Gay Life in Canadian Cities

[240glt]

It should be noted that most gays don't live in the "villages"

Most are living happy productive lives in and amongst their straight counterparts

A very well known gay author and playwright bought a house with his parter, just down from us in the mature 'burbs

Said my sweetie: "look honey, we're not the only gays in the village"

Lol

[Chadillaccc]

Originally Posted by 240glt

It should be noted that most gays don't live in the "villages"

Most are living happy productive lives in and amongst their straight counterparts

A very well known gay author and playwright bought a house with his parter, just down from us in the mature 'burbs

Said my sweetie: "look honey, we're not the only gays in the village"

Lol

Haha yeah! I hope to move to the Beltline with my "sweetie" as our relationship matures. I guess the Beltline could be considered a village. I heard a statistic once that the population (around 20 000) is around 30% gay. So I guess that is substantial, but I think it's a bit too major of a neighbourhood to be considered a village, since there are only 3 gay bars in the area. Most of my friends don't even go to the gay bars, they are just comfortable enough to go to any bar and be able to show their affection. I love living in this generation!

[Deepstar]

I was going to say the same thing. I'm not gay myself, and don't pretend to know about gay living, but if I were gay I wouldn't care if if there is a 'gay village'. I'd rather just be part of the urban fabric with everyone else.

Originally Posted by 240glt

It should be noted that most gays don't live in the "villages"

Most are living happy productive lives in and amongst their straight counterparts

A very well known gay author and playwright bought a house with his parter, just down from us in the mature 'burbs

Said my sweetie: "look honey, we're not the only gays in the village"

Lol

[Gerrard]

Originally Posted by Deepstar

I was going to say the same thing. I'm not gay myself, and don't pretend to know about gay living, but if I were gay I wouldn't care if if there is a 'gay village'. I'd rather just be part of the urban fabric with everyone else.

But...would you be comfortable living in an exclusively gay neighborhood as a heterosexual? Would that neighborhood offer you the same amenities etc. that you'd find in a mostly exclusively heterosexual one?

Having said that, Toronto's main gayborhood has undergone a real change in 30 years. It's no longer the go to place for every single gay person (I find it slightly depressing and decrepit -I find the Castro like this too). Ultimately it's still the main queer artery but no gay person in this city necessarily feels they need to live there or "party" on Church St. anymore. And a lot of that is credit to Queer activists that came before us.

If you're a gay family you more than likely live in Leslieville. If you are 20something your go to place is probably the west end, which is a lot more integrated.

[halifaxboyns]

Originally Posted by Gerrard

But...would you be comfortable living in an exclusively gay neighborhood as a heterosexual? Would that neighborhood offer you the same amenities etc. that you'd find in a mostly exclusively heterosexual one?

Having said that, Toronto's main gayborhood has undergone a real change in 30 years. It's no longer the go to place for every single gay person (I find it slightly depressing and decrepit -I find the Castro like this too). Ultimately it's still the main queer artery but no gay person in this city necessarily feels they need to live there or "party" on Church St. anymore. And a lot of that is credit to Queer activists that came before us.

If you're a gay family you more than likely live in Leslieville. If you are 20something your go to place is probably the west end, which is a lot more integrated.

Why wouldn't anyone (be they gay or str8) be comfortable living anywhere? As an openly gay man (and urban planner) I find this discussion fascinating. As I understood the history of 'gay villages' - they were a congregation place for gay men/women to live and be around each other because of the fact that for many years, being gay was illegal. They became places where (much like other minorities) you could be safe and stand together as one united community.

Now, as society is changing (particularly in Canada) their purpose seems really questionable? Don't get me wrong, I enjoy Davie Street and Church Street and I see no reason to push them out of existence. These places have history for how they came to be. But I don't really see a point in creating new ones because if the whole point was to be a safe place because we had little to no legal rights - what is the need for them now, where we enjoy much more legal rights? Or is it that we still feel that despite (on paper) we have those freedoms but the reality hasn't changed?

If it is that the reality and the rights on paper has a divide, then yes - we will see these places remain strong and grow. But I suspect in most urban centres (and I live in Calgary, so I've seen it changing over the years) there seems to be that general acceptance and support. I agree with others in this forum, the rural areas - not so much. But I don't feel unsafe in Calgary; where I might be more 'uneasy' in more rural spots.

