Gay Life in Canadian Cities

[ciudad_del_norte]

I think what I disagree with is the idea that it has to be misidentified sex at birth to be a valid decision at 12. "Boy trapped in a girl's body" is very different than "I feel like being a boy today". The first is ongoing internal struggle.

I also think you underestimate the degree to which some aspects of gender are taken for granted, especially for non trans folk. When you are okay with the basic fundamentals of your sex and the associated gender I think it all just makes sense. You probably wouldn't think much more about it, whether 12 years old or 50 because you don't need to, there is no dissonance. The penis rule, for many of us, works pretty damn good. I'm gay, but have never really had any question of whether I am male. I may have some different thoughts about what I wanted to do with it than most, but it having a penis and what that means to me and the world was never an issue. I don't know exactly what it feels like to be a boy trapped in girl's body or vice versa. But I think it's possible at 12 to understand that the penis rule doesn't work for you, even without any biological ambiguity.

[freeweed]

Oh don't get me wrong, I can't even pretend to understand what's going through most people's heads when it comes to sexual and gender identity. I'm about as boring and 1950s standard as it gets.

I'm mostly just remembering life as a pre-teen and early teen. We tended to change our "identity" in what seemed like important and fundamental ways every few months if not weeks. I certainly don't remember people consciously noticing gender identity beyond the penis rule, that's all.

I'm not questioning the validity of the person's choice if it's NOT a biological mix-up, I just find that to be the most likely situation given the official recognition and all. I find it hard to believe that as a society, we're ready for pre-pubescent children to be making official gender identity changes - hell, we BARELY manage it with adults who have struggled for decades with it.

I'll also freely admit that I literally have no concept of gender identity as it relates to trans/mixed gender types. I mean I completely can't grasp what's going on, at all. But I do the housework and live with a pretty complete tomboy, so gender identities have always been a bit fluid to me. And yes, I realize how much of my ignorance I'm exposing with a comment such as that.

[SignalHillHiker]

Sounds like my parents, only me mudder loves being all dolled up.

If I understand correctly, there is SO MUCH counselling and psychological/physical examination that comes along with the gender-reassignment process that for those who choose to have new genitals surgically fashioned from their existing ones, it's really impossible to make it all the way to your surgery date without being 100% completely sure it is exactly what you want and have wanted your entire adult life.

For those who don't wish to change their genitals, or have unclear genitals, but still feel they are one of the two genders... it seems to be that develops at a very young age, the same age other little boys start reaching for masculine toys. If they associate fully with one gender, they just know.

For those who are being trendy or experimental and want to be "genderqueer snarky masculine femme" or whatever the hell - sorry, we can't accommodate all that on birth certificates.

BUT there are people who are genuinely gender fluid, who will go through their entire lives with people wondering, "Is that a boy or a girl?" and feel perfectly at home with that. For these folks, we could probably have an Other category. It could also loop in the trendy idiots, but that's fine. It could - though I'm not sure if I agree with this - also be used for pre-surgery people who are transitioning to the opposite gender.

That could prove offensive ("I'm more than my genitals!") - but, honey, this category is about your genitals. We're not talking about your personality. No butch lesbian's birth certificate says "Masculine Female". The only thing gender on a birth certificate means is what's between your legs. When you grow up, if that's changed, we can change what it says.

[freeweed]

SHH, you touch on why I'm so uncomfortable with our obsession over "gender" in the first place. I just don't get it - like you say, there's no "butch dyke" designation on a driver's license. Nor is there a "limp-wristed, crosses his legs at the knee but still likes girls".

I'm extremely masculine in appearance (bone structure, although my muscles more approach "twink") and yet often very feminine in behaviour. I just don't really give a shit about it. The odd "you sit like a girl" or "people might think you're gay" comments don't really phase me. It says more about the speaker than it does me.

