the Human Rights, Citizenship and Multiculturalism Amendment Act, the government wants Bill 44 to be viewed as a leap forward because it finally fully includes sexual orientation under human rights legislation—something the province was compelled to do over 11 years ago by the Supreme Court. 

But beyond this token gesture to the province’s LGBT community lies the problem with Bill 44. Central to the amendments in the bill is Section 9, which gives parents the right to remove a student from class when anything regarding sexual orientation is taught. This "parental right" is further extended to include the right to remove a student if anything that goes against the parent’s religious beliefs is to be taught. This could include lessons on other religions, ideas around tolerance and, most likely, facts about evolution. Regardless of Blackett’s 11th hour attempts to placate public concerns with slight wording changes, the bill remains a gaping loophole through which one fundamental parent can unfairly affect the education of many students. 

What we as Albertans have to ask is what about a student’s rights? What about a student’s right to life-saving information in relation to sexual health education? What about a student’s right to free thought? What about instilling in students a healthy respect for inquiry? 

With this bill the Conservative government seems hell-bent on positioning the province on the losing side of history in terms of human rights and education, and students will be the ones who suffer as a result. While Bill 44 looks set to become law this week despite widespread opposition across the province, its passage will not mark the end of the fight. It will be up to all Albertans to work with our teachers to ensure they feel supported, to talk about these issues with parents to encourage them to be fair and open, and to encourage our students to be hungry for information. They are, after all, the future leaders who will help us sort out the mess we have let ourselves get into.

QUEERMONTON Boston queer pie - May 13

2010-12-26T07:17:00.000-08:00

It's a grey morning. My boyfriend and the friends with whom we are staying are all still sound asleep in their converted house/apartment nestled in the Boston suburb of Somerville. I quietly leave the house as the school bell across the street announces the start of the day, summoning all the kids in from the wet tarmac, damp from last night's rain. I make my way to Diesel Café, a well-known, frequented lesbian coffeehouse on the high street leading to the T, Boston's subway system.

Diesel's long, wide hallway-like interior is painted a pale baby blue and bridges the gap nicely between being both an urban, comfortable coffee shop and a successful transgressive watering hole. The place feels like a cross between Prism, the lesbian bar just north of Edmonton's city centre, and Garneau's Sugarbowl. There is a motorcycle perched above the front door, an extensive exotic tea list, pool tables, unisex bathrooms and an old school photo booth.

Behind the counter womyn with biker activist chic hair, who for the most part look like they could whip up a mean quiche and change cat litter without a breaking a sweat, take your order without ever mugging a face that could be taken for anything other than genuine. I sit down with my coffee and watch the morning unfold as queers and non-queers alike grab a coffee, type away on their laptops, attempt awkward conversation with strangers, text friends, study and just generally live their lives.

Sitting on a patio with my boyfriend and one of our hosts the day before, I found myself transfixed in the same way I was at the coffee shop, just sitting witnessing the everyday happenings of Boston. We were in the Back Bay area just off of Newbury Street in front of Trinity Church on Boylston (picture a busier, more upscale, historic New England version of Edmonton's 124 Street).

The street was a thick moving river of young and middle-age office workers brushing and bumping past each other in office attire and sensible shoes as they made their way home. Creating a colourful obstacle, a fork in the river of commuters, a group of queer kids were holding court near the curb, streaming out from the building that housed the Boston Youth Organizing Group. In all their awkward teenage repressed versus expressed glory they looked just like the queer kids that hang out at Edmonton's Pride Centre. Homemade rainbow accessories punctuating quasi styles of goth, rock star, preppy or whatever they can muster on limited budgets and trial and error.

As we lingered on the patio I watched their comfortably familiar behaviour; the cliques congealing, the non-smokers trying to loudly shame the smokers, the subtle pairing-off for quick romantic trysts, the protective darting looks to passersby, the raptures of laughter. The familiarity ended when something akin to a grey El Camino pulled up violently and parked where the queer kids had gathered. A tight-jawed army man in full fatigues—army boots and everything—forcefully bounded out of the car onto the sidewalk. He stood there for a beat, but there was no time to create a tension-filled narrative that may have included a stare-down between the army man and the queer kids. Before I knew it the army man become one of the queer kids, his hard face melting into a boyish grin as he hugged the other kids. He seemed impossibly young to believe that his small frame had seen war, but there he was.

The Boston Globe barely missed being shut down while I was there, coming up at the last minute with $10 million in cost-saving measures to save it from the chopping block. I think about this, considering how, like payphones and record stores, newspapers are becoming relics of bygone days. It's increasingly the same with conventional ways of living queer. Boston doesn't seem to have a gay area per se, as does New York, Montréal and Toronto. Instead, as I saw at Diesel Café and with the queer kids on the curb, in Boston there is space for queerness to exist everywhere. Increasingly I think this will be the way it is. Cities like Edmonton and Boston leapfrogging gay ghettoization in exchange for overall more liberal cites.

As our friend, my boyfriend and I leave the patio I spy the army boy now across the street sitting on the church plaza stoop. He's changed from his fatigues, and now looks like a milk-and-honey-fed prairie boy in a rolled-up-sleeved T-shirt and jeans. He's sitting close to a young transitioning Hispanic girl. Their peach fuzz arms linked and crossed as they light each other's cigarettes, deeply inhaling. They throw their heads back laughing as they exhale, the smoke rising into the atmosphere, dissipating into the pastel early evening sky.

QUEERMONTON Trans-Prairie love song - April 29, 2009

2010-12-26T07:10:00.000-08:00

Ever since Mrs. A was a little boy she has dreamed of getting married. She remembers growing up in Flin Flon, Manitoba, living with her mother and sister, trying on their clothes whenever they were not home, often with a vision of herself walking down the aisle in a beautiful white dress towards the man of her dreams. In her vision she couldn't see his face, only his back.  

Decades later, miles away and deep in a depression created by years of feeling trapped in the wrong body, she walked into a trans support meeting at Edmonton's Pride Center, where she saw the back she had been walking towards all her life; when he turned around Mrs. A knew that standing before her was Mr. A.  

They talked for hours that night. Like the gentleman he is, Mr. A left before they went too far, but not before he took the soon-to-be Mrs. A in his arms and kissed her passionately.  

Within a month they were living together, giving each other their biweekly hormone injections, and within three months they were sharing the same nurses in a Montréal recovery centre after their gender reassignment-related surgeries.  

Like Mrs. A, Mr. A had also been thinking about marriage since he was a kid. He knew as a little girl that he wanted to get married, but he just couldn't see himself as a bride. Mr. A grew up in rural Alberta, and he had brothers and sisters who he loved but who just couldn't understand. For example, how could a girl be excited about getting her period, he wondered. He dreaded the thought of it, so when well into his teens he still hadn't had his period he didn't bring it up. One day when his gym teacher asked why he never tried to get out of class during that time of the month, Mr. A replied, " I never have that time of the month." The teacher suggested he get it checked out, but for him it just confirmed what he already knew: he was not a girl.

  Without knowing it, Mr. and Mrs. A started to slowly make their way towards each other. Mrs. A moved to Saskatchewan to attend business school. There she met a man who taught her all about transgender. Up until then she thought maybe she was a bisexual man who liked to wear panties, but as soon as she heard about the operations something clicked inside for her. When she heard that Alberta offered the procedures she began applying for any job that would take her west.

  While Mrs. A was making her way to Alberta's capital Mr. A found himself in an 18-year relationship with a woman who knew that he had always felt in the wrong body. At 18 he had asked a doctor about sexual reassignment surgery but was told it wasn't possible for him. Almost two decades later, when speaking with a new doctor, Mr. A found out things had changed. He was so happy. He ran home and told his girlfriend, but she was not happy. "The dick or me," she said. Put that way he chose what was for him a sense of wholeness—he chose a dick. By the time Mr. A turned around that night and saw Mrs. A for the first time he had already had his hysterectomy, double mastectomy and could grow a mean beard.

  Later in Montréal, the day after Mrs. A had her genital surgery, Mr. A had his phalloplasty surgery. Mrs. A got to go home first, leaving Mr. A behind. Their bodies rebelled at being apart. Not getting better, the nurses released Mr. A early, knowing that he would heal once he was home.  

Mrs. A was already wearing Mr. A's college ring. Then, on June 21, 2008, as witnessed by the goddesses at Edmonton's Hellenic Hall, a bridesmaid with a penis, a best man without one and not a dry eye in the house, Mrs. A walked towards the man of her dreams.  

After the ceremony it was suggested that they have their wedding photos taken at the legislature grounds. " I love this province," Mr. A exclaimed at that time in agreement, "they paid for our operations, they saved our lives."

  They have made a cozy home in west Edmonton; Mr. A works in a factory and Mrs. A is in accounting. Their heart breaks with news that the province that brought them together, saved their lives and married them is the same one that will be denying their friends and loved ones the same opportunity, all to save a mere 19 cents per Albertan.  

"The amount of money spent for gender surgery is a drop in the bucket compared to the cost of human lives, " laments Mr. A. "Not to mention the cost of services such as psychiatric and addiction units, emergency wards and numerous other resources that will be used if transsexuals are left without options.

"  Mr. and Mrs. A used to console themselves to the reality that the only thing surgery couldn't give them were seeds with which to create life by thinking about how sharing their story planted seeds of hope in the lives of trans kids. Now they are left feeling inconsolable and frustrated. This was not the way the dream was supposed to end.

XTRA - Artist Daryl Vocat's Exhibit juxtaposes boy scouts and cruising spots June 26, 2009

2010-12-26T07:04:00.000-08:00

Queer, sharp-eyed, street-wise Edmontonians may find that they are already familiar with Toronto-based artist Daryl Vocat's work as they walk into his exhibit at Latitude 53.

Collaborating in 2007 with Edmonton-based print maker Anthea Black, Vocat was part of Black's ongoing Looking For Love in All The Wrong Places project that sees queer-themed posters go up in cities across Canada and the US. For Black's project Vocat created the "Children Be Gay" poster seen around downtown Edmonton that includes two boy scouts that look similar to the boys that are currently populating Vocat's Latitude show.

Entitled The Secret Of The Midnight Shadow, Vocat's show is in the artist-run center's Main Space, an evolution from the work's beginning as a smaller installation at Toronto's Harbourfront Centre.

As you walk in, tucked into three walls are miniaturized screen-printed boy scouts superimposed on cruising spots. As a viewer you may not know that the places are scenes of gay male sex but rather just natural settings for young boys to be fooling around.

Taking up the majority of the space, Vocat has transformed the white box of the gallery into a cavernous night-time hideaway where life-sized drawn boys stand out inches from the wall, making the viewer, hopes Vocat, "implicit in the space."

Costumed and somewhat devilish, the boys are doing all sorts of things: levitating, crawling, smiling, wiping blood of their hands, hiding in the bushes and possibly even bonding and growing up along the way.

By creating, in his own words, "a different place, an environment that is more participatory," Vocat has invited the audience to reconsider the world of boy scouting.

With most of the images and details for the show come from Vocat's fascination with the boy scout manuals from his youth, along with influences like Canadian photographer Evergon, Vocat is trying to "show a parallel narrative to what is going on" different from those that exist in the manuals, one that is closer to his own.

For Vocat his experience was more complex than the ones pictured. Using these images from the manual and blending them with his own truth the work becomes as Vocat describes a "collage — but the chunky way we usually think of collage."

"Cutting, pasting, layered images, internal dialogue — the more I played, the more evolved it has become, the less conflicted and the more confrontational — not aggressive — the work is. It is the content that is jarring. I want people to think about the work, invite people into the work," says Vocat. "There is an underlying darkness to it."

Not falling into traps of cynicism or sensation, Vocat's take on his experience in boy scouts and growing up is more subtle and nuanced, thus making it more universal and relatable.

Todd Janes, executive director of Latitude 53 thinks that Daryl's work is important to be seen by everyone but feels that the work really speaks to an Edmonton audience. "Edmonton is still fairly conservative and many people will appreciate the hidden codes [of Vocat's work]... it is a good summer show that has impact because of its many layers," says Janes. "Daryl's work is mischievous and fun loving. This is the type of show I would bring kids to see."

Daryl Vocat The Secret of The Midnight Shadow.
Latitude 53.
Until Jul 11.
Latitude53.org.

More about Daryl Vocat at Darylvocat.com.

To find out more about Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places, check out: Femininemoments.dk/blog/index.php/tag/anthea-black.

QUEERMONTON The gay factory - April 1

2010-12-26T07:00:00.000-08:00

When the Roost closed its doors at the end of 2007, no one bar in town took its place. A handful of existing and new bars instead began catering to specific groups of gay people—Boots has become mostly for older guys and bears, Buddys for twinks, Prism for ladies and Play has specific nights for various groups (jocks, fetish, etc).

