GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine - January 2011

January 2011 ISSUE 87 • FREE

The Voice of Alberta’s LGBT Community

magazine

Natalie Portman

Black Swan

Nevermore

The Life of Edgar Allan Poe

Winter Celebration

Snowballs & Jasper Pride Business Directory

Community Maps

Calgary • Edmonton • Alberta

Bash’d Returns!

Events Calendar

Tourist Information

Starting on Page 17

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GayCalgary & Edmonton Magazine #87, January 2011

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Table of Contents

January 2011

Videography

Steve Polyak, Rob Diaz-Marino

Printers

North Hill News/Central Web

Distribution

Calgary: Gallant Distribution GayCalgary Staff Edmonton: Clark’s Distribution Other: Canada Post

Legal Council

Courtney Aarbo, Barristers and Solicitors

Sales & General Inquiries

GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine 2136 17th Avenue SW Calgary, AB, Canada T2T 0G3

Office Hours: By appointment ONLY Phone: 403-543-6960 Toll Free: 1-888-543-6960 Fax: 403-703-0685 E-Mail: magazine@gaycalgary.com This Month's Cover Natalie Portman in Black Swan Photo by Niko Tavernise.

Proud Members of:

9 Bash’d Boys Return To Rodeo 11 Dirty Dancing Natalie Portman and Black Swan cast talk ballet thriller and that girl-on-girl sex scene

13 Nevermore

Catalyst Theatre brings Edgar Allan Poe to Life at High Performance Rodeo

16 Come As You Are

Telus Launches CAYA: the LGBTQ-Forward Communications and Electronic Retail Store

17 Directory and Events 24 A New Dawn Within The American Military Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Finally Repealed

PAGE 11

Photography

Steve Polyak, Rob Diaz-Marino, B&J

Publisher’s Column

26 Snowballs Ski Weekend Times Two Ring In the New Year with Winter Cheer

26 Jasper Pride

Celebrating in a Winter Wonderland

27 GALA/LA

Serving Lethbridge’s GLBTA Community for 20 Years

27 Q Scopes

“Take up the tough issues, Leo!”

28 Deep Inside Hollywood

PAGE 13

Writers and Contributors

Mercedes Allen, Chris Azzopardi, Dallas Barnes, Dave Brousseau, Sam Casselman, Brandon Chaisson, Jason Clevett, Andrew Collins, Emily Collins, Rob Diaz-Marino, Janine Eva Trotta, Jack Fertig, Glen Hanson, Joan Hilty, Evan Kayne, Stephen Lock, Neil McMullen, Allan Neuwirth, Steve Polyak, Carey Rutherford, Romeo San Vicente, Ara Shimoon, Ed Sikov, , Nick Vivian and the GLBT Community of Calgary, Edmonton, and Alberta.

Strength in Numbers

PAGE 9

5 Publisher: Steve Polyak Editor: Rob Diaz-Marino Sales: Steve Polyak Design & Layout: Rob Diaz-Marino, Ara Shimoon

Best Gay Entertainment Stories of 2010

Edmonton Rainbow Business Association

29 Cocktail Chatter

Kahlua, Cream and Fiasco: The White Russian

30 Queeries

We want to help other kids fight bullying

31 Inspirational Iocchelli Rallies Community National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association

32 Fundraising Photos

PAGE 16

International Gay & Lesbian Travel Association

Continued on Next Page  www.gaycalgary.com

GayCalgary & Edmonton Magazine #87, January 2011

Table of Contents  Continued From Previous Page

34 St. Petersburg’s Renaissance Out of Town

36 San Antonio, Texas

PAGE 38

Out of Town

38 The OutField

The athletic buddy system

40 Choice 43 A Couple of Guys 44 Bitter Girl 45 Book Marks Best of 2010

47 Rockin Night At The Museum

PAGE 47

Jubilations Rocks Out With Brilliant Show

48 Classified Ads 50 A Thousand Laughs Badly Named Product Edition

51 Chelsea Boys 52 Immigrants and Refugees

Creating Safe and Positive Spaces for LGBTQ Newcomers

54 Hear Me Out

PAGE 50

Best of 2010

56 Queer Eye

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GayCalgary & Edmonton Magazine #87, January 2011

Magazine Figures Monthly Print Quantity:

9,000–11,000 copies Guaranteed Circulation: 8,500 copies Bonus Circulation: 500–2,500 copies

Readership

Readers Per Copy: 4.9 (PMB) Print Readership: >41,650 Avg. Online Circulation: 150,000 readers Estimated Total Readership: >191,650 readers Frequency: Monthly

Proof of monthly figures are available on request.

Distribution Locations: Calgary: 150 Edmonton: 130 Other Alberta Cities: 10 Other Provinces: 30

Please call us if your establishment would like to become a distribution location.

History Originally established in January 1992 as Men for Men BBS by MFM Communications. Name changed to GayCalgary.com in 1998. Independent company as of January 2004. First edition of GayCalgary.com Magazine published November 2003. Name adjusted in November 2006 to GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine.

Disclaimer and Copyright Opinions expressed in this magazine are specific to the author, and do not necessarily reflect those of GayCalgary staff and contributors.

Those involved in the making of this publication, whether advertisers, contributors, or the subjects of articles or photographs, are not necessarily gay, lesbian, bisexual, or trans. This magazine also includes straight allies and those who are gay friendly.

No part of this publication may be reprinted or modified without the expressed written permission of the editor or publisher.

Copyright 2011. All rights reserved.

GayCalgary is a registered trademark.

Feb 2011 Print Deadlines Ad Booking: Fri, Jan 28th

Submission: Mon, Jan 31st In Circulation: Thu, Feb 3rd Please contact us immediately if you think you may have missed the booking or submission deadline.

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Editorial

Strength in Numbers Publisher’s Column

By Rob Diaz-Marino, MSc.

1,814,793 Downloads As of January 2011, apparently GayCalgary & Edmonton Magazine is now the only freely available LGBT publication operated out of Alberta.

By freely available, we mean there is no cost associated with picking up a print copy at any and all locations where print copies are available (approx. 300 in Alberta), nor is there any cost associated with viewing or downloading the electronic version from our website.

Of course, you already know that we have always kept GayCalgary & Edmonton Magazine free for our readers – we feel that it is the best business model for a regional community publication like ourselves. By keeping it free we also reach a much wider local audience, which I’m certain, our advertisers who spend money to get their message out to the Alberta LGBT Community, duly appreciate…perhaps even more, now that our year-end totals are in.

Even we were impressed – we had been paying attention to average downloads of our electronic PDF (Portable Document Format for Adobe Acrobat) per month, but had never extrapolated what that totalled for an entire year. But no extrapolation is needed now – we have the actual total for 2010: 1,814,793 downloads. This averages to roughly 151,233 downloads per month, which is right on par with our quoted 125,000 to 150,000 monthly average.

This statistic is compiled by WebTrends, trusted third party web reporting software that we own and have installed on our servers to monitor our website. WebTrends gets its statistics first-hand from server logs, and is thus able to produce far more accurate results than a free service like Google Analytics could ever do from the outside. Make no mistake, we still find Google Analytics to be a useful tool, but we sometimes have to be careful how much we can trust what it reports.

Of course, this statistic does not include the number of times the online flip-book application was browsed, the number of times the plain text articles were read, or the number of times an article or edition was read from other sites that may have re-posted it – any of which may save a reader from downloading the whole PDF document from our site.

To put that number further into perspective, the approximate populations of Calgary and Edmonton are 1,071,000 (2010 Municipal Census, www.Calgary.ca) and 782,000 (2009 Municipal Census, www.Edmonton.ca) respectively. So our total download quantity for 2010 is equivalent to 98% of the total populations of Calgary and Edmonton combined! Of course, that is not to say those entire populations are reading our magazine, since we expect an overlap of the same people downloading our magazine every month. Still, it says something about the enduring demand for our product, and the amount of exposure that our advertisers receive.

Furthermore, this new figure shows 43% growth from 2009, when our yearly total was 1,270,230 PDF downloads.

If we maintain this growth rate for next year, we can project this number to hit 2,595,154 for 2011.

Lastly, so that we are crystal clear on how this statistic distinguishes us from others around us, I need to say the following: Don’t make the assumption that any sort of National LGBT Magazine out there is getting more online traffic or inherently has a larger readership than we do.

National means more area, but not necessarily more people. www.gaycalgary.com

 Screen shot of actual report.

And despite classifying ourselves as “local” or “regional”, GayCalgary & Edmonton Magazine does still get a healthy following of people reading us across Canada, in the US, and around the world – people who specifically seek us out because our content is relevant to them, for travel purposes for instance.

So yes, it may seem odd for little ol’ GayCalgary & Edmonton Magazine to be reaching more people than something that classifies itself as a national publication. Nevertheless, we continue to be the leading LGBT publication in our province - and we are proud to prove it.

2011 Reader Survey As mentioned in my column last month, our 2011 Reader Survey went online mid month December, and will run until the turn of Midnight on January 15th. This is your opportunity to lay it all on us, good or bad, about how we’ve been doing in your eyes over the past two years.

Of course, realizing that a grand prize of a Chinook Gift Card didn’t offer much motivation to our readers outside of Calgary, we instead opted to go for a grand prize of a $150 VISA Gift Card, which can be used pretty much anywhere a VISA credit card is accepted. We will also be drawing for a whole slew of other things to give away, including CDs, DVDs, books, and other miscellaneous products that are too numerous to list individually.

As has been the case in previous years, this survey is not just about us, but also about the local community in general.

This is a chance for you to tell us your unabashed opinion of the local climate, and any businesses and non-profit groups in the community that you feel are contributing to it in a good or bad way.

What do we do with this information? After the last survey we published a top 10 list of the most recognized LGBT figures in the local community as a way of passing along the good feedback, and we plan to do the same again this time.

But something different this time around is that we are asking the flip side, such as: what don’t you like about our community, and what organizations do you feel are not living up to your expectations. This is not something we are asking for the sake of being mean, nor should you need to feel it is mean to give your honest opinion.

Continued 

GayCalgary & Edmonton Magazine #87, January 2011

 Editorial Contd.

Online Last Month

Our motivation for this is quite simple. We want to know if there is something that we can do to improve the state of things in Alberta’s LGBT Community. In some cases, that may mean simply pointing to a statistic that shows what percentage of survey respondents are dissatisfied and wanting change from a particular organization. With us as the intermediary, we are able to reasonably verify that these opinions are coming from actual, and varied individuals, without their identities being known to the organizations in question. It serves as a good check and balance to gathering feedback that you may feel uncomfortable giving to an organization directly.

Otherwise we have some checks and balances in place for ourselves, which make it difficult for us to trace any answers back to the exact identity of respondents. This helps us give fair consideration to all opinions that come in.

You may also notice that this Reader Survey is considerably shorter than it has been in previous years. That is because, for the second time in a row, we have participated in a larger third party marketing survey that concentrates on understanding the general LGBT demographic.

At the end of it, we received a report containing statistics from the respondents that were directed to the survey by us, which was quite a healthy number. We are combining these results, along with the more magazine-specific results that we collect in our own survey, into our 2011 Media Kit - due to be released middle of this month.

So as you can see, here at GayCalgary & Edmonton Magazine, we care about providing our advertisers with accurate and proven numbers that give a realistic picture of the value of our product. If I do say so myself, it really is impressive work, why wouldn’t we want to show it off?

Amy Sedaris Talks Queers and Crafts From a wacky misfit to her Martha-oncrack domesticity book, Amy Sedaris has made a career out of being different. She’s at it again with Simple Times...

New Year Upgrades

Bedouin Soundclash Back In The Saddle It was only a short time ago that Toronto band Bedouin Soundclash was on the verge of ceasing to exist. After a brief break that saw frontman Jay Malinowski...

Okay, I’m not quite done giving ourselves a wank. I feel like we tend to be a little too humble about our product sometimes, and sadly, understatement doesn’t often get us very far.

As all businesses should, we continue to evolve and improve ourselves.

January is our month to review and refresh our design templates for the print edition. You likely noticed that we have made major revisions to the cover, cleaning up the design and widening the area for the featured image(s). We have made other minor alterations and improvements throughout the magazine, but most noticeably to the Directory and Photo areas.

Those website improvements that I’ve been promising for the past several months are very close now. We already went ahead with the image viewer, helping to make our online Holiday Gift Guide a uniquely interactive experience. But otherwise, I’ve been occupied with infrastructural upgrades that need to be in place before I can start making the more outwardly visible changes. Patience. I’ll speak more about our new and improved features as they come online.

Meanwhile, keep an eye out for our online Valentines Day Gift Guide starting mid January and running up until V-day. If you have any gift ideas from gay owned or gay friendly businesses, we’d love to hear them!

December 2010 People often wonder if Steve and I ever have any time for ourselves in our busy lives. I’m happy to say that we did each get an opportunity to spend time with our families, and even have a brunch at our place on Christmas day. All the cats hid as our young niece and nephews charged around our home, playing with their new toys and opening Christmas Crackers.

This was the first year we’ve ever gotten the tree up in advance of Christmas eve, and even decorated the outside of our house with lights. We’ve never felt so...straight? Is that fair to say?

www.gaycalgary.com/a1981 Refinancing Tips for LGBT Homeowners Mortgage interest rates recently fell so low that they broke all-time historical records, and rates have managed to remain extremely cheap and attractive... www.gaycalgary.com/a1982 Dr. Rufus and Mr. Wainwright Seeing Rufus Wainwright’s November 28th concert was like seeing two different performers. With signs posted throughout the Jubilee Auditorium requesting... www.gaycalgary.com/a1983 Intimate Jay Brannan Show a Thing of Beauty It is appropriate that, of the songs Jay Brannan performed at his November 25th concert at the Marquee room, a cover of Jann Arden’s Good Mother was included... www.gaycalgary.com/a1984

www.gaycalgary.com/a1985 Viva Elvis!

Cirque Du Soleil has long been a creative and dynamic entity. When blending their artistry with an icon like Elvis Presley, the pressure is on to create... www.gaycalgary.com/a1986 Alexisonfire Heats Up Cold December Night Alexisonfire gets credit for being gutsy enough to tour Canada in December again.

In 2007 they got stuck in a snowstorm which resulted in their December... www.gaycalgary.com/a1987 Wonderful Wizard While there is a long list of iconic musicals, The Wizard of Oz is arguably the most universally loved. With an innovative story (not to mention gay... www.gaycalgary.com/a2027

Continued 

GayCalgary & Edmonton Magazine #87, January 2011

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 Editorial Contd.

And amidst our flirtations with domestic life, we made it out to most of the major community events this past month. While in many of cases the turnout was on the low side, there were still fun times to be had.

The Ms. Mary Christmas Pageant in Edmonton didn’t seem to suffer – the Junction appeared to be comfortably saturated with drag queens and their partners. Jeffy Lube put on a photo booth fundraiser where you could get a picture of yourself sitting on the lap of their scantily clad “sexy santa”, and their slightly more modest Mrs. Claus. The audience was treated to traditional Christmas songs, with a cute hint of sacrilege in things like “Santa’s Baby”. (Personally, I’m waiting to hear the song that goes “I saw daddy fisting Santa Claus” that Steve told me about from events he covered.) A highlight of the evening was JJ Velour proposing to his husband Craig (in drag as Marsha Mallow) on stage – and yes, of course, he did. In the end, Ruby Slippa was announced as the winner, and rightly so for her powerful number and fantastically over-the-top costume.

In Calgary, the Calgary Eagle held their annual Christmas dinner for their customers, where they wowed us with sophisticated flavours in a 7 course meal. Barry, who has been struggling with health concerns since September, was present to help host and lighten the mood with some goofy antics.

Living Christmas Tree T’was night of the annual Living Christmas Tree fundraiser, and all through the Calgary Eagle, not a “victim” was stirring, not even the ones presumed agreeable. Two young’uns were asked to step up, with jest, but soon they had ornaments pegged to their chest. Their arms and their legs and their nipples were bare, but sans green latex, they preserved all body hair. Around to the masses they flew like a flash, with ornaments given for 5 dollars cash. For certain these boys were not used to the pinch, so they toughened resolve as they tried not to flinch. On backs and on fronts, on faces on hands, on undies, on armpits, on abs and on glans. Soon in the bar there arose such a clatter, were the ornaments real, they surely might shatter. The rest were removed at the end of the night, when the boys, on their skin, felt the last of the bite.

Yes, from the photos you will realize that one of the boys was me. I helped convince Myron to do this, therefore I felt a sense of responsibility to help spread out the ornaments so that he didn’t have to take them all. Luckily Steve was with me at this event, so the responsibility of taking photos fell on his shoulders.

Never in my gay life did I imagine that I would be a living Christmas tree – I’ve watched others go through this in prior years and was amazed that they could endure it. So I really surprised myself with how well I was able to handle it. Maybe it was adrenaline, or perhaps I just have dull nerve endings, but by the end of the event I could still feel the pinch of the pegs, yet they didn’t bother me. Myron and I even shared a “Living Christmas Trees Gone Wild” moment (the two of us shared a kiss with all of our ornaments on), which got Steve excited on the other side of the camera.

I actually found it fun in a testing-my-mettle sort of way.

I already knew that when the pegs are removed, there is a nasty sting as the blood rushes back to those pinched areas of skin. I challenged myself not to flinch as this happened, and succeeded quite proudly. I even went so far as to tense all my muscles to pop off some of the ornaments before the rest were removed manually.

What a wild experience, can’t say that I regretted it in the slightest. Sadly we didn’t raise as much for the SHARP Foundation as has been done in previous years, but I think all of us were feeling a much nastier pinch from our Holiday spending.

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GayCalgary & Edmonton Magazine #87, January 2011

GayCalgary & Edmonton Magazine #87, January 2011

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Bash’d Boys Return To Rodeo

By Jason Clevett In 2008, Bash’d: A Gay Rap Opera was one of the highlights of the High Performance Rodeo. The run quickly sold out, an indication of what was to come for creators/ performers Chris Craddock and Nathan Cuckow. Since then they have performed across Canada, participated in the Olympics, in Ireland, and even had a successful Off-Broadway run in New York City which netted them a GLAAD Award.

“We played Toronto, Ottawa, and Vancouver as part of the cultural Olympiad at the Olympics. Then we did an encore run at the Edmonton Fringe last summer. Chris and I both found ourselves in Edmonton with time free. People in Edmonton hadn’t seen it since it debuted at the Roost in 2006,” recalled Cuckow.

“The show has changed even since we were last at the Rodeo. When we went to New York for the Off-Broadway run we did another draft of the script and pushed it to the next level. There are some changes in the writing and a whole new draft of music came out for that run. So the show people will be seeing this run is a slightly different production.

We sold out our run at the Fringe and were held over. It was an incredibly fun experience performing there again.

The Fringe attracts such a wide, diverse audience base - it was exciting to play to a lot of people that probably had no idea about the show.”

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GayCalgary & Edmonton Magazine #87, January 2011

Theatre Preview Bash’d returns to Edmonton as part of the Canoe Festival from January 19th to 23rd, and then to the High Performance Rodeo in Calgary from January 26th to 29th.

“Both Chris and I had performed with other shows at the Rodeo so we are quite friendly with One Yellow Rabbit and big admirers of them.

We always have a great time playing at the rodeo and have expressed as much. They are excited to have us back, and the show having gone to another level, they are excited to show their audiences. Calgary is my hometown so coming back to perform there in any context is very exciting for me. I know Chris loves playing Calgary. Getting to come back to be part of the crazy circus that the rodeo is, is very exciting and a big privilege for us.”

Cuckow points out something remarkable at their 2008 rodeo performances: the diversity of the audience, which ranged in age, sex, and sexuality.

