Results tagged “queer”

Enza Anderson waits at a bus stop on the west side of Bay Street by City Hall with a tall shovel in her hand. The bus to Queen's Quay pulls up and all eyes fixate on her as she boards. Walking towards the back, an elderly passenger comments, "A bit early for shovelling the snow off your driveway, isn't it?"

It must have been a hard day for David Morelli.

For many, this falls under the category of "Duh," but for others, it runs counter to their faith: a definitive report released today at a Toronto convention of the American Psychological Association has declared that controversial "ex-gay" therapy doesn't work. Also known as reparative therapy, the treatment is based on the view that homosexuality and bisexuality are learned disorders; not innate orientations. The APA de-categorized homosexuality as a mental disorder in 1975, and has long-criticized reparative therapy, cautioning that it usually occurs among people who "have strongly conservative religious views." Today's report [PDF], officially endorsed during a conference at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, was based on exhaustive research from eighty-three studies performed since 1960.

One artist who particularly stands out is controversial dancehall musician Elephant Man, who apparently has been banned from headlining a Caribana-related event at CiRCA Nightclub on Sunday night due to an outcry from local activists. These stories often lead to the impression that Caribana is intrinsically homophobic, because in a nation such as Canada, which cherishes its rights and freedoms, how can an organization even remotely associate itself with artists whose music has indirectly contributed to the death, rape, and exile of Jamaican citizens?

                    

In addition to being in the Pride Parade on Sunday (it's okay to be jealous), Torontoist also lingered in the crowds. Our Nick Kozak arrived towards the end of the parade and wandered the closed-off streets, snapping photos as he went of Pride partiers—some more extravagantly dressed, and some just more dressed, than others—and a dissenter or two, too.

                            

Thanks to Derek Forgie, founder of Heterosexuals for Same-Sex Equality, Torontoist didn't just get to see Toronto's 29th Annual Pride Parade; we were in it! Marching behind HSSE's proud banner, we got to look out and see the masses of happy faces lining the parade route from start to finish. They perched on rooftops, dangled out of windows, swung from lampposts, and stood twenty rows deep—all dancing, waving, and cheering. While the crowd was taking photos of us (well, maybe not us specifically, but surely the lovely body-painted topless girls we were with), we turned our camera outwards on them to capture the amazing people who endured the early afternoon downpour to show their support, love, and pride. Happy Pride, everyone.

Same-sex marriages have been valid in Ontario since 2003, but not many people know that it had already been legal for a few years to adopt children together as a gay couple. Following a series of court decisions, Paul Farrell and David Smagata became the first same-sex couple in Canada to jointly adopt a child in 2000, via the Children's Aid Society of Toronto. Since then, more than a hundred LGBT Toronto couples have welcomed children into their homes via adoption—a dream that some had grown up believing would never be realized in their lifetimes.

It's the last day of Inside Out, but there are still a few screenings you can catch before Toronto's queer film fest closes up shop for another year. Last year's closing-night gala was XXY, an Argentinian movie from director Lucia Puenzo that told the touching story of an intersex teen named Alex who was faced with a difficult decision: to live life as a man, or a woman. This year's closing gala film is another from Puenzo, once again starring Ines Efron (XXY's Alex) as a troubled queer teen.

It's the penultimate day at Inside Out, so this is one of your last chances to catch this year's crop of queer cinema. One of the highlights of the day is the Queer Youth Digital Video Project, a program Inside Out has been running for the past eleven years, which showcases the work of seven different queer youths, each of whom has been given the opportunity to produce a short film on a shoestring budget.

For a lot of queer cinephiles, Milk (not that cowboy thing) was the real breakout gay movie of the new millennium. Here, finally, was a story about an out gay man whose homosexuality wasn't depicted as some tragic problem, but rather as a completely normal part of his life. More than that, it helped re-affirm the legacy of one of the great heroes of the gay-rights movement, one of the first openly gay elected official in the United States, and a man who helped pioneer the idea that the most important political action any gay person can take is to come out of the closet. Sean Penn's brilliant performance matched with James Franco's smoldering mustache certainly didn't hurt matters either. And so, Inside Out's decision to screen Academy Award–winning 1984 documentary The Times of Harvey Milk is a very smart piece of programming.

Torontoist took a day off from Inside Out, but we now resume our daily coverage of the queer film fest.

Can a commercial printer invoke religion in order to refuse services?

It may only be Tuesday, but for Inside Out, it's Hump Day; we are right in the middle of the 19th annual queer film fest.

Sometimes, thematic trends at Inside Out are unexpected. Last year, gay surfers were all the rage. This year, gay parenting seems to be all the rage. But AIDS stories always have been a mainstay at the fest, and probably always will be.

It's Day 4 of Inside Out and of Torontoist's coverage of the the annual queer film festival. There's a bunch of films on today, including Make the Yuletide Gay, starring Degrassi alum and fab cover boy Adamo Ruggiero. Torontoist caught Israeli sizzler Antarctica, which is sort of a queered-up feature-length version of Metropia, in Hebrew. There's sexy boys (and even the odd lesbian) to look at, but the plot is both meandering and banal, and the fleshy eyefuls aren't enough to keep the yawns at bay. Much more worthy of your attention is Drool, a 2008 American film starring Mulholland Drive's absolutely gorgeous Laura Harring.

It's Day 3 of the Inside Out festival, and there's a whole bucket load of queer films to catch.

Although it technically opened last night, today is the day that the Inside Out festival really gets under way.