[Gerrard]

Originally Posted by halifaxboyns

Why wouldn't anyone (be they gay or str8) be comfortable living anywhere? As an openly gay man (and urban planner) I find this discussion fascinating. As I understood the history of 'gay villages' - they were a congregation place for gay men/women to live and be around each other because of the fact that for many years, being gay was illegal. They became places where (much like other minorities) you could be safe and stand together as one united community.

Now, as society is changing (particularly in Canada) their purpose seems really questionable? Don't get me wrong, I enjoy Davie Street and Church Street and I see no reason to push them out of existence. These places have history for how they came to be. But I don't really see a point in creating new ones because if the whole point was to be a safe place because we had little to no legal rights - what is the need for them now, where we enjoy much more legal rights? Or is it that we still feel that despite (on paper) we have those freedoms but the reality hasn't changed?

If it is that the reality and the rights on paper has a divide, then yes - we will see these places remain strong and grow. But I suspect in most urban centres (and I live in Calgary, so I've seen it changing over the years) there seems to be that general acceptance and support. I agree with others in this forum, the rural areas - not so much. But I don't feel unsafe in Calgary; where I might be more 'uneasy' in more rural spots.

Because...generally people gravitate to ghettos of like minded, like-cultured, like-raced people.

I think it's great to say I have a diversity of friends etc. but the truth is as much diversity as there is among my friends culturally the majority of us are gay or lesbian. Nothing against straight people but the older one gets as a gay person the less interesting straight people seem with their spectator sports fanaticism, more rigid gender-role constructs and this is key: offspring. Not saying I necessarily connect all that well with my top 40 loving gay friends, as I do lament, sometimes, the time gay meant outsider; but with acceptance does come a certain amount of banality.


Yeah the gay ghetto might seem to have run its course but as many rights we may think we have or have gained, you'd be a fool to think that every gay that comes out gets the red carpet treatment from society.

Gay bashings are actually more common in places with high visibility gay communities. Cities are diverse places and that means everything from the vegan alien worshiping two spirited pacifist to the neo-nazi.

[Chadillaccc]

No Tom, he edited my post to say "too conservative" my actual post is the reality of the situation, whereas his "correction" was a cry for unneeded attention, an attempt to cause conflict.

[Chadillaccc]

Oh I understand that totally. It was the same situation in most of the world at that time though. He "corrected" my comment to say "still too conservative"... which it isn't anymore. He even admitted to fishing for a reaction.

[PhilippeMtl]

Originally Posted by Chadillaccc

Oh I understand that totally. It was the same situation in most of the world at that time though. He "corrected" my comment to say "still too conservative"... which it isn't anymore. He even admitted to fishing for a reaction.

Sorry to hurt your feelings but Calgary is still conservative by canadian standard.

[kwoldtimer]

K-W must be the largest city in Canada with no gay bar. There was one until a few months ago, but the building was converted to high tech office space and the bar owners are now running an "urban lounge" Downtown.

Gay life in K-W seems very low-key, but the lesbian community is large and quite visible.

[Chadillaccc]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

K-W must be the largest city in Canada with no gay bar. There was one until a few months ago, but the building was converted to high tech office space and the bar owners are now running an "urban lounge" Downtown.

Gay life in K-W seems very low-key, but the lesbian community is large and quite visible.

Oh no! I had no idea they closed Ren. That's lame. I'm sure another one will open soon enough, the gay population is certainly big enough to support more than a couple!

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by PhilippeMtl

Sorry to hurt your feelings but Calgary is still conservative by canadian standard.

Calgary is undoubtedly one of the most conservative major cities in Canada (inb4 Allan chimes in with his mental gymnastics to "prove" that it's actually the most liberal)...but in 2014...in Canada...in a big city, even the most conservative of places are still going to be overwhelmingly gay friendly. There might be a little less tolerance than in say, Montreal, but it's not as if gay Calgarians are living in fear of being hunted down by the homophobic Mayor Nenshi and being sent to one of his homosexual concentration camps either.

[Wooster]

Originally Posted by PhilippeMtl

Sorry to hurt your feelings but Calgary is still conservative by canadian standard.

Calgary has never been a particularly 'conservative' place when it comes to difference, acceptance of outsiders and so on. It also is, relatively speaking, a very young and unreligious city. It is a city made up of people from somewhere else without the baggage of establishment. This is manifest in a number of ways - for instance having a Muslim brown dude as Mayor. Something not really imaginable in places like Québec.

Socially, the culture is not one that is at the forefront of social activism for something like gay rights, but its population is ambivalent and takes a live and let live attitude - you'd never see real movements against like actually socially conservative places.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Wooster

...for instance having a Muslim brown dude as Mayor. Something not really imaginable in places like Québec.