“You would think it would be for gay audiences but I think a lot of times the rap scares away the gay. People will think, it’s not a show I am going to like because it’s rap music. Rap music in mainstream music today has shown itself to be quite homophobic and misogynistic, promoting greed and violence and excess. So a lot of the gay community turns away from mainstream rap music. The great thing about Bash’d - and we often hear this when we do the show - we have had senior citizens tell us afterwards that they hated rap music but they now love it from seeing the show.

They perceive it differently because they understand how it’s lyrically driven and exciting, creative, and [how] complex it can be to craft words for hip-hop. It’s like Shakespeare. People appreciate his language and way with verse.“ “We end up converting people. If people are going to come see a gay rap opera, they are probably ok with gay but might have a problem with rap. That is where we end up converting people to appreciate hip-hop.

We have played to audiences that aren’t gay friendly which is shocking, you would think most people would have a sense of their comfort with sexuality, that being the focus of the show. People say that we are just preaching to the converted because the people who go see theatre are the open minded type of people generally. So Bash’d would be effective if it could be done at schools, which is something we would love to see happen. It’s not necessarily a reality right now but we would love to see the show get out there into the world and be performed in less traditional venues.”

“With the book being published we would love to see a transition happen, to pass the show on to others. It is a show we both feel very strongly about. It has been an incredible challenge and gift for us as performers. It is a show that we really believe in and feel it can have a powerful and profound impact on audiences. We have been contacted by people who have seen the show and passed on their own experiences.

We had an e-mail from a student at the University of Victoria who saw the show and said it was the first time in his life that he feels ok about being gay. You hear somebody say something like that…that is powerful, that is amazing.”

It has been an incredible journey for the show and its creators, and continues to be an incredible experience for the audience as well. This may be the last time that Bash’d plays in Alberta, so get your tickets.

“It has been a true gift. It doesn’t happen with every project. To have a show reach this kind of attention... we won a GLAAD award when we were in New York. That was a dream when I lived there and went to school, to win something like a GLAAD award, and it came true and happened with this show. It has been a huge learning experience to spend this kind of time on a show and go to other communities. A great learning experience.”

Bash’d Edmonton January 19th - 23rd – Canoe Festival www.workshopwest.org Calgary January 26th - 29th www.hprodeo.ca http://www.gaycalgary.com/a2029

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The show has taken on a life of its own, such that both Craddock and Cuckow are able to move on to other projects, and then return to play their characters T-Bag and Feminem.

“Bash’d has been an anomaly for Chris and I, in that we keep going back to it. We have created other shows that have had life but this has been the longest for both of us. Whenever we come back it continues to get deeper for us. Lyrically, the way the words are said is part of the challenge: really being in the moment and saying things for the first time.

The script continues to get tweaked here and there. The show continues to evolve like any piece of theatre should.”

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In addition, the duo has finally recorded a soundtrack, which is in the process of being mastered. They hope to have it available for sale at their shows, and for download online. The book and script for the show are also being published, opening the door for others to play their own versions of T-Bag and Feminem.

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GayCalgary & Edmonton Magazine #87, January 2011

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Dirty Dancing

Natalie Portman and Black Swan cast talk ballet thriller and that girl-on-girl sex scene

 Natalie Portman in the movie Black Swan. Photos by Niko Tavernise

By Chris Azzopardi Natalie Portman flaps her arms and moves as gracefully as a bird in the twisted psychosexual thriller Black Swan, but the comparisons don’t stop there. The actress ate like one, too.

To transform into mentally unstable ballet dancer Nina Sayers, a darkly disturbing role that’s already giving Portman major Oscar pull, the 29-year-old had to train intensely – for nearly eight hours a day she exercised, toned and practiced – and eat lots of carrots and almonds. Then, as soon as production wrapped, she stuffed her face with pasta… for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

“The physical discipline really helped for the emotional side of the character,” Portman says, a sweet laugh escaping her as she discusses the film during a press day at Los Angeles’ Pantages Theatre. “That’s a ballet dancer’s life – you don’t drink, you don’t go out with your friends, you don’t have much food. You are constantly putting your body through extreme pain, and you get that understanding of the self-flagellation of a ballet dancer.”

But simply twirling around in pointe shoes, in Nina’s case anyway, is only the half of it. Pressure to be the best, to succeed in every way for everyone – herself, her mother (Barbara Hershey) and her instructor (Vincent Cassel) – mounts in mental madness, as Black Swan becomes less about dance than the psychosis of performing it. New dancer Lily (Mila Kunis), who impresses with her dark Black Swan personification, only adds to the fire burning inside Nina, throwing her into a charged competition that’s as destructive as the dance form itself. www.gaycalgary.com

“It’s really just a retelling of Swan Lake,” says director Darren Aronofsky (The Wrestler), “but it definitely shows the challenges and the darkness and the reality of how hard it is to be a ballet dancer.”

Hype, however, isn’t over how much weight Portman and co-star Kunis (That ’70s Show) shed to play rivals – about 20 pounds each – or that it took a grueling year for Portman to move as skillfully as she does onscreen. All anyone’s talked about is how they get it on (intensely), how far they go (pretty far), and how much of Portman you see (sorry, zilch). Recently, Portman told V Magazine, “It’s not raunchy – it’s extreme.”

At the November premiere in New York, she also insisted that shooting sex is hard whomever it’s with: “It doesn’t matter if it’s a friend, a male, a female,” she told The Huffington Post from the red carpet. “You’re with 100something crew members, lighting you, repositioning you; there’s no comfort whatsoever.”

It was just as awkward for Kunis, who spoke about the scene at the Pantages Theatre: “Whether you have a samesex scene or a scene with the opposite sex, it’s a sex scene nonetheless,” says the actress, who suggestively bedded another woman – but not so graphically – in 2007’s After Sex. “Doing something like this with Darren was very safe and as comfortable as it could be. I never had a fear of being exploited.”

The steamy scene, a switch from Portman’s usually primand-proper image (there’s a reason we fell madly in love with her in Garden State), is pivotal in creating Nina, whose

GayCalgary & Edmonton Magazine #87, January 2011

11

newfound liberation after years of repression leads to a raging sexual awakening.

She masturbates, vomits, hallucinates and anxiously scratches herself until she bleeds. The Harvard-educated actress – who says, “This was actually a case where something I learned in school did turn into something practical” – has a name for it: “religious obsession-compulsion.” And then there’s Nina’s smother-mother. Think Mommie Dearest, but with Hershey in Faye Dunaway’s place.

“It was really exciting to come in and do this insular, claustrophobic, intense relationship,” says the Beaches

actress. “(Portman and I) got to a feeling of ritual. And I tried to copy her eyebrows as much as I could. We were very aware of the symbiotic everydayness of living together forever, and that was fun. We didn’t talk about it too much, but we knew it.”

How they reached that unique bond was the product of Aronofsky’s genius suggestion: Exchange letters in character, as mother and daughter.

Portman starts, “Barbara wrote gorgeous letters that were really in character that really gave a sense –” “Of our history,” Barbara adds. “To suggest that was just amazing preparation and it gave me the door to my character, which was great.”

Singularly, as Nina, Portman was made for this role. Until age 12, she was a dancer and dreamed of growing up to be one.

“I always idealized it, as most young girls do, as the most beautiful art,” Portman says. “I always wanted to do a film related to that. So when Darren had this incredible idea that wasn’t just related to the dance world but also had this really complicated character – two characters, really – it was just something completely exciting.”

Really tough, too. Training aside, it’s one of the actress’ most complicated characters, a role that summons an extensive out-of-body performance that only someone with Portman’s range could pull off. And she has before, effortlessly slipping into the erratic seductress role in Closer, as a stripper, and in period pieces like The Other Boleyn Girl.

In January, she’ll star alongside Ashton Kutcher in the sex farce No Strings Attached. Aronofsky was sold far sooner, though, with one of the actress’ first films, starring a then13-year-old Portman as a precocious sidekick to a hit man in The Professional.

“One of the reasons I think Darren and I had such telepathy during this was because he’s as disciplined and focused as could possibly be, and that’s what I try to be,” Portman muses, mulling over her Black Swan character.

“And I’m not a perfectionist but I’m definitely… I think I like discipline.” Laughing, she insists: “I’m obedient!”

Big shock.

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GayCalgary & Edmonton Magazine #87, January 2011

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Nevermore

Catalyst Theatre brings Edgar Allan Poe to Life at High Performance Rodeo

By Jason Clevett In 2008, Catalyst Theatre first workshopped Nevermore, a dark musical tale of the life of Edgar Allan Poe. It has since travelled across Canada, as well as to London and New York. Nevermore lands in Calgary this month as part of the High Performance Rodeo.

It takes a lot of talent to tackle as complex a character as Poe. Since the beginning, Edmonton’s Scott Shpeley has brought the master of macabre to life. “…Iconic characters like Poe or Romeo or Juliet or Mary Poppins, which we saw in New York…are hard to approach. I have never looked at it as I have to be Edgar Allan Poe. We did a lot of research on his life and I read his poetry and short stories. For me it was about finding the person in the story we were telling about Edgar Allan Poe, to imagine the darkness that has be inside you to imagine the types of stories he wrote about. His dream poetry is very powerful and beautiful but also has a darkness. That is what I was trying to do, not think about it as this iconic poet that a lot of people grew up and studied in Junior High School.” www.gaycalgary.com

GayCalgary & Edmonton Magazine #87, January 2011

13

Between runs, Shpeley has gone on to do other roles before returning to Nevermore. Most actors perform a role once, and then move on. To continually revisit the show and character is a pleasure, he says.

“It is nice that you have time to step away and get a broader sense of the show. When you are in it the first thing in your view is right in front of you. When you have time off and do other shows you are always learning and getting older and wiser sometimes, or stupider at others. When you come back you are always bringing more. It is nice to have the chance to become a better performer and richer person because you have more experience to bring to the next round. That is something really special about doing this show, I keep refining my performance and ch-Allanging myself to go deeper into the show. Often you don’t get to do that, you do three works of performance and are done.

That is nice. (Director) Jonathan Christenson is there to watch most of the performances and sees it grow on stage through different eyes.”

When he first got the role, he never imagined that it would take him as far as it has.

“I was excited to work with the show because I am passionate about the style that Citadel created with Frankenstein. So it was exciting to go in not knowing the potential of where it was going. We knew going into it that it was commissioned for Magnetic North and the Luminata Festival so we knew we were going to Ottawa and Toronto, but after that we had no idea where it would lead. I never dreamed it could travel places like New York and London.

It was pretty amazing when we found out that little gem,” he recalled.

He made time to play tourist while the show was on. “It was my first time in Europe and going overseas. It was a lot of firsts and pretty overwhelming at points. We were in London nine days and New York almost two weeks. So we had the day to adventure and in New York we would go catch matinee performances. I tried to do as much as I could. I do spend a lot of time worrying about the show and sometimes I will stay in and rest when I could go out because I want to perform well.”

The show has received rave(n) reviews from patrons and critics alike, a massive achievement in the often cynical world of New York theatre critics. The team has become a family, Shpeley explained.

“Every time we come back to it we are all aware of the family and unity that we have created with each other and respectful of the work everyone has done. I am very grateful every time I return to this because the ensemble and company is something I am so thankful to be part of.

The ensemble works together so well and we all have this 14

GayCalgary & Edmonton Magazine #87, January 2011

passion and respect for the show and are excited to work on it and discover something in the story that we haven’t yet. I am very grateful for what we have done with the show and how well it has been received. I had no idea how it would be received especially in major theatre centres like London and New York. The audiences there are exposed to world class international theatre, the best shows are going there. It has been a privilege to perform on the stages we have.”

To add the High Performance Rodeo to its list of festivals is something else that he is proud to be part of. He is looking forward to returning to the rodeo.

“I can’t wait. I have performed in 2005 in the Rodeo and it was one of my favorite theatre experiences. The energy that Calgary has during the rodeo and all the artists that are there is amazing. Being from Edmonton it is a great way to build connections to the Calgary community. To have Mark Bellamy be excited about another show and bringing it in doesn’t happen a lot. That is the great thing about the Rodeo - it brings all these great artists together. I am excited to do the show for other artists and connect with other artists as well.”

Edmonton January 19th - 23rd – Canoe Festival Vertigo Studio Theatre www.hprodeo.ca http://www.gaycalgary.com/a2031

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GayCalgary & Edmonton Magazine #87, January 2011

15

News

 Caya Store - Exterior

 Caya Store - Interior shots

Come As You Are

Telus Launches CAYA: the LGBTQ-Forward Communications and Electronic Retail Store

By Janine Eva Trotta

“The future is friendly” we often see as the mantra marketed by Telus, one of Canada’s chief telecommunications providers.

It would certainly seem that Telus is taking a step in making that mantra true for the Canadian LGBTQ community as well. With its long-standing commitment to equal rights and diversity; a staff-directed contribution to the It Gets Better campaign; and the opening of the first of two LGBTQ and ally-oriented communications retail stores in North America, the future is looking friendlier indeed.

“Telus introduced same-sex benefits to our team members in 1994,” Kenn Hamlin, director of special projects for Telus says. “Over the last decade Telus has contributed over $1-million in cash in kind, gifts and support to LGBT communities across Canada.”

The most recent manifestation of this support came in the form of an It Gets Better solidarity video. Contributing Telus team members begin the video by sharing intimate stories of when they were victims of bullying because they were “different”, and complete the video by sharing how those events turned around, and things started to get better.

The video and webpage on which it appears is composed by a Telus team member group called Spectrum, an LBGTQ resource incepted by Telus in 2009. Spectrum now boasts more than 100 members, “facilitates mentoring, networking, and leadership opportunities for LGBTQ team members at Telus,” says Hamlin, who began working for the company more than four years ago. “Telus has been one of Canada’s top diversity employers two years running.”

The idea for the Come as You Are, Caya stores was generated just over a year ago.

“We heard from our team members from the LGBTQ community and allies within the community that a retail environment like this would be well received,” Hamlin explains. “Hence Caya was born.”

The first Caya store was opened October 16, 2010 in Vancouver on Davie Street at Howe, and the second within a month later in Vancouver’s Gastown district.

The grassroots-like marketing and advertising campaign for Caya is entirely run by “local community members who are leaders in the community, and take pride in being in the community,” Hamlin says.

Caya has utilized a variety of local Vancouver advertising media including billboard, local publications, and online social networks such as Twitter. “It’s quite a unique approach.”

Over the last decade, Telus and its team members have contributed over $17,500 to Out in Schools in British Columbia, an awareness endeavour providing education on issues such as bullying, diversity and homophobia to thousands of students in BC. In Caya’s celebratory first month of operations, $25 was donated from the sale of each Android, Blackberry and iPhone to Out in Schools.

Closer to home, Telus has supported such LGBTQ initiatives in Calgary as the Alliance to End Violence, the AIDS Calgary Awareness Association, the Calgary Sexual Health Centre, EGALE, and the Fairy Tales International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival.

In Edmonton, Telus support has gone to Camp fYrefly, HIV Edmonton, the Institute for Sexual Minority Studies and Services, and the Edmonton Vocal Minority.

“We are looking to expand the [Caya] concept on a national scale,” Hamlin says, adding that Caya is “evaluating additional cities Canada-wide.”

If, like me, you are hopeful that one of these locations will be Calgary, you can submit your feedback on the Caya Facebook page or on their website, which also hosts a plethora of LGBTQ news and events.

“We would love to hear everyone’s feedback,” says Hamlin.

Come As You Are (CAYA) www.thisiscaya.ca http://www.gaycalgary.com/a2032

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GayCalgary & Edmonton Magazine #87, January 2011

www.gaycalgary.com

Directory & Events 24

DOWNTOWN CALGARY

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Calgary Outlink---------- Community Groups Aids Calgary------------- Community Groups Backlot------------------------ Bars and Clubs Calgary Eagle Inc.------------ Bars and Clubs Texas Lounge----------------- Bars and Clubs Goliath’s-------------------------- Bathhouses

9 FAB---------------------------- Bars and Clubs 13 Westways Guest House---- Accommodations 16 Priape Calgary------------------ Retail Stores 24 Courtney Aarbo----------------------- Services 33 Twisted Element-------------- Bars and Clubs 34 Vertigo Mystery Theatre------------- Theatre

35 36 37 41 43 55

FIND OUT!

Calgary

LGBT Community Directory GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine is the go-to source for information about Alberta LGBT businesses and community groups—the most extensive and accurate resource of its kind! This print supplement contains a subset of active community groups and venues, with premium business listings of paid advertisers.

✰. ..... Find our Magazine Here

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Spot something inaccurate or outdated? Want your business or organization listed? We welcome you to contact us!

 403-543-6960  1-888-543-6960

 magazine@gaycalgary.com http://www.gaycalgary.com/CalgaryTravelRss http://www.gaycalgary.com/EdmontonTravelRss

Local Bars, Restaurants, and Accommodations info on the go! http://www.gaycalgary.com/Directory

Accommodations 13 Westways Guest House--------------------✰

 216 - 25th Avenue SW  403-229-1758  1-866-846-7038  westways@shaw.ca  www.gaywestways.com

Bars & Clubs 3 Backlot----------------------------------- ✰  403-265-5211  Open 7 days a week, 4pm-close

 209 - 10th Ave SW

4 Calgary Eagle Inc.----------------------- ✰  424a - 8th Ave SE  403-263-5847

 http://www.calgaryeagle.com  Open Wed-Sun, 5pm-close Leather/Denim/Fetish bar.

Club Paradiso

 1413 - 9th Ave SE, upstairs  403-265-5739  www.villagecantina.ca Carly’s Angels on Sat. Billy Schmidt’s “Sounds of Sinatra” on Fri. and varied entertainment on Thurs. Please call for details.

Browse our complete directory of over 540 gay-frieindly listings! www.gaycalgary.com

One Yellow Rabbit-------------------- Theatre ATP, Alberta Theatre Projects-------- Theatre Pumphouse Theatre----------------- Theatre La Fleur-------------------------- Retail Stores Lisa Heinricks----------Theatre and Fine Arts Marquee Room--------------- Bars and Clubs

58 Theatre Junction--------------------- Theatre 59 Village Bistro & Lounge----------Restaurant 60 Club Sapien------------------- Bars and Clubs

60 Club Sapien------------------------------ ✰  1140 10th Ave SW  403-457-4464  http://www.clubsapien.ca Dance club & restaurant.

55 Marquee Room-----------------------------✰

 612 - 8th Avenue SW  www.marqueeroom.com

Alternative night every Wednesday.

9 FAB (formerly Money Pennies)--------- ✰

 1742 - 10th Ave SW  403-263-7411  www.fab-bar.com  Closed Mondays.

Bar and restaurant.

5 Texas Lounge-------------------------------✰

 308 - 17 Ave SW  403-229-0911  www.goliaths.ca  Open 7 days a week, 11am-close 33 Twisted Element----------------------------✰

 1006 - 11th Ave SW  403-802-0230

 www.twistedelement.ca

Dance Club and Lounge.