Around the same time I noticed this bar situation I came across the term “reification” in my comparative literature course, and it seemed to resonate with what has gone on in gay culture generally and helps to explain why gay bars in the city are now catering to specific lifestyles rather than to gay people in general.

Reification, according to theorist Fredric Jamerson, is “the way in which under capitalism, older traditional forms of human activity are reorganized and analytically fragmented and reconstructed according to models of efficiency.” The Marxist thinker Ernest Mandel points to detective novels as an example of how a human activity, in this case death, has been reframed to no longer be something that just happens but something that needs to be solved, and along the way commodified.

In the class I couldn’t help but think that in the last 40 years—with gay bars as just one example—homosexuality has become reified. No longer does “gay” refer only to forms of human activity (homosexual sex), it has been reorganized and constructed to describe a type of lifestyle. When we say it is a gay magazine or a gay TV show, it is not because the magazine or TV show depict same-sex sex, but rather because it showcases a lifestyle designed to be desirable to gay people. A good example of this is the fact that for the most part many people still don’t know what lesbians do in bed, but ask a random sampling of individuals to describe what a lesbian looks like or what a lesbian’s hobbies might be and you likely hear descriptions that sound like they came from The L Word’s central casting office.

In many ways the advertising of a gay lifestyle has been great. For some people it has been a lifesaver to see gays on TV, letting them know that gay people do exist. But this reconfiguring way to look at homosexuality has also meant that gay people have shifted from being a minority group to being a marketing demographic.

Instead of being seen as a group working towards equality, gays are seen as being good for business. We see this manifested in urbanist Richard Florida’s idea that gays are good (read: profitable) for cities, and in the efforts of advertisers to woo the “pink dollar,” a term that refers to the buying power of gay people. (Mirroring mainstream culture, the majority of the gay buying power is in the hands of men—how else do explain Cher’s once-never-ending farewell tour and the fact that it was Will and Grace not Jill and Glenn.)

The move towards focusing on gay as a buyable lifestyle has, of course, intertwined sexual orientation and class. If gay is understood as a lifestyle rather than an orientation then it becomes hard to imagine someone as a sexual minority if they don’t fit into the marketplace’s definition of being gay. And it’s even more difficult to imagine that someone is a victim of homophobia if you don’t recognize them as gay. This is why it may be easy to support your gay male neighbour as they tell you about their homonegative boss but it’s more difficult to imagine that it is systemic homophobia that has lead to a homeless bisexual youth asking you for money.

In the end, in order to gain legitimacy in western culture—and along with it all the rights and freedoms enjoyed by the majority—you must be part of the marketplace. As the marketplace becomes more competitive you must diversify. In the wake of the Roost’s final night it was no longer commercially viable just to serve beer to gays, you had to serve beer to specific kinds of gays.

Ernest Mandel’s major criticism of reification is the lack of room it makes for complexity. Just think of the detective novel again: everything in the end has to be black and white. Every who-done-it must eventually be seen as an open-and-shut case. But everyone knows that gay is a rainbow, or as filmmaker Derek Jarman said, “Sexuality is as wide as the sea.”

So why would we want to go to bars where we’re all the same? It makes no sense to me, but maybe I just miss the Roost. Or maybe I just don’t understand reification.

Gay Albertans vow to keep up the fight against Bill 44 / Law threatens lessons on sex, sexual orientation June 02, 2009

2010-12-25T20:43:00.000-08:00

As Bill 44 passed early Tuesday morning, Alberta became the last province to formally recognize gay rights and the first to recognize the controversial idea of parental rights.

"Tomorrow the sun will rise, teachers will conduct their classes, and all will be right with the world," claimed Alberta Progressive Conservative Culture and Community Spirit Minister Lindsay Blackett. Many in Alberta disagree.

Blackett spoke at 1:30am Tuesday morning at the third reading of Bill 44, which formally adds sexual orientation to Alberta's Human Rights Act at the cost of also enshrining "parental rights." Section 9 of Bill 44 will allow parents to remove their children from class when lessons on religion, sex or sexual orientation are being taught.

In reaction to Bill 44, David Swann, leader of the official opposition said that when it comes to democracy, he is "profoundly disappointed with Alberta today."

The day leading up to the vote was dubbed the "Day of Protest Against Bill 44" by Edmonton's queer community, who were out in visible force throughout the day.

At 11am on the legislature steps, prominent activists from the community held a press conference to denounce Bill 44. The group included lawyer Julie Lloyd who was involved in the Vriend vs Alberta Supreme Court case, which ruled sexual orientation must be included in provincial human rights legislation across Canada. Also in attendance were police commissioner Murray Billet, long-time activist and former city councillor Michael Phair, Kris Wells of the Institute for Sexual Minority Studies and Services, and Lance Anderson, a gay father of two who along with his husband won a major adoption battle in Alberta.

During the press conference Billet noted that this all started 11 years ago with the Vriend vs Alberta Supreme Court ruling when "a teacher was fired for being gay." Now, the province is "making it so a teacher can be fired for teaching gay," he says.

The most poignant moment came when Anderson, through tears, cried out for the Alberta government to fight him instead of his kids. "I fought this government before to adopt my children," he said. "I won. I'll do it again."

Later in the day families gathered on the steps of the Alberta legislature to chant and show their opposition to the bill.

Like last week's second reading of the bill, the debate was scheduled for late into the night, and people across the province watched it unfold on streaming video online and by commenting via Twitter. In the end the bill passed 35 to 7 with all of the members of the Progressive Conservative party voting for it, even though there had been some rumours that not all members were for it. Premier Ed Stelmach promised that the vote would be a "free vote," meaning members did not have to vote along party lines.

Before the vote even happened Alberta NDP leader Brian Mason vowed "the battle to repeal Bill 44 starts tomorrow." Later Swann suggested calling for a referendum on parental rights.

QUEERMONTON I Love coming together - March 18, 09

2010-12-25T20:40:00.000-08:00

Last week I interviewed artist Attila Richard Lukacs about his Polaroid show at the Art Gallery of Alberta. He showed up for the interview wearing an “I Heart Gaza” T-shirt. Standing there as a queer man, commenting on Palestine through his choice of clothing he represented a coming together of communities that in part echoed what my last few weeks have been about.

A few months ago I wrote a column about a listserv that would not post event details for Exposure: Edmonton’s Queer Arts and Culture Festival. A number of reasons were given, including the listserv proprietor’s concern that due to the content (read: gay) the post might offend some of his subscribers.

Nothing really came of the column. A few people mentioned in passing to me that they had had similar experiences, but no one cancelled their subscription to the listserv or brainstormed how we could work with the proprietor to change his practices.

I also became complacent. I sent a few emails around to alert people to what I had written, but when no one replied I let it die. But since it is almost Easter this can be a resurrection story.

A few weeks ago an email was circulated among the social justice community in Edmonton that quoted the column about my experience with the listserv. The circulating email was about how the aforementioned listserv was now unwilling to circulate events happening in the city for Israeli Apartheid Week at the University of Alberta.

The email gathered momentum and soon I was receiving emails that people were cancelling their subscription to the listserv and that they were writing the proprietor strongly worded emails questing his posting practices.

During all this I also received a few notes from people apologizing for not acting when I wrote the column in the first place. One friend involved in social justice wrote, “There are so many fires around me and so when shit like this happens I just think, oh ya, that’s the way it is. I’m used to queer being discriminated against”—she isn’t the only one.

In a way we all have gotten used to homonegativity being a daily part of lives. Systemic and cultural homophobia is so pervasive we often fail to notice it. When someone does we often chalk it up to them being sensitive.

People post homophobic status updates on Facebook, some Urban Outfitters are selling prank “Gays in the Closet” stationary, the Alberta government still does not fully recognize sexual orientation in the province’s human rights legislation and as HIV rates begin to increase among gay men in Edmonton so to does the vitriolic rhetoric around AIDS within the gay community.

I now see how my own acceptance of homonegativity and internalized homophobia let the issue die the first time. I let people continue to subscribe to a service that pandered to organizations that didn’t value them and could in some cases hurt the work they do.

When the email made the issue resurface I felt guilty when I saw people sticking their necks out. When unsubscribing to the listserv put them on the receiving end of long, pontificating emails from both sides I worried that standing up for gay rights might not seem so worth it to them anymore.

In some ways it is now easier to be open about your sexual orientation than it ever has been, but with that comes possible backlash from those who want individuals back in the closet and misplaced notions from some gay people around gratefulness and acceptance. To this day when some macho-looking straight dude doesn’t mumble “homo” under his breath I start thinking he should be nominated for a peace prize. I have to ask myself, since when is just being decent a cause to celebrate?

What I realize now is that people didn’t just unsubscribe from the listserv because they perceived it to be homonegative and discriminatory in other ways. They unsubscribed because they didn’t agree with the owner of the list’s practices and needed to feel supported by a critical mass to take action. They took a stand, not because they have gay or Palestinian friends but because they have friends, and together they recognized that they no longer wanted to support an organization that didn’t value all people equally.

Trans activists push for inclusion in Alberta human rights act Province adding sexual orientation to legislation, 11 years after Vriend April 01, 2009

2010-12-25T20:36:00.001-08:00

Alberta Culture Minister Lindsay Blackett announced last week that the provincial government plans to amend the province's Human Rights, Citizenship and Multiculturalism Act to formally include sexual orientation.

Blackett's announcement comes 11 years after the historic Vriend vs Alberta case in which the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that sexual orientation must be included under human rights legislation across the country. Alberta was the only jurisdiction in Canada to not embrace the ruling.

NDP MLA for Edmonton-Strathcona, Rachel Notley, has continually brought up the Vriend decision during her time in politics and she welcomes Blackett's plans. But she says that 11 years of resistance has created "a validation of homophobia that still exists in sectors of Alberta."

While many from Edmonton's queer community applaud the province's step forward, some have concerns about the proposed changes to the Alberta Human Rights Commission and a provision that would allow parents to exclude their children from learning about sexual orientation in school.

Trans activists are also concerned. While specifics are still vague, there has been no mention of gender identity in the proposed legislation.

Activists hoped that by the time the Progressive Conservative government got around to including sexual orientation into the legislation, gender identity would also be included.

"It's frustrating to offer to get involved with the push for human rights and do whatever is needed to secure our inclusion only to see that trans is never put on the table for discussion at all," says Alberta-based trans activist Mercedes Allen.

"The exclusion of trans people from this legislation is disappointing, but hardly surprising," says fellow activist Josie Cross. "Perhaps I am just cynical but I can hardly see Alberta taking a lead in human rights. If gender identity and expression are ever protected under human rights legislation I would expect this to happen on the federal level before Alberta takes similar action."

Notley is puzzled by the culture minister's exclusion of gender identity in the new plan. "It is interesting that they have gone that way," she says.

Cross hopes that a possible backlash could put pressure on the government to include gender identity under the proposed new legislation. "I think it is only a matter of time before trans people are protected under law," says Cross. "Both the Greens and NDP made the inclusion of such protections part of their platform in the last federal election. I only hope that the trans community and their supporters realize this, and seize the opportunity to place pressure on political parties."

In the face of exclusion, both Cross and Allen see this as a monumental time for trans activism in Alberta.

But as Allen points out, "transgender peoples' desire to remain invisible" will be a challenge in activating the community for change.

Cross agrees but is a bit more prosaic. "Transgender people are characteristically quiet about their status, but I believe this is a time at which solidarity is very important, as it will make a great difference in the long run."

For a comprehensive resource please visit Mercedes Allen's site:

AlbertaTrans.org

QUEERMONTON You can feel good!- March 4, 09

2010-12-25T20:32:00.000-08:00

This weekend in Edmonton there’s an art opening featuring dirty gay Polaroids by an internationally renowned artist, a CD release party featuring Edmonton’s favourite homo drummer/filmmaker, a multidisciplinary salon with new work from both the aforementioned drummer/filmmaker and a queer lady printmaker, a collective arts and crafts event and a queer karaoke party!

And to think less than a decade ago Bill Smith, the former mayor of Edmonton, wouldn’t grant permission for the Pride Parade!

Starting on Friday night, the Art Gallery of Alberta will be presenting “POLAROIDS: Attila Richard Lukacs and Michael Morris.” The show is made up of over 3000 Polaroids that have informed Alberta-born Lukascs’s highly charged grand paintings over the last 20 years. Rich with politics, insight and flesh, the Polaroids not only afford an opportunity to get into the mind of a complex and fascinating artist but also cover two decades of the queer male experience. From safe sex pioneer Richard Berkowitz to Robert Mapplethorpe to Andy Warhol, Polaroids have always played a vital role in empowering queer males to be image makers, representing for themselves what they could not find elsewhere. It’s interesting to see this show at the moment Polaroid is dying a slow death as images of gay men have become commodified and accessible. Both Luckas and Morris—an artist who responded to the enormity of Lukacs‘s Polaroid collection by organizing them into inviting grids—will be in attendance.

