Gay Life in Canadian Cities

[Chadillaccc]

I'm starting a gay inclusive rugby team in Calgary called the Calgary Rockies Rugby Football Club, this team will join Toronto's Muddy York RFC, Ottawa's Wolves RFC, and the Montreal Armada RFC in the International Gay Rugby League representing Canada. It will be the first inclusive team in Western Canada and will hopefully light a fire under Vancouver's butt to get one going. It'll be the first team to join the Calgary Rugby Union in at least a decade.

If any of you know any guys, gay or straight, in the Calgary region that might be interested in playing rugby, send me a PM with some details and I'll get in touch We need as much support as we can get in these early days. First training session is in late July and we will be offering training from all levels, beginner to expert, as our coach has been in the sport for 20 years and is a national level rugby referee.

Here's the second prototype of the team logo and the jersey we're going to be getting for the team...

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

I must admit that I've never understood the relevance of gender on drivers licences or other such documents. What useful information does it provide? What would be the problem if gender were simply omitted?

I just found out this morning that in addition to allowing gender "X" on drivers licenses, Ontario will also be removing gender from health cards, effective immediately for all new cards issued.

[SignalHillHiker]

I've been avoiding posting about Pride Week here because I'm just too pissed off. But VICE made me feel better and explained it all very well.

Newfoundland's Biggest Pride Parade Has Become About the Police This Year

Pride Week in St. John's has, so far, been less than fabulous. Which is unfortunate, because there's a lot to be proud of this year.

The premier's office backed off its intention to fly a homophobic flag at Confederation Building earlier this year. Justin Trudeau became the first prime minister to march in the Toronto Pride Parade (although he has been curiously silent about the Black Lives Matter protest that stopped the parade). And the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada finally voted to allow same-sex marriage on Monday night (even if a weird computer error meant no one knew about it until Tuesday).

But so far, St. John's Pride Inc.'s biggest accomplishment this year seems to have been alienating the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary (Newfoundland's police force) and, along with them, a lot of people in the province and some very vocal members of the LGBTQ community.

This all started the weekend before Pride kicked off when the St. John's Pride board released a statement saying that they would prefer for any RNC officers who wanted to march in the Pride Parade (alongside the RCMP officers and RNC Mounted Unit already in the parade, or the RNC officers on traffic duty) to attend as "off-duty community allies—ideally not in uniform—so as to better showcase strong police support of the LGBTQ community as individuals, and make the Parade more accessible to all."

They did, however, add that "this request was not intended to inhibit any police presence.... the Pride Parade has always been an open invitation event to anyone who wants to walk with us and we will not be turning away any participants, uniformed or not."
There are two striking things about this message. First, it does not in any way actually ban or otherwise formally exclude off-duty RNC officers from showing up in uniform, hedging its bets so aggressively that it's not clear why they even wrote it at all. Second, it does not in any way attempt to explain why Pride would prefer RNC officers to show up without their uniforms—especially when RCMP officers and the RNC Mounted Unit are already slated to walk in the parade.

The confusing way they worded the statement, along with the complete lack of explanation or context for it, made a lot of people think they were trying to ban the police from the march. They weren't, but a lot of people are on edge about the question of police and pride following a week bookended by Black Lives Matter's interrupting the Toronto Pride Parade and five police officers being murdered in Dallas.

There is a very valuable discussion to be had about the politicization of Pride (or lack thereof), and the relationship between the police as an institution in Canada and the marginalized communities involved in Pride celebrations. These are complex, difficult, and necessary discussions.

But so far, the St. John's Pride organization has deliberately avoided having them with anybody. They have so far repeatedly refused to talk to the media about the situation—including local flagship LGBTQ magazine Outport and VICE.

Their silence has been deafening for those who feel angered and hurt by this. Never one to shy away from controversy, Jennifer McCreath—a prominent local trans activist, erstwhile federal candidate, and founding member of St. John's Pride—recently took to YouTube to burn the rainbow flag as protest against the board's statement.

"You guys are idiots for the way you've acted," McCreath says in the video. "You can't go pushing people away, especially other LGBT people. Other LGBT people don't just sit in a student union. Some of us are actually employed—in law enforcement. Asking law enforcement not to march in your parade, your own people... this is not just your parade."

"St. John's Pride, this is your fault, you ought to be ashamed of yourselves," McCreath says as she fumbles to light the flag with matches. "Fuck you."

McCreath suggests she will burn one of the coloured bars on the flag every day during Pride week until "one by one, there is none of it left." She also says she may burn rainbow flags in a bonfire on the day of the Pride Parade. "If it takes burning flags to get the attention of the right people to [put St. John's Pride out of business], then that's what I'm going to do."