Bathhouses/Saunas 6 Goliaths-------------------------------------✰

 308 - 17 Ave SW  403-229-0911  www.goliaths.ca  Open 7 days a week, 24 hours a day

GayCalgary & Edmonton Magazine #87, January 2011

17

Directory & Events Calgary Events Mondays

Squash--------------------------  8:15-9:45pm See Apollo Calgary Oct18 ASK Meet and Greet----------------  7-9:30pm

 Bonasera (1204 Edmonton Tr. NE) Inside Out Youth Group----------------  7-9pm See 1 Calgary Outlink Yoga (A)-----------------------------  6-7:30pm See Apollo Calgary Sep27Dec6 Yoga (B)-------------------------  7:45-9:15pm See Apollo Calgary Sep27Dec6 Tuesdays

Calgary Networking Club--------------  5-7pm See 1 Calgary Outlink  1st Tues Boot Camp (A)----------------------  7-8:30pm See Apollo Calgary Sep7 Between Men---------------------------  7-9pm See 1 Calgary Outlink  2nd, 4th Rehearsals--------------------------  7-9:30pm See Calgary Men’s Chorus Jun Karaoke------------------------------  8pm-1am At 5 Texas Lounge Fetish Slosh----------------------------  Evening At 3 Backlot  2nd

Wednesdays

Communion Service------------------  12:10pm See Knox United Church Women’s Healing Circle---------------  1:30pm See AIDS Calgary Wing Night------------------------------  All Day At 9 FAB Free Pool-------------------------------  All Day At 4 Calgary Eagle with Prime Timers Calgary Badminton------------------------------  7-9pm See Apollo Calgary Sep8Dec15 Bowling------------------------------------ 7pm See Apollo Calgary Sep1Mar30 Mosaic Youth Group-------------------  Evening See website for details.

Thursdays

Lesbian Seniors---------------------------- 2pm

 Kerby Center, Sunshine Room  3rd 1133 7th Ave SW Swim Practice---------------------------  6-7pm See Different Strokes Sep9Dec Fake Mustache Show---------------  7-9:45pm See Miscellaneous Youth Network  1st Alcoholics Anonymous---------------------  8pm

 Hillhurst United Church (Gym Entrance) 1227 Kensington Close NW

Womynspace----------------------------  7-9pm See 1 Calgary Outlink  2nd

Worship------------------------------  10:30am See Scarboro United Church

New Directions--------------------------  7-9pm See 1 Calgary Outlink  3rd

Boot Camp (B)----------------  10:30am-12pm See Apollo Calgary Sep12

Beach Volleyball-----------------  7:30-9:30pm See Apollo

Worship Services-------------------------  11am See Knox United Church

Heading Out-----------------------  8pm-10pm See 1 Calgary Outlink  4th

BBQ Social Sundays----------------------- 2pm At 4 Calgary Eagle

Alcoholics Anonymous---------------------  8pm

 Hillhurst United Church (Gym Entrance) 1227 Kensington Close NW

Movie Night-------------------------  2pm-6pm

By ISCCA at 5 Texas Lounge Nov7Feb13

Saturdays

Church Service----------------------------- 4pm See Rainbow Community Church

Running------------------------------------  9am See Apollo

Swim Practice---------------------------  5-6pm See Different Strokes Sep9Dec

Tennis------------------------------------  10am

By Apollo

Sunday Socials----------------------  Afternoon At 4 Calgary Eagle

Coffee------------------------------------  10am See Prime Timers Calgary

Free Pool-------------------------------  All Day At 4 Calgary Eagle

Wing Night------------------------------  All Day At 9 FAB

Calgary Networking Club--------------  5-7pm

By Calgary Outlink At Ming (520 - 17th Ave SW)

Karaoke------------------------------  8pm-1am At 5 Texas Lounge

Tuesday, January 11th

Alcoholics Anonymous---------------------  8pm

 Hillhurst United Church (Gym Entrance) 1227 Kensington Close NW

Alcoholics Anonymous---------------------  8pm

 Hillhurst United Church (Gym Entrance) 1227 Kensington Close NW

Fridays

Tuned Out Music Trivia----------------  Evening At 9 FAB  1st, 3rd

Leather Night-------------------------- Evening At 4 Calgary Eagle

Fundraising Shooters------------------  Evening

By ISCCA at 5 Texas Lounge

Lawn Bowling---------------------------  6-9pm See Apollo

BBQ Fundraiser-------------------------  5-9pm

By ISCCA at 3 Backlot Illusions--------------------------------  7-10pm See 1 Calgary Outlink  1st

Sundays

Worship Time----------------------------  10am See Deer Park United Church

Community Meet & Greet----------  7:30-9pm

By Pride Calgary  Old Y Building 223 12th Ave SW Saturday, January 29th

Monthly Dance------------------------- 8pm

By ARGRA  Hillhurst-Sunyside Community Hall 1320 5th Avenue NW Satuday, February 26th

Sleight Ride--------------------------------  TBA

By ARGRA

Legend:  = Monthly Reoccurrance,  = Date (Range/Future),  = Sponsored Event

 Calgary Contd.

Community Groups 2 AIDS Calgary---------------------------- ✰

 110, 1603 10th Avenue SW  403-508-2500  info@aidscalgary.org  www.aidscalgary.org

Alberta Society for Kink

 403-398-9968  albetasocietyforkink@hotmail.com  http://ca.groups.yahoo.com/ group.albertasocietyforkink Apollo Calgary - Friends in Sports

 www.apollocalgary.com  www.myapollo.com

A volunteer operated, non-profit organization serving primarily members of the LGBT communities but open to all members of all communities.

Primary focus is to provide members with wellorganized and fun sporting events and other activities.

• Western Cup 29  www.westerncup.com North America’s largest LGBT sporting competition 18

with over 400 athletes in up to seven different sports.

• Badminton (Absolutely Smashing)

 St. Martha School (6020 - 4 Avenue NE)  badminton@apollocalgary.com Per session: $4 for Apollo member, $5 for nonmembers. Season’s pass $75 • Boot Camp

 Platoon FX, 1351 Aviation Park NE  bootcamp@apollocalgary.com 8 classes (one per week) for only $50.This is a 50% saving for Apollo members only.

• Bowling (Rainbow Riders League)

 Let’s Bowl (2916 5th Avenue NE)  bowling@apollocalgary.com Nightly - $17.00/night ($12.50 for lineage; $4.50 in prize money) and shoe rental is $3.00.

• Curling  curling@apollocalgary.com Will return in September 2010. Sign up at myapollo.org to receive updates.

GayCalgary & Edmonton Magazine #87, January 2011

• Golf

 golf@apollocalgary.com Occasional rounds will occur during the summer of 2010 depending on weather and leaders. Sign up at myapollo.org to receive updates.

• Lawn Bowling

 Inglewood Lawn Bowling Club 1235 8th Avenue SE

 lawnbowling@apollocalgary.com • Outdoor Pursuits

 outdoorpursuits@apollocalgary.com If it’s done outdoors, we do it. Volunteer led events all summer and winter. Hiking, camping, biking, skiing, snow shoeing, etc. Sign up at myapollo.org to get updates on the sport you like. We’re always looking for people to lead events.

• Running (Calgary Frontrunners)  YMCA Eau Claire (4th St, 1st Ave SW)  calgaryfrontrunners@shaw.ca East Doors (directly off the Bow river pathway).

Distances vary from 8 km - 15 km. Runners from 6 minutes/mile to 9+ minute miles.

• Slow Pitch  slow.pitch@apollocalgary.com Will be running Friday nights during the summer of 2010, location to be determined. Sign up at myapollo.org to receive immediate notice of start date and location.

• Squash  Mount Royal University Recreation  squash@apollocalgary.com All skill levels welcome.

• Tennis  U of C Courts  tennis@apollocalgary.com All skill levels welcome. Drop in. Look for Randall.

• Volleyball (Beach)  Volleydome (2825 24 Avenue NW)  beachvb@apollocalgary.com • Volleyball (Rec + Int/Comp)  vb@apollocalgary.com Both Leagues will return in September 2010. Sign up at myapollo.org to receive updates.

www.gaycalgary.com

Directory & Events  Calgary Contd.

• Yoga

 World Tree Studio (812 Edmonton Trail NE)

 Robin: 403-618-9642  yoga@apollocalgary.com $120 (10 sessions); $14 Drop-ins open to all levels. Apollo membership is required.

Alberta Rockies Gay Rodeo Association (ARGRA)  www.argra.org

• Monthly Dances-----------------------------  Hillhurst-Sunnyside Community Association 1320 - 5th Avenue NW Artists for the Quality of Life

 403-890-1261  www.afqol.com Cabin Fever

 The Soda

Women’s dance and social night.

Calgary Gay Fathers

 calgaryfathers@hotmail.com  http://www.calgarygayfathers.ca Peer support group for gay, bisexual and questioning fathers. Meeting twice a month.

Calgary Men’s Chorus

 http://www.calgarymenschorus.org • Rehearsals

 Temple B’Nai Tikvah, 900 - 47 Avenue SW Calgary Sexual Health Centre---------- ✰

 304, 301 14th Street NW  403-283-5580  http://www.calgarysexualhealth.ca

A pro-choice organization that believes all people have the right and ability to make their own choices regarding their sexual and reproductive health.

1 Calgary Outlink-----------------------------✰

 #4, 1230A 17th Avenue SW  403-234-8973  http://www.calgaryoutlink.com

Formerly know as the Gay And Lesbian Community Services Association (GLCSA).

• Peer Support and Crisis Line  1-877-OUT-IS-OK (1-877-688-4765) Front-line help service for GLBT individuals and their family and friends, or anyone questioning their sexuality.

• Library A great selection of resource books, fiction, nonfiction, videos and everything in between, all with a queer perspective.

• Drop-In Center A safe and supportive environment for one-to-one peer counseling for many issues surrounding family, coming out, homosexuality, loneliness and other issues.

• Between Men and Between Men Online Peer support, sexual health education for gay or bisexual men, as well as those who may be uncertain or questioning their sexuality.

• Calgary Networking Club

 Ming, 520 - 17th Ave SW The networking meetings are open to all individuals who would like to promote their businesses or who would like to meet new people - no business affiliation is necessary.

www.gaycalgary.com

• Heading Out Peer group for men who are looking for an alternative social activity to the bar. Activities vary and are fun and entertaining.

• Illusions Calgary Social group for Calgary and area transgender community members (cross dressers, transvestites, drag kings and queens). A safe, discrete and welcoming atmosphere, in which transgendered people can meet others of like mind.

• Inside Out Peer-facilitated youth group for GLBTQ ages 15-25.

Aims to let youth know they are not alone, and to connect them with their peers. Safe environment with a variety of resources and activities.

• New Directions Drop in peer-support group to provide support and resources for individuals who identify as transsexual or inter-sexed.

• SHEQ Soulful Healing Ego Quest

 Trudy or Krista, 403-585-7437 Workshop for women—a chance to grow and share their experiences related to women’s sexuality. To participate, please call or leave your name and a contact time/number with Calgary Outlink.

• Womynspace Peer social/support group for women providing an evening of fun, bonding, discussion and activities.

Calgary Queer Book Club

 Weeds Cafe (1903 20 Ave NW)

ISCCA Social Association

 http://www.iscca.ca

Imperial Sovereign Court of the Chinook Arch.

Charity fundraising group..

mature minded and “Plus 40” LGBT individuals seeking to meet others at age-appropriate activities within a positive, safe environment.

Parents for Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG)

Knox United Church

 506 - 4th Street SW  403-269-8382  http://www.knoxunited.ab.ca Knox United Church is an all-inclusive church located in downtown Calgary. A variety of facility rentals are also available for meetings, events and concerts.

 Sean: 403-695-5791  http://www.pflagcanada.ca

• Worship Services

 10:30am in July and August.

 4825 Mount Royal Gate SW  403-440-6383  http://www.mtroyal.ca/positivespace

Miscellaneous Youth Network  http://www.miscyouth.com

• Fake Mustache------------------------------  The Soda, 211 - 12th Ave SW Calgary’s ONLY Drag King Show. $5 cover. $2 cover under 18. Advance tickets available at Barbies Shop.

Mystique

 mystiquesocialclub@yahoo.com

A registered charitable organization that provides support, education and resources to parents, families and individuals who have questions or concerns about sexual orientation or gender identity.

Positive Space Committee

Works to raise awareness and challenge the patterns of silence that continue to marginalize LGBTTQ individuals.

Pride Calgary Planning Committee  www.pridecalgary.ca

 403-797-6564

Pride Rainbow Project

 prp@planet-save.com  http://www.priderainbowproject.com

• Coffee Night

 Second Cup (2312 - 4th Street SW)

Youth run project designed to show support for same-sex marriage in Canada and elsewhere. A fabric rainbow banner approximately 5 feet wide - goal is to make it 3.2km (2 miles) long, in order to break the world record.

NETWORKS  networkscalgary@gmail.com A social, cultural, and service organization for the

 primetimerscalgary@gmail.com  http://www.primetimerscalgary.com

Mystique is primarily a Lesbian group for women 30 and up but all are welcome.

Primetimers Calgary

Deer Park United Church/Wholeness Centre  403-278-8263

 77 Deerpoint Road SE  http://www.dpuc.ca

Different Strokes

 http://www.differentstrokescalgary.org

• Swim Practice

 SAIT Pool, 1301 - 16th Ave NW  No practices on long weekends Don’t Buy In Project

 http://www.dontbuyin.ca

This Calgary Police Service Initiative aims to encourage youth to working towards an inclusive environment in which diversity is embraced in their schools and community.

FairyTales Presentation Society

 #4 - 1230A 17th Avenue SW  403-244-1956

 http://www.fairytalesfilmfest.com

Alberta Gay & Lesbian Film Festival.

• DVD Resource Library Over a hundred titles to choose from. Annual membership is $10.

Gay Friends in Calgary

 http://www.gayfriendsincalgary.ca

Girl Friends

 girlfriends@shaw.ca

 members.shaw.ca/girlfriends

Girlsgroove

 http://www.girlsgroove.ca

HIV Peer Support Group

 403-230-5832  hivpeergroup@yahoo.ca

GayCalgary & Edmonton Magazine #87, January 2011

19

Directory & Events DOWNTOWN EDMONTON

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7 11 6 12

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1 Pride Centre------------- Community Groups 3 HIV Network------------- Community Groups 4 Edmonton STD---------- Community Groups

5 The Junction------------------ Bars and Clubs 6 Buddy’s Nite Club------------ Bars and Clubs 7 Down Under Baths--------------- Bathhouses

8 Prism Bar & Grill------------- Bars and Clubs 11 Steamworks---------------------- Bathhouses 12 Woody’s----------------------- Bars and Clubs

13 PLAY Nightclub--------------- Bars and Clubs 14 FLASH------------------------- Bars and Clubs

the awareness of gay men’s domestic violence and the services available to them.

41 La Fleur------------------------------------  103 - 100 7th Avenue SW  403-266-1707

 Calgary Contd.

Designed to foster social interaction for its members through a variety of social, educational and recreational activities. Open to all gay and bisexual men of any age, respects whatever degree of anonymity that each member desires.

same-sex domestic violence and homophobic youth bullying.

• Free Pool

 4 Calgary Eagle

An affirming congregation—the full inclusion of LGBT people is essential to our mission and purpose.

• Saturday Coffee

 Midtown Co-op, 1130 - 11th Ave SW

Sharp Foundation

 403-272-2912  sharpfoundation@nucleus.com  http://www.thesharpfoundation.com

Queers on Campus---------------------- ✰

 279R Student Union Club Spaces, U of C  403-220-6394  http://www.ucalgary.ca/~glass Formerly GLASS - Gay/Lesbian Association of Students and Staff.

• Coffee Night

 2nd Cup, Kensington Rainbow Community Church

 Hillhurst United, 1227 Kensington Close NW  roneberly@shaw.ca  http://www.rainbowcommunitychurch.ca

The Rainbow Community Church is an all-inclusive church; everyone is welcome.

Rocky Mountain Bears  bearcoltr@shaw.ca

 http://www.rockymountainbears.com Safety Under the Rainbow

 http://www.safetyrainbow.ca Mission: To raise awareness and understanding of 20

Scarboro United Church

 134 Scarboro Avenue SW  403-244-1161  www.scarborounited.ab.ca

Unity Bowling

 Let’s Bowl (2916 - 5th Ave NE)  sundayunity@live.com

Urban Sex Radio Show

 CJSW 90.9 FM

 http://www.cjsw.com Focus on sexuality; gay bisexual lesbian trans gendered and straight issues here in Calgary and around the web.

Western Canada Bigmen and Admirers

 groups.yahoo.com/group/ WesternCanadaBigmenGroup/  bigpaul41@yahoo.com Vigor Calgary

 403-255-7004

 www.vigorcalgary.ca Violence in Gay Male Relationships (VIGOR) is a committee of professionals dedicated to increasing

GayCalgary & Edmonton Magazine #87, January 2011

“Yeah...What She Said!” Radio Show

 CJSW 90.9 FM

 yeahwhatshesaid@gmail.com

Florist and Flower Shop.

The Naked Leaf---------------------------  305 10th Street NW  403-283-3555  http://www.thenakedleaf.ca

Restaurants 4 Calgary Eagle Inc.----------------------

✰

See Calgary - Bars and Clubs.

60 Club Sapien------------------------------ ✰  1140 10th Ave SW  403-457-4464

 http://www.clubsapien.ca 9 FAB (formerly Money Pennies)------- See Calgary - Bars and Clubs.

✰

Halo Steak, Seafood & Wine Bar

 Canyon Meadows Plaza

13226 Macleod Trail SE  403-271-4111  www.halorestaurant.com 59 Village Bistro & Lounge------------------  2F, 610 8th Ave SE  403-262-6342 ext 236  M-R: 9am-4pm, F: 9am-5pm, S: 11am-5pm  www.villagebistrocalgary.com

Retail Stores Adult Depot----------------------------- ✰

 140, 58th Ave SW  403-258-2777 Gay, bi, straight video rentals and sex toys.

Organic teas and tea ware.

16 Priape Calgary------------------------- ✰

 1322 - 17 Ave SW  403-215-1800  http://www.priape.com

Clothing and accessories. Adult toys, leather wear, movies and magazines. Gifts.

Wares & Wear Ventures Inc. See Canada - Retail Stores.

Services & Products Calgary Civil Marriage Centre  403-246-4134  ca.ca@shaw.ca Marriage Commissioner for Alberta (aka Justice of the Peace - JP), Marriage Officiant, Commissioner for Oaths.

24 Courtney Aarbo (Barristers & Solicitors)

 1138 Kensington Road NW  403-571-5120  http://www.courtneyaarbo.ca

GLBT legal services.

www.gaycalgary.com

Directory & Events  Calgary Contd.

Cruiseline

 403-777-9494 trial code 3500  http://www.cruiseline.ca

Telephone classifieds and chat - 18+ ONLY. DevaDave Salon & Boutique

 Edmonton Contd.

37 Pumphouse Theatre------------------  2140 Pumphouse Avenue SW  403-263-0079  http://www.pumphousetheatres.ca

✰

Stagewest-------------------------------

✰

 810 Edmonton Trail NE  403-290-1973

 727 - 42 Avenue SE  403-243-6642  http://www.stagewestcalgary.com

Cuts, Colour, Hilights.

58 Theatre Junction----------------------  Theatre Junction GRAND, 608 1st St. SW  403-205-2922  info@theatrejunction.com  http://www.theatrejunction.com

Duncan’s Residential Cleaning  Jim Duncan: 403-978-6600 Residential cleaning. Free estimates.

Lorne Doucette (CIR Realtors)

 403-461-9195  http://www.lornedoucette.com Marnie Campbell (Maxwell Realtors)

 403-479-8619  http://www.marniecampbell.ca MFM Communications

 403-543-6970  1-877-543-6970  http://www.mfmcommunications.com

Web site hosting and development. Computer hardware and software.

MPs Catering

 403-607-8215 SafeWorks Free and confidential HIV/AIDS and STI testing.

• Calgary Drop-in Centre

 Room 117, 423 - 4th Ave SE  403-699-8216  Mon-Fri: 9am-12pm, Sat: 12:15pm-3:15pm • Centre of Hope

 Room 201, 420 - 9th Ave SE  403-410-1180  Mon-Fri: 1pm-5pm • Sheldon M. Chumir Health Centre

 1213 - 4th Str SW  403-955-6014  Sat-Thu: 4:15pm-7:45pm, Fri: Closed • Safeworks Van

 403-850-3755  Sat-Thu: 8pm-12am, Fri: 4pm-12am

Theatre & Fine Arts 36 ATP, Alberta Theatre Projects

 403-294-7402  http://www.ATPlive.com

AXIS Contemporary Art-------------------  107, 100 - 7 Ave SW  403-262-3356  rob@axisart.ca  www.axisart.ca Fairytales See Calgary - Community Groups.