I just don't get the obsession with labels and categories, which is why I lose track of the vernacular so easily. I know what parts I got, I know what parts I like, and I know that for some people that's a bit blurred (in both ways). This is probably why I also have a hard time grasping the importance of gender in so many Latin languages (I mean beyond not growing up speaking them). The concepts are just so ingrained to some people, that the very thought of not referring to gender when describing someone is... well, foreign to them. Me, I've never understood "actress" or the like. Never mind feminizing adjectives. I don't see where sex or gender comes into play unless I plan on sleeping with them.

[SignalHillHiker]

Yeah, exactly.

The only thing I know with absolute (second-hand) certainty is that there are people born who are wholly and fully male or female but who grow up feeling, in every way, the opposite. They're not just masculine women, they're not just feminine men. They wake up every morning, look down at their bodies, and feel a confusing, depressing mix of fear, anxiety, shame, anger, etc. They live every day uncomfortable, whether its a person living as a man who has to bind his breasts, or a person living as a woman who has to tuck like a drag queen. Every single day. It has nothing to do with their sexual orientation, it's their gender identity.

Those people should be able to go through the gender reassignment process, including sexual reassignment surgery, covered under provincial healthcare plans. They should be able to get their drivers' licenses, birth certificates, and other documentation that mentions gender changed to reflect the one they become.

Beyond that... it's all Greek to me.

[SignalHillHiker]

Here's a great example, Gregory Gorgeous.

He was a very feminine man - hair, make-up, the works who became a YouTube star. That's never enough to suspect if someone is trans or not - but in his case, he was.

Now she's Gigi Gorgeous. It's a whole other thing than being a feminine gay man. Gigi is a heterosexual woman with an interesting past.

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And here she is much farther along in the process, after several cosmetic surgeries to remove masculine features (i.e. brow line):

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[vid]

Originally Posted by freeweed

Which makes this person transsexual instead of transgender? I forget how the terms work.

Transsexual is physical, transgender is mental. But most people in the trans community consider the two words to be synonyms, according to the quick Google search I did to answer this question for you.

Originally Posted by freeweed

Actually, I still haven't figured this story out. My suspicion is that this poor kid was born with mixed genitalia that mostly looked female at birth, but as he grew older, formed into mostly male.

That's a hermaphrodite. (I used to think bisexuals were hermaphrodites too. Bisexual, in botany, refers to a hermaphroditic flower.)

Originally Posted by freeweed

If this is simply "I'm a boy trapped in a girl's body!", and they did this to a 12 year old... then yeah, it's kinda stupid. 12 year olds barely have a clue about identity as it is, let alone gender. But I'm fairly sure there's a biological component to this story.

When I was 12 and first realized I was gay, I didn't know what homosexuality was, so I thought I was turning into a girl. I wanted to kill myself. Shortly afterwards we had our first sex ed course and I realized I wasn't a girl, I was just a disgusting, socially unacceptable man.

Anyway—Suicidal tendencies among LGBT youth are well documented, some studies showing 55% of LGBT people had suicidal thoughts as teens and 25% attempted suicide. These numbers are even higher among transgender people. The only transgender person I had as a friend killed herself 6 years ago.

We don't fully understand gender, sex, and sexual orientation because for so long, we thought there were only two things you could be in either category (and that the first two categories were the same thing). It doesn't harm anyone to let a transgender person change their birth certificate, but it does harm someone if we don't let them change it. You need a medical professional's recommendation to change the gender on your birth certificate, so it's extremely unlikely that this is just some whim that he's going to want to change in a couple years or that his parents are unwillfully subjecting him to it. It's usually the other way around, with the expectations and actions of parents forcing LGBT youth to remain closeted until adulthood. We're now seeing the first wave of people who have been openly gay or transgender since the age of 12 or younger and they remain that way as adults, just like how openly straight and cisgender people remain straight and cisgender when they become adults.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by vid

It doesn't harm anyone to let a transgender person change their birth certificate, but it does harm someone if we don't let them change it.

It's not even clear what purpose the sex designation on birth certificates serves. The fact that these transgender issues exist is just more evidence that it's a silly way to identify people, so if that's the only reason why the sex is there then it's a bad reason.

I think it's just cultural baggage, like, say, gender-segregated washrooms, or the idea that nudity is indecent.