The video is almost comically over-the-top, but buried in the theatrics, McCreath makes a compelling (and non-controversial) observation: "how are you [Pride] supposed to get your message out there when you won't even talk to the media?"

Others have expressed their disappointment in a more subdued manner. Const. Mike Ghaney, an openly gay RNC officer, wrote Pride an open letter in response to their statement. "When I was old enough to realize that I was gay, I was devastated. I did not have any gay role models," Ghaney wrote. "I wish I had known that gay police officers existed when I was younger. Seeing that a gay individual could have the career they wanted, while living their life openly, would have been life changing for me... For me, being gay and a police officer are inseparable [sic]."

Meanwhile, the RNC has kept quiet about any potential controversy in its involvement in Pride. Uniformed officers attended the Pride flag raising at City Hall this week and Deputy Chief Jim Carroll told CBC that they will respect Pride's wishes, that they understand that these issues are sensitive, and that "we are still part of this community, and we will continue to embrace and support and work with [them]... this is about Pride; it isn't about the RNC."

As St. John's Pride continues to dodge the media, all anyone can do is speculate as to their reasons for making the request. Pride ex-president Noah Davis-Power told CBC that "I think that instead of arbitrarily saying that one group can or cannot march, that if there are complaints and concerns from the community, that the Pride organization has a responsibility to consult the community and actually put in place a process... a dispute resolution process, instead of arbitrarily handing down a judgement.

"What I can only infer this year is that St. John's Pride is trying to show some sort of solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, especially the demonstration that they held at the Toronto Pride Parade last week," he said.

Brittany Lennox, director of external affairs for the Memorial University Student Union, suggested in her speech at the university's flag-raising ceremony that Pride's request dealt with the violence that the police symbolize to many marginalized groups—particularly people of colour and Indigenous persons.

"While police are very important and police should be there, if they're off-duty maybe they should dress in a way that is non-violent and non-threatening to groups of people that this parade is for," she told CBC. "And if they feel that they still need to wear their police uniform to feel included and to feel like that parade is for them, then they should do that, but I think all that St. John's Pride was doing was suggesting that they reflect on that decision."

Taylor Stocks, a transgender member of the St. John's Accessibility and Inclusion Advisory Committee, spoke at the city hall flag-raising and laid out the crux of the matter most eloquently. "I think that there is a struggle between the two different types of inclusion," Stocks told CBC. "Including everyone, and... including groups of people who have been historically disenfranchised. [But] we're not having these conversations as they are happening. It's not until we reach a point of crisis that we realize there's such a big divide."

It's not an easy conversation to have. It's very fair to say that there are a lot of legitimate reasons for members of marginalized groups to be less-than-enthusiastic about Canadian policing in general, and about the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary in particular. (Here are some of them: Don Dunphy. Tim Buckle. Dane Spurrell. Darryl Power. No doubt there are more; lift up the rock and you'll find a lot of dirt.)

But it's also fair to say that the RNC have been—unequivocally—very good with outreach to the queer community. The RNC have gone out of their way to include LGBTQ individuals in the organization and to act as visible allies to the community. Despite all this, the Pride board appeared to single them out as problematic and gave virtually no explanation. Small wonder people are confused and pissed off.

• Video Link

St. John's Pride tried to take a stance on a delicate issue in a way that was sensitive to their most marginalized members but failed so spectacularly that one of their co-founders is burning their flag on YouTube. They had the opportunity to lead a desperately important conversation but immediately painted themselves into a corner and completely shut down, ceding the public discourse to the RNC's aggressive communications machine and a city mayor goofy enough to suggest that the Battle of Beaumont-Hamel was fought so that cops could march in the Pride Parade.

As they say: when you come at the king, you best not miss. Thanks to the board's botched attempt at standing up for the marginalized, Pride Week in St. John's this year is more about celebrating the police than the spirit of Stonewall.

http://www.vice.com/en_ca/read/this-...out-the-police

*****

The overwhelming majority of the LGBT community here is absolutely outraged.

Typical comments on FB:



My take on it:



*****

So, a significant number of LGBT people are boycotting official Pride activities, but are attending many of the other non-official events (there are a dozen or more big ones, mostly at downtown bars).

The rest are still going to attend the Pride parade, many in police costumes, because it's bigger than the board.

And the small minority too precious to go out in public lest they see a police officer and have a panic attack can't go anyway because the Royal Canadian Mount Police will still, apparently, have its fully-uniformed walking group in the parade.