Jubilations Dinner Theatre  Bow Trail and 37th St. SW  403-249-7799  www.jubilations.ca 43 Lisa Heinricks (Artist)---------------------  Art Central, 100 7th Ave SW, lower level  http://www.creamydreamy.com 35 One Yellow Rabbit-------------------------  Big Secret Theatre - EPCOR CENTRE  403-299-8888  www.oyr.org

www.gaycalgary.com

Camp fYrefly

 7-104 Dept. of Educational Policy Studies

✰

34 Vertigo Mystery Theatre------------------  161, 115 - 9 Ave SE  403-221-3708  http://www.vertigomysterytheatre.com

Edmonton Bars & Clubs 6 Buddy’s Nite Club--------------------------✰

 11725 Jasper Ave  780-488-6636 14 FLASH---------------------------------------✰

 10018 105 Street  780-938-2941  flashnightclub@hotmail.com 5 The Junction---------------------------- ✰

 10242 106th St  780-756-5667  http://www.junctionedmonton.com

PLAY Nightclub (closed)-------------------✰

 10220 103 Street  780-497-7529  info@playnightclub.ca  http://www.playnightclub.ca

Prism Bar & Grill (closed)------------- ✰  780-990-0038

Faculty of Education, University of Alberta Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2G5  http://www.fyrefly.ualberta.ca Edmonton Pride Week Society

 http://www.prideedmonton.org

Edmonton Prime Timers  edmontonpt@yahoo.ca  www.primetimersww.org/edmonton Group of older gay men and their admirers who come from diverse backgrounds but have common social interests. Affiliated with Prime Timers World Wide.

Edmonton Rainbow Business Association

 3379, 11215 Jasper Ave  780-429-5014  http://www.edmontonrba.org

Primary focus is the provision of networking opportunities for LGBT owned or operated and LGBTfriendly businesses in the Edmonton region.

Edmonton Illusions Social Club

 5 Boots Bar & Grill  780-387-3343

 groups.yahoo.com/group/edmonton_illusions 4 Edmonton STD

 11111 Jasper Ave

Edmonton Vocal Minority  sing@evmchoir.com

 780-479-2038  www.evmchoir.com

Exposure 2010

 TBA 3 HIV Network Of Edmonton Society---- ✰  9702 111 Ave NW  www.hivedmonton.com

Imperial Sovereign Court of the Wild Rose

 10524 101st St  http://www.prismbar.ca

 http://www.iscwr.ca

12 Woody’s-------------------------------------✰

 11725 Jasper Ave  780-488-6557

 University of Alberta, basement of SUB  outreach@ualberta.ca  http://www.ualberta.ca/~outreach

Bathhouses/Saunas 7 Down Under Baths-------------------------✰

 12224 Jasper Ave  780-482-7960  http://www.gayedmonton.com 11 Steamworks--------------------------------✰

 11745 Jasper Ave  780-451-5554  http://www.steamworksedmonton.com

OUTreach

Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender/transsexual, Queer, Questioning and Straight-but-not-Narrow student group.

1 Pride Centre of Edmonton-------------- ✰

 95A Street, 111 Ave  780-488-3234  admin@pridecentreofedmonton.org

Community Groups

• Community Potluck

 Main Space – Upstairs

 tuff@shaw.ca A potluck open to all members of the LGBTQ community. A time to get together, share a meal and meet people from the community.

• Free School

 Main Space – Upstairs  monika_penner@shaw.ca Free School provides workshops on a variety of topics related to local activism.

• Get Tested for STIs Free STD testing for anyone interested. For more information please contact the Pride Centre.

• GLBT Seniors Drop-In

 Main Space – Upstairs  tuff@shaw.ca A social and support group for seniors of all genders and sexualities to talk, have tea and offer each other support.

• Men Talking with Pride

 Main Space – Upstairs

 robwells780@hotmail.com A social discussion group for gay, bisexual and transgendered men to discuss current issues and to offer support to each other.

• Men’s HIV Support Group

 Green Room – Upstairs  huges@shaw.ca Support group for people living with HIV/AIDS. • PFLAG

 Red room - Downstairs  780-436-1998  edmontonab@pflagcanada.ca Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays: A support group for family members and friends of GLBT people. An excellent resource for people whose family members and friends have just come out.

• Prime Timers See Edmonton Primetimers.

• Suit Up and Show Up: AA Big Book Study

 Downstairs Couch Area Discussion and support group for those struggling with an alcohol addiction or seeking support in staying sober.

• TTIQ

 Green Room – Upstairs  admin@pridecentreofedmonton.org

Alberta Bears

 www.beefbearbash.com Altview-Strathcona County LGBTQ Group

 #44, 48 Brentwood Blvd, Sherwood Park, AB  www.altview.ca

Book Worm’s Book Club  Howard McBride Chapel of Chimes 10179 - 108 Street  bookworm@teamedmonton.ca Buck Naked Boys Club

 780-471-6993  http://www.bucknakedboys.ca

Naturism club for men—being social while everyone is naked, and it does not include sexual activity.

Participants do not need to be gay, only male.

GayCalgary & Edmonton Magazine #87, January 2011

21

Directory & Events Edmonton Events Mondays

Boot Camp------------------------------  7-8pm See Team Edmonton Men’s HIV Support Group--------------  7-9pm See Pride Centre of Edmonton  2nd Curling---------------------------------  7:15pm See Team Edmonton Oct4Mar21 Amateur Strip----------------------------  12am At 6 Buddys Tuesdays

GLBT Seniors Drop-in------------------  1-4pm See Pride Centre of Edmonton TTIQ-------------------------------------  2-4pm See Pride Centre of Edmonton  2nd Youthspace------------------------------  3-7pm See Pride Centre of Edmonton Bowling-----------------------------  6:45-9pm See Team Edmonton Sept7Mar15 Community Potluck---------------------  7-9pm See Pride Centre of Edmonton  Last Recreational Volleyball--------  8:30-10:30pm See Team Edmonton Oct5 Swimming-----------------------  7:30-8:30pm See Team Edmonton Sept9Dec21 Martial Arts---------------------  7:30-8:30pm See Team Edmonton

Wednesdays

PFLAG---------------------------------  12:10pm See Pride Centre of Edmonton  1st Youthspace------------------------------  3-7pm See Pride Centre of Edmonton Youth Sports/Recreation------------------ 4pm See Youth Understanding Youth Youth Understanding Youth------------  7-9pm At 1 Pride Centre of Edmonton

Youth Understanding Youth------------  7-9pm At 1 Pride Centre of Edmonton

Youthspace--------------------------  3-6:30pm See Pride Centre of Edmonton

Book Club------------------------------  7:30pm See BookWorm’s Book Club  3rd

Bowling------------------------------------ 5pm See Team Edmonton

Martial Arts---------------------  7:30-8:30pm See Team Edmonton Intermediate Volleyball--------  7:30-9:30pm See Team Edmonton Wet Underwear Contest--------------- Evening At 6 Buddys

Sundays

Running------------------------------  10-11am See Team Edmonton Free School----------------------------  11-5pm See Pride Centre of Edmonton  2nd, 4th

Fridays

Womonspace Meeting---------  12:30-1:30pm See Pride Centre of Edmonton  1st

Wing & Sing--------------------------- Evening At 5 Junction

Edmonton Illusions--------------------  8:30pm At 5 The Junction  2nd

Yoga---------------------------------  2-3:30pm See Team Edmonton

Wings + Karaoke------------------------- 7pm At 12 Woodys

Youthspace--------------------------  3-6:30pm See Pride Centre of Edmonton

Men Talking with Pride----------------  7-9pm See Pride Centre of Edmonton

Thursdays

Youth Sports/Recreation------------------ 4pm See Youth Understanding Youth

Ballroom Dancing--------------  7:30-8:30pm See Team Edmonton

Youth Movie Night------------------  6:30-8:30 See 1 Pride Centre of Edmonton

Monthly Meetings---------------------- 2:30pm  Unitarian Church (10804 119th Street) See Edmonton Primetimers  2nd

Mixed Badminton----------------------  8-10pm See Team Edmonton Jan13End of May

GLBT Seniors Drop-in------------------  1-4pm See Pride Centre of Edmonton Get Tested for STIs----------------------  3-6pm See Pride Centre of Edmonton  Last Youthspace------------------------------  3-7pm See Pride Centre of Edmonton

Youth Understanding Youth------------  7-9pm At 1 Pride Centre of Edmonton Saturdays

Youth Sports/Recreation------------------ 4pm See Youth Understanding Youth

Naturalist Gettogether---------------------- ???

See Buck Naked Boys Club  2nd

GLBT African Group----------------------- 6pm At 1 Pride Centre of Edmonton  2nd

AA Big Book Study--------------------  12-1pm See Pride Centre of Edmonton

Swimming-------------------------------  7-8pm See Team Edmonton Sept9Dec21

Monthly Meeting-----------------------  2:30pm

By Edmonton Primetimers  2nd  Unitarian Church, 10804 - 119th Street

Tuesday, January 11th

Business Mixer-------------------------  5:30pm

By ERBA  TU Gallery (10718 - 124 Street) Tuesday, February 8th

Business Mixer-------------------------  5:30pm

By ERBA  Investors Group #107 Broadway Blvd, Sherwood Park

Legend:  = Monthly Reoccurrance,  = Date (Range),  = Sponsored Event

 Edmonton Contd.

TTIQ is mixed gender open support group addressing the needs of transsexual and transgendered individuals.

• Womonspace Board Meeting

 Main Space – Upstairs  wspresident@hotmail.com Womonspace is a Social and Recreational Society in Edmonton run by volunteers. They provide opportunities for lesbians to interact and support each other in a safe environment, and to contribute to the broader community.

• Youth Movie

 Main Space – Upstairs  brendan@pridecentreofedmonton.org Movie chosen by youth (aged 14 – 25), usually with LGBT themes. Popcorn is served.

• YouthSpace

 brendan@pridecentreofedmonton.org A safe and supportive space for GLBTQ youth aged 13–25. Video games, computers with internet, clothing bank, and more.

Team Edmonton

 president@teamedmonton.ca  http://www.teamedmonton.ca Members are invited to attend and help determine the board for the next term. If you are interested in running for the board or getting involved in some of the committees, please contact us.

22

• Badminton (Mixed)

 St. Thomas Moore School, 9610 165 Street

 coedbadminton@teamedmonton.ca New group seeking male & female players.

• Badminton (Women’s)

 Oliver School, 10227 - 118 Street  780-465-3620

 badminton@teamedmonton.ca Women’s Drop-In Recreational Badminton. $40.00 season or $5.00 per drop in.

•Ballroom Dancing

 Foot Notes Dance Studio, 9708-45 Avenue NW  Cynthia: 780-469-3281 • Blazin’ Bootcamp

 Garneau Elementary School 10925 - 87 Ave  bootcamp@teamedmonton.ca

• Cycling (Edmonton Prideriders)

 Various locations in Edmonton  cycling@teamedmonton.ca • Dragon Boat (Flaming Dragons)

 dragonboat@teamedmonton.ca • Golf  golf@teamedmonton.ca

• Slo Pitch

 Parkallen Field, 111 st and 68 ave  slo-pitch@teamedmonton.ca Season fee is $30.00 per person. $10 discount for players from the 2008 season.

• Gymnastics, Drop-in

 Ortona Gymnastics Club, 8755 - 50 Avenue  gymnastics@teamedmonton.ca Have the whole gym to yourselves and an instructor to help you achieve your individual goals. Cost is $5.00 per session.

• Snowballs III

 February 5-7th, 2010  snowballs@teamedmonton.ca Skiing and Snowboarding Weekend.

• Hockey  hockey@teamedmonton.ca

• Spin

 MacEwan Centre for Sport and Wellness 109 St. and 104 Ave  Wednesdays, 5:45-6:45pm Season has ended.  spin@teamedmonton.ca 7 classes, $28.00 per registrant.

• Bowling (Northern Titans)

 Ed’s Rec Room (West Edmonton Mall)

 bowling@teamedmonton.ca $15.00 per person.

• Martial Arts

 15450 - 105 Ave (daycare entrance)  780-328-6414  kungfu@teamedmonton.ca  kickboxing@teamedmonton.ca Drop-ins welcome.

• Cross Country Skiing  crosscountry@teamedmonton.ca

• Outdoor Pursuits

 outdoorpursuits@teamedmonton.ca

• Curling with Pride

 Granite Curling Club, 8620 107 Street NW  curling@teamedmonton.ca

• Running (Arctic Frontrunners)

 Emily Murphy Park, west end  running@teamedmonton.ca

GayCalgary & Edmonton Magazine #87, January 2011

All genders and levels of runners and walkers are invited to join this free activity.

• Soccer

 soccer@teamedmonton.ca

• Swimming (Making Waves)

 NAIT Pool (11762 - 106 Street)  swimming@teamedmonton.ca  www.makingwavesswimclub.ca • Tennis

 Kinsmen Sports Centre  Sundays, 12pm-3pm

 tennis@teamedmonton.ca www.gaycalgary.com

Directory & Events

Lethbridge

Lethbridge Events

Community Groups

Fridays

Monthly Dance----------------------  9pm-2am

By GALA/LA  Moose Hall (1401 5th Ave N)

GALA/LA

 403-308-2893  http://www.galalethbridge.ca

Gay and Lesbian Alliance of Lethbridge and Area.

 Edmonton Contd.

• Ultimate Frisbee  Sundays Summer Season starts July 12th  ultimatefrisbee@teamedmonton.ca E-mail if interested.

• Volleyball, Intermediate

 Amiskiwacy Academy (101 Airport Road)  volleyball@teamedmonton.ca • Volleyball, Recreational

 Mother Teresa School (9008 - 105 Ave)  recvolleyball@teamedmonton.ca • Women’s Lacrosse

 Sharon: 780-461-0017  Pam: 780-436-7374 Open to women 21+, experienced or not, all are welcome. Call for info.

• Yoga

 Grant MacEwan Centre Dance Studio ,Room 186, 10045 - 156 Street  yoga@teamedmonton.ca Womonspace

 780-482-1794  womonspace@gmail.com  www.womonspace.ca Women’s social group, but all welcome at events.

Youth Understanding Youth

 780-248-1971  www.yuyedm.ca

A support and social group for queer youth 12-25.

• Sports and Recreation  Brendan: 780-488-3234  brendan@pridecentreofedmonton.org

Restaurants 5 The Junction----------------------------------  10242 106th St  780-756-5667 8 Prism Bar & Grill------------------------------

✰ See Edmonton - Bars and Clubs.

12 Woody’s----------------------------------------

✰

 11725 Jasper Ave  780-488-6557

Retail Stores Rodéo Drive

 11528 - 89th Street  780-474-0413  brendalee@rodeodrive.ca  http://www.rodeodrive.ca

His and hers fetish wear, toys, jewelry, etc.

Products & Services Cruiseline

 780-413-7122 trial code 3500  http://www.cruiseline.ca

Telephone classifieds and chat - 18+ ONLY. Robertson-Wesley United Church

 10209 - 123 St. NW  780-482-1587  jravenscroft@rwuc.org  www.rwuc.org  Worship: Sunday mornings at 10:30am

People of all sexual orientations welcome. Other LGBT events include a monthly book club and a bi-monthly film night. As a caring spiritual community, we’d love to have you join us!

• Soul OUTing

 Second Sunday every month, 7pm An LGBT-focused alternative worship.

• Film Night

 Bi-monthly, contact us for exact dates.

• Book Club

 Monthly, contact us for exact dates.

Theatre & Fine Arts Exposure Festival

 http://www.exposurefestival.ca Edmonton’s Queer Arts and Culture Festival.

The Roxy Theatre

 10708 124th Street, Edmonton AB  780-453-2440  www.theatrenetwork.ca

• Monthly Potluck Dinners

 McKillop United Church, 2329 - 15 Ave S GALA/LA will provide the turkey...you bring the rest.

Please bring a dish to share that will serve 4-6 people, and your own beverage.

• Support Line

 403-308-2893  Monday OR Wednesday, 7pm-11pm Leave a message any other time.

• Friday Mixer

 The Mix (green water tower) 103 Mayor Magrath Dr S  Every Friday at 10pm Gay & Lesbian Integrity Assoc. (GALIA)

 University of Lethbridge  galia@uleth.ca

GBLTTQQ club on campus.

• Movie Night

 Room C610, University of Lethbridge Gay Youth Alliance Group

 Betty, 403-381-5260  bneil@chr.ab.ca  Every second Wednesday, 3:30pm-5pm Lethbridge HIV Connection

 1206 - 6 Ave S

PFLAG Canada

 1-888-530-6777

 lethbridgeab@pflagcanada.ca  www.pflagcanada.ca

Pride Lethbridge

 lethbridgepridefest@gmail.com

Banff/Canmore

Red Deer

Community Groups Mountain Pride

 BOX 4892, BANFF, AB, T1L 1G1

 Brian, 403-431-2569  1-800-958-9632  members@gaybanff.com  www.gaybanff.com Serving the GLBTQS community in Banff, Canmore, Lake Louise and Area.

Community Groups Affirm

YouthSafe

 http://www.youthsafe.net

Alberta’s website for youth with sex-and-gender differences. Youthsafe.net lists the resources, information and services to help youth find safe and caring spaces in Alberta.

Theatre & Fine Arts Alberta Ballet

 http://www.albertaballet.com Frequent productions in Calgary and Edmonton.

Canada Community Groups Alberta Trans Support/Activities Group

 http://www.albertatrans.org A nexus for transgendered persons, regardless of where they may be on the continuum.

Canadian Rainbow Health Coalition

 P.O. Box 3043, Saskatoon, SK, S7K 3S9  (306) 955-5135  1-800-955-5129  http://www.rainbowhealth.ca

Egale Canada

 8 Wellington St E, Third Floor

Toronto, Ontario, M5E 1C5  1-888-204-7777  www.egale.ca Egale Canada is the national advocacy and lobby organization for gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, trans-identified people and our families.

Membership fees are pay-what-you-can, although pre-authorized monthly donors are encouraged (and get a free Egale Canada t-shirt). Egale has several committees that meet by teleconference on a regular basis; membership on these is national with members from every region of Canada.

Products & Services Squirt

 http://www.squirt.org Website for dating and hook-ups. 18+ ONLY!

Theatre & Fine Arts Broadway Across Canada

 Sunnybrook United Church  403-347-6073  2nd Tuesday of the month, 7pm

 http://www.broadwayacrosscanada.ca

Composed of LGBTQ people, their friends, family and allies. No religious affiliation necessary.

Activities include support, faith and social justice discussions, film nights, and potlucks!

GLBT Television Station.

OUTtv

 http://www.outtv.ca

Grande Prairie Alberta Community Groups

GALAP

 10113 - 103 Ave, T8V 1C2

 780-512-1990 Gay and Lesbian Association of the Peace.

• Wednesday Coffee Nights

www.gaycalgary.com

• Monthly Dances

 Henotic (402 - 2 Ave S) Bring your membership card and photo ID.

Western Canadian Pride Campout  www.eventmasterinc.net

Community Groups Central Alberta AIDS Network Society

 4611-50 Avenue, Red Deer, AB  http://www.caans.org The Central Alberta AIDS Network Society is the local charity responsible for HIV prevention and support in Central Alberta.