The party continues later that night at the ARTery for the Wet Secrets’ single CD release dance party. Aside from launching a new single, the gig is also serving as a fundraiser for the band’s upcoming trip to the music and film festival SXSW (South by Southwest) in Austin, Texas. Trevor Anderson, an unflinching Edmonton advocate, will be beating the night away as the band’s drummer. Anderson is also a filmmaker whose work is often about contemporary queer life set in Edmonton, and who’s most recent short film, “The Island,” will be showing as part of the FAVA Freshworks screening on Thursday night at Metro Cinema.

Returning to the ARTery the next night Anderson will be performing a monologue as part of Mile Zero Dance’s salon series that will be ultimately become the frame for his next short film. Entitled “A High Note,” Anderson says that the film will explore his “relationship to my great-uncle, Alberta, theatre and theatricality, sex and sexuality, addiction and Miss Judy Garland.”

This is MZD’s 13th salon, and will feature a variety of work from dance to spoken word to visual art that loosely responds to the theme of spring back. Imagining her own rites of spring, printmaker Anthea Black will be blanketing a section of the ARTery in wallpaper she has created that explores debauchery, the sacrificing of virgins and all the other good stuff that comes when the snow melts. Black showed similar work but with the theme of BDSM at the Bathhouse event that was part of last November’s Exposure: Edmonton’s Queer Arts and Culture Festival.

Johannes Zits, a Toronto-based multimedia artist who was a featured artist during Exposure’s first year, will be back in Edmonton and back at Latitude 53 with installation and drawing artist Ed Pien for Wet and Paste, a collaborative drawing and collage event that the gallery will be hosting the same night as the salon. Zits’s work often focuses on the queer male body and how it is used to evoke expression and impressions. With lots of space, provided supplies and a male nude model the evening promises to be full of inspiration and interaction.

If, after you’ve hit both the Salon and the gallery, you are looking to keep the night alive, Dance Dance Queer Revolution is putting on a fundraiser for and at Circles. The alternative venue has been home to all of Dance Dance Queer Revolution events so far. From underground activists to same-sex-humping hipsters to gender-bending performance artists like event host Antonio Bavaro, Circles brings together the full spectrum of Edmonton’s queer community.

If this has seemed more like an events listings than a column—in part it’s because it is. But more importantly it is a snapshot of one weekend in a supposedly redneck Prairie city early in the 21st century. While there is still far to go in terms of ensuring equality for all, sometimes part of moving forward is acknowledging how far you have come—something to think about as you move your clocks ahead.

XTRA- Edmonton swingers club tackles hysteria SEX PANIC / Owners vow to fight for sexual freedom February 23, 2009

2010-12-25T20:26:00.000-08:00

Edmonton's new swingers club is not swinging open its doors quite yet.

A few months ago Steamers, Edmonton's oldest bathhouse, quietly closed as a result of gentrification in the city's downtown eastside. Across the city, a neighbourhood association is trying to stop a swingers club from opening, arguing that its presence would be a setback for the area's image.

Eleanor Burke, president of the Canora Community League, told the Edmonton Journal she was "amazed" that people go to clubs like 4Play and swap partners.

"Do it downtown or somewhere, but not in a community where there are kids," she said. "I don't think it's morally right for the kids to see this."

Owners of swingers club 4Play hoped to open their venue over Valentine's Day weekend, but the opening date has been pushed back. The club faces a development permit appeal citing parking issues, set to be heard March 5.

4Play is located just off Stony Plain Rd, a stretch well-known for pawn shops, sex stores and rent-to-own furniture locations. Last month, the City of Edmonton released the Jasper Place revitalization strategy that suggests a limit on the expansion and creation of adult-oriented businesses in the area.

4Play owners Joe and his wife Cindy have hosted swingers events in the past without much opposition.

"People are looking at us in a different way," suggests Joe, "because we are not hiding, we are straightforward, we are saying, 'This is who we are, this is our lifestyle.'"

While Joe says he has no issue releasing his last name, both he and Cindy have decided that for the privacy and safety of their children and membership, they will provide only their first names — a sign of how far we as a society still have to go in terms of sexual openness.

"The reason we are fighting to open 4Play," says Joe, "is for freedom of expression, to express our sexuality." And, adds Cindy, "because the Supreme Court of Canada has said we are not wrong."

Cindy is referring to the 2005 Supreme Court of Canada ruling that found swingers clubs cause no harm to society.

In the 7-2 Supreme Court decision stemming from the Montreal-based Labaye and Kouri cases, the court ruled that sexual acts are indecent if the act is harmful. The previous test of decency was based on community standards.

4Play's owners see a link between swinger and queer communities, with both groups fighting to carve out a place for themselves in a sexually repressive culture. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are welcome to apply for 4Play membership, say Joe and Cindy.

"We do not discriminate," says Joe, "but it is up to people to be honest with who they are and what they are looking for."

He suggests that if people are looking for the bathhouse experience 4Play is not for them. As Joe sees it, the swingers club experience is more social than sexual, with most sex happening when people go home together after meeting at the club.

Before they began work on opening the new club, Cindy and Joe ran a swingers club four blocks away from 4Play. That club was open for over 10 years and they say they never had an issue before now.

Through running the club and hosting swingers camp-outs on their private property, they have become part of a strong community of people they call their "horizontal friends" — friends with whom they have had sex.

This group of 20 people has been working around the clock since Jan 8 to open 4Play. The place needed a lot of work. The club is situated in an old movie theatre that sat abandoned for six years and then was briefly home to a church group that never did any renovations. From dealing with damaged ceilings to old carpet, Cindy and Joe have put up over $40,000 of their own money and expect to put in at least $15,000 more.

They plan to recoup the costs through Friday and Saturday night events that they hope will bring in 60 to 100 members. After 4Play is up and running, they may also rent out the space after business hours to other organizations. The venue has a capacity of 130 people and includes a dance floor, theatre and lounge area.

Despite the local community association's concerns, Stony Plain Rd area citizens have been supportive of 4Play opening. Ruben Verdin works at a nearby coffee shop and moved into the neighbourhood three years ago when he came to Canada from Mexico.

"When I first heard about the club opening it blew my mind," says Verdin. "But then I thought — hey, this is Canada. It is a free country and people are free to do what they want as long as they don't harm other people.

Jorden Dorran who lives in the area and works in restaurant just outside of the Stony Plain Rd area was not surprised when she heard that the club was opening.

"It suits the area. Right now I live with hookers," she says, referring to neighbours in her building and the sex workers who do business in the area. "This street looks like shit, so if they make sure the outside of the building looks good then I say why not. I don't care what goes on inside."

XTRA Edmonton scholarship recipient 'empowered to do more' Joshua Dalledonne wants to encourage queer youth to get involved February 17, 2009

2010-12-25T20:22:00.000-08:00

When 23-year-old Joshua Dalledonne learned that he was the first recipient of the University of Alberta's Michael Phair Leadership award, he says he felt a bit uneasy.

Aimed at queer undergrad students that have shown leadership within Edmonton' queer community, the award provides students with $1,000 for their studies. It's named after Phair, the former city councillor who was a founding force behind HIV Edmonton, Edmonton Vocal Minority and Exposure: Edmonton's Queer Arts and Culture Festival. Phair has supported countless other groups in Edmonton both inside and outside the queer community.

Dalledonne, a third-year acting student, says it is an honour to earn a scholarship named after Phair. "Michael has done so much for the city and the community," he gushes. "At first I felt unworthy to receive the scholarship, but now I feel empowered to do more."

Part of Dalledonne's initial anxiety in receiving the award was fuelled by the fact that, for the most part, growing up gay was not an issue for him. He hopes to share his experience with many of the youth he volunteers with for whom being gay is a struggle.

Volunteering at both queer youth leadership Camp Fyerfly and at the U of A's Institute for Sexual Minority Studies and Services, Dalledonne has meet many young people. He says many of them experience what he calls "soft discrimination" — being gossiped about and being merely tolerated rather than truly accepted.

He's interested in exploring the evolution of coming out and homophobia through his first passion: theatre.

Dalledonne is co-writing a play with two friends and he hopes to tour fringe festivals this summer. The work focusses on a group of friends, one of whom is gay. Dalledonne sees this positioning of a gay character within a larger context as the future of gay theatre. "Queer theatre needs to be re-imagined," he says. "Now that people have come out and that story has been told — what is next?"

While Dalledonne might not know the answer to his own question, he says he looks at Toronto's Buddies in Bad Times Theatre as an example. He says Buddies is paving the way for Canadian queer theatre, and he looks at the theatre group's past work to see how queer theatre has changed.

"When Buddies first began, queer was a radical word, and that transgressiveness was reflected in the theatre's earlier work," says Dalledonne. "Then as society changed, growing more accepting of alternative lifestyles and along with it the meaning of the word queer."

Dalledonne leaves school this year and enters the next phase of his life, which may or may not include starting up a queer theatre troupe in Edmonton.

But he must first face the busy summer ahead of him. Aside from his volunteer work with Camp Fyerfly and his theatre project, he is preparing an audition for Stratford and helping to organize the Compass Point Student Symposium, a part of the Magnetic North national theatre festival.

While the scholarship may have given him cash for his studies, it has also given him a chance to further communicate to young queer people that being out and being involved in your community has its rewards.

As for the scholarship's namesake, Phair is amazed at how different his life was growing up compared to Dalledonne's experience. "While I never would have imagined having a scholarship named after me, hearing how things have changed has also come as great surprise," says Phair.

And with news that an anonymous donor has given $10,000 to the scholarship, there's sure to be even more change in store for Edmonton queers.

To donate, apply or find out more about the Michael Phair Leadership Award, visit: ismss.ualberta.ca/scholarships.htm

QUEERMONTON What it takes to be gay - Feb 14, 09

2010-12-25T20:17:00.000-08:00

For the past year I have been inviting various queer men into my apartment to take Polaroid photos of them in tighty-whitey underwear. The project started off as a commentary on the way the gay male body is commodified and infantized in mainstream culture, but has since evolved into something more—an opportunity for two queer men to talk about sex, body, community and desire.

From how to give a better blowjob to feelings around self-image, some of these conversations have been the best I have had in my queer life. I always come away from the experience not only with a great photo but also having learned something I never knew about sex or someone I care about. The experience also leaves me with an awareness that as far as we have come in declaring our pride as a community we still have a long way to go in claiming our sexualness, in owning the discussion around what we do that makes us sexual minorities in the first place.

It’s this kind of open discussion that is at the heart of the new national gay men’s sexual health campaign which asks the question, “Do you have what it takes?” (The French translation, “Are you equipped?” is a little more suggestive and awesome!)

As a member of the national committee responsible for the campaign I just returned from Montréal, where we launched the campaign at a press conference and spent two days learning how to facilitate workshops to accompany the campaign. The workshops, which are called Phoenix and will be offered in Edmonton, are based in helping gay dudes become more aware of their desires and equipping them with the skills to be even better in the (often times proverbial) sack.

This is national group’s third campaign, following on the “assumptions” campaign of a few years back, which challenged gay guys to consider what they thought they knew about their sexual partners, and the the “gay men play safe” campaign, which encouraged gay guys to have even more fun with their penises.

What all of the campaigns have in common is a holistic approach to HIV and other STI prevention among gay men, getting away from the one-note “use a condom” approach that many guys have tired of over the years. Another reason for a more encompassing approach is a growing understanding that someone’s willingness and ability to use a condom comes long before the pants come off. It starts with how a guy feels about himself, what he has had to drink, his reasons for having sex and his comfortability with other people, among countless other factors.

For the current campaign, which consists of print ads (including ones in Vue), a website with quizzes, an animated short film and activities planned across Canada, famous stories have been queered into being solely about men: Adam and Steve, Tarzan and Jim, Snow Will and the Seven Dwarfs (at the bathhouse). The idea is to not only remind people that sex between men has always existed, even if it isn’t represented in our history, but also to encourage gay men to think about their fantasies and how they can bring them to life.

It is a sex-positive campaign that encourages men to have as much sex as they want while helping gay men to consider what they need to do to make sure that great sex is safe sex.

It’s a message I am proud of. Growing up always knowing about AIDS, in a province that still has not recognized LGBT people as full citizens, and in a community where people are afraid to be perceived as slutty, has driven many of us to be humble about how well and how often we hump. It has also hampered our sharing of knowledge, cross-generational mentoring and our appreciation for what can happen when two men come together.