"Brown", you're very wrong there.

"Muslim"... okay, but it's not really apples-to-apples, because Quebec has been exposed to some of the more radical Islam (through decades of French-speaking Maghreb immigration) in a way that I don't think is matched anywhere else in the country.

(Kinda like saying that whites in Sherbrooke QC are generally less anti-Chinese, in daily life, than whites in Richmond BC... sure, it might be true, but we don't really have any merit.)


We're more secular, that's correct, but an atheist with brown skin and an Arabic name would have pretty much the same chances as anyone. I'll grant you that being a practicing Muslim would raise some suspicion among certain classes here. I have no problem facing the facts.

[Wooster]

Originally Posted by lio45

"Brown", you're very wrong there.

"Muslim"... okay, but it's not really apples-to-apples, because Quebec has been exposed to some of the more radical Islam (through decades of French-speaking Maghreb immigration) in a way that I don't think is matched anywhere else in the country.

(Kinda like saying that whites in Sherbrooke QC are generally less anti-Chinese than whites in Richmond BC... sure, it might be true, but we don't really have any merit.)


We're more secular, that's correct, but an atheist with brown skin and an Arabic name would have pretty much the same chances as anyone. I'll grant you that being a practicing Muslim would raise some suspiscion among certain classes here. I have no problem facing the facts.

The difference being such qualifications about name, ethnicity, religious affiliations don't exist in Calgary's mainstream political culture.

I'd challenge the brown statement - realizing my evidence is anecdotal, a born and raised Calgarian brown friend of mine (east Indian decent) a musician in Orchestra Symphonique de Quebec had to leave town because of the intense and ongoing racism he was facing. And this was in a typically more progressive fine arts community!

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by lio45

"Brown", you're very wrong there.

"Muslim"... okay, but it's not really apples-to-apples, because Quebec has been exposed to some of the more radical Islam (through decades of French-speaking Maghreb immigration) in a way that I don't think is matched anywhere else in the country.

(Kinda like saying that whites in Sherbrooke QC are generally less anti-Chinese, in daily life, than whites in Richmond BC... sure, it might be true, but we don't really have any merit.)


We're more secular, that's correct, but an atheist with brown skin and an Arabic name would have pretty much the same chances as anyone. I'll grant you that being a practicing Muslim would raise some suspicion among certain classes here. I have no problem facing the facts.

In any event, comparing Nenshi in Calgary to small-town Quebec is just plain wrong anyway.

Nenshi was elected in a big and fairly diverse city. He also speaks, dresses and acts like your average native-born Calgarian and talks very little about his religion.

Though she is pretty fair-skinned, Fatima Houda-Pepin has represented the south shore of Montreal (Brossard area) in the National Assembly since 1994. She is Moroccan-born and muslim (until fairly recently, she talked about it about as much as Nenshi does, which is to say she did not hide it, but seldom raised it in public). She also speaks French with an obviously foreign accent, whereas Nenshi's accent is classic English Canadian. Her riding is probably 65-70% "French Canadian" with the rest made up of other origins. Again, not that dissimilar to Calgary in that it is mainly "old stock white" but with lots of minorities too.

So produce someone exactly like Nenshi but substitute French for English, and sure, he could get elected in Quebec.

[artvandelay]

Originally Posted by PhilippeMtl

Sorry to hurt your feelings but Calgary is still conservative by canadian standard.

Fiscally conservative, but not socially conservative.

An important distinction that you fail to note.

[Black Star]

I absolutely don't think Calgary is fiscally conservative. When I am down there I do find compared to Edmonton that they are more socially more conservative. I like Edmonton's Vibe. It has chutzpah.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by artvandelay

Fiscally conservative, but not socially conservative.

An important distinction that you fail to note.

Depends. One metric I personally like to use is closing time for bars. Here the last call for alcohol is at 3 a.m. and they generally don't start to push people out until 4 a.m. (in my experience, but it's been a while since I've been out that late)

At first in the U.S. I was amazed at how early bars closed... in fact I recall once that we tried to go out, and upon arriving downtown, already all quite drunk, we found that everybody was on the streets (first impression: wow! really party town!) ... but it was because the bars were already closed!!!

What time do bars close in AB?

[Rusty van Reddick]

Originally Posted by PhilippeMtl

Sorry to hurt your feelings but Calgary is still conservative by canadian standard.

Actually that's completely untrue.

Iqaluit is socially conservative. By Canadian standards. Calgary isn't.