GayCalgary & Edmonton Magazine #87, January 2011

23

Politics

A New Dawn Within The American Military Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Finally Repealed

By Stephen Lock After considerable debate, and fierce opposition from social conservatives on both sides of the House over the years, the United States Congress finally voted on December 18th, 2010 to repeal the ban against openly gay and lesbian individuals serving in the American military.

The Senate voted 65-31 in favour of lifting the ban, which came into effect in 1993 under Bill Clinton, often seen as a supporter of gay rights.

The “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) policy was introduced as a compromise measure by President Clinton who had campaigned on the promise to allow all citizens to serve in the military regardless of sexual orientation. Prior to DADT it was the position of the US military, under Department of Defence Directive 1332.14 (10 U.S.C. § 654) that homosexuality was incompatible with military service. Persons who engaged in homosexual acts or stated that they were homosexual or bisexual were discharged, with many being court-martialled and then dishonourably discharged for being in violation of The Uniform Code of Military Justice passed by Congress in 1950 during the Truman Administration.

Under this directive, military authorities often sought out homosexual personnel, interrogating suspected homosexuals or those suspected of engaging in, or found to have engaged in, same-sex sexual activity, in an attempt to purge the military of the “corrosive” effect of homosexuality. Clinton’s DADT was viewed by many as a more liberal and humane alternative to the decades of witch-hunts that preceded it.

The essence of the policy, known at the time as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Don’t Pursue,” was to forbid military authorities asking about or forcing individuals to reveal their sexual orientation. A “Don’t Harass” provision was later added, thereby disallowing any harassment or violence against any service member for any reason, including sexual orientation or assumed sexual orientation.

Conduct Unbecoming: Lesbians and Gays in the US Military from Vietnam to the Persian Gulf War, by Randy Shilts, author of the seminal book on the history of AIDS in America, And the Band Played On, examined in considerable detail the emotional and even financial costs to gay, lesbian, and bisexual service personnel that the then existing policy wreaked on them.

Shilts’ exposé of the tactics used by the different investigative services (Army, Navy, United States Marine Corp, National Guard, Coast Guard, and Air Force) was chilling. Instances of suspected homosexuals being placed under surveillance day and night, interception of mail, wiretaps, approaching friends, neighbours and family members to question them about the suspect’s sexual practices, and entrapment whereby an undercover officer would attempt to seduce or proposition a suspect and then charge him or her if they responded to the advances, were commonplace and accepted tactics. Once under interrogation, which could last for hours or even days, bribes, false promises of leniency, and coercion would be used to get the suspect to inform on others.

Despite studies, such as the 1957 Crittenden Report, which indicated openly gay and lesbian service members posed no risk to military operations or security, the anti-homosexual policy remained in effect for decades.

In 1981, the Defense Department issued a new regulation on homosexuality designed to withstand a court challenge by developing uniform and clearly defined regulations and justifications that made homosexual status (whether selfapplied or by the military) and conduct, grounds for discharge

24

GayCalgary & Edmonton Magazine #87, January 2011

under DOD Directive 1332.14 (Enlisted Administrative Separations). It stated: Homosexuality is incompatible with military service. The presence in the military environment of persons who engage in homosexual conduct or who, by their statements, demonstrate a propensity to engage in homosexual conduct, seriously impairs the accomplishment of the military mission. The presence of such members adversely affects the ability of the armed forces to maintain discipline, good order, and morale; to foster mutual trust and confidence among service members; to ensure the integrity of the system of rank and command; to facilitate assignment and worldwide deployment of service members who frequently must live and work in close conditions affording minimal privacy; to recruit and retain members of the armed forces; to maintain the public acceptability of military service; and to prevent breaches of security.

This, then, was the climate under which DADT came into being.

Originally, Clinton had hoped to repeal the existing ban on GLB personnel, whether openly homosexual or closeted, but due to an intense campaign headed by Democratic Senator Sam Nunn of Georgia who was in favour of retaining the full ban; despite the work of openly-gay Democratic Congressman Barry Franks of Massachusetts who favoured modification but ultimately voted in favour of the ban; and retired Republican Senator Barry Goldwater; and after Congressional phone lines were flooded by organized anti-gay opposition, Clinton backed off his campaign promise to repeal the ban in favor of the DADT compromise.

Since the implementation of DADT more than 13,500 men and women have been discharged - kicked out - from the military despite an official policy that prohibited asking any serving member what his or her sexual orientation was. Prior to that, under the old Uniform Code provisions, hundreds of thousands of serving personnel are believed to have been discharged or forced to resign.

Clearly, there has been a huge toll on the well-being of those forced to resign or who have been discharged for being, or suspected of being, homosexual or bisexual; the personal cost of such a policy is almost impossible to calculate. However, the United States’ Government Accountability Office released its estimates on the financial cost in 2005. It reported at least $95.4 million in recruiting costs was lost and another $95.1 million for training replacements of those discharged was incurred.

The following year a Blue Ribbon Commission at the University of California which included former Assistant Defence Secretaries Lawrence Korb and William Perry (Reagan and Clinton Administrations respectively) and professors from West Point Military Academy, concluded the figures should be closer to $363 million, including $14.3 million for “separation travel” following a service member’s discharge, $17.8 million for officer training, $252.4 million for training enlistees and $79.3 million in recruiting costs. That comes to a whopping $726.8 million dollars, or over three quarters of a billion dollars, and that doesn’t even include the value of lost expertise or intangibles like the effect of losing a member fluent in Arabic and English while the United States is engaged in “action” in Arabic-speaking territories.

With the repeal, the US military joins Canada and most other NATO forces in allowing openly gay, lesbian, and bisexual personnel to serve in the American military. However, the process is not over.

Defence Secretary Robert Gates and other supporters of the repeal have argued that Congress, rather than the courts, needed to act if the military was to have time for an “orderly www.gaycalgary.com

transition” to the new policy and that any court-ordered end to the policy would be “disruptive.”

Once the bill is signed by President Obama into law, which is thought at the time of writing to be within a week of the Congressional vote, the Pentagon will have an undetermined amount of time - possibly months - to educate service members and to prepare for the policy change throughout the military hierarchy before it is ready to certify the new policy.

Once that certification is enacted, there will be another 60day period before the new policy takes effect, during which time DADT remains in effect and any personnel found to be homosexual can still be discharged from the military.

Obama had also campaigned on a promise to repeal DADT, although he came under criticism by liberal and gay rights groups for failing to push hard enough to end DADT. Obama, in several media interviews and town hall meetings, repeatedly stressed that DADT could not be repealed by Executive Order (a directive from the President) and that he, as President of the United States, had to permit due process to occur.

That process, in the latest round, was not without controversy and drama. In September and early December of 2010, Democrats had failed to bring about repeal because they lacked the 60 votes needed to prevent a Republican filibuster. However, several moderate Republicans, including Senators Scott Brown of Massachusetts and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, withdrew their opposition after the release in early December of a Pentagon study endorsing the policy chang following a Defense Department survey of military personnel on bases throughout the United States and overseas. This study included 400,000 service members and 150,000 military spouses, 70 per cent of which said homosexuals serving in the military would not negatively affect unit cohesion or harm the war efforts in Afghanistan or Iraq. Interestingly, though, 40 to 60 percent of personnel in the Marine Corps and combat specialties said that repealing the ban would be negative.

A 2006 poll of military members found that 26 percent were in favor of gays serving in the military, 37 percent were opposed, while 37 percent expressed no preference or were unsure. Of the respondents who had experience with gays in their unit, six percent said their presence had a positive impact on their personal morale, 66 percent said no impact, and 28 percent said negative impact.

Regarding overall unit morale, three percent reported having lesbians and gay men in their unit as a positive impact, 64 percent stated there was no impact on unit morale, and 27 percent claimed it created a negative impact. As for respondents uncertain whether they had served with gay personnel, two percent thought gays would have a positive effect on personal morale, while 29 percent thought that they would have no impact and 48 percent thought that they would have a negative effect. 73 percent of respondents said that they felt comfortable in the presence of gay and lesbian personnel.

It is generally assumed those higher up in the hierarchy were opposed to the inclusion of openly gay, lesbian, or bisexual military personnel or were, in fact, outright homophobic. While that is doubtlessly true given the overall culture of the military, nevertheless in December 2007, 28 retired generals and admirals urged Congress to repeal the policy, citing evidence that 65,000 gay men and women are currently serving in the armed forces and that there are over 1,000,000 estimated lesbian and gay veterans. On November 17, 2008, 104 retired generals and admirals signed a similar statement.

Certainly the Canadian experience is indicative of the minimal effect that having openly homosexual or bisexual personnel has on unit cohesiveness and effectiveness. The Canadian Armed Forces has had a policy of non-discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation for a number of years and all the dire warnings of those opposed to such inclusion have failed to materialize. Basically, whatever one’s personal views on homosexuality may be, what it comes down to for your average soldier, sailor or airman/woman is, so long as you

do your job, back your compatriots, and “soldier on”, nobody gives a rat’s ass who you have sex with.

The fear that hordes of hardcore feminist dykes and raving queer boys would take over the military have likewise come to naught. It is a very specific personality type that is attracted to the military and that personality type spans sexual orientation. I grew up Army and those who stuck with it, regardless of who they had sex with or the type of sex they enjoyed, had more in common with each other than they did with “civvies.” The military is very much a world unto its own, with its own codes, its own way of doing things, and its own way of seeing things; and those who are in the military share that. If they don’t, regardless of orientation issues, they don’t last long and usually opt out themselves. For those who stay in, their time in the military is one of the major lynchpins of their lives; it defined who they were and who they are like no other career or job can. Being in the Armed Forces is truly a way of life - a ‘lifestyle’ if you will - and if one is also lesbian, gay or bisexual, that in no way minimizes or compromises that way of life. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell did. That it is now at long last repealed, heralds a new day and new hope.

As President Obama said, “...by ending Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, no longer will [the American] nation be denied the service of thousands of patriotic Americans forced to leave the military, despite years of exemplary performance, because they happen to be gay...and no longer will many thousands more be asked to live a lie in order to serve the country they love.”

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GayCalgary & Edmonton Magazine #87, January 2011

25

Event

Snowballs Ski Weekend Times Two Jasper Pride Ring In the New Year with Winter Cheer Celebrating in a Winter Wonderland

By Dallas Barnes and Sam Casselman

By Dallas Barnes and Sam Casselman

Snowballs is helping you celebrate the winter months by offering two fun-filled weekends to enjoy, offering both winter activities and social networking.

One great thing about the summer is the fact that you could travel to any country in the world and find somewhere to celebrate Pride on any given weekend.

Perhaps more unique to Canada is that we have the thick skin to hold celebrations during the unbearable winter months, and this includes Jasper Pride.

The first trip of the season runs from January 28th to 30th in Banff.

Roundtrip transportation is provided by their very own party-bus that is licensed to serve alcohol, alongside of their contingent of movies, prizes, and entertainment. The bus departs on the Friday evening in Edmonton, with a quick stop in Calgary on the way, and returns that Sunday evening.

According to Aaron Churchill and Mike Stansberry, founders of Snowballs, this is a vacation for everyone to take pleasure in. “Skiers of all levels will find plenty of challenges and excitement in Banff, on both downhill slopes. Non-skiers who enjoy other winter activities, or who simply prefer a relaxing week in the mountains [after] the usual hectic holiday rush, are equally welcome.”

Banff has plenty of other activities to enjoy, even if you’re not much of a skier. You will be staying in a comfortable hotel that offers a hot tub to relax in, in walking distance from restaurants, shopping, and the excitement of downtown Banff.

Downhill skiers can enjoy both the Lake Louise Mountain Resort and the Sunshine Village Resort. There is even an opportunity to learn how to snowboard, or sign up for a lesson. Both of these resorts are world renowned and offer hills for beginners, intermediates, and experts.

There is plenty of opportunity for those that are travelling alone to make new friends. According to organizers, there are already singles signed up, and a fun night is planned at the Dancing Sasquatch Night Club on Saturday night.

Prices for the weekends are on a per-person basis and cover round-trip transportation, two nights accommodation, and lift tickets at both hills.

A continental breakfast provided each of the mornings that you will be travelling to and from the resorts on the bus.

Double Occupancy runs for $395.00 per person, triple occupancy $375.00, and quadruple occupancy at $355.00. If you don’t want to ski at Lake Louise a $50.00 discount applies, and if you feel the same about Sunshine you will get a $25.00 discount and a gondola pass. Final payments are due immediately.

Trip number two falls on the weekend of February 11th to 13th. The Snowballs Jasper Pride Weekend includes round trip transportation from Edmonton (fully licensed of course), two nights accommodation at Chateau Jasper which includes complimentary WIFI, two lift tickets at Marmont Basin, and access to Snowballs hospitality room, discounts on activities, dining and shopping, and all other fees and taxes.

You can add the Snowballs entertainment option for only $75.00 and this includes a continental breakfast each day in the Snowballs hospitality room, and a Prime Rib and Chicken Buffet dinner Saturday night, as well as the Jasper Pride Weekend entertainment ticket for Saturday night.

Once again, pricing is on a per-person basis. Single occupancy is $450.00, double occupancy $350.00, triple occupancy $330.00, and quadruple occupancy is $320.00. If you prefer to arrange your own accommodations, you can opt for the Snowballs Bus only option at a lower price of $90.00.

For more information on the Snowballs Events, or to purchase tickets, contact Mike or Aaron at the numbers below.

Snowballs Gay & Lesbian Ski Weekend Banff Weekend: January 28-31, 2011

26

This is now Jasper’s 2nd year holding Pride celebrations, and they would like everyone to come to the mountains and join in the festivities.

Jasper Pride began with the efforts of OUT Jasper, HIV West Yellowhead, and the support from local businesses including Mountain Park Lodges, Marmot Basin, Coco’s Café, and Jasper Adventure Centre in partnerships with Travel Alberta.

Jordan Tucker feels that in particular, OUT Jasper is on the right track. “OUT Jasper is a new LGBTQ project that was set up to create a supportive group for the community living in town and to educate and spread awareness of the LGBTQ community at large within the town and surrounding area. There will be outings such as ice skating, movie nights and cross country skiing in the winter. Once the summer is here again, there will be hiking, the 4th annual LGBTQ camping trip, BBQs and more. OUT Jasper will have its 4th annual International Day against Homophobia BBQ May 17th, celebrate National Coming out Day, while also continuing to visit the local and surrounding high schools to give talks on sexuality and bullying. All the while, OUT Jasper will be helping to work on Jasper Pride Weekend 2012.”

According to Pride Jasper, some of their goals for hosting the annual Jasper Pride Weekend are “to support OUT Jasper and the GLBTQ Community, create positive awareness within the community of Jasper to both locals and visitors while promoting Jasper as a gay friendly destination.”

Last year’s premiere event was attended by about 40 people along with friends and supporters. There was a plethora of activities and a night of dance and drink.

This year Pride Jasper runs from February 11th to 13th. Mountain Park Lodges and Chateau Jasper is the host hotel and they are featuring guest rooms for $79.00+tax per night (based on single/double occupancy). You are welcome to book at another hotel if you prefer, but if you would like to stay at the Chateau Jasper you can give them a call at 1-888-8JASPER to book your room.

There will be a mixer on the Friday night that comes complimentary with the Pride Package. It will be held in the Skyline Room, Lobstick Lodge right beside Chateau Jasper. There will be a cash bar, reception compliments and live music by local performer Sam Heine. There will also be a silent auction benefitting OUT Jasper.

On Saturday OUT Jasper and HIV West Yellowhead will be hosting a themed party at the Jasper Activity Centre. The cost is a small fee of $10.00 and again, all of the proceeds will go towards future events for OUT Jasper that include activities and peer support. There will be a performance by Rae Spoon, a drag show and dance with DJ Feen.

The two days worth of events include ski days. Marmot Basin will be featuring an Après Ski in the Lower Chalet at 3:00pm on Saturday afternoon.

Take some time to visit Jasper and celebrate Pride in a way only Canadians can!

Mike: 780-905-8182 Aaron: 780-908-5151

Pride Jasper February 11th – 13th, 2010 Jordan.Tucker@mpljasper.com

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GayCalgary & Edmonton Magazine #87, January 2011

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Community

GALA/LA

Serving Lethbridge’s GLBTA Community for 20 Years

By Dallas Barnes and Sam Casselman Lethbridge’s GLBTA community is celebrating a milestone this year. GALA/LA or The Gay and Lesbian Alliance of Lethbridge and Area will be celebrating its 20th year serving the queer community.

Mickey Wilson, President of GALA/LA took time to talk to GayCalgary & Edmonton Magazine about the past 20 years, and what lies ahead.

“The GALA/LA originated as the Southern Alberta Gay Equality group in the 1980’s. In 1991 it re-emerged into the group it is today. One of our current board members, Dave Mabell has been with us from the beginning.”

“GALA/LA is a dynamic, growing organization that is making a difference in our community. GALA/LA works with every one of the growing mosaic of LGBTTQ organizations in Lethbridge and others in Calgary, Medicine Hat and beyond. When asked, we support and sponsor other local queer organizations as well as other agencies and groups in Lethbridge and area by providing money, volunteers and supplies and equipment as we are able.

And even beyond our community, partnerships with organizations in the larger community continue to increase.”

“It is our hope that GALA/LA, along with the other members of the rich mosaic of LGBTTQ community organizations and passionate individuals, can continue to move forward toward the goal of creating a city and region free from all forms of oppression and discrimination.”

“As 2010 comes to a close, we want to share with you all the many accomplishments, successes and amazing steps forward that GALA/LA has made in the past eight months, each one of them with the members of our local LGBTTQ community in mind. We will continue to move forward with all of this work in 2011, redefining ourselves as a valuable and necessary resource and presence in the community.”

Enterring 2011, the current board is proud of their accomplishments over the past year.

Q Scopes

“Take up the tough issues, Leo!” Mars is very happy in Capricorn where the planet of energy and action is focused productively. Aspecting Uranus and Jupiter in Pisces, and Neptune in Aquarius, he can lose focus, but if you can stay on track while examining your process you can find new purpose and methods to strengthen your efforts.

ARIES (March 20–April 19): If you can focus (and there’s



the challenge!), you can achieve great things. Meditation can help tame that unruly, dreamy mind and draw inspiration.

Friends who want your time can be a distraction, or you can enlist them to help!



TAURUS (April 20–May 20): Ideas brewing in your head need a release. Getting yourself heard could help or hurt you at work. Discussing those notions with a friend first can help you improve them and see best where and how to air them.

GEMINI (May 21–June 20): Explore your fantasies and



bring them into your real-life lovemaking. Well, at least consider them carefully. Some of those dreams may need safety checks and adaptations to be performed in the physical world.

CANCER (June 21–July 22): Your fancy notions could

shock or titillate your partner. A discussion of limits may be in order. Even out of the sack, your sweetheart can help you with reality checks to help you figure out which of your dreams can come true.



LEO (July 23–August 22): Every relationship takes work.



Take up the tough issues now while it’s a little easier. You might be surprised at what problems can be resolved in the bedroom.

That might not solve everything, but it will at least help!

VIRGO (August 23–September 22): Your intuition is



especially clear now. With some practice you can learn to use it to better purpose in any kind of teamwork, practical or romantic.

Trust those hunches in healing any kind of relationship – or finding one.

“The current GALA/LA board has strengthened the organizational structure by developing good policies to govern and protect the organization.

Procedures and policies ensure responsible and respectful governance. Our committees have been streamlined under key areas of operation.”

LIBRA (September 23–October 22): As onerous as family

“Strong partnership development has been a hallmark of the past year.

As a result GALA/LA has a strong presence in the larger community and is involved in and invited to an increasing number of initiatives and events such as Pink Shirt Day, Homeless Connect and City Council presentations.”