*****

Beyond that, St. John's has a rainbow crosswalk now. It crosses the four lanes of New Gower Street directly in front of City Hall. It may be permanent. Deputy Mayor's hilarious response to that question was they'll see because the city struggles to keep lines on the road at all.

Port aux Basques also added a rainbow crosswalk. Every second community in the province is having some sort of Pride event, including flag raisings across the island and in Labrador. Some regions are even having week-long festivals with numerous events like St. John's.

So... ugh! Happy Pride!

[wg_flamip]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

And the small minority too precious to go out in public lest they see a police officer and have a panic attack can't go anyway because the Royal Canadian Mount Police will still, apparently, have its fully-uniformed walking group in the parade.

And I suppose the police are too precious to walk in a parade in plainclothes without having a panic attack? Let's not erase the fact that actual people in our community (in Toronto, in St. John's, and across the country) have had actual problems with the police (and/or with police forces as institutions). Sometimes those problems have included violence, public humiliation (as, I believe, was the case when the RNC widely published photos of men using a St. John's mall washroom as a cruising area in the not-terribly-distant past) and the criminalization of Queer bodies (HIV disclosure laws, sex work laws, "gross indecency" charges, &c.).

What's so important about the uniform anyway? If police forces are to be allies, they must understand that Pride is not about them and not about their feelings.

[SignalHillHiker]

We are a very homogeneous society, and even in the few communities where that is not as clearly the case, we have very little diversity. The RNC has built an excellent relationship with our visible minority groups. All of the organizations and associations representing newcomers and refugees here that I've heard from on this issue speak highly of the RNC.

So, these sorts of actions are counter-productive in our society. They cause real, local damage and there's almost no one here who that damage benefits. We can empathize with problems elsewhere, and show our support in various ways, but we can't self-destruct in the process. We could've staged a 30-minute sit-in during our parade in solidarity - anything other than start dictating who can wear what to a Pride parade.

The RNC wasn't always perfect - I also referenced that Village Mall sting example - but they have made tremendous progress here over the past 25 years. They've earned their place in the parade. Why keep punishing them? Singling them out? They've atoned. They've done far more for our community than any of the other uniformed groups in the parade, from clergy to the RCMP. They're part of our community now. You could easily get the impression here it's a special gay police force, they're that involved and supportive (including financially sponsoring Pride to begin with).

Most of the opposition, though, seems to just be because it's unnecessary and moves us backwards:



And then there's the problem of particularly who here is supporting Pride's request. Given our overall lack of visible minorities, and the great relationship the LGBT community has built with the RNC, there are really only a handful of people supportive of this. Almost all are students, many from outside the city/province. They staged a coup of St. John's Pride a couple of years ago, but it's only now coming to a head because the LGBT community was largely content to let them run it until they started this sort of thing.

So a lot of the support is over-the-top rude ("A pig in a rainbow flag is still a pig!", etc.). And even when it's more measured, the tone can just be difficult to take:



Honey, it's our Pride too. We won't sit down.

[wg_flamip]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

So a lot of the support is over-the-top rude ("A pig in a rainbow flag is still a pig!", etc.). And even when it's more measured, the tone can just be difficult to take:



Honey, it's our Pride too. We won't sit down.

Have you considered your own tone and the tone employed by others who support the uniform? Reading your post, it sounds to me like you're saying "If you're a student and/or someone who has moved here from elsewhere, Pride here isn't really for you or about you so sit down and shut up." There seems to be an element of xenophobia at work here that should be challenged in any Pride event anywhere.

[eemy]

There is a relationship between the local police force and the local community that a student isn't going to readily understand until they spend more time there. Recognizing this is hardly xenophobia.

[SignalHillHiker]

Originally Posted by wg_flamip

Have you considered your own tone and the tone employed by others who support the uniform? Reading your post, it sounds to me like you're saying "If you're a student and/or someone who has moved here from elsewhere, Pride here isn't really for you or about you so sit down and shut up." There seems to be an element of xenophobia at work here that should be challenged in any Pride event anywhere.

My tone here is frustrated, yeah - this has been going for a week and it's exhausting.

But I don't think it's xenophobic to point out our own Pride board has one member from the city, one who moved here in their teenage years, and the rest are all from rural Newfoundland or other provinces.

The ignorance is obvious in their interviews. In one article, they said St. John's is far behind on parade issues since there are only two in the city annually. That's completely wrong. There's the Santa Claus Parade, the Mummer's Parade, the Memorial Day Parade, the Pride Parade, the marches for Palestine, Take Back the Night, Slut Walk, the list goes on and on.