[freeweed]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

The only thing I know with absolute (second-hand) certainty is that there are people born who are wholly and fully male or female but who grow up feeling, in every way, the opposite. They're not just masculine women, they're not just feminine men. They wake up every morning, look down at their bodies, and feel a confusing, depressing mix of fear, anxiety, shame, anger, etc. They live every day uncomfortable, whether its a person living as a man who has to bind his breasts, or a person living as a woman who has to tuck like a drag queen. Every single day.

Greek indeed. This is something that I accept that I will never understand, not even an iota of. So I really don't even try, because my brain's attempts to understand it usually lead to thinking entirely the wrong things. And generally negative things.

I don't *get* gender identity, not in the strong sense people like this must. I know the easy answer is that I'm "normative" and so therefore things "just work" for me, but that's not entirely it. I just simply do not identify with my body in ways that would ever make me feel "shame" about a body part. And I'm not exactly built to a human ideal of any sort - I just honestly don't care. I was raised in an environment where we learned to appreciate what we were born with, regardless of what others thought.

But like I said, most of my attempts to grasp these concepts just come off as ignorant and to many people, negative. So I usually don't bother trying to explain, I just write it off as another "mystery of life".

[freeweed]

Originally Posted by someone123

It's not even clear what purpose the sex designation on birth certificates serves. The fact that these transgender issues exist is just more evidence that it's a silly way to identify people, so if that's the only reason why the sex is there then it's a bad reason.

Well... one could argue (and I think fairly correctly) that it does work to identify the vast majority of people. Transsexual and transgender people - which lead to very real and very different problems with M/F labels - are still somewhat of a minority. Which is why "Other", as you've suggested, seems workable. Although you know what? I'd almost prefer "N/A". It's a stronger way of saying "whatever you're using this identifier for, good luck, it don't apply to me".

I think it's just cultural baggage, like, say, gender-segregated washrooms, or the idea that nudity is indecent.

Absolutely it is. Same with people who still use "actress" or get bent out of shape with "fireman" or languages that insist on defining gender in every aspect of how they refer to a person.

The real question is, what legal and/or social purpose does M/F on a birth certificate serve? We don't have "skin colour", we don't have "height", we don't have a dozen more things that are arguably harder to conceal when it comes to identification. Driver's licenses have more, but again - we don't have skin colour on there. Just a picture. We do have eye/hair colour but in Alberta, the picture is black and white anyway which apparently makes it harder to change your appearance.

I honestly don't know. Personally? The only reason I give a shit at all about gender/sex/whatever is that I'd rather not spend time hitting on a drag queen, only to be disappointed/unpleasantly surprised later. But really that's no different than a gay man - I'm sure he doesn't want to waste his time hitting on me only to find out I'll never be interested. And - not only do people not flash their ID around when flirting, but we don't have "sexual orientation" listed anyway. So it's not like it does very much anyway.

All that being said, for now society as a whole seems happier retaining the concepts, and modifying them as individuals change their appearance/identity. But yeah - you bring up gender-segregated bathrooms, which makes me realize just how silly all of this is when you think about it. What is the point of bathroom segregation when you never know what parts/orientation are coming in next anyway?

[SignalHillHiker]

It'll soon be Pride in St. John's! I'm so excited for this year. Our own jeddy1989 has been involved in the planning, especially the parade. It's just going to be awesome. It's going to be our first parade with floats. No joke. Ours has remained protesty... which is SO unnecessary here that it's turned off the LGBT and wider community so participation has been limited to, oh, 1,000+. Other events, like the bonfire, family fun day at Bannerman Park, the teen dance, etc... all of those are well-attended. It was just the parade stuck in the past. But no more.

I'm just going to make a big "THANK YOU, ST. JOHN'S!" banner.