SCORPIO (October 23–November 21): What you have

More partnerships include Lethbridge Family Services, Immigrant Services, The Aboriginal Council of Lethbridge, Lethbridge Regional Police Services, Woman Space, The Southern Alberta Ethnic Association, YWCA, The City of Lethbridge and the Government of Alberta, to name a few.

In the future, GALA/LA has much to look forward to. There will be a much needed group for queer youth kicking off in late January, and many groups created last year will be repeating this year. Some of these include rafting, hiking, bowling, a book club, Trans coffee nights, and dances. The redevelopment of the website will launch in mid-January, and last-but-notleast, GALA/LA will be changing its name! Make sure to check out their website to submit your ideas for a name change.

GALA/LA is a shining example of how communities can strengthen every year. Congratulations and here’s to another 20 years!

GALA/LA 1206 6 Ave South Lethbridge, Alberta T1J 1A4 403-308-2893 admin@galalethbridge.ca http://www.gaycalgary.com/a2037

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or community duties may feel, you can accomplish a lot and gain great influence. You’re creative enough to find a positive approach. Once you start there will be no stopping you!





to say is too important to be wasted. Polish those gems and be careful to share them where they are appreciated. A little imaginative probing can reveal family secrets or community scandals.



SAGITTARIUS (November 22–December 20): Discuss your

financial worries with a trustworthy friend, or a parent or sibling.

You may stumble on solutions or just realize that things aren’t as bad as you think. Clear your head of worry to think clearly about resources at hand.



CAPRICORN (December 21–January 19): Your sign

improves most with age, but exercising the body and mind are important for staying sharp. Advice from friends should be heard, but not necessarily followed. It could open your mind to even better possibilities.



AQUARIUS (January 20–February 18): Self-criticism can be very helpful if you don’t take it to extremes. There’s always room for improvement, and an honest assessment of your virtues and your flaws will make you clearer on what you have to offer.



PISCES (February 19–March 19): You have to be very careful not to give too much of yourself. Have a long talk with a friend you can count on to be ruthlessly honest about your limits and how you should set them.

Jack Fertig, a professional astrologer since 1977 teaches at the Online College of Astrology : http://www.astrocollege.com. He can be reached for personal or business consultations at 415-864-8302 or through his website at http://www.starjack.com

GayCalgary & Edmonton Magazine #87, January 2011

27

Gossip Glee becomes Gayest TV Show Ever The all-singing, all-dancing show’s lone gay character Kurt, played by Chris Colfer, was all over the place in season one. He was strong, he was weak, he was predatory, he was vulnerable.

And then along season two came with a triple whammy: a tender father/son dynamic unlike anything seen on network TV up to this point, an intriguing bullying plotline that injected tension into a series that often feels weightless and a swoon-inducing introduction of a new gay character played by Darren Criss, one that may or may not be Kurt’s ticket to teen romance. All of this on a show families watch together. We’ve come a long way from Will & Grace.

Black Swan magnetizes audiences, Phillip Morris’s pull somewhat weaker The ballerina-cracking-up psychodrama Black Swan, starring Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis and that lesbian sex scene, broke opening weekend records for a movie in limited release, racking up per-screen box office tallies previously unheard of for a decidedly non-mainstream film. Now it’s gone wide and looks like a lock for a slew of Oscar nominations. Meanwhile, the weird saga of one of the year’s most daring, biting comedies, I Love You Phillip Morris gets its final chapter, as the American film actually earns, at long last, an American theatrical release.

Featuring Jim Carrey in what may be the most out-on-a-limb performance of the year (not to mention his entire career), the movie also features some explicit gay sex between Carrey and co-star Ewan McGregor that’s keeping away the same male audience lining up to see Natalie and Mila go at it. Expect Academy Award voters to give it an undeserved cold shoulder too.

“It Gets Better” fights against tragedy

 Cast of Glee, by Matthias Clamer/FOX

Deep Inside Hollywood Best Gay Entertainment Stories of 2010

By Romeo San Vicente

Modern Family goes there Modern Family began its second season the object of fan protest. Why, asked viewers, on a sitcom featuring a gay couple, is that gay couple never seen being affectionate the way the straight couples are? It came down to a Facebook campaign, some idiotic “Who cares?” mouthing off from co-star Ed O’Neill (who should really know better by now) and then an episode the show’s creators assured us had always been on the agenda, one in which Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Eric Stonestreet finally gave each other a husbandly smooch. Feathers unruffled, the Earth didn’t fall into the Sun and now those guys are the first fictional gay couple on the cover of TV Guide. Holding their TV baby. Everybody wins.

28

GayCalgary & Edmonton Magazine #87, January 2011

Sex columnist and humorist Dan Savage had an idea to use the Internet to combat anti-gay sentiment aimed at teenagers, vicious abuse that was causing a wave of teen suicides. It was simple: any gay or lesbian grown-up with a camera and a happy life was invited to share their story and the truth that, in fact, life does get better once you’ve left that awful high school behind.

Within weeks a phenomenon was born, one that got bigger and bigger, one that included celebrities and local politicians – even actors like Zachary Quinto, who isn’t exactly openly gay – and did what no “very special episode” of a fictional movie or TV show could do: affect real lives. Sometimes regular people are the stars.

Oprah and Gayle: Still not lesbians Barbara Walters, while talking to Oprah Winfrey for her annual roundup of “fascinating” people, broached the tired old rumors that have followed Oprah and Gayle King (and, by extension, poor Steadman, too) for years. Never mind that Oprah has talked about it on her own show many times. Never mind that Oprah and Gayle discussed it in a widely read interview in O magazine; until Barbara Walters gets an answer, the question hasn’t been asked. So this time Oprah responded in a new way, by crying about it. It was weird, it involved her personal feelings about friendship between women, and only served to make it all seem that much more unresolved. Thanks Barbara Walters, now we all have to keep talking about it.

Romeo San Vicente can be reached care of this publication.

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Lifestyle

Cocktail Chatter

Kahlua, Cream and Fiasco: The White Russian

by Ed Sikov My cold lasted another week, so forget about literary reticence. Let the gross descriptions fly: Snot spewed out of my nose like raw scrambled eggs, only darker, more translucent, and graced by tiny bloblets of blood.

My lungs hacked up a hocker so gray it could have come out of an old coal miner. When I wasn’t wiping smears of sputum off my hands, sheets and nearby skin mags, I contemplated my recent poor behavior. Dan was right: I’d become “an old-fashioned asshole.” Dan was nothing but affectionate with me, even after I spat goose-shit-green mucous onto his pillow while he slept. He deserved better from me. So did my friends.

When I stopped being viral, I invited Craig and Kyle to dinner.

Surprisingly, Craig didn’t hang up on me when I called. “I’m sorry…” I began. He cut me off: “Listen, dollface – I’ll forgive you anything as long as you keep your tongue off my boyfriend.” “RightO!” I sang out, anxiety turning me strangely into Terry-Thomas in some British war comedy. “How about dinner here on Saturday?

It’s Chicken Cacciatore and an after-dinner drink that doesn’t suck.” All was well.

Dinner was a disaster. Dan was late, so I had to wield the vacuum cleaner and a can of Pledge and set the table while trying to make what turned out to be an absurdly complicated “hunter’s style” chicken with only half the ingredients the recipe called for. (I hadn’t bothered with a shopping list. “Calling Dr. Freud! STAT!”) The result was a greasy, taste-free horror – no wild mushrooms, no fresh sage or thyme, clumpy years-old garlic salt instead of garlic… . “Hunter’s style?” What were they hunting – something out of Oliver Twist?

Having tasted the cacciatore, I downed some Tormore Single Malt and became morose. But when Dan waltzed in mere minutes before Craig and Kyle were supposed to show up, my irrepressible life force returned. I became hostile. Craig and Kyle thus entered during the second act of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, with me playing both George and Martha. I behaved terribly; Dan was rightly embarrassed. I might have summoned enough dignity not to spend the whole evening staring at the gap between Kyle’s bottom shirt button and his belt, a space out of which a perfect tuft of soft hair emerged. Craig noticed, much to his glee and my continuing disgrace.

But dessert was fabulous! The White Russian is one of my favorite cream-based cocktails because of its subtlety, simplicity and relative lack of sweetness. It’s got a little Kahlua for a café au lait effect, vodka for some kick and thick, chilled heavy cream for the mouthto-belly bliss that only cold dairy fat can provide. Still, two rounds of White Russians wasn’t enough to make up for hurling lettuce fragments and bacon chunks in Craig’s face after discovering that puppy Kyle had been gobbled up by Jabba the Hut. Am I still bitter? You bet your elephantine ass I am.

The White Russian 1 part Absolut 1/2 part coffee liqueur 1 part chilled heavy cream Put some ice in a shaker and add all the ingredients; put the cap on and swirl it around a bit rather than shake it. (After all, you’re not trying to make liquor butter.) Pour through strainer into a good-looking glass and serve.

Drink, Pay, Love: Rum and Coke News of my breakdown spread like an aging star’s belly; soon unflattering photos of me in Star would be on the horizon. I knew I’d become a public whack-job when some naked guy I didn’t know approached me in the gym locker room: “Hey, man – I’ve been through it. The guy who stole my dreamboy wasn’t obese – he just stank like a train station tearoom. But it turned Jeremy on. I didn’t.

Solidarnosc, bud!” Then he strolled off to the steam room.

Who was this guy? Had somebody put my crackup on Reuters? I leapt back into therapy. Gary was always sympathetic – I’d seen him when my mother was dying – but he was no cheerleader. When he thought I was nutty he told me so, once even using that exact word.

“So tell me,” Gary said as he leaned back in his chair. And I did.

Gary’s face remained placid. “Does this remind you of anything?”

“Yup,” I replied. “My dick, my mother and my bank account.”

“What does the money represent to you?” Gary asked earnestly.

“It ‘represents’ another transfer of wealth from me to you,” I snarled.

“Help me get over this now or I walk.” Gary looked stunned for a moment, regained his composure and softly said, “That’s such a cruddy thing to say that I think you’re genuinely terrified.” I burst into tears.

“Look,” Gary said. “We’ve all made fools of ourselves at one time or another. This is your time. Wallow in it. When you’re really sick of yourself, we’ll talk about why you’re acting this way.”

“Gary, please! I’m already sick of myself.”

“If you were, you’d stop being so nutty.”

“That word again!” I shouted. “Even you hate me.”

Silence ensued for seven minutes. Only when he said, “Time’s up,” did either of us move.

I thought constantly about my – what? – hysteria? One thing was certain: I was, in Dan’s immortal phrase, “an old-fashioned asshole.” OK, I indulged in a hell-as-comedy routine – the Three Dog Night variation, “I’m just an old-fashioned asshole/one I’m sure that frightens you and me” – but twice a week, with great effort, I told Gary some of the secret shames I’d withheld from him earlier.

Five weeks later, with Gary’s help, I worked up the nerve to call Craig. I heard Kyle in the background cleaning up after dinner – probably rigatoni stuffed with lard and covered in a cream-based triple-fat-cheese sauce for Craig, a hard-boiled egg for Kyle – and once again Craig was forgiving. “Sweetness,” he said, “We all know you’re a mess. You’ve been a mess for years. It’s not news. I’m Tubby the Whale, and you’re Olivia de Havilland in The Snake Pit. It’s who we are. Embrace it! You and Dan come over to my place in an hour. I’ll make some cocktails.”

“What?” I asked skeptically.

“Control freak,” Craig announced. Then he hung up on me.

Rum and Coke Rum to taste – I like dark rum to go with the dark cola. Craig used some store brand; use what you like.

Coca-Cola (in a nod to Kyle, used Coke Zero; I suppressed an instinctive “yeccchhhh” and downed it with humility.

Pour rum into a tall, ice-filled glass. Add Coke slowly and stir gently; don’t kill the fizz. Then stay up all night from the caffeine, get fat from the sugar, stop worrying and live for the moment.

Ed Sikov is the author of Dark Victory: The Life of Bette Davis and other books about films and filmmakers.

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GayCalgary & Edmonton Magazine #87, January 2011

29

Advice

Queeries

We want to help other kids fight bullying

By Steven Petrow “We want to help other kids fight bullying” Q: It’s been so upsetting to the queer kids at my middle school to hear about all the teen suicides lately and the awful bullying going on. One guy I know got punched in the face recently and his Facebook page was smeared with homophobic comments like “faggot.” What can we do to help our friends?

A: That’s really admirable that you want to reach out to other kids in trouble. This recent series of high-publicity gay teen suicides has lots of people asking that same question: “What can we do?” And while the answers at first feel overwhelming, my advice in this situation is quite clear: It’s everyone’s responsibility to help fight public and private expressions of homophobia and transphobia, especially when violence is involved or could be anticipated.

The truth is that you and your friends may already be doing the two most important things: Being yourselves and supporting each other. But there’s always more.

In the case of your friend at the other school, you could certainly help him if you suggested that he talk to his parents or school officials about reporting that assault —yes, he was assaulted. I know that can be hard to do, but you can’t stop bullying unless he (or she) is called on it.

That Facebook mess is an example of how “direct” confrontation has its place: Without saying anything threatening or targeting individuals by name, go ahead and post some supportive messages on the guy’s page. Make sure that lots of your other friends do that too. You can also report the individuals making the hateful comments to Facebook, who will cancel their accounts.

“Dad just told us he’s gay” Q: On National Coming Out Day, my father recently told the family that he’s gay. To be honest, I didn’t know what to say back to him. What would you have suggested?

A: In a dream world, you’d be genuinely happy for your father and shout “Mazel tov” or “Congratulations” and give him a big hug. And it would be but one supportive voice among many, with warm wishes from friends, colleagues and other relatives alike. But if that’s not in your heart right now, at the very least I’d suggest you thank your dad for being open and honest with you and tell him that your love for him has not changed. Most LGBT people—yes, even our fathers and mothers—fear rejection more than anything else when they’re coming out. By the way, it’s not too late to take my advice and speak with your dad.

“My best friend’s lover is fooling around” Q: The other day my friend, Stan, invited me over for drinks.

When I got to his apartment, Barry, who is partnered with my best friend, had just come out of the bedroom wearing a towel.

It was really awkward and Stan was shocked that I know Barry and his partner. Barry and my best friend have been together for years and their relationship is supposed to be monogamous: Do I tell my friend, yell at Barry -- or just keep my mouth shut?

A: Yikes! What’s up with Stan that he invited you over while he still has a paramour on the premises?

If you step back from the situation a little, however, you’ll realize that best thing that could happen would be for Barry to let you know that he’s going fess up to his partner—so that 1) you don’t have to and 2) you won’t have to have a guilty conscience about saying nothing to your friend. With any luck, Barry will reach out to you with this plan. But, if he doesn’t, call him and let him know “what a good idea” you’d think it would be for him to “do the right thing.” Obviously, the implied threat 30

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is that if he doesn’t speak up, you will, but I wouldn’t actually say that.

Still, Barry may call your bluff by not saying anything. Then, I’d fold and sit it out on the sidelines because you’re really in a no-win situation. If you turn Barry in, there’s the slight possibility that your understanding of their monogamous status was wrong in the first place -- or that sharing this information wasn’t what your friend would have wanted. Perhaps, ignorance may be bliss for him.

Finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that couples often do “kill the messenger” in a charged situation like this. If these two fellows get through this rough patch and back to trusting each other, there’s a real possibility they will both view you as interfering or as a troublemaker. If in the end, if your friend does find out that you knew about his philandering partner and didn’t say anything, tell him the truth: That was Barry’s responsibility.

Gay cop faces harassment Q: I started working as a police officer just last year. When I was first hired, pretty much everyone asked me why I’m not married. Then came the gay jokes. I’ve tried to let it go since I’m still a rookie, but it seems like they know I’m gay and want to push me out the door. How would you handle this?

A: As a law enforcement officer yourself, you may know that the workplace you’re describing pretty much fits the description of “hostile” and your treatment verges on harassment. It may even be sexual harassment, depending on various factors such as whether your harassers know you’re gay. Often, people think that sexual harassment only happens to women, but that’s not the case. In fact, it was only recently that same-sex sexual harassment became widely accepted as real. The law now extends its protections to all of us, regardless of gender or sexual orientation.

However your workplace mistreatment might eventually be categorized, there are things you can do about it. Start by talking informally and off-the-record to a supervisor or ombudsman (someone whom you think is generally supportive), to decide whether or not to file an official complaint. At the same time, do your best to make sure you have communicated that the “jokes” offend you or make you uncomfortable. This communication can be in person, by letter or through email. In addition, keep a diary of what’s going on, including dates, times, places and what exactly has been said and done and by whom. Also keep track what you have done in response.

If all else fails, make an official report to the department and/ or contact an LGBT rights group or an attorney specializing in employment law to find out your options. But be careful: Lesbians and gay men can be fired at will simply because of their sexual orientation. And until Congress enacts the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, that will remain the case.

Breast cancer makes me nervous about sex Q: I’m a lesbian who’s had breast cancer. I’ve been dating a little but am uncomfortable about my body and not sure when to discuss the various health issues and the marks they’ve left.

Before we have sex – or after?

A: Starting to date and then going to bed with someone new can raise all kinds of anxieties; add into the mix feeling selfconscious about scars and/or the loss of body parts and I can understand why you might feel uncomfortable. Your question is part and parcel of one of the most common of dating concerns:

Continued on Page 31  www.gaycalgary.com

Community

Inspirational Iocchelli Rallies Community

By Brandon Chaisson It was Mother Teresa who said “Not all of us can do great things, but we can do small things with great love”.

This simple, yet empowering, quote has stayed with fundraiser and event planner, John Iocchelli.

Iocchelli, who just held two successful fundraisers at Club Sapien, was inspired by Mother Teresa’s words and decided to act upon them. After speaking with friends and asking them what they believed would improve Calgary’s GLBTQ community, he decided to organize a group to rally people.

“The response quite often is, does Calgary even have a GLBTQ community?” Iocchelli said.

With this simple question, he created Gay Friends in Calgary, a group designed to foster a new kind of cohesiveness amongst community members. By targeting the needs of individuals, whether they are more political or social, Iocchelli hopes to achieve unity by providing a place where people can meet others for friendship, dating or support.

“For many, the journey is difficult and providing a soft place for people to land is essential to a community’s wellbeing,” he added.

With each step forward in being accepted by the general public, the GLBTQ community takes a step back in accepting one another. When things like “no fats” or “no fems” are being slung around, the discrimination isn’t coming from just the straight community any longer.

By working to create an environment where everyone is not only tolerated but instead, completely accepted, Iocchelli hopes to tear down walls created by our own “brothers and sisters in the community”, to share a common cause.

Once he had gathered a dedicated group of members willing to move the group forward, Iocchelli geared himself to other things.

Among his event planning, he has organised and held several major fundraising events, including the one-year anniversary of Gay Friends in Calgary, which raised $3,300, and another called Calgary Artists for Life, which raised $4,400 and benefitted AIDS Calgary.

Each event was designed with not only the idea of helping community organizations, but also to help focus on fun ways to unite people in the GLBTQ community, giving them the opportunity to be with friends as well as to make new ones.

Calgarians tend to see themselves as busy people, so it isn’t always easy to convince individuals within the community to take responsibility for others.

“The success of any event depends majorly on the patrons who support the cause by attending the event,” Iocchelli explains.

However, Iocchelli believes despite the obstacles, the most gratifying part is knowing that the event has brought people together.

Iocchelli attributes part of the success of such events and fundraisers to Club Sapien, where several of his most recent happenings have been held.

“Their presence in the community has been felt and will continue to enrich the lives of GLBTQ Calgarians because it is their mission, as stated at the entrance to the business,” Iocchelli said.

Iocchelli plans to hold another Calgary Artists for Life later this year where he plans to have an even larger impact by raising more funds to benefit people living with HIV/ www.gaycalgary.com

AIDS and by raising more awareness by drawing people who wouldn’t normally attend such an event.