In another interview, they said we're catching up to cities like Moncton. Not dissing Moncton at all, but they've never had a Pride festival as large as ours. Even this year ours is still larger than theirs, and this Pride board has done a fraction of what we had two years ago.

The 2014 Pride Guide, for example, was I think 20+ pages. This year it's two.

So all of that is frustrating enough - but then to have this same group damaging a relationship that we all worked hard to build, and one almost all of us want to celebrate... then it's just too far.

[wg_flamip]

Originally Posted by jeremy_haak

There is a relationship between the local police force and the local community that a student isn't going to readily understand until they spend more time there. Recognizing this is hardly xenophobia.

I was responding more to the notion that, in general, Pride in St. John's has been hijacked by students from away. How much time does a student (or any other newcomer) - who is volunteering to organize a Pride event - need to spend in a community before it is acceptable for them to claim some ownership of that event and to demand input into how that event is run?

[eemy]

I just absolutely viscerally hate the idea of excluding any group. It goes against the very fiber of my being. The world isn't supposed to work like this.

And I suppose the police are too precious to walk in a parade in plainclothes without having a panic attack?

This is so completely tone deaf. The whole challenge of pride is to break out of the closet and accept who you are (and for others to embrace you as you are). And yet, here's a Pride Committee telling police officers that they should, in effect, get in the closet. It goes against the ethos of Pride.

[SignalHillHiker]

Originally Posted by wg_flamip

I was responding more to the notion that, in general, Pride in St. John's has been hijacked by students from away. How much time does a student (or any other newcomer) - who is volunteering to organize a Pride event - need to spend in a community before it is acceptable for them to claim some ownership of that event and to demand input into how that event is run?

Sorry, I worked myself up.

None, really - if they get it right. But they're so assured of themselves. I can't imagine moving to Toronto for school, joining Pride Toronto, and speaking confidently to the media about how many parades it has in a year unless I asked someone first. I wouldn't compare it to other cities ("Hey, we're finally catching up to New York City and Buffalo!", etc.). It's just so... off. They even posted this week that the military raising the flag here was the first time in Canada a Pride flag has been raised on a base. That's not true - Edmonton did it to significant media coverage just a couple of years ago.

And it's not that there's anything wrong with students - we'd need a few of them on any truly representative board. But this one is solely current or very recent university students. They're all white. There's not one cisgender (born that way) gay man. There's potentially no one in their 30s, and definitely no one in their 40s, 50s, and so on. It's a very narrow group, especially in a city where the LGBT community is largely integrated within the broader society.

People made the mistake of stepping away from the board when they wanted to get more radical, and let them have it, never imagining it would get this unnecessarily bad. So now we have to step up to the plate again and get a more representative board. This would never have happened otherwise.

[wg_flamip]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

Sorry, I worked myself up.

I'm sorry as well, I'm still worked up about what happened here during our parade this year.

I get the conflict you're describing in the organization; it sounds like a carbon copy of conflicts in other Queer spaces across North America. In the past, involved in such conflict, I was one of those people who just walked away. If we were having this conversation three or four years ago, I would agree with you on almost every point (although I was never to keen on cops in uniform in the parade, especially post-G20).

This year is different though. Here, we had our Chief of Police "express regret" for the bathhouse raids without owning up to any responsibility (by releasing the names of those involved in planning and ordering the raids, for example). In hindsight, this seems like a cynical ploy to discredit BLMTO and drive a wedge between the "establishment" (read: middle-aged, middle-class, white) community and QPoC activists. After the BLMTO sit-in at Pride - an act that was entirely foreseeable, IMO - the amount of racism and hate that filled up my social media feeds shocked me out of my own white male complacency.

As I said above, in the past I have walked away from groups that were becoming too "identity politics-y." Looking back now, I wish I hadn't. Instead, I wish I had listened with more empathy, accepting that - yes - sometimes I am part of the problem, but also that I am capable of learning how to change that.

Of course, in the wake of Orlando, I think Pride celebrations everywhere have been a bit more emotionally raw this year

[SignalHillHiker]

Yeah, makes sense.

As for what happened in TO, I have no problem with what they did, nor with their demands (except the obvious police one). The idea of excluding supporters for any reason bothers me. The idea a relationship can be improved through doing that bothers me.

But even then, maybe that is a real concern there. I don't know. It's definitely up to the whole LGBT community and not just BLM to make that choice, though.