Hopefully with the new campaign and further creative collaboration between queers a new generation of gay men will emerge that are not just proud that they are gay but also proud about what they do that makes them gay.

XTRA Sensationalized Sun editorial rallies Edmonton queers / Report on bugchasing kickstarts a discussion on gay men's sexual health February 04, 2009

2010-12-25T20:16:00.000-08:00

When Sun Media published the column "A twisted pro-HIV agenda" (or "A twisted homosexual world" in some online editions) in early January, it was a wake-up call for Edmonton queers to take a stand against sensationalized coverage of gay men's health issues.

In the column, Jacobs writes about barebacking, as well as bugchasing (willingly seeking HIV infection) and giftgiving (offering HIV to someone seeking infection) — phenomena that Phillip Banks, director of the Vancouver-based Health Initiative for Men, points out are often used as a "red herring" in dialogues about gay men's sexual health.

"If it's true that some men are intentionally seeking to become infected with HIV," considers Banks, "then public health and community services must be resourced adequately in order to better understand why and to be able to offer appropriate supports to prevent this where possible."

But the way it is most often reported in the media, adds Banks, is "scandal-mongering at its worst and distracts from the real issues contributing to poor health outcomes for gay and bi men and increasing HIV diagnoses."

John Maxwell of the AIDS Committee of Toronto agrees. "The media reports were often from mainstream media, not gay media, sensationalizing stories about unprotected sex amongst gay men," says Maxwell of the stories that came out a few years ago when ACT was first hearing about bugchasing and giftgiving.

Many members of Edmonton's queer community felt that the column was homophobic, framing AIDS and risky behavior as only gay issues and by not properly representing the realities of giftgiving, bugchasing and barebacking.

But since the column's publication, a conversational renaissance has blossomed around gay men's health in a city that has seen syphilis outbreaks in recent years and rising HIV infections among gay men.

By way of participating in our reductionist culture, one that asks is Britney the new Madonna; is Obama the new Lincoln or Kennedy; I ask, is it fair to draw parallels between Jacobs and Larry Kramer?

Kramer was an outspoken gay rights and AIDS activist. In the spring of 1987, he gave a speech, based on his essay "1,112 and Counting," that was a rally call to action for gays in the face of the AIDS epidemic. It was Kramer's speech that inspired the creation of the influential activist group ACT UP (AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power).

Jacobs says that she first thought about writing the column in 2008. She planned to attend the Western Sexual Health Conference and came across a paper entitled Bareback Mountain: Is This Today's Sequel to the AIDS Epidemic? She says she couldn't believe what she was reading. Jacobs was not able to attend the conference but knew at some point she would write on the paper.

In a recent interview with Jacobs, she said that she is not "anti-gay" but that she is "anti-irresponsible sexual behavior." She said her words were an extension of her belief that "we need to try and stop" the act of people knowingly giving or receiving HIV.

But many say that Jacobs' motivations were misguided. Her unintentional call to action for Edmonton queers started with the online circulation of the column. Within two days of the column's publication, a discussion on Facebook had responses from around North America. People were encouraging others to write to the editor and they shared links to better-researched articles about gay men's health.

University of Alberta student Marshall Watson wrote a letter-to-the-editor of the Edmonton Sun in response to Jacobs' column. In the letter, Watson wrote, "The goal of the writers at the Sun — hung up on using 'twisted misnomers' — seems to be nothing more than passing judgment on what is a very small group of the HIV-positive population while omitting decades of safe-sex research and activism."

In one letter that was published in the Sun, Edmonton artist Kirsten McCrea posed the question, "Rather than push the frankly stupid idea that gay men are courting HIV infection out of loneliness or in order to fit in or ease their fear of infection, why didn't Jacobs do a little more research or actually interview some people living with HIV?" to which the editor responded, "She only had 550 words" — a defence that Jacobs echoed.

Aside from the letters-to-the-editor and Facebook posts, the column also created a lot of face-to-face conversation. An example of which was during the talk that followed the screening of artist Peter Kingstone's film The Amazing Adventures of Strongman and Quickboy at HIV Edmonton.

Kingstone and the 20 people gathered for the screening discussed frustrations with how gay men were represented in Jacobs' column. They also lamented the lack of queer sexual health education that was being done within Edmonton.

It is of course a ridiculous assertion that Jacobs is anything like Kramer, least of all for the fact that Jacobs is not from the queer community, and from reading the column, she does not have the best interest of the queer community in mind.

Yet the comparison bears consideration. In a similar way that Kramer's speech inspired action, the queer residents of Edmonton have taken Jacobs' column as a wake-up call to become more proactive in sharing queer perspectives and ensuring that sexual health education is happening.

QUEERMONTON Death to the Queen! Long live Darrin! Feb 04, 09

2010-12-25T20:10:00.000-08:00

The audience was bathed in spirits as the spotlight hit the mirror ball. Tiny shards of luminosity encircled the room, making space for people to feel alone with everyone in their grief, rejoicing and remembering. It was as if we were swimming together at night at the bottom of the river. The first notes of a track once known only to those who had trolled Broadway soundtracks in an effort to put their misery to song began to fill the room, calling us back to the surface.

When the spotlight went off and the stage lights came back on, standing there defiantly, blond wig a star-on-fire against the black theatre, dress shimmering as if made of a 1000 rare disco-skinned snakes, heels dug into the stage as if it was extension of the earth, body deservedly thicker than when the voyage began, frame solid as if bracing against the exhaustion of loss that was sure to come, Darrin Hagen as Gloria Hole stood there for all to drink in, project upon and be in awe of for one last time.

It is a rare occasion for someone to transcend their physicality and become a living mirage but for one moment as people in the audience continued to lament for friends long ago passed and a time and place gone that would now seem almost unrecognizable, Gloria was that trick of light on the horizon.

After a standing ovation and two curtain calls Gloria left the stage and the house lights came on. People in the audience pretended that they were collecting their coats—but no one was ready to leave. Once they stepped out into the reality of the icy night, people knew that the memories conjured up from Edmonton Queen: the Final Voyage would once again slowly slide back into the recess of their minds.

Instead people loitered around, glimpsing through the snapshots on the perimeter of the stage. Older audience members took in the images as if flipping through their own albums, younger ones walked slowly slack-jawed in awe of time when Edmonton looked cooler—a stand-in for an artic New York.

Gloria came back out into the theatre looking younger, even in the face of the house lights, than she did only moments before. She was wearing the same dress but somehow now seemed cloaked in a bravado that she had not brought on stage with her.

Her game face was on, sadness left back in the dressing room. She was now ready to be attended to, to perform her duties as drag queen den mother to the gaggle of queens waiting and legions of homos hoping that she would acknowledge them—and of course Gloria did not disappoint. Man as Woman as Force of Nature, Gloria was everything for everyone. Now, as if satisfied, people began to file out into the night, burning as stars in their own right.

Gloria had accomplished what she, as both captain and vessel of the Edmonton Queen, charted out to do—infect the minds one last time of a place and era now long gone yet still relevant. A time when a terrorist/drag queen/paper bag princess could find herself sitting on the lap of an Edmonton Oiler at the Klondike Days parade, a time when queens strolled home on Jasper Ave in the early hours of the morning only to have the shit kicked out of them by random gomers.

As a testament to the wide river that the Edmonton Queen has traversed through her books and countless performances I found myself in the audience sitting between two 20-year-old girls from rural Alberta, one of whom is studying the Edmonton Queen in University and an older man who fondly remembers that going to Flashbacks was the last time he really had a good time going out. For them Gloria represents not just the 1980s or the queers but Edmonton in all of its DIY, scrappy, punk-made-good glory.

In the opening monologue of his hit- Broadway-play-cum-classic-movie, Torch Song Trilogy, Harvey Fierstein as Arnold Beckoff as Virginia Hamm laments that he is, “the last of a dying breed”—the drag queen as a symbol for a movement, as the sister of the queer revolution. Hagen is of the same breed and could tell what was coming as far back as 1990 when he retired his tiara and transfered the queer politics of drag into mainstream entertainment, along the way schooling the masses on the allure of the underground, the other ground. Rubbing the good times they missed in the faces of the insiders and creating a place where outsiders were finally in on the joke rather than being the joke.

As the Edmonton Queen sinks slowly into the North Saskatchewan, I see Darrin Hagen, standing strong on the river bank, ready to begin a new voyage, and I hope he once again brings us along on for the ride.

Edmonton queers can learn more about human rights EDMONTON / Workshop runs for 10 weeks as part of Human Rights City project - Feb 14 09

2010-12-25T20:07:00.000-08:00

Through the John Humphries Center for Peace and Human Rights (JHC), queer Edmontonians will have an opportunity to learn more about human rights while sharing their queer experience with others.   For the third time, the Edmonton-based JHC will be offering a 10-week Human Rights Facilitators course. Participants will learn about human rights through 24 exercises designed to illuminate the UN Declaration of Human Rights. The course will also include guest speakers and lessons on how to facilitate. 

Upon completion, participants are required to deliver two human rights workshops to either members of their community or other groups or organizations. For queer people, this could include workshops presented at the Pride Center of Edmonton or informally around a kitchen table.  

 The human rights training course is a pay-it-forward way to spread human rights information as part of a bigger framework, the Human Rights City project. That project aims at "creating cities where everyone takes responsibility to affirm human dignity and to celebrate differences and where everyone is included and has access to full membership and participation in the community." As part of consultations at the beginning of the Human Rights City project, the JHC met with members of Edmonton's queer community. 

 As the first North American city to be part of the Human Rights project, Edmonton is also the first to offer the course. Initially the idea was to invite members of specific cultural groups to participate in the course so that they could bring back the information to their communities. So far, due to the popularity of the course, that has not been necessary. In its first year the course had 18 students, this time it will be equipped to handle 22 participants.  

 Designed to be peer lead, people will have the chance to bring their own stories and work experience to the table. For Candy Kahn, who took part in the 2007 pilot project, it was learning about the lives of others in her adopted city that she realized that the discrimination she faced as a South Asian woman was not unique. "Other women experience marginalization as well, not just women of colour" learned Kahn.  It was coming to this conclusion and the borrowing of the course's framework that has lead Kahn, who has her Masters in Education, to create a women of colour think tank. She hopes that the think tank will help her and her community answer questions like "how can we support each other rather than divide amongst ourselves?" and "how can we bring together our collective talents and synergize?" For many queer people, these are familiar questions that may bear repeating.

  JHC education coordinator Carrie Malloy, who led the first two courses, recommends Edmonton queers sign up and resist oppression. "There has to be a growing amount of people in the queer community that can advocate and speak up about rights."

Need a new resolution? Have more sex SEX / Make 2009 a year to try new things Monday, January 12, 2009

2010-12-25T20:03:00.000-08:00

"People make all sorts of resolutions about their bodies and their lives but neglect sex," laments Brenda Kerber, commenting on North America's annual tradition of declaring self-improvement wishes.   Kerber is the owner of The Traveling Tickle Trunk, a company that runs sex-positive workshops and sells sex products online, through parties and, starting in early February, at their new store on Edmonton's Whyte Avenue.   

Of all the questions she hears in a year from her clients, including queer women and men, the number one query is "What is wrong with me?" To that she responds, "nothing is wrong with you, you just haven't figured out what works for you."   

The new year, she suggests, is as good a time as any to start figuring it out. Already well into 2009, many New Year's resolutions have fallen by the wayside. But as Kerber suggests, it is never too late to reconsider your resolutions and make new, sex-positive New Year's resolutions.   

"I love the idea of people putting effort into sex," gushes Edmonton-based Dr Brian Parker, a clinical sexologist and sex educator, "because people forget that sex takes work."   

To start that work, Kerber has some recommendations: "resolve to allow yourself to play more without reservations, resolve to take care of yourself more sexually and resolve to acknowledge who you are, what you like and then plan for it."  

Of the people asking what is wrong with them, most assumed that they must have been doing something wrong because they are not 100 percent satisfied with their sex lives. "They expected everything would fall into place," says Kerber.   

Both Kerber and Parker believe that the real work of sex begins with individuals exploring their own body and finding out what works for them.  According to Babeland, a company that "sells sex toys to a passionate world," vibrators are good on any number of male body parts including "on the perineum (the skin between the anus and the balls)," which the Babeland website promises will "send a buzz toward the prostate, a much-overlooked male erogenous zone."   

Speaking of the prostate, Kerber notes sex is a great way to achieve a popular New Year's resolution towards better health. "Regular ejaculation reduces the risk of prostate cancer," she says, adding that for everybody, sex releases endorphins that make people feel better while reducing stress. She also recommends that for women, "masturbating can alleviate menstrual cramps."  