Toronto comedian and activist Derek Forgie got inspired to start Heterosexuals for Same-Sex Equality (HSSE)—a gay-rights group founded by people who identify as straight—from the unlikliest source: 100 Huntley Street. On a particular episode in 2003, the hosts and guests were denouncing gay marriage seemingly on the behalf of all straight married couples in Canada. "I didn’t feel this was a fair representation of my country," Forgie says, "and I vowed to prove it in numbers."

Are you a gay, or a gay-at-heart, despairing over the heteronormativity of the multiplex? You've watched your Milk DVD so many times you've developed lactose intolerance, but you can't quite bring yourself to go see that movie with Robert Pattison in a false mustache? Lucky for you, the Inside Out Toronto LGBT Film and Video Festival is here to bring you the gayest movies this side of X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Now 19 years old, the queer film fest opens tonight with the gala screening of 2008 Swedish film Patrik, Age 1.5. In it, a bourgie gay couple moves to the burbs of Stockholm with a yen to acquire the trappings of middle-class success: a picket fence, a flower garden, and a baby. But when the adoption agency makes the pretty egregious error of inserting a decimal where it doesn't belong, Göran and Sven wind up with a 15-year-old badass instead of a 1.5-year-old baby. Patrik is a homophobe, and potentially a criminal, and clashes heavily with hot-tempered Sven. But, thanks to the Power of Love, everyone learns to get over their prejudices and yadda, yadda, yadda, you can see where this is going. Essentially Breakfast with Scot, sans dimples, Patrik, Age 1.5 isn't exactly a life-changing film, but it's totally cute, likable, and full of endearing performances, and some genuinely funny moments.

Here at Drama Club, we generally consider Mirvish shows to be outside our purview (although that certainly doesn't stop them popping up elsewhere on Torontoist). But when we heard that the much ballyhooed Broadway darling Spring Awakening was coming to the Canon Theatre, we couldn't help feeling...intrigued. Maybe it was our geeky theatre-school memories of the scandalous Wedekind play the new musical is based on. More likely, it was Lucille Bluth singing "Mama Who Bore Me" on 90210. Regardless, it was with a healthy amount of curiosity (and perhaps a soupçon of dread) that we went to the theatre on opening night.

A few weeks ago, Torontoist learned through top fashion blogger Anita Clarke that St. Marc Spa, one of Toronto's gay bathhouses, was on Twitter [language not safe for work]. It seemed odd to see a business used to being relatively hush-hush on such a public forum beyond the queer media. Rolyn Chambers, director of St. Marc Spa, says it’s a conscious effort to bring the bathhouses—or, at least, St. Marc Spa—in step with the times, or, as he puts it, "bring it out of the closet."

It must be pretty good being Fly. While a downturn in the economy may mean other Toronto establishments are shuttering, attendance has been climbing for the club, which celebrates its tenth anniversary Saturday. In hard times, notes General Manager Gaelen Patrick, people need some fun. "It's escapism," he says.

Photo by John-Morgan.

How far Syrus Watson and Randal Medford have come. When we first published an article early Friday morning about their "I Get On (The TTC)" video—a Toronto transit–centric re-imagining of Young Jeezy and Kanye West's "I Put On (For My City)"—it had a few dozen views. By mid-day it had a few thousand; shortly thereafter, BlogTO picked up the story, then Eye, and then, today, the National Post, who quoted Adam Giambrone as saying he is "impressed" and thinks Watson and Medford's video is "terrific." "It represents many peoples' feeling towards TTC...love and frustration," Giambrone told the Post, who also noted that Medford and Giambrone "attended an awards gala on Sunday night" and took the Dufferin bus home from it together and that Giambrone has said that the TTC is "exploring how they could use the video."

Overheard by reader Sonia Cass at Eglinton Station two Fridays ago. Two girls, about 12 or 13 years old, are talking about a mutual friend.

No, prominent city councillor Kyle Rae is not in California, getting gay (re)married, but if you read the Huffington Post—the biggest player in the field of left-leaning American news aggregators—you might be forgiven for thinking as much.

Last winter, CanStage was in a real crisis. Massive lay-offs, dodgy "resignations" and an upcoming season boasting not one single Canadian play had a lot of people pretty peeved. Enter The Berkeley Street Project. Co-productions with Nightwood, Studio 180, and Necessary Angel were announced to round out the season at the company's smaller theatre, keeping the Canadian Stage Company, well, Canadian, not to mention offering self-described "edgier" works. Up first is Nightwood with its adaptation of Helen Humphreys' novel Wild Dogs.

Agokwe sounds like a good idea on paper. The Kent Monkman-esque promo pics featuring the play's writer/performer, Waatwaate Fobister, glammed up like a cross between "Half Breed"-era Cher and St. Sebastian (Seb's basically Gay Jesus, for those who aren't in the club) are certainly eye-catching, if a tad cheesy, and seem to suggest a camp and tongue-in-cheek exploration of two-spirited sexuality. And camp we certainly get. Fobister, who plays all the characters in his "gay love on the rez" tragedy, flits about the stage as a beyond-swishy Nanabush (an Ojibwe trickster spirit), sometimes telling the story of star-crossed Jakey and Mikey, Agokwe's protagonists, sometimes delivering speeches about how queer-tolerant First Nations societies used to be, and sometimes asking people in the audience to touch his asshole. But rather than a thoughtful or eye-opening look at homophobia in First Nations communities, Agokwe never really rises above the level of After-School Special.

Photo by cl-s from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.