In her column, Taylor explained it's a conflict between those who want slow, steady institutional change and those who want fast, more radical change. Marginalized groups tend to prefer the latter because their circumstances are worse and they often have no access to the first type of change anyway.

I agree with all that. I just think our Pride board's methods won't achieve that, even if diversity-related issues were significant here. We can show solidarity without hurting ourselves. And although the success of a police force in a homogenous society is completely irrelevant to TO as well, we can show what a healthy relationship with police looks like.

[SignalHillHiker]

This makes me curious what the smallest Pride parade is. Has to be close lol.

[Architype]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

...
Newfoundland's Biggest Pride Parade Has Become About the Police This Year
...

^It seems inappropriate for this to happen in St. John's, since it all seems to have originated with the BLM movement, which surely can't have much presence there.

The issue has spread to Vancouver as well.

Black Lives Matter Vancouver Wants Police Float Out Of Pride Parade

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/07..._11026580.html

[Dwils01]

I don't know why BLM wants police out of the parade in Vancouver. Since 2000 only five people were killed by police in Vancouver and what I could find none of them were black people.

Lately they seem to be losing a lot of support in Canada and the US. A lot of comments on articles about them are negative towards them and after seeing videos of their so called protests in the US and some of the horrible things they chant about other human beings, I have lost a lot of respect for them as well.

[ciudad_del_norte]

Just to be clear, while the most newsworthy and public part of BLM has been police related killings, the movement is quite a bit more involved and calls out the systematic issues that are prevalent accross north america.

I'm not personally involved with BLM, and I'm not confident that they will see much success simply because society in general is pretty comfortable as-is. But they raise some legitimate questions (with some crazies, for sure). It is quite interesting to see people out there challenging the widespread idea that racism is a thing of the past, or just a problem somewhere else.

[1overcosc]

BLM makes a lot of sense in the United States where police killings of blacks are relatively common. But in Canada, where the number of blacks killed by police is low (in many major cities it's literally zero), and where Indigenous people and Middle Eastern people face more police discrimination than blacks do, it doesn't make much sense.

A broader version of BLM, focused on all racial minorities including Red, Black, and Brown people, and focused on overall issues of police harassment/brutality instead of specifically killings, is a much more logical movement in Canada.

This subject touches on something that's always bugged me... that Canadian social justice activists often simply transplant American issues and concerns onto Canada, without taking into account Canadian perspectives. As an example, look at how many SJW types in Canada constantly tweet about police killings of blacks in the US, but almost never talk about judicial racism against Indigenous Canadians.

[SignalHillHiker]

Systemic racism definitely exists, and it's everywhere - it's just less of a pressing issue in a city of 200,000 people where only a few hundred people, probably fewer, are subjected to it. (There was at least one white person at our Pride parade in blackface, as a means of supporting BLM's message - that's how far removed from this stuff we are). Less pressing enough that it probably doesn't warrant excluding a very supportive police force from walking in their uniforms with our LGBT Pride parade. That doesn't mean BLM's message isn't relevant everywhere, it definitely is. I hope they'll get a chapter going here, I hope they'll join our Pride parade in the future, they can even stage a sit-in. But no one gets to dictate who among our supporters is allowed to join. Seeing LGBT professionals and supporters of all stripes in the parade is too important to give up.

*****

RE: Indigenous people - you're definitely right there. The parade here got it half right. The St. John's Native Friendship Centre lead the parade with their world record-setting rainbow dreamcatcher. But it was all very celebratory and happy, not political. I didn't notice any mention that everything isn't already perfect.

[ciudad_del_norte]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

Systemic racism definitely exists, and it's everywhere - it's just less of a pressing issue in a city of 200,000 people where only a few hundred people, probably fewer, are subjected to it. (There was at least one white person at our Pride parade in blackface, as a means of supporting BLM's message - that's how far removed from this stuff we are). Less pressing enough that it probably doesn't warrant excluding a very supportive police force from walking in their uniforms with our LGBT Pride parade. That doesn't mean BLM's message isn't relevant everywhere, it definitely is. I hope they'll get a chapter going here, I hope they'll join our Pride parade in the future, they can even stage a sit-in. But no one gets to dictate who among our supporters is allowed to join. Seeing LGBT professionals and supporters of all stripes in the parade is too important to give up.

*****

RE: Indigenous people - you're definitely right there. The parade here got it half right. The St. John's Native Friendship Centre lead the parade with their world record-setting rainbow dreamcatcher. But it was all very celebratory and happy, not political. I didn't notice any mention that everything isn't already perfect.

Just out of curiosity, where abouts would the threshold population number be before it was a pressing issue?