For some, the new year could be a time when they decide that sex is too much a part of their lives. For people worrying about sexual addictions, Parker recommends they consider whether or not sex is negatively impacting their lives or the lives of those with whom they are having sex before they jump to the conclusion that they have a problem. Traditionally in queer cultures, having a lot of sex is socially acceptable. But as queers continue to integrate into traditional spaces of society, some may feel pressured to question their own beliefs and norms.   

The best way to deal with those issues is for queer people in 2009 to further explore their erotic and possibly intimate sides. "Trying something new can result in having great sex," explains Parker, "because it arouses the biggest sex organ we have — our brains."   

Parker suggests people try things that they would not normally do. "People get into a sexual routine, products can help break the monotony," he says. Introducing toys, props and objects like whips, feathers and even condoms into sex can create new and exciting dynamics.   He suggests guys can jerk off while wearing or smelling a condom, and they can rip up a condom and use the base of it as a cock ring. All of which eroticizes the condom and makes it a sexual toy on a person's own terms rather than as prescribed by health and government officials.   Embrace, a game created by Parker, is described as a "sensually stimulating board game where players move throughout the board revealing sexually intimate thoughts and feelings, and performing erotic challenges with one another."   

Embrace is recommended by Kerber and represents another way that people can build up their sexual repertoire and open new doors of pleasure and self-improvement in the new year.   "The people I know with fewer problems," says Kerber, "are those that are the most comfortable with themselves, including sexually. Sex is absolutely vital to our lives and is related to so much — we treat sex like it is just icing on the cake when really we could be thinking of sex as an ingredient of the cake."

To start your new New Year's resolutions, visit: Dr Brian Parker's website: www.foreverpleasure.com. Brenda Kerber's blog: talksensewithbrenda.blogspot.com and also www.travelingtickletrunk.com. You can also try: www.babeland.com. 

QUEERMONTON Lack of community = death - Jan 21, 09

2010-12-25T20:00:00.000-08:00

We are not yet at a place in our society when I think we can under estimate the negative impact homophobia has on our lives. I write this not to provide a reason or an excuse for people to live broken lives or be as unhealthy as they want to be but as a way of empowering people to examine their lives and work towards moving forward.

Homophobia is still expressed in homes around the world and heard coming out of the mouths of religious, business and cultural leaders across the planet. Systemic homophobia still prevents people from achieving optimum health, good grades and dreams. Poverty, addiction, aging and mental health concerns are all issues that are made worse due to the discrimination felt by homosexuals of any age and gender.

Compound homophobia and all that accompanies it with racism, sexism, classism, disablism and all other forms of ‘isms’ that people live with and one begins to realize that there is little wonder why there will be choices that some people make that others will never understand.

I would suggest that it is our colonial and parental cultural instincts that inform us that we even have a right and/or obligation to understand. We are taught from an early age that understanding is a core goal of living.

With over six billion people on the planet, growing interconnectedness, and ever-evolving non-homogenous cultural influences, attempting to understand each other is futile. It is a noble pastime if done without judgment—but still futile.

What seems to me to be a better spending of time, to borrow a phrase from some friends, is seeing our diversity or diversity in general as value added to our own human experience.

As communities and cultures that make up the larger society, there are going to be choices made by people in our own communities that we don’t understand or agree with. While it may not be our place to judge whether someone’s choice is good or bad it is our place to think about how choices that other people make affect us and to think about how our collective experience influences who we are.

Last week Sun Media published a column by Mindelle Jacobs about barebacking, a term often used to describe unprotected anal sex; as well as bugchasing (the desire to sexually contract HIV), and giftgiving (the desire to sexually give someone HIV). While it is true that the phenomena of bugchasing and giftgiving exist, organizations that work with gay male populations like HIM (Health Initiative for Men) and ACT (AIDS Committee of Toronto) report that they exist more in the words of the straight press than they do in the lives of their clients.

Jacobs’ column was a disturbing piece of writing on many fronts. Disturbing because the lack of rigour with which it was written made it come across as homophobic; because there is already little room in our culture in which gay men’s sexual health can be discussed (and even less room in which to discuss lesbian and transsexual’s sexual health) and it was spent on harmful and under researched fear mongering; disturbing because it took a shitty piece of writing by someone from outside the community to spur on a conversation about what we do with our bodies within the community.

What I realized the article means to me, a week after reading it, is that 25 years into the epidemic the queer community has still not found a way to successfully discuss the lingering trauma that AIDS has left us with.

As sexual minorities we have not made significant inroads to own our diversity in the face of ongoing tragedy, instead we have spent most of our energy fighting for legitimacy.

I am not saying that securing our human rights, working towards being able to have a family and ensuring that if our same-sex partner is ever in the hospital we can visit them are not important—they are.

What I am saying is that along the way we have continued to stigmatize those living with HIV, stood by while courts attempt to criminalize those living with HIV; not yet righted the wrongs that result in people contracting HIV like poverty, lack of education, mental health issues, low self esteem and addictions; and have allowed sex to be something disconnected from our bodies and more closely linked with our class, and exclusively of our minds.

We have done all this in part because of homophobia. While HIV is not a social disease caused by homophobia, it is a fatal virus. New infections can be reduced and the quality of life of those living with HIV can be improved by healing the wounds that continue to plague the queer community.

Anti-gay flyers trigger complaints FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION / Will Bill Whatcott's latest flyer result in charges?- Jan 7, 09

2010-12-25T19:53:00.000-08:00

Edmonton based filmmaker Trevor Anderson's soon to be released film The Island begins with the vastness of Northern Alberta spread out, stark on the screen in it seemingly uncharted territories. The sound of boots on snow can be heard in the distance and soon Anderson's voice-over is relaying his experience receiving a homophobic email.

"You Fucking Faggots," Anderson retells in the film, "You are a disgrace to society. You should all be put on an island so you can give each other AIDS." To which Anderson on film replies, "Hmm. Why not?"

From there the film goes on to imagine the barren landscape transforming into an animated 'homo utopia' where, among the perks of an all-queer male island, people living with HIV would receive the coolest tree huts to live in and enjoy the skills of the strongest ape masseurs.

Anderson's cinematic response to a shared experience of being on the receiving end of hate is steeped in satire, humour that takes an idea to the point of its inherent ridiculousness.

It is a response to hate that perhaps should be more widely adopted as a strategy to replace the current trend to try silencing those who make it clear that they don't like gays and lesbians.

Citizens, courts and human rights commissions across Canada are trying to find a balance between people's right to express their view and the safety of citizens. For their part, says Melissa Luhtanen of the Calgary based Alberta Civil Liberties Research Centre, "Civil liberty groups across Canada are giving their opinion. People want to protect gay rights, and on the other hand freedom of expression is extremely important."

Perhaps nowhere is the debate stronger than in Alberta. Last November, the latest round of conversation kicked off after socially conservative activist Bill Whatcott circulated anti-homosexual flyers. That followed on last spring's announcement by the Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission of a 'remedy' in the Lund versus Boissoin case.

Whatcott's flyer, circulated in the mailboxes of Regina, Edmonton and Calgary, featured a new version of the song, "Kill the Christians." The new version read, "Kill the Homosexuals."

The lyrics were accompanied by a photo of a man performing oral sex on another man with the man's genitalia blocked out with a photo of Lori Andreachuk, a former employee of the Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission.

The flyer is part of Whatcott's ongoing anti-homosexual activism, but it is also in part a critique of a decision in a human-rights case chaired by Andreachuk known as the Johnson case.

"I am sticking a pencil in their eye" says Whatcott.

In 2003, Quintin Johnson's filed a complaint against record stores and labels after he bought and listened to the song, "Kill the Christians" by the group Decide on their album, Off the Cross.

The lyrics include, "In due time your path leads to me/Put you out of your misery/The death of prediction/Kill the Christian/Kill the Christian ... dead." Johnson testified that the lyrics made him feel "discriminated against by these distributors (of the music) based on his religious faith and upbringing."

He cited two sections of the provincial act that governs human rights — the Alberta Human Rights, Citizenship and Multicultural Act. Section 2 of the act forbids publishing, issuing or displaying anything that indicates discrimination (or an intent to discriminate) against a person or group, or is likely to expose a person or group to hatred or contempt because of their race, religious beliefs, colour, gender, physical disability, mental disability, age, ancestry, place of origin, marital status, source of income, or family status. Section 3 of the act forbids denying a person or group any goods, services, accommodation or facilities available to the public because of their membership in the same list as in section 2.

Some rightwing Christians were infuriated when the human rights panel of Andreachuk, Beth Bryant and Delano Tolley dismissed Johnson's complaint. They did find that "the content and tone of the communications appear on the face of them to be discriminatory." But, they noted, "there is very little vulnerability of the target group. The expressions do not reinforce existing stereotypes, nor do the messages appeal to well-publicized issues."

The dismissal was predictable. Christians are not vulnerable in a largely Christian society. Human-rights law is designed to protect vulnerable minorities from the majority mob.

In 1989, feeling blessed because he was no longer in prison, using drugs, employed as a sex worker, nor 'indulging' in homosexuality, Bill Whatcott went through what he calls his "Christian conversion" and became a social conservative activist. He started by protesting abortion clinics, then in 1994 focussed on anti-homosexuality activism.

"My idea is to convert you and make sure you don't get rights," says Whatcott in a telephone interview. He hopes to "to change individuals' minds and play a small role in changing legislation."

While studying nursing at Humber College in Toronto, Whatcott began voicing his concerns in class about his view that homosexuals were trying to push their agenda, including onto the church.

In 1998, Whatcott began what he sees as his most effective form of activism, flyering. "I realized," says Whatcott, "that flyering is a great way to speak out without being silenced." He points out that you can't get kicked off the radio or have your words edited out with direct-mail action. He distributed his first flyer at a Toronto high school. As he remembers it, a Toronto Star reporter "showed up and stuck a flyer on the front page of the Toronto Star."

He figures news exposure resulted in more publicity for his cause than he could have garnered on his own.

As was the case when he voiced his opinions at Humber Collage, his first flyers caused most people to disagree with him and even react in anger. But always some people would approach him personally to tell him know that they agreed with his perspective.

In 2001, while living in Saskatchewan, Whatcott was granted permission by the City of Regina to hold a Heterosexual Pride Parade — which by most accounts was actually an anti-homosexual demonstration. His application to hold the event in the following years was denied.

In 2005, after picketing a Regina Planned Parenthood clinic where he allegedly said things like "Planned Parenthood will give you AIDS," the Saskatchewan Association of Licensed Practical Nurses (SALPN) fined Whatcott $15,000 and suspended his nursing license for 15 days on the grounds of unprofessional conduct for intimidating staff and patients of the clinic.

In 2008, the Supreme Court of Canada supported a Saskatchewan Appeals court when it overturned the suspension and fine. The appeals court judges agreed with Whatcott and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association that the case was a constitutional issue relating to freedom of expression and not a question of where a nurse's responsibilities end as it had been framed by SALPN.

Also in 2005, the Saskatchewan Human Rights Tribunal fined Whatcott $17,500 for his flyering.

By the time of the Supreme Court's support of the appeal that could have seen Whatcott reinstated as a nurse, he was already living in Edmonton. "Alberta has been good to me," he says, but complains that social conservatives in Alberta are too moderate for him. He has a few friends and lawyers that he says support him in his activism. He is now a truck driver and while his ex-wife might not agree with his activism, Whatcott says that his children remain interested in what he is doing.

Depending on whether he prints in color or black and white, his notorious flyers cost him between 5 cents and 12 cents a copy. He prints up a minimum of 500. In 2007, when he ran for mayor of Edmonton, he printed 10,000 flyers featuring an image of men dancing at a gay-pride parade. It included a headshot of Edmonton's current mayor and then-candidate Stephan Mandel placed in-between the buttocks of one of the dancing men.

Whatcott is not afraid of ramifications from his activism. Police "hate-crime units and human-rights commissions are powerless," he says. "They are a bunch of bigots, hypocrites and cowards."

Marie Riddle will not comment specifically on Whatcott's statement or the current flyers. But the AHRCC director says, "People can have their own opinions on human-rights commissions. As people can see, commissions are very active in communities and they help build a more inclusive society. In Alberta, they work towards ensuring that the province is a place with no discrimination."

The commission won't release the number of complaints they received about Whatcott's flyers until a case reaches the panel stage. As for his allusion to the Johnson case through his re-appropriation and printing of the "Kill the Christians" lyrics, Riddle says it is "difficult to compare one case to another; all factors must be considered." She points out that if parties involved in the case are unhappy with the findings, there is built-in legislation that allows for appeals.