For more information on the fundraiser, or to get involved, please contact John Iocchelli by e-mailing him at johnthesub@gmail.com “Building a community involves person-to-person contact and making connections to others...,” Iocchelli believes.

“We need to turn off our cellular and smart phones and pay more attention to the people who are actually in the room with us.”

http://www.gaycalgary.com/a2042

View Bonus Pics/Videos • Share with a Friend • Post Comments  Queeries - From Page 30 When do you talk about the “skeletons” in your closet? The answer is slowly. As the relationship deepens, offer up the basic facts of your medical history and be open to any questions. Not surprisingly, that’s why many of us with body image concerns (full disclosure: I have a testicular prosthesis) choose to wait to have sex until we’re comfortable enough with a new partner to discuss these issues. Still, steel yourself for the possibility of rejection. Once, after I told a new boyfriend that I had had testicular cancer, he thanked me for being honest and sent me on my way, saying: “I just buried my partner who died from cancer. I can’t go down that path again.”

The last word: Don’t forget that each of us is the composite of our experiences (surgery included), and these make our beauty unique.

Gay couple (plus cat) contemplates a holiday photo card Q: Many of my straight friends send holiday cards with their kids front and center. Since my partner and I don’t have any offspring, can we send a card with just us as the cover models? We could add in our cat if you think that would help.

A: Most holiday photo cards feature kids (“aren’t they adorable!”) or vacation destinations (“look at how fabulous we are!”) as key elements. The truth is that these images are just another example of the deep narcissistic streak in our culture (“look at me and my beautiful family”). But there are limits: It’s actually pretty rare that couples alone -- straight or gay -- pose for their close-ups without a supporting player. Since equality is all about parity, I’d say do go ahead with your close-up—just don’t forget your cat (“isn’t she beautiful?”)

One last note: If you’re not already out, this is quietly effective way to do so. Imagine the photo: two husbands and their cat in front of the fireplace. (“The warmest of holidays from Justin, Benji, and Garfield!”)

Steven Petrow [www.gaymanners.com) is the author of “The Essential Book of Gay Manners & Etiquette” and a regular contributor to Huffington Post and GayWeddings.com. Send him your questions: ask@gaymanners.com

http://www.gaycalgary.com/a2041

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GayCalgary & Edmonton Magazine #87, January 2011

31

Photography ISCCA Xmas Show at the Texas Lounge - Calgary

ISCCA Xmas Show at Club Sapien - Calgary

Living Xmas Tree at the Calgary Eagle Misc Youth at Club Sapien, Calgary

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GayCalgary & Edmonton Magazine #87, January 2011

www.gaycalgary.com

Photography ISCWR Miss Mary Christmas Pageant at the Junction, Edmonton

www.gaycalgary.com

GayCalgary & Edmonton Magazine #87, January 2011

33

St. Petersburg’s Renaissance Out of Town

 Downtown St. Petersburg’s beautiful waterfront, with the elegant (and very pink) Renaissance Vinoy Resort in the background.

by Andrew Collins Although Florida’s fourth-largest city has seen a minimal increase in population over the past 30 years, this sunny metropolis on a peninsula between Tampa Bay and the Gulf of Mexico has changed a great deal demographically.

Once unflatteringly dubbed “God’s Waiting Room” for its predominant retirement-age population, the city and surrounding beach towns have become dramatically more youthful and vibrant of late, and this extends to the region’s gay community, which has grown significantly.

St. Petersburg now hosts the state’s largest gay pride march (in late June), and the region is home to dozens of LGBT-owned businesses.

Greater St. Petersburg is made up of numerous distinct neighborhoods and municipalities, from downtown – which fringes Tampa Bay – to the many beach towns that extend south to north some 50 miles from Fort De Soto State Park (which regularly notches awards for having one of the cleanest and most beautiful beaches in the country) to Clearwater, Dunedin and Tarpon Springs. Much of the region’s emerging gay scene is focused on downtown, a historic mid-city neighborhood called Kenwood, and the small town of Gulfport, which lies just across lovely Boca Ciega Bay from St. Pete Beach and the Gulf of Mexico.

All of these areas have been integral in St. Petersburg’s steady renaissance, increased hipster appeal and continued popularity with LGBT visitors.

Downtown St. Petersburg is home to several noteworthy hotels as well as a bumper crop of trendy restaurants and boutiques, many of these located in the upscale, open-air BayWalk shopping 34

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center. What’s particularly special about downtown is the wealth of internationally renowned arts and cultural attractions. The one receiving the most attention right now is the iconic Salvador Dali Museum, which has been a fixture in St. Petersburg since the early 1980s but is slated to reopen in a dramatic new waterfront space on the south edge of downtown in January 2011 - right beside the impressive Mahaffey Theater performing arts complex.

Another must is the acclaimed Museum of Fine Arts, which has a sterling permanent collection and also mounts important traveling shows. Steps away is the striking Chihuly Collection, opened in summer 2010 and containing works by seminal glass artist Dale Chihuly. Both attractions are along leafy Beach and Bay Shore drives, which straddle a lush park and overlook Tampa Bay. From here it’s a short stroll along 2nd Avenue out to St. Petersburg Pier, which is presently anchored by a kitschylooking inverted-pyramid with touristy shops and an aquarium (it’s currently slated to be razed and replaced with a new building in a few years).

Head just a couple of miles west of downtown to reach the Grand Central District, the commercial center of historic Kenwood and home to the highest concentration of gay-owned businesses in the city, not to mention dozens of impressively restored Craftsman bungalows. About four miles southwest, funky and historic Gulfport is notable for its offbeat cafes and galleries, and for hosting a popular Art Walk the first Friday and third Saturday of each month.

Continue west across the Highway 682 causeway to reach the string of barrier islands that hold the region’s beach communities – turn left (south) to reach pristine Fort De Soto State Park and www.gaycalgary.com

Travel the charming town of Pass-A-Grille, or turn right (north) to visit tony St. Pete Beach, Treasure Island and Madeira Beach. In Treasure Island, you’ll find the most gay-identified of the region’s beaches, the so-called “Bedrocks Beach.” It’s a little tricky to find – when you cross the bridge from St. Pete Beach onto Treasure Island, turn left at the 7-Eleven onto West Gulf Boulevard and follow it south for a mile to the parking area just north of the Mansions by the Sea condo tower. Follow the boardwalk over the short span of dunes, and you’ll typically find plenty of gays and lesbians tanning their hides along the beautiful beachfront.

Head a bit north up the coast and you’ll come to the resort city of Clearwater, which has a lively, somewhat up-market beachfront separated from downtown by a picturesque harbor.

And still a bit farther north is the funky little town of Dunedin, which has a charming, gay-friendly cluster of shops, boutiques and restaurants along its historic downtown Main Street.

St. Petersburg has seen an influx of notable restaurants in recent years. One of the city’s classics is Marchand’s Bar & Grill (http://www.marchandsbarandgrill.com), a refined venue inside the historic Renaissance Vinoy Resort – for a special occasion, this is one of the top spots in town, whether for dinner or Sunday brunch. Overlooking the marina at the foot of the pier, Fresco’s Waterfront Bistro (http://site.chefjasonesposito.com) pulls in a festive happy-hour crowd, serves mouthwatering haddock po’boys, and provides lovely views of the waterfront.

A relative newcomer, Cassis (http://www.cassisab.com) serves reliably good French bistro fare in an urbane setting – choose a table on the sidewalk when the weather is nice. A few blocks north, Hooker Tea Company (http://hookertea.com) is a cheery option for gelato, pastries and toothsome breakfast fare. Drop by slick and arty Kahwa Coffee (http://www.kahwacoffee.com) for first-rate espresso and drip coffee. Bella Brava (http://www. bellabrava.com) and Ceviche Tapas Bar (http://www.ceviche. com) are two additional downtown notables, each cultivating a fairly trendy crowd. And the see-and-be-seen Independent (http://www.independentbeer.com) attracts a stylish, arty crowd for hard-to-find imported beers, fine wines by the glass and live music.

In Gulfport, head to Habana Cafe (http://www.habanacafeusa.com) for authentic Cuban fare (including delicious drunken shrimp with garlic and mojo sauce); and La Fogata Churrascaria (http://www.lafogataonline.com) for well-prepared seafood, steaks, tapas and elegant cocktails. MadFish (http://www. madfishonline.com) is a slick spot set inside a shimmering stainless-steel diner in St. Pete Beach – the kitchen here turns out creative contemporary fare. At nearby Wildwood BBQ & Burger (http://www.brguestrestaurants.com/restaurants/ wildwood_bbq) you can feast on tasty comfort food – note the impressive list of small-batch bourbons.

Tiny downtown Dunedin has several good restaurants, including Pan y Vino (http://www.panyvino.com), for brick-oven pizzas and a nice selection of wines by the glass; and the gaypopular Mexican restaurant Casa Tina (http://www.casatinas. com).

St. Petersburg’s Grand Central District has a few good restaurants, one of which, the stylish Queen’s Head (http:// www.thequeensheadbar.com), is also one of the city’s top LGBT nightlife options. Sip cocktails in one of the outdoor cabanas or inside the slick bar and dining area, where you might enjoy a dinner of pan-roasted skate with truffle-mash carrots, beetrootvanilla chutney and lemon oil. A few blocks away is arguably the most gay bar in the city, Georgie’s Alibi (http://www.georgiesalibi. com), which pulls in a youthful, see-and-be-seen crowd.

Other good bets along the Grand Central corridor include Gemini Lounge (http://www.myspace.com/gemini_lounge), which books fun live bands; Detour, a laid-back watering hole; quirky Lucky Star Lounge (http://www.myspace.com/ luckystarlounge28), which is tucked behind a liquor store; and Beak’s Old Florida, an inviting tavern and grill that has a popular following with straights and gays.

You’ll find a few other neighborhood bars around the city, such as Haymarket Pub, a low-keyed dive bar on the north side of the city - it’s next door to the Hideaway, which bills itself the longest-

running lesbian bar in the United States. Gulfport gay lounges include the Oar House Bar and Pepperz Lounge, both of which are a bit down at the heels. You may have a better experience strolling along the community’s main drag, Beach Boulevard, and stopping by any of the many gay-friendly bars and eateries - Peg’s (http://www.pegscantina.com) is a particular standout, known for terrific hand-crafted ales with a kitchen serving fresh and well-prepared in Mexican food.

In downtown Clearwater, the convivial Pro Shop Pub (http:// www.proshoppub.us) is one of the oldest gay bars in the state and has a popular following at happy hour. Just north in downtown Dunedin, the Kelly’s/Blur (http://www.kellyschicaboom.com) complex comprises an LGBT-friendly nightclub, showbar, martini lounge and casual American restaurant.

St. Petersburg is home to one of the largest gay resorts in the country, the Flamingo (http://www.flamingofla.com), which in addition to being a popular LGBT nightlife venue has a large central pool, a good restaurant and 130 simply but pleasantly furnished – and reasonably priced – hotel rooms.

The city’s grandest and most famous hotel is the swell-elegant Renaissance Vinoy Resort (http://www.marriott.com), which has long been a friend to the gay community. This pink palace overlooks the downtown waterfront, comprising both a historic main building, which opened in 1927, and a newer wing with roomier accommodations but a still-classic color scheme and design. Amenities include an impressive health club and spa, golf at the resort’s private course a couple of miles away, and excellent dining at three different restaurants.

There are also several excellent, mid-priced chain properties downtown, including the Courtyard Marriott (http://www. marriott.com), the Hampton Inn and Suites (http://www. stpetehamptonsuites.com) and the hip, lime-hued Hotel Indigo (http://www.hotelindigo.com) – all are just a few minutes’ walk from Tampa Bay and major museums. You’ll also find few gayfriendly and very charming B&Bs in the Old Northeast Historic District, which flanks downtown and is a pleasant walk from shops and restaurants. Among these, the gay-owned Dickens House (http://www.dickenshouse.com) is a stunning example of Arts and Crafts architecture with plush, beautifully furnished accommodations. Also consider the Mansion House B&B (http:// www.mansionbandb.com), with its glorious full-size pool; and the Beach Drive Inn (http://www.beachdriveinn.com), which is across from the famed Renaissance Vinoy Hotel.

The well-priced and popular clothing-optional GayStPete House (http://www.gaystpetehouse.com) is an excellent base for proximity to the bars and restaurants of the Grand Central District, and in Gulfport, consider the marvelous Sea Breeze Manor Bed & Breakfast (http://www.seabreezemanor.com), a historic Tudor-style 1920s house that overlooks Boca Ciega Bay and has spacious, warmly appointed rooms.

Across the bay in St. Pete Beach you’ll find the area’s other famous grande dame, the Loews Don Cesar Resort (http://www. loewshotels.com), an opulent, pink wedding-cake of a hotel that’s hosted countless celebrities and appeared in such prominent films as Health and Once Upon a Time in America. Nearby, the circa-1957 Postcard Inn on the Beach (http://www.postcardinn. com) is a sleek, surfer-chic boutique hotel on the water that’s steadily developed a gay following – book a poolside cabana room for optimum swank factor.

For easy access to Clearwater and a location in the heart of charming downtown Dunedin, look no further than the stylish Meranova Guest Inn (http://www.meranova.com), which has eight tastefully furnished rooms, each with private entrances.

www.gaycalgary.com

Andrew Collins covers gay travel for the New York Times-owned website About.com and is the author of Fodor’s Gay Guide to the USA. He can be reached care of GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine.

http://www.gaycalgary.com/a2044

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35

San Antonio, Texas Out of Town

 Restaurants and bars line the festive River Walk in downtown San Antonio. Photo by Andrew Collins

by Andrew Collins Although it draws more visitors than any other city in Texas, San Antonio has always been a little less pronounced as a gay destination than Austin, Dallas, and Houston. This is changing, however, as the city’s reputation for innovative arts, distinctive dining, hip boutique hotels, gay-friendly B&Bs, and friendly but lively GLBT nightlife has grown tremendously over the past decade. The tried-and-true, family-friendly classic attractions are still here: raucous theme parks, the glittery River Walk, and - of course - the Alamo. But now you’ll also find emerging arts districts and chef-owned restaurants specializing in everything from Belgian bistro fare to haute Nuevo Latino cuisine.

The city has made a concerted effort in recent years to reach out to gay visitors - note that the San Antonio tourism office has an LGBT section on its website (www.visitsanantonio.com/ visitors/SanAntoniosLGBTScene/index.aspx).

Downtown San Antonio has been carefully protected by a zealous spirit of historic preservation. At the turn of the century, concerned local citizens fought developers bent on converting the Alamo into a hotel. Similar efforts led to the restoration of the city’s other iconic landmark, the San Antonio River, with its enchanting River Walk.

Only a fraction of the original Spanish Colonial mission known popularly as the Alamo stands today: the small chapel whose facade has come to symbolize the pride and independence of Texas, and one of the living quarters. The buildings are set within a tranquil walled plaza of lawns and gardens. It’s one of 36

GayCalgary & Edmonton Magazine #87, January 2011

five missions built along the San Antonio River during the 18th century. The other four, which are south of downtown within 6 miles of one another, have been preserved and are open to the public. Stop by the San Antonio Missions National Historical Park for details.

Steps from the Alamo you’ll find the fabled River Walk, a network of cobbled and flagstone paths hugging the San Antonio River some 15 feet below street level. The branches of cypress and willow trees droop over the walk. During the day it makes for a peaceful stroll, and river taxis offer tours that provide an excellent sense of the architecture and greenery. Recently, the River Walk has been extended to the historic Pearl Brewing Complex, which has been converted to a dashing mixed-use complex of condos, studios, restaurants, shops, and branches of Aveda Institute and the Culinary Institute of America - there’s also a farmers market here on Saturdays and Wednesdays.

Between downtown and the Pearl, you’ll find the San Antonio Museum of Art, which inhabits the former Lone Star brewery and is famous for its Asian works and arguably the nation’s premier collection of Latin American art. If you have a car, it’s worth continuing north to such notable attractions as the San Antonio Botanical Gardens, the Japanese Tea Gardens, the San Antonio Zoological Gardens and Aquarium, and the McNay Art Museum (which doubled in size following a sleek and eyecatching expansion $50 million expansion in 2009). And on the city’s true outskirts, there’s fun to be had at Schlitterbahn Waterpark, Seaworld of Texas, and Six Flags Fiesta Texas.

A few blocks south of downtown, HemisFair Park contains the remnants of the 1968 World’s Fair attractions, including the 750-foot Tower of the Americas and several museums. Be www.gaycalgary.com

Travel sure to check out La Villita, a nearby complex of more than two dozen arts and crafts shops, as well as downtown’s impressive new Briscoe Western Art Museum. Continue south to reach the King William Historic District, where many of San Antonio’s early German immigrants settled and built elaborate Victorian mansions (one particular ornate one, the Edward Steves Homestead, is open for tours). It’s adjacent to the more modest but increasingly hip Southtown area, which buzzes with funky shops, galleries, and restaurants.

San Antonio emergence into a first-rate culinary destination has been rapid of late. It’s still worth considering classics like Paesanos (http://www.paesanosriverwalk.com), a festive Northern Italian trattoria on the River Walk, and elegant Biga on the Banks (http://www.biga.com), one of the first restaurants in town to earn praise for truly daring contemporary regional cuisine.

In Southtown, Azuca (http://www.azuca.net) is an airy space decorated with the colorful glass art (blown next door at Garcia Glass studio) and serving terrific Nuevo Latino fare, from ceviche to plantain-crusted salmon with olive-garlic butter. There’s live Latin music and dancing many evenings. A few steps away, La Frite (http://www.lafritesa.com) is known for hearty but sophisticated Belgian bistro fare, such as frisee salad with bacon lardons, and mussels prepared in several different ways.

It’s a sophisticated storefront spot with closely spaced tables and a fun vibe. San Antonio’s famed (and gay-popular) Liberty Bar (http://www.liberty-bar.com) moved to Southtown in 2010 and remains a fine option for crab cakes, salads, and excellent cheese plates. Nearby in King William, Madhatters (http://www. madhatterstea.com ) draws a “who’s who” of local characters for coffee, beer, wine, conversation, and great food.

Southtown is also home to one of the better Tex-Mex option in San Antonio, Rosario’s (http://www.rosariossa.com0, a loud and spacious joint with live music on weekends, and such tasty dishes as chorizo quesadillas and steak ranchera topped with poblano peppers. Other reliably good bets for traditional Mexican food include La Fonda on Main (http://www.lafondaonmain. com), which is close to the gay nightlife district; El Milagrito (http://elmilagritocafe.com), a colorful and affordable spot on the hip St. Mary’s Strip, and Mi Tierra Cafe, in the touristy but fun Mercado, where you can find vendors selling roasted corn and shops carrying Mexican arts and crafts. If nothing else, come to Mi Tierra (http://www.mitierracafe.com) to admire the long case of delicious colorful cookies and sweets - it’s open 24/7.

Other restaurants of note around the city include downtown’s romantic Fig Tree (http://www.figtreerestaurant.com), which has outdoor seating on a stepped terrace that descends toward the River Walk, and the trendy and lively Zinc Wine Bar (http:// zincwine.com), a downtown hot spot with great food and vino.

Il Sogno (http://www.pearlbrewery.com) is one of the culinary draws at the Pearl Brewery Complex, serving superb modern Italian fare. Right around the corner, Josephine Street Cafe (http://www.josephinestcafe.com) serves steaks and fresh seafood in a historic storefront.