[SignalHillHiker]

The signature events of Pride Week (there are lots of others, just not main ones)

Mon. July 14th, 2014
10:00AM - Flag Raising & Proclamation - City Hall

12:00PM - Flag Raising - Confederation Building

2:00PM - Flag Raising at Memorial University
2:00PM - Flag Raising - Town Hall of Logy Bay/Outer Cove/Middle Cove

7:00PM - 'OUT' in Faith:
An Open Discussion on Spirtuality and the LGBTQ Communities
Rocket Bakery (Rocket Room)

Tues. July 15th, 2014
7:30PM - St. John's Pride Annual Bonfire
Middle Cove Beach
Buses Leaving Bitters Pub on Memorial Campus at 7:00PM & 8:00PM
Returning at 11:30PM

Wed. July 16th, 2014
11:00AM - 3:00PM
Sexuality Unconference
Eastern Edge Gallery

8:00PM - 11:00PM
BUDLIGHT Deck Party
Turkey Joe's (19+)

Fri. July 18th, 2014
11:00AM - 2:00PM
Pride Brunch
Rocket Bakery (Orbit Room)

7:00PM - 9:00PM
Youth Bowling/Pizza
St. Pat's Bowling Alley

7:00PM - 10:00PM
Richard Ryder & Trevor Comedy Night.
Uptown Bar & Grill

11:00PM - 3:00AM
More Than Queens: Alternative Drag Night (19+)
Distortion (George St.)

Sat. July 19th, 2014

1:00PM
Trans Picnic
Harbourside Park

LGBTQ Hike

10:00PM - 3:00AM
Womyn's Station Dance
The Station Lounge

11:00PM - 3:00AM
Frisk: Fetish Party (19+)
Velvet Club & Lounge

Sun. July 20th, 2014
1:00PM
Official St. John's Pride Parade!
City Hall (Muster Point)

2:00PM - 6:00PM
Pride On The Lake (Quidi Vidi Lake)
Festival Day & Family Day

Monday. July 21th, 2014
6:00PM
Closing Gala & Ceremonies, Sponsor Appreciation
Ticket Only Event (Details TBA)
The Bella Vista

[SignalHillHiker]

The bonfire is always my favourite. I LOVE LOVE LOVE it!

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Apologies for the guy wearing shorts with his socks pulled up. We burned him later.

[SignalHillHiker]

The Safe Alliance in Happy Valley - Goose Bay LABRADOR is excited to present our 5th annual PRIDE CELEBRATIONS set for Sunday, July 20.2014!!

We will kick things off with a PRIDE MARCH at 1PM. Everyone is asked to meet in the Royal Canadian Legion parking lot (172 Hamilton River Road). We will then march to the Kinsmen Park!! Make sure to bring your Rainbow Flags and noise makers!!

[SaskScraper]

Saskatoon Pride 2014 this last week was apparently a nice success again this year.
PurePride with drag performers like Jujubee from RuPauls drag race and porn stars like Levi Karter & Cameron Marshall last weekend.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWPdfxuUTmo

http://purepride.ca/pure-pride-saska...k-off-weekend/

http://purepride.ca/news/pure-pride-...skatoon-pride/

When my friend said that Adam Lambert with Queen.. and Cher with Cindi Lauper were in Saskatoon for shows this weekend as well, I assumed that he meant impersonators.. but no.. they had shows at CUCentre

[Chadillaccc]

Haha, Signal! I thought you might find this interesting... one of my buddies has been "having coffee" with Kenny when he's been in Edmonton. He's been there a few times since the show ended

[MonkeyRonin]

Church St. on the opening weekend of Pride.


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[travis3000]

I was at the village this past weekend. It was very busy! Toronto has done a fantastic job at decorating the entire city for World Pride. I will be downtown again this weekend for the big parade on Sunday.

Toronto and Montreal have the best villages anywhere in North America as far as I'm concerned.

[Doug_Cgy]

Originally Posted by travis3000

I was at the village this past weekend. It was very busy! Toronto has done a fantastic job at decorating the entire city for World Pride. I will be downtown again this weekend for the big parade on Sunday.

Toronto and Montreal have the best villages anywhere in North America as far as I'm concerned.

I'd add WeHo to that list too. Such a vibe

[north 42]

We're hitting World Pride on Friday and staying till Wednesday, can't wait, so many of our friends from all over the continent are going to be there. I'm really excited to see how much bigger it will be this year.