While he might not respect commissions, Whatcott does seem to have a strong understanding of their powers. On Whatcott's website freenorthamerica.ca, an online forum that boasts it is "North America's Ultimate Conservative Online Community," the following disclaimer accompanies the online version of his flyer: "This flyer SHOULD NOT BE INTERPRETED as an incitement to violence. In fact, Bill Whatcott would much prefer homosexuals repent of their sins and turn to Jesus Christ so they can inherit the Kingdom of Heaven."

While Kris Wells, civilian liaison chair for the Edmonton Police Services (EPS) LGBTTQ Community Committee might not agree with Whatcott, he does share an awareness of the possible ineffectiveness of legislation and human rights commissions in dealing with hate. "There is no common definition on what a hate crime is," says Wells. "Edmonton Police Services, RCMP and others all have different yardsticks on how to measure hate crimes."

He cites the lack of cohesion between the provinces about how governments and police respond to hate crimes as one of the issues preventing Whatcott being charged with what Wells considers a hate crime. "An investigation is in process, but the EPS requires approval of the Crown before they can lay charges," he says.

Whether or not Whatcott should be charged is another question. Civil libertarians have long argued that in a democracy it's important to tolerate even seemingly intolerable opinions. Each time a citizen is silenced for expressing what they believe to be true, the range of acceptable speech is further narrowed. For much of recent history, and perhaps one day again, the state and the church attempted to silence the political speech and journalistic work of Canadian gays and lesbians.

Citing the Alberta Human Rights, Citizenship and Multiculturalism Act, civil liberties expert Luhtanen says the issue is whether someone has been exposed to hatred. If so, that expression of hatred has to be balanced against the person's rights to freedom of expression.

With this in mind, Luhtanen refers to the Supreme Court of Canada judgment in the Trinity Western University versus British Columbia College of Teachers case in which it is written: "The freedom to hold beliefs is broader than the freedom to act on them."

In other words, it may be okay to vigorously express your prejudicial beliefs or your religiously inspired bigotries. But it is probably not okay to put that belief into a violent or discriminatory practice.

It remains to be seen what will happen in the current Whatcott case. At the time of this writing, no charges are laid but the Edmonton Police are working with the liaison committee and the queer community in an ongoing investigation.

QUEERMONTON Junior high queries - Jan 07, 09

2010-12-25T19:50:00.000-08:00

“Why did you choose to be gay?” read the first question. “Is it easier to be gay or straight?” read the second, both written on the same piece of paper in steady, loopy printing. The penmanship belonged to the young woman that was standing in front of me in the library of the junior high I had been invited to speak at about Queer Activism by Brendan Van Alstine from the Pride Centre of Edmonton. She was standing across from her friend, who had dragged her and the duotang that the questions were written in to come up and speak with me after the presentation. They looked mature for their age, the type of girls that would have been able to buy cigarettes at the IGA back in my day and maybe even gotten into bars like the Purple Onion without showing ID. As the girl who had written the questions stood there, I could see both the slightly shy, humour-filled, local slo-pitch champion she could become while also seeing the long-suffering, forever quiet and angry adult she could also find herself being. Her questions were not random curiosities; they were requests for advice, her hand reaching out for guidance.

Her dyed hair told the story of a girl already experimenting with who she was, how she looked and how she wanted people to see her. Being back in a junior high, I quickly regained the hideous, youthful technique of being able to determine whom the cool kids were. It was obvious from their bravery that these girls were not cool. They were the girls that were invisible to the boys and the ones that the “cool” and “want-to-be-cool” girls watched from across the classroom, slightly envious yet terrified of their independence. While I am sure it was an act of impromptu heroism that lead the friend to bring up the young woman and her questions, I think it was also an understanding that there was nothing to lose by having the questions exposed to the two nice gay guys at the front of the room and everything to lose by not taking the chance. She was a good friend.

I read the questions. I didn’t know what to say. I am not a therapist, trained counsellor or a social worker. But I am a gay guy who gets to write, make art and do gay stuff for a living, so while I felt under qualified to answer her questions I also understood that I was able to let her know that everything could be OK. She wasn’t asking me the questions because I was an expert—she was asking me because I was gay and open about it. I had come into her world, announced and bragged that I was gay, and she was able to see that the earth had not opened up and swallowed me.

Other kids throughout the presentation had raised their hands or called me over to their seat to ask similar questions about why I had chosen to be gay. All of them were also girls but all of them had asked the question in a detached, confident way that made it seem more like they were acquiring knowledge than dipping their toe in the water for the first time or stepping on to a ledge. Each time I answered swiftly, ”For me it was not a choice—I have always known I was gay and I think I was born that way.” Upon seeing the question written deliberately on paper I realized that from the young woman and possibly from the other girls and other times in my life the question being asked was not why did I choose to be gay but why did I choose to tell people I was gay.

If you have never thought about it or it’s been a while, you‘ve probably forgotten how gripping the question is of whether or not you ever have to come out. In that time before you come out, when maybe you have found a way to justify your desires and possibly even found a way to have your needs met it seems totally realistic and preferable to keep the secret. During that time it seems possible to compartmentalize your desire and so makes it easier to think that you can choose to silence your true sexuality. It is at this time that you are unable to see how your sexuality flows into every part of your life and that by stifling it other areas suffer. On some level the young woman in all of her radiant junior high awkwardness already understood this. By asking the questions, by already confiding on some level to one trusted friend she had begun to want more for herself. She was asking me in that moment if it was worth it to keep going.

After what must have seemed like an eternity for her but in truth was no more than five seconds, I looked up from the paper, slowly smiled, gained her eye contact, and said the only thing I knew to be true, “It gets easier.”

She smiled back, her face relaxed, both of us feeling somewhat relived. I wanted to hold her hand, give her a hug, but at that point the room seemed so small and both of us so big. We were radiating. I grabbed some literature that Brendan had brought from the Pride Centre that I knew had the centre’s web address and gave it to her. She took it, nodded her head, smiled. She said nothing back, looked down at the paper. I said it again: “It gets easier.”

QUEERMONTON Our column for 09 - Dec 30, 2008

2010-12-25T19:46:00.000-08:00

I did not write this column—you did. Like last year, my final article for 2008 is a collage of hopes, wishes, resolutions and convictions written by people from the community.

Against some wise people’s judgment I have not included the names of contributors because I want the words to be read as if they are ours, as if any one of us could have, and did, write them. I want us to be able to glimpse what other people need and desire without attaching identity or personality. This column is an experiment, an attempt to see us collectively and revel in our differences, complexities and commonalities.

Wishing and wanting ...

I want love, endless summer bike rides, for work to not feel like work, good food with good friends, making fun happen, to start a cabaret/metal/techno band, and make it through school at the same time. I want to somewhere, somehow find a way forward from what George W Bush did to our world, and I want to do gay men’s sexual health programming. I don’t want tolerance, nor acceptance but appreciation in 2009 for who we are and what we do as queer folks!

I want greater (self-) acceptance as a bisexual man. I want to learn how to tactfully suggest that the three of us get it on. I want to make auto-erotic art and show it shamelessly. I wish for the same thing I wished for last year: a major Hollywood motion picture where queers get to be the lead characters ... and live.

My wish for everyone is a new sense of responsibility and empowerment to realize Obama’s great promise. As much as we would all like a leader to bring us the world we want, what the grassroots organization that brought Obama to power shows is that the real work is ours. Find a person or place that needs you, and help. One person, one place at a time. Use what you’ve got.

I want to find a place where the size of the average vehicle isn’t offensive. I want to win. My wish for 2009 is that we stand on guard against complacency and fight for equality wherever and however we can.

For the people in my community, I wish safety and love, for my daughter, more friends who think it’s cool to have two moms! I want a husband and children and I want my sex-radical, bathhouse-loving, queer-self not to view that as a capitulation. My wish for everyone is the “power of now” and taking the presence everywhere you go, and a Merry Christmas!

I wish that people were more honest with themselves. My wish for the queer community is that human beings’ need to explain or rationalize individual differences fade. We should be who we are without needing an explanation.

I want to enjoy myself in 2009, I have recently relocated here and I think that getting a Canadian man may help (maybe not help) me feel like Canada is my home. I wish that the LGBTTQI community will be cognizant of the discriminatory practices and work towards making everyone feel equal.

With the world in turmoil, it’s important to focus on what’s important—family, friends, love, laughter and patience. Pursue your dreams and don’t put things off as if you’ll be coming back to them later, because you won’t. Lastly, we need to be good to ourselves.

You gotta give ‘em hope

I hope for more arts funding and/or a government bail out for ME, I mean, c’mon, I’m in debt too.

I hope the US closes Guantanamo Bay—permanently. I hope we can learn to accept ourselves for who we are and to accept there will be a difference of opinion. My biggest hope would be to see a “real” democratic renewal in Alberta that offers some hope to the over 60 per cent of Albertans who do not vote for the Tories.

As a 2Spirit person it is my hope that more education takes place about 2Spirit people. The homophobia and discrimination of 2Spirit people on and off reserve needs to stop. We have a rich history and that history needs to be taught and respected.

I hope to completely give up swearing and I wish you would try too. I hope to limit my drinking, recreational drug use and casual sex. And I hope other queers do, too. I hope $50 a barrel oil brings stability back to Alberta.

Can the minister in charge of human rights tell us if his government still opposes rights for sexual minorities, as it did 10-plus years ago, and if not, why can’t that policy change be reflected in the human rights code?

As we approach the new year, my wish is that we may identify the poles within ourselves, and recognize these opposing forces as integrally balanced within a much larger context, a much larger ecology: the Earth. The Self.

In 2009, I resolve to create amazing things, practice compassion, love openly, fuck responsibly and refuse to engage in destructive behaviour. V

QUEERMONTON Got Milk? Dec. 10 2008

2010-12-25T19:42:00.000-08:00

I watched Milk, a Gus Van Sant-directed biopic about the late, great Harvey Milk, with a sense of ownership. I had come across Milk’s name a few years ago and my curiosity compelled me to order Randy Silt’s biography of Milk, The Mayor of Castro Street. I devoured it within a month and soon found myself following Internet rumours that Milk’s life was being made into a film. Years later, sitting in the theatre, I knew the film was going to be good, but I needed it be really good.

The film begins with 1950’s archival footage of men being arrested, suspected of being gay. Many of the men raise their handcuffed arms to cover their faces. Others stare into the camera; their beings, their cluelessness, bravery or brazenness penetrate through the years. Technology and the screen meet the audience head on—projected four stories in front of you, their small act of defiance from decades ago of not being afraid or ashamed has ensured that in some way they have survived.

The film ends with a cinematic recreation of the 30 000-person candlelight vigil that encompassed Market Street in San Francisco on the night of Harvey Milk’s assassination, led by Cleve Jones (played in the film by Emile Hirsh).

If the title sequence of the gay men in the 1950s is meant to convey what life was like before Milk, the final scenes seem intended as a sad wink to what was next for the gay men of San Francisco throughout the 1980s, ‘90s and today. While Milk was not alive to see the devastation that AIDS would inflict on his beloved community, his work did leave a framework, a community and people in power who would address HIV/AIDS.

In between the bookended scenes is eight years in the life of Harvey Milk, from schelpy New York businessman to becoming a San Francisco city supervisor, in doing so becoming the first openly gay man to win a major political office in the history of the United States.

Played by Sean Penn—a role rumoured at different times to have been offered to Robin Williams, Richard Gere and James Woods—Milk comes alive in all his gayness, nelliness, charisma and improbable leardershipness. Appropriately missing from the discourse around the performance of Penn and others is the rhetoric that came up with Brokeback Mountain around the need for openly gay actors to play gay roles. This argument is in part neutralized by the acting strength flexed by Penn, Hirsh and others.

Another is the fact that Van Sant is a strong and subtle director who knows when to let the camera linger, hover, move in closer and pull away. In the first scene between Milk and his reluctant lover (played by Franco), Van Sant’s direction and Penn’s unabashed commitment to be queeny, needy and full of comely desire bring you fully into Milk’s world and from there on in, even in the face of Milk’s great achievements, Franco always feels like the man that got away.

Van Sant, a well-established yet indie favourite, also knows how to assemble the working best around him. The lighting in the film is superb—a scene near the end of the film catches one of Milk’s tear-filled eyes on the day he is to die, gleaming saintly against the depths of encroaching dark blue and black even though we know it is morning.

The music in the film, by well-known composer and frequent Van Sant-collaborator Danny Elfman, relays the overarching theme of the movie, hope, even though we all know the sad ending to Milk’s life. Soaring strings and angelic voices punctuate the everyday yet ultimately historic actions of a man gone too soon.

Milk’s writer and soon-to-be writing superstar Dustin Lance Black wrote the Milk screenplay without any producer’s backing or promises. Black’s outness, comfort with gay as a topic and writing talent come out through his script.