Other casual, affordable spots include Luther’s (http:// www.lutherscafe.com), which is right across from several gay bars and has ample outdoor seating and tasty sandwiches, burgers, and salads; and Lulu’s Bakery & Cafe (http://www. luluscafeinsa.com), just south of the gay bar district, in a retro space and serving filling comfort food (hearty chicken-fried steaks) and pies. A longtime staple of the gay community, W. D. Deli (http://www.wddeli.com) is a cheerful spot with the best chicken tortilla soup around, and healthy sandwiches (try the turkey-avocado wrap) and salads. Finally, just north of downtown, Candlelight Coffeehouse (http://www.candlelightsa. com) is the perfect blend of a wine bar, cafe, and rainy-day hangout. In good weather enjoy the lushly landscaped patio.

San Antonio has about a dozen gay bars of note, one of which is downtown’s long-running (and enormous) Bonham Exchange (http://www.bonhamexchange.net), lovingly nicknamed the “Bottom Exchange.” It’s a high-energy club drawing a mostly gay bunch along with quite a few straights for hot dancing. Most of city’s other well-frequented bars are clustered along North

Main Avenue, less than a 10-minute drive from downtown. Here you’ll find the pulsing dance club Heat (http://www.heatsa. com), which is jammed nightly with buff-bodied revelers, and The Saint, known for arguably the best drag shows in Texas.

Other North Main options include Pegasus, a convivial video bar with a volleyball court and patio out back, and Sparky’s Pub (http://www.sparkyspub.com), an English-style tavern in the space formerly occupied by Silver Dollar Saloon, a gay tejano and country club that’s moved just a few blocks north to an expansive new locale. Nearby, the Electric Company is a friendly neighborhood spot with a lesbian following, and the Annex is a rugged, cruisy bar with a leather-and-Levi’s following.

San Antonio has a wonderful mix of inviting accommodations, from quaint gay-friendly B&Bs to chic “designer” hotels to historic grande dames. Among gay-owned options, the lovely Ayres Inn (www.1908ayresinn.com) occupies a historic home with five smartly furnished rooms with a mix of contemporary and classic pieces, plus flat-screen TVs and L’Occitane bath products. This gay-owned property is one of the most romantic in town.

A marvelous boutique hotel set inside a 1914 Mediterranean Revival former boarding school, the 28-room Havana Riverwalk Inn (http://www.havanasanantonio.com) captures the sophisticated sensibility of 1920s Paris along with the romance of vintage Cuba. It’s on one of the less noisy stretches of the River Walk. The sleek and contemporary Westin Riverwalk (http://www.starwoodhotels.com) is centrally located, has spacious rooms (request one with a River Walk view), and an excellent restaurant, Zocca.

Hotel Contessa (http://www.thehotelcontessa.com) draws raves for its palatial rooms with floor-to-ceiling river views, 12story atrium lobby, and friendly staff. The Mokara Hotel (http:// www.mokarahotels.com), formerly known as the Watermark, occupies a former saddlery and has 99 of the snazziest rooms in the state, as well as a state-of-the-art spa and superb dining in its Ostra restaurant. Finally, looking more West Hollywood than Central Texas, the uber-hip Hotel Valencia (http://www. valenciagroup.com) provides a strikingly contemporary contrast to the historic downtown blocks that surround it. There may not be a sexier room in the city than the Valencia’s V Bar definitely plan to toast your visit with a cocktail in this vibrant lounge.

Andrew Collins covers gay travel for the New York Times-owned website About.com and is the author of Fodor’s Gay Guide to the USA. He can be reached care of GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine.

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Sports

The OutField

The athletic buddy system

By Dan Woog This fall’s epidemic of gay youth suicides shocked and saddened millions of Americans. Dan Savage’s “It Gets Better” video project provided hope to young people struggling with their sexual orientation; LGBT men and women told inspiring stories of their own lives, while leaders, including President Obama, added their own voices of support.

The broad-based effort heartened Glenn Witman. But he also smiled in recognition: He was already leading a similar project, admittedly on a much smaller scale.

Witman is the founder, president and captain of the G-Force Hockey Club. A Denver-based non-profit organization, G-Force plays some mean hockey – and does a lot more. Demonstrating competitiveness, teamwork, pride and courage on the ice, they break down negative stereotypes about gay athletes.

From the start, G-Force wanted young, gay hockey players to know about the team – and, by extension, to realize that they were not alone.

Witman’s e-mail and phone number were on the Internet. Young athletes were encouraged to call him for information and help – and they did.

For many reasons, gay athletes may have a harder time coming out than other youths. It can take longer, too. A 23-year-old player from Minnesota called. He was so closeted, Witman recalls, “he couldn’t even say the word ‘gay.’” Witman recounted his own story – he did not come out until he was 28 – and put the young man in touch with G-Force’s goalie, who was not fully out.

The Minnesotan responded soon: “Thank you. You changed my life!”

Now, G-Force is institutionalizing its support program. They call it the Athletic Buddy System (ABS). Anyone wanting help in coming out to teammates, coaches, family or friends – or just needing someone to talk to – can contact glenn@gforcehockey.com or call 303-808-1116. They’ll be paired with a G-Force player, of whom there are many.

“Nearly everyone on the team wants to help,” Witman notes.

One of those helpers is Ben Gardent. He got involved because he had not come out until age 24 – in part because he had no gay athletes as role models. His message: “No matter how difficult things may be now, they get a whole lot better when you’re older.”

Adam Mills looks forward to speaking with young gay athletes – but he says he may have to wait a while. Coming out where he lives – Nashville – is not easy. “I will tell people my journey and the rollercoaster ride of my athletic career,” Mills says.

“Dealing with the uneasy feeling of being gay and on a sports team can be overwhelming. It can affect an athlete’s performance, as well as academics. Having someone who understands what an athlete goes through can be the difference between life and death.”

ABS is not G-Force’s only project. The team is also working on another effort aimed at young athletes. Called an “athletic safety and respect policy,” it’s an agreement between G-Force and a university or sports organization. The latter agrees to support only those activities that are “constructive, educational, inspirational, and that contribute to the intellectual and personal development of students.”

The policy includes sanctions for violations. These include probation and suspension of athletes and coaches – even cancellations of games.

G-Force will provide diversity training before the season to programs wishing to implement such a policy.

One such session was held in October at the University of Toronto.

The goal was to create a dialogue between out athletes and other players, students, coaches and support staff.

Panelists Andrew Goldstein (a G-Force player better known for his AllAmerican lacrosse achievements at Dartmouth College), David Farber (University of Pennsylvania) and Blake Anderson (Central Hockey League) shared personal stories.

“Some of the main points were that everyone has a different experience, but the general language in a locker room is a big problem in sports,”

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 Glenn Witman Goldstein says. “Upon coming out we found that our coaches were sometimes big allies who wanted to be mentors/educators and do the right thing to protect their athletes and create a supportive environment.”

Goldstein also notes that “in general, we should give our teammates more credit to change. Although they may denigrate gays in the locker room, they don’t generally mean harm by it. Once they’re more aware that their words hurt a teammate, they can change dramatically.”

Though Goldstein felt the audience reaction in Toronto was very positive, he knows that “these sessions tend to attract those with similar views. We need to make sure the message reaches all types of people, including those who never consider gays in sports an issue or a reality.”

G-Force’s next step, he says, is to speak in high schools and to youth programs, reaching younger closeted athletes and their straight teammates and coaches. Then, perhaps, a program like ABS would no longer be needed.

For more information, visit www.gforcehockey.com.

Looking back at 2010 As another year winds down, The OutField’s inbox fills up. Here are a few stories from 2010 we had no space for – but that merit a big ol’ LGBT shout-out.

“Gay” and “NASCAR” are rarely used in the same sentence. But if we truly are everywhere, that includes stock-car speedways. And Michael Myers makes sure we connect with each other, above the roar of race cars.

Queers4Gears.com is a website for gay NASCAR fans – though all are welcome. It features photos, race reports, even discount ticket deals. It’s been named one of NASCAR’s top 50 blogs.

“NASCAR fans have been more accepting of (Myers) being gay than gay people have been accepting of his being a NASCAR fan,” the site says of the 37-year-old founder.

According to a recent article in the New York Times, Myers “acknowledges that gay male race fans are attracted to stock car drivers the way straight female race fans are.” However, he adds, it’s really just about the races.

“I’m not there to ask drivers what they think about gay marriage,” he says. “I’m there to ask them about racing.”

Another oxymoron could be “gay professional baseball umpire.” But when a manager attacked an out ump with anti-gay language, it was the manager who suffered most.

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The Golden Baseball League incident began in July, when Billy Van Raaphorst ejected Edmonton Capitals manager Brent Bowers for repeatedly objecting to a call. Bowers raced over, called Van Raaphorst a “fucking faggot,” and asked, “Do you take it up the fucking ass?” (Just to make sure there was no mistake, Bowers bent over and grabbed his ankles.)

The tirade continued, with the manager saying, “I ought to kick your ass, you faggot.” The league suspended Bowers for two games. Van Raaphorst’s fellow umpires thought the punishment was insufficient and threatened to walk out.

The league then suspended Bowers for the rest of the season – and fined him $5,000. The Capitals’ owner – who also owns the National Hockey League Edmonton Oilers – supported Van Raaphorst and the league against its now-former manager.

Then – recognizing a “golden” opportunity when they saw it – the owners announced plans to provide diversity training for all its baseball and hockey staffs.

In more gays-and-baseball news, a group of gay men and lesbians got fed up watching the St. Louis Cardinals’ hetero-only “Kiss Cam.” That’s the traditional shot shown on an enormous scoreboard of a man and woman passionately smooching. A cute little heart is superimposed on the shot, and cute little music plays.

Big deal, huh?

To David Whitley – a columnist for MLB.Fanhouse.com, a national website – it was.

“I can’t help sympathizing with that father who’ll be sitting next to his son or daughter at Busch Stadium,” the not-very-empathic dad/fan/ writer wrote.

“Daddy, why are those two men kissing?” he imagined a child saying.

“Umm, err, hey isn’t that Albert Pujols coming to bat?” he figured would be the only possible reply.

“I’m not ready to discuss same-sex relationships with my 3-year-old,” he wrote. “I don’t think she’s ready, either.” Using that logic, he would have to discuss opposite-sex relationships every time the “Kiss Cam” showed two straight people making out.

Scrambling to avoid charges of homophobia, he added: “If my daughter grows up and falls happily in love with another woman, I’ll proudly walk her down the aisle.” Chances are, though, he’d first have to get over his daughter’s fear that he wouldn’t, in fact, be proud – based on his reaction, years earlier, when daughter and dad watched two women doing the exact same thing straight people do every day, at every ballpark in America.

Finally, from the Stand-Up-And-Cheer Department: For the fifth consecutive year, the Gene and John Athletic Fund of Stonewall has awarded a scholarship to an outstanding gay athlete. This year’s recipient is Jessica Leigh Weather.

At the University of Florida, Jessica studied six languages. A runner, she has completed two marathons, three half-marathons and a halfIronman triathlon. She’s a swimmer too, with a 12.5-mile swim around Key West and 8-mile swim through Boston Harbor and a relay swim of the English Channel to her credit.

She hopes to compete in the 2014 Gay Games in Cleveland.

Jessica is currently enrolled in Duke University’s Physician Assistant Program. Her goal is to specialize in pediatrics.

“My knowledge of the mental and physical benefits of athletics, along with my first hand understanding of the spectrum of sexuality, will make me a unique asset to the field for the next generation of youth, both straight and LGBT.” Including those who aspire to be NASCAR drivers, baseball umpires, or kiss their same-sex partner in public.

Dan Woog is a journalist, educator, soccer coach, gay activist, and author of the “Jocks” series of books on gay male athletes. Visit his website at www.danwoog.com.

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Trans Identity

Choice

By Mercedes Allen We spend a lot of time fighting the “choice” meme.

Which is understandable, given the fact that who we’re attracted to and who we identify as are not things that we can switch on or off like a light. The idea that everything we are boils down to a whimsical choice gets bandied around flippantly and turned into the club used to try to bash us back into hiding.

But I’m owning my choice – even though giving any quarter at all to those who hate us always gets exploited and twisted.

Any admission of possibly choosing to be LGBT gets distorted beyond recognition. This is one area where society’s failure to discern between sexual orientation and gender identity and expression inevitably affects us all.

And in fact, part of the panic raised about us — the possibility that we might (*gasp*) influence kids when in roles as teachers or parents, or the possibility that our ability to communicate with media or openly in public might encourage others to turn gay or trans — only works if people swallow the idea that our identities and orientations are choices informed by flighty, misguided (or evil) notions.

Homosexuality is no longer considered a mental disorder (delisted from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual governing mental health in North America in 1973 and finally delisted in Alberta in December 2010), but the concept of choice provides an opportunity for those who conflate orientation and identity to try to “cure” people of being gay - although the major medical bodies have condemned reparative and aversion therapies for homosexuality, such treatments for transsexual and transgender people are still largely excused.

Many of the clinicians working to revise sexual-related issues in the DSM-5 still practice choice-based aversion therapies to cure kids who display signs of gender transgression, while stating a conviction that if they don’t, the kids may one day choose to be gay. [1] And society is still so repulsed by the idea that someone can “choose” their gender to be different from that decided at birth, that many governments require forced sterilization [2] in the form of surgical modification before considering to recognize them legally — if even then.

(I strongly believe in the necessity of GRS for those who are in severe distress about their body, but also believe that the choice to have GRS should only have to be made based on that distress, and not from expectations from outside or even within our community.)

Picking and Choosing Those Worthy of Rights Our understanding of human rights is still based on the concept that some people are deserving of rights and some aren’t, with choice being the latest magical divisor (which is ironic, of course, considering that most of the people repeating this meme expect to be assured rights based on their choice of religion). If the current structure of human rights were to be scrapped, like some of our opponents opine, then it could only be done under one of two pretexts: that either everyone alive deserves equal rights, or that no one does and the majority should have the right to tyrannize if it wants to. The former would seem the sensible alternative, but would mean accepting people regardless of their choices, LGBT people included. It probably won’t happen, though, so for now, we need a piece of legislative paper to remind people that it is not acceptable to treat anyone as lesser people for any reason. Including what is perceived to be their life choices.

And we do make choices. Human behaviour stems from a combination of biological / instinctive drive, influential socialization and conditioning, and choice. Any time we 40

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dismiss or denigrate any of the three, we’re missing part of the picture. Currently, our society still overemphasizes and distorts the effect of socialization [3] and we are just starting to revisit the instinctive. But our collective attitudes about choice are all over the map.

So today, I’m owning my choices.

While growing up, I chose to try to be the person everyone expected me to be. I knew I was different, but perceived that it had to be that either I was wrong, or everyone else was. I chose to believe the latter, although I blame society a little for stifling all discussion of anything else, and making it seem like there was little choice available. I also consider it a shared responsibility that difference seemed like a character flaw, which became an attack on self-esteem that I still struggle with.

After spending the first 16+ years trying to exorcise myself and living in the eternal ex-gay Jesus-fix-it perpetual emotion machine, I realized god wasn’t going to “fix” it, that I couldn’t live that cycle any longer. I chose to walk away… and because at that time there was no such thing as an “affirming” church, and homophobia and faith were synonymous, I chose to abandon Christianity along with it. Finding no information other than partial answers that led me to believe I’d never be able to afford to transition, I chose to continue trying to play the hand dealt to me and live as a testosterone-fuelled organism for another 20 years, identifying only as bisexual.

When I kept hitting the wall of suicide ideation, I finally chose to stop hiding, fighting, and living the lie that was causing me to suffocate.

Yes, that much was a choice.

Prejudice Is Presuming to Judge Behaviours, Beliefs, Abilities and Life Choices Based on Assumptions that One Associates With a Trait We quite commonly hear from people who cry “reverse discrimination” over protections given based on minority traits — forgetting, of course, that protections based on general terms like “race” actually do include the majority along with the minority, and that the imbalance they perceive happens largely because one of the two really does have a relentless tendency to be bigoted. But many minorities often have a less obvious commonality that the “choice invalidation” argument seeks to undermine. Are people really discriminating against someone purely because of the colour of their skin, for example, or is colour an indicator that triggers presumptions about one’s culture, lifestyle, behaviours and tendencies? Biased people always excuse their bigotry in this way: “I have nothing against ____ people,” you might commonly hear,” but you know what they’re like….” Prejudiced people are blind to their prejudice because they’ve seduced themselves into believing that what they’re reacting to is not really the trait itself, when they’re acting on the unspoken and often inaccurate smorgasbord of inventions that go with it.

And those are inventions that generalize, assume and cast judgment on behaviours, abilities, perceived beliefs, and choices — some of which may appear at times to hold true because they’re driven by common recurring factors like poverty, minority stress and socialization.

Regardless of how we want to couch things, society needs to recognize and respect any life that is lived with care to the safety of others, with responsibility in our interactions, with mutual respect, and with mature / informed consent from those we invite into critical intimate areas of our lives, such as (but not limited to) our sexual behaviours. When people are living within those parameters, it is not acceptable that they should ever be excluded, invalidated or hated — regardless of www.gaycalgary.com

how different their choices and lives may be from what we live, ourselves.

As much as homophobia and transphobia are driven by a societal stigmatization of sex and denigration of the shades of gender expression, it is also informed by a shunning of difference itself, and the persistent use of social engineering to eliminate it. What happens when we magnify the use of choice (as is being done by the far right regarding LGBT people), as the wedge differentiating the acceptable from the unacceptable, and as a tool to be dismissive of entire populations? For that matter, what happens when the elimination of difference by social engineering becomes bolstered with genetic engineering?

The scientific journals are already musing over the moral implications introduced by the possibility that the use of dexamethasone in pregnant women might reduce or eliminate behaviours indicative of lesbianism or transness. [4] To what length is society prepared to go, in order to eliminate difference, and does denigrating choice provide the means to do so?

Part of change rests in owning, respecting and defending choice, and our right to choose.

References: 1) 2) 3) 4)

www.gaycalgary.com/u163 www.gaycalgary.com/u170 www.gaycalgary.com/u177 The Anti-Lesbian Drug, Newsweek, July 2, 2010, www.gaycalgary.com/u184

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Book Review

Book Marks Best of 2010

By Richard Labonte The bad news: Alyson Books, founded 30 years ago and for a time the preeminent gay and lesbian press, flamed out in October despite a bid by editor Don Weise to purchase it mostly for debts. More than a dozen contracted books are languishing in limbo and Alyson authors are organizing to demand unpaid back royalties, while owners Here Media plan to emerge in 2011 as an e-book only press. The good news: in November, Weise announced the launch of Magnus Books (after Magnus Hirschfeld, an outspoken German advocate for gay rights in the 19th and early 20th centuries), with plans to publish up to a dozen titles next year.

More good news: Victoria A. Brownworth has launched Tiny Satchel Press, a young adult publisher whose first list features books by J.D. Shaw, Greg Herren, Patty Friedman, Diane DeKelbRittenhouse and the anthology From Where They Sit: Black Writers Write Black Youth. Jameson Currier started Chelsea Station Editions with three books released in 2010. J.M. Snyder expanded JMS Books, which publishes both print and e-books with a focus on male romances. And novelist Marshall Moore announced Signal 8 Press and BookCyclone, based in Hong Kong, the former a print publisher whose first 2011 book is Philip Huang’s story collection, A Pornography of Grief, the latter focusing on e-book reprints, with a list that includes Juliet Sarkessian’s Trio Sonata and backlist/out of print books by Andy Quan and Neal Drinnan.

Best Fiction 2010 Another Life Altogether, by Elaine Beale, Spiegel & Grau.

Beale’s memoir-style novel – about a 13-year-old girl struggling with an unstable home life (her suicidal mother is bipolar, her ineffectual father is mean-tempered), an unrequited crush on another schoolgirl, and bullying by her peers in 1970s East Yorkshire – is heartbreaking, heroic and, somehow, also humorous.

The Big Bang Symphony, by Lucy