Timeless as the story of hope is, the story of Harvey Milk also is now timely. Milk’s story finally arrives to movie theatres across North America mere months after president-elect Obama gave millions of Americans a reason to hope, and in the shadow of Prop 8 in California and similar propositions in other states that will see rights taken away or not granted to people based on their sexual orientation.

Sitting in the theatre, watching the film with some of my friends, the feeling of ownership I walked into the theatre with gave way to communal giving. As far as we are from San Francisco and as many generations which have passed since Harvey Milk’s victories, we are all inheritors of his legacy and the hope he generated.

I don’t know if the film is perfect but I do know that Milk’s story—which includes those who came before him that shaped him and those who followed who were shaped by him—is ours as much as it’s his, and the film is a way we can share our stories with everyone.

XTRA Art project & new report give voice to people living with HIV-Body maps allow PWAs to tell their stories of challenges and successes - Dec 1, 08

2010-12-25T19:36:00.000-08:00

The "bodies" of three gay men living with HIV are hanging in HIV Edmonton's boardroom. Their naked figures are vivid with colour, honesty and expression. They are hard to ignore with graphic stories emerging from their flesh the longer you stare at them — soon you learn that this is the point.

The "bodies" are actually body maps, a self-portrait art form in which the traced self becomes a shell to express one's lived experience. They were created this fall during a three-day workshop organized by HIV Edmonton in a rural Alberta retreat.

The body maps, along with a new report by the Canadian Council on Learning informed in part by consultations done in Edmonton, provide a current understanding of what it is like to be living with HIV.

As you look closer at the body maps, details start to emerge: dates, viral load counts, names of loved ones, markers of places, icons and mentions of possible mentors. Body parts begin to take shape and scars both physical and otherwise begin to pop out in the form of symbols, colors and patterns. The life-size self-portraits are more than maps of the men's bodies; they are maps of their lives.

The intricacies and intimacies of the body maps seem dense compared to the simplicity of the traditional AIDS quilts that hang alongside the maps on the boardroom walls of HIV Edmonton. Looking at both the quilts and the maps, one is able to see the distance the AIDS community has come and how long there is still to go. Whereas in the past, a life was immortalized in the comfort of a quilt by a loved one after they were gone, body maps provide an opportunity for those living with HIV to share what it means to survive living with the virus. It is in the body maps that the viewer can begin to understand the reality of surviving: the failing body parts, the drug side effects, and the memory of friends and loved ones who died long ago. But there are also moments of success and pride. The mention of children, accomplishments and travels are intertwined with the daily banality of too many pills and doctors' visits.

At HIV Edmonton's open house on Nov 25, Jim Stefanishion had a chance to see his body map for the first time since the weekend he made it. Having his art on display, talking about it with other people, and explaining what all the details mean had an effect on 69-year-old Stefanishion, who has been living with HIV since 1986.

"I stand back and think 'there is a great story going on here; how long I have had HIV, what I am doing with it and that I am ok,'" he says.

It was while dealing with a battery of doctors to get to the bottom of his neuropathy that Stefanishion first encountered something that he says is specific to Edmonton doctors. He says they didn't have the same understanding of HIV compared to doctors he has dealt with in other cities he has lived in, including Palm Springs and Vancouver.

"I had to educate the doctors on HIV," says Stefanishion, adding that he doesn't mind always having to be the one to explain the virus to others, even if they have more credentials.

Stefanishion's experiences are echoed in the CCL's report released in time for AIDS Awareness Week and World AIDS Day. The report, Consultations on Health and Learning: Report on Adults Living with HIV/ AIDS, makes a series of recommendations that would improve the quality of life of those living with HIV/AIDS. The report recommends "sensitivity training for health-care professionals, students in medical schools, police officers and members of the church."

The report also includes first-hand information from adults living with HIV/AIDS, AIDS service groups and AIDS activists living in Edmonton, Montreal and Truro, Nova Scotia. Common among the experiences is a lack of respect and understanding about the virus and the symptoms that accompany it. From improper use of universal precautions to blatant stigma and discrimination coming from service providers, the report includes mention of homophobia, transphobia and ignorance around HIV/AIDS as barriers to service.

"They have a decisive lack of respect for us as human beings," says one of the report's Edmonton participants, in reference to healthcare providers. Another quote from the Edmonton consultation highlights the bigger issue, hinting at the homophobia implicit in much of HIV/AIDS-related stigma: "People need to look at HIV as a health issue. If AIDS had been discovered in a senior' home, would the same kind of stigma exist?"

HIV Edmonton executive director Debra Jakubec has heard this all before. "The findings from the report reinforce what we hear from our clients everyday," she says. "Twenty-six years after the discovery of the virus it's shocking that people living with HIV report being poorly treated by some healthcare professionals."

HIV Edmonton, along with partner agencies such as Canadian AIDS Treatment Information Exchange, provide training for service providers and people living with HIV. They also provide HIV Dynamics, a two-day course designed to educate Edmontonians on HIV/AIDS issues.

Jakubec recognizes that this might not be enough. "Obviously, there needs to be a focus on increasing tolerance and understanding so the whole community, not just healthcare providers, are more sensitive to the needs of people living with HIV/AIDS and the LBGT community in general."

In 2007, according to Capital Health and HIV Edmonton, 225 new HIV infections were reported in Edmonton, up from 223 in 2006 and 175 in 2005. Among the new infections, men who have sex with men (MSM) make up 44.6 percent of new infections in 2007, up from 36.1 percent in 2006 and 42.6 percent in 2005. Increased testing rates, a rise in population and more men self-identifying as gay, bisexual or MSM shed some light on the increase in new infections.

For Stefanishion, the increased tolerance, which would lead to a better quality of life for those living with HIV, starts with people living in Edmonton getting over HIV stigma. He cites the billboards that line main roadways in Palm Springs and parts of West Vancouver as examples of how communities can become more comfortable with issues around HIV by being exposed to it. This is something that the CCL report also recommends. In the meantime, as things start to change, Stefanishion lives his life as he has for the past 22 years

"I take my pills everyday on time, so it's like I don't have HIV and I try to live my life to the fullest."

QUEERMONTON The time of fierce love - Nov 26, 2008

2010-12-25T19:33:00.000-08:00

Before Exposure: Edmonton’s Queer Arts and Culture Festival started, I sat down with a journalist to talk about the festival. As the interview wound down, our coffee cups long emptied, we began to talk about what it is like to feel a part of the age you live in.

I have never really felt a part of the time in which I live. I think partially it is because I am part of a small cohort, an echo that came between generations. I am too young to be considered Generation X and, depending on the source, too old to be a millennial. I fall through the cracks. My tastes, my prevailing philosophies and default inclinations are not reflected or in line with mass culture. Only in the last few years of getting involved in queer politics, art and culture have I begun to see myself as part of something bigger than my own existence.

It started when I was a teenager, drawn to reading about HIV/AIDS as a way of connecting to a generation of gay men who came before me but who made a huge impact on my life. My interest in HIV/AIDS later led me to be more involved with the gay community and, in time, open myself up to the queer community. In recent years, through my involvement with Exposure and in writing this column, I have begun to meet like-minded individuals and see my place in the grand scheme more clearly.

That is not to say I am now part of a community where I agree with everything, but I am part of conversations in which I understand what is being said and I care passionately that it is being said.

I have found a space and place in time where I feel as though what I do matters, and that what is happening locally to me has global ramifications. A few days into this year’s Exposure I was moved by the photos a friend posted on Facebook of the Proposition 8 rallies that he was a part of in downtown Los Angeles. Gay men and women and their allies were gathering thousands of kilometres away to protest voted-in discrimination at the same time that I and a room full of people were listening to artist AA Bronson weave his tale of art, activism and survival in the face of lost loves, a culture often apathetic to art and a passion to heal and be healed.

The symbiotic nature of being part of the talk at the same time the protest was happening meant that in an essential way Exposure was a part of the protest. Through promoting queer conversation and contribution through the lens of art and culture, Exposure is activating voices, thought and resistance to heteronormative patriarchal systems. Exposure is part of a time in which we are currently living, when the world is again being reminded that gay rights are human rights, and that no matter how we as queers choose to express ourselves—be it through art, culture or marriage—we have the right to do so, and that we do it in the name of all people.

Almost a week after AA Bronson’s talk, poet, activist and academic Eli Clare began his Inside Out keynote address by asking why does he, someone who has walked across America in the name of peace and nuclear disarmament, focus his time on trans and disability activism when a part of him knows that he could be using all his time to protest the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? He answered his own question by speaking about his belief that in fighting whatever issues we choose to fight we are fighting for justice for all. As I understood him, our fight to ensure that we as people who find ourselves gender queer, disabled or any other way in which we exist must ensure that when justice comes for all we can partake—that we are part of the conversation based on who we truly are.

In a speech he gave the previous night at the Transgender Day of Remembrance, Clare spoke of “fierce love”—something that now seems to be the antidote to war—not only as an offering to bring about hope and liberation, but also as an action and, for me, a form of activism.

It was during Noir, Exposure’s closing gala, that I really began to understand fierce love—to feel it heat my veins and open up spaces in my brain. A cramped and transformed Starlite room became, for one night only, a cornucopia of queer tribe delight, with all eyes feasting on the diversity and connections of what we liberally call the community. From the coiffed perfection of the drag king and queens to the seemingly careless thrown-togetherness of hipster homos and everyone in between, the room was a study in differences, allegiances and the best and worst queers have to offer.

While on the dance floor surveying the closed-eyed smile of bodies in movement I realized that the night was right, that all people should have the opportunity to express who they are, in all their complexities, possible offensiveness and beauty. That the feeling of protection and connection that came over me is fierce love, and that is what I am a part of. Fierce love is the time that I belong to.

QUEERMONTON Yes we can (discriminate)! - Nov 12, 2008

2010-12-25T19:30:00.000-08:00

Like many people, I watched Barack Obama’s victory on election night with tear-brimming joy. The waterworks started when he mentioned gays by name in the first few lines of his speech and they carried through until I found myself mouthing “Yes we can” along with the audience in Grant Park and the silent chorus from around the world.

I was on a wave of euphoria and hope until half way through the next morning when I realized that in the same moment that many people in California, Arizona and Florida voted for change by voting for Obama they also voted to discriminate against gay people by allowing the ban on gay marriage in those states to pass.

Most famously in California with Proposition 8, the three states added propositions to the ballot that proposed banning same sex marriage. This summer the state of California legalized same sex marriage, so Prop 8 was not only about banning marriage for gay people but about taking away rights that had already been won. This serves as a lesson that rights can be taken away—yes they can!

The vote against gay people was in part made easier because Obama himself has said that he is not in favour of gay marriage. While it is obvious from his previous work with LGBT communities that his stance on same sex marriage is motivated more by politics than discrimination, I think it gave voters an excuse. They could vote for a leader they believed in and hide their homophobia under the cloak of the same leader’s reasoning.

On blogs and in papers the next day may people were blaming the failure to prevent the ban on gay marriage on Black and Hispanic voters. This need to racialize the blame, and roll out the politics of oppression in the face of lost rights in the same moment that America voted for their first visible minority president is disappointing.

It was in light of the harsh reality that accompanied Obama’s victory that I was more able to recognize the more localized homophobia I experienced later in the week. I had sent a request to a supposed community-centric listserv to spread the word about Exposure: Edmonton’s Queer Arts and Culture Festival. I received an email back from the administrator of the listserv stating that he wouldn’t be able to post my announcement for a variety of reasons, including that I had missed the deadline and that there were other clients in front of me. Those responses I could accept, but he also stated that he would be unable to send out my post because “it’s bound to offend some of our subscribers.“ Not wanting to jump to conclusions, I emailed him back asking for clarification to which he responded, “There’s no need to embark is some sort of polemic in this—while we have no issue with the content of your festival or with people’s sexuality; some of our subscribers however, do—thus, as we don’t want to alienate them, we reserve the right to post or not content that may be offensive to some ... Sorry, but, c’est la vie.“

His flippant willingness to alienate the queer community, not to mention underestimate his subscribers, shocked and surprised me. He is either assuming that his subscribers are homophobic or he knows that some of them are. He also assumes that the needs and feelings of those who might be uncomfortable or feel alienated reading about a queer arts and culture festival are more important than those who might benefit by finding about the festival. By either supporting homophobia or assuming homophobia he is choosing to enable the discrimination, and thereby becomes a discriminator himself. He has every right to post what he wants, it is his listserv, but one that he distributes in the name of community action in Edmonton. By leaving out members of the community he is failing his subscribers by not representing the community in its totality to the best of his ability.

I had been a subscriber to his listserv for years and had supported it through placing posts before, which non-profits I worked with paid for with what little money they had for marketing. By informing me that he cannot post information on Exposure in the name of his subscribers he is in a sense painting the possibility that any of his subscribers supported discrimination, support having homosexual content railroaded. Something that subscribers like the non-profit I worked with might be upset to find out since discrimination goes against everything they work towards.

The loss of gay rights in America has tempered my excitement over Obama’s victory. The realization that someone whom I saw as a local ally is actually a roadblock has reminded me to take nothing for granted. Together the two experiences have encouraged me to be critical. The future is bright and has promise but it will not fulfill itself we must work hard and together.

QUEERMONTON To the bathhouse - Oct 29, 2008

2010-12-25T19:29:00.001-08:00

I’m working with Marshall Watson, Heather Zwicker and Todd James from Exposure: Edmonton’s Queer Arts and Culture Festival on an event that will see Exposure rent out Steamworks Bathhouse for an evening during the festival and populate it with the work of 20 visual and performance artists, transforming the space into a one-night-only art installation. It will give those who have never been before an opportunity to visit a bathhouse, and diversify the experience for those who have. From the fantasy of anonymous casual sex to their gender exclusion, bathhouses loom large in our collective queer experience and psyche.

I first heard about bathhouses as a young man, when the Down Under Bathhouse opened near 124 Street. People in the neighborhood were complaining about it, and I remember feeling that they were not just condemning the bathhouse but also homosexuality. I couldn’t help but feel personally attacked when they threw around words like “moral” and “decency.” For me it all added to the transgressive allure of the bathhouse.

As I learned and thought more about bathhouses I knew that sooner or later I would have to visit one. Like a lot of guys the idea of visiting a bathhouse in my own city was out of the question. The fear of running into someone I knew—naked!—was too much to overcome. I thought to myself if I was ever in another city with a hankering to go to a bathhouse, I would.

Last year on a cold night alone in Calgary I did just that. To be honest, the experience was anticlimactic. For all the build up and curiosity the bathhouse was not the den of sexual utopia or even transgression I wanted it to be. I was hoping that the bathhouses would be a place where the physical and the flesh was seen as a gateway to deeper experience and knowing, where people acted with pride and curiosity, understanding that their body is a tool from which they can understand all there is to know. I wanted naked bodies to be working in abandoned fashion in concert with other bodies. Maybe somewhere this vision is a reality but that night the bathhouse just seemed like a refuge where men who didn’t have anywhere else to go met to have sex. I guess I was hoping that the bathhouse was about exploration, but that night it seemed more about desperation.

While reviewing the submissions for the bathhouse Exposure programming chair Todd Janes said something that in a way explained my experience at the bathhouse. He said, “Because of AIDS Bathhouses have lost two generations.” Later, with Exposure Chair Heather Zwicker’s help, I came to understand that what he meant was the first generation was lost to HIV/AIDS and the following generation was lost to fear.

Janes is right—not just about what has been lost at the bathhouses but what has been lost in gay culture altogether. A few weeks ago Richard Berkowitz was in town for the Edmonton International Film Festival for the screening of Sex Positive, Daryl Wein’s documentary detailing Berkowitz’s role as one of the architects of safer sex in the ‘80s. There is a moment in the film when Berkowitz talks about how the gay sexual psyche has changed in the face of AIDS. Before AIDS gay men came together to have the raunchiest hottest sex imaginable, understanding that they were living out a fantasy. But, from Berkowitz’s perspective, gay men now come together and have the same kind of sex but with no awareness of fantasy or that they are working out the shit that the culture continues to put on them. It is this disconnect and lack of internal engagement that creates the potential for bathhouses to be gathering grounds of the fearful rather than playgrounds for the curious.

At the end of the day, all our political gains and cultural cache are worth nothing if we have forgotten what it is to be gay on our own terms. In a very real way bathhouses are a battleground. We must wrestle them back from the brink of the unspoken and integrate them back into healthy sexual practice. We must not judge them, we must open them up and we must support them in an effort to, as Sarah Race, the photographer of the photo above, suggests with her title: live a bit more.

QUEERMONTON Shades of gay - Oct 15, 08

2010-12-25T19:24:00.000-08:00

“Being gay isn’t about being white,” says Aisha, one of the founders of DIAM (Diversity of Identities and Acceptance of All Minds), an Edmonton group that brings together people who are both sexual and visible minorities. Aisha, a second-generation Canadian lesbian whose family maintains a strong relationship with its Filipino roots, sees a lot of value in bringing together her experiences of being sexually, visibly and culturally different from the homogenous white majority of Edmonton—but getting to this point hasn’t been without its struggles.

Living in a visual age where gay is seen by many as the white man or western man’s sickness and is typified by white, physically fit people being outed by Perez Hilton and bamboozling themselves on TV and in the movies doesn’t leave a lot of room for a butch/fem (depending on her mood) lady lover who wants to dance at the gay bar while not having to sacrifice a healthy open relationship with her mother.

Aisha, who prefers not to use her last name out of respect for her family, describes not only having to carve out a place that allows her room to express all parts of herself, but also relays the pressure she feels from her family to conform, be respectful and not erode the traditions they have fought so hard to keep up in a country that would just as soon see them assimilated. It is an experience of being squeezed on all fronts, not to mention from within.

Part of the pressure comes from the narrow way society views sexuality. “We still talk about being gay in a North American way,” Aisha says, and she’s right. This year at the International AIDS conference in Mexico City Shivananda Khan, executive director of the Naz Foundation International urged caution when doing LGBTT advocacy in other countries, since labelling someone gay in a society that denies that homosexuality exists can have fatal consequences.

Growing up understanding that she was different, Aisha saw no examples and was provided no templates to help guide her. Gay was either what was portrayed in Hollywood movies—white, sex-addicted, funny—or what she could gather from the limited examples she saw in Filipino culture—swishy men wearing lady’s dresses. It was from that experience that she began to understand it was going to be hard to define who she was in a society obsessed with simple labels. Compounding it all was her admirable refusal to relinquish parts of herself, like her cultural background, just to make life easier.

It is this inability to turn their backs on family and culture that provides the greatest strife for gay visible minorities. It is also the strong connection to family that in some cases makes being gay OK. Aisha’s friend and DIAM co-founder had for the longest time not told his parents that he was gay, but their only concern when he finally did was that he still maintain his duties as a son and take care of his family. For him this was a good scenario—he was able to take care of himself and his family.

For a group of guys from Team Edmonton, being gay and coming from a non-white background provided them with an opportunity to think differently and examine everything that had been passed down to them. “It gave me a reason to be different,” says Kwok, who is Chinese, “because I already knew I was different.”

It’s a sentiment echoed by Norman and Jackie, who are also Chinese and gay, which led to a discussion on how being gay relates to the transnational issue of being CBC (Canadian-born Chinese) and the experience of lost identity—not being seen as Canadian by Canadians, and not seen as Chinese by people in China. In a way, being gay gave them an escape route and allowed them to consider what it was to be outside of labels altogether.

All three, along with Carlos, who comes from El Salvador, say that the majority of issues came not from being gay in their families, but from being a visible minority in Edmonton’s gay culture. While they all agree that things are getting better, each has their own stories of ignorance, fetishization and discrimination that came from within Edmonton’s gay community. Norman pointed to generalizations like someone who is Asian and gay automatically being seen as passive, as a bottom or only into white guys. He remembers once being told at a bar in the city to “stick to your own kind.” Jackie recalls how being Chinese seems to rule out in other people’s minds the possibility that he might also be gay. “They see me as Chinese first and can’t even conceive that there is more to me than that.”

Carlos has a slightly different experience, and uses being visibly different as his competitive edge at the bars. As someone who grew up not really relating to his Salvadoran roots, Carlos now plays it up to his advantage at the gay bars. “When a Latin song comes on I am front and centre on the dance floor. I know that this is my time.” He doesn’t mind that some guys would be into him just because he is Latin. For others, being seen first as Latin, Chinese or Black can be an issue. Aisha has a friend in the DIAM group, a black gay man, who is tired of being seen as a conquest by white guys who want to fulfill the fantasy of being with a black man.

Another member of DIAM is a Muslim lesbian who wears a hijab. For her to go out and be a part of Edmonton’s gay scene is almost impossible. Even if she can get up the nerve to go to a gay bar, there is the reality that once she gets in she is seen first and foremost as a Muslim, rather than a woman looking to dance and have a good time. Nothing kills the mood more than being seen as a terrorist when you’re just trying to dance to a Madonna song.

These stories, which blend ethnic and sexual identities together, are not readily available in mainstream media, in school curriculum or heard over holiday dinner. That, says Aisha, is why DIAM exists.

“We couldn’t find ourselves in the queer community and no one talks about these things in our homes, so we come together and illuminate for each other what it is to be gay and ourselves.”

QUEERMONTON Change comes to those who work it - Oct 1, 08

2010-12-25T19:21:00.000-08:00

I was in Barcelona on March 11, 2004 when Islamic extremists blew up commuter trains in Madrid in retaliation for the Spanish government’s decision to invade Iraq with America. People marched in the streets in record numbers not in protest, but in a collective call for peace. In the Spanish general elections three days after the bombing, the Partido Popular (PP), the government which sided with the Bush Administration, were defeated by the leftist Spanish Socialists Workers’ Party (PSOE).

Within one term the PSOE had withdrawn Spanish troops from Iraq, come to a ceasefire with ETA (a Spanish terrorist group), legalized gay marriage and set up special courts to deal with violence against women. One can see that out of the mouth of tragedy a song of progressive gains was sung. What created the electoral turn-around was not just the tragedy but how the population reacted: people came together and changed the trajectory of their country to one that they believed in. They didn’t know that the PSOE was going to be as good as they are, but they did know that it was going to be more of the same—or worse—if they stayed with the PP.

Four years later and an ocean away, we in Canada are fortunate to have no tragedy on our hands, but we do have an election coming up. In less than five weeks Americans will vote for a new president and the world will enter a new era—the post-George W Bush era. But before that, on October 14, we have a chance to vote in a regime change of our own. While our election it is not as sexy or exciting as the one south of the border it is just as important to those of us living here as the US election is to the entire world.

For Canadians, particularly queer Canadians, we cannot afford to not pay attention to this election; we might not survive if we are apathetic. If you look at Stephen Harper’s record you will see that while he is not explicitly homophobic, his funding cuts, his policies and his general attitude on where he wants to steer the country are narrow-minded, and have and will negatively impact queer Canadians.

The Conservatives under Harper have cut funding for AIDS, for the arts and for women. Harper has gone on record as bragging that the country has become more conservative, and just recently he has declared that he knows “ordinary Canadians.”

As a gay artist who works for an AIDS service organization, loves his mother, his sister, his grandmother and all his female friends, I can safely say that Harper does not know ordinary Canadians. As a queer man I am an ordinary Canadian, and I want to live in a Canada where there are as many ordinary Canadians as there are Canadians.

Across the country, coalitions (made up of ordinary Canadians) and individuals are working together to ensure that we do not stand idly by while Harper changes the fabric of the country.

See, with Bush it was easy: he believes in war and his vice-president shoots people in the face. In Canada it’s harder. So many of us run with the lies our elementary school teacher told us: that we are peaceful, that we are a cultural mosaic, that we are good. But we are a country that is fighting a war in Afghanistan, entering into a quiet war with other countries about the Arctic, have yet to make peace with First Nations—let alone begun to really understand multiculturalism—and we are no better or worse than any other country.

It is with this in mind that groups like Professional Arts Coalition of Edmonton (PACE) and votesolution.ca are working to ensure that every vote counts as a vote against Harper. In Canada we don’t have a strong party or leader to say yes to, we don’t have an Obama that inspires hope that symbolizes change. What we do have in Harper is a Bush. A leader who, according to Margaret Atwood’s beautifully crafted essay in the Globe and Mail last week, is so afraid of art he has replaced paintings of past Canadian prime ministers that hung in the lobby of the Conservative caucus office with photographs of himself. Like Bush, he is trying in his own way to erase the past.

In the latest edition of Esquire there is a great article by Ron Suskind who writes on “What Bush Meant.” It is not his legacy of war, invasion of the privacy of citizens or even the Bush Doctrine that Suskind cites as being the long-lasting effects of his presidency—it is the fact, he says, that Americans “simply weren’t vigilant enough,” that the Americans who care about their country let down their guard for too long, let Bush go unchallenged for too long and did nothing to stop him even when they had the chance in the 2004 election.

Right now I feel as though we as Canadians are on the precipice of letting what happened in America happen here. As we saw in Spain—and I hope we see in America next month—we have a chance to change the conservative course that our country is on. If we do not, it will be a writer for the Walrus, not Esquire, who in a few years will be shaming their readers for what they did not do when they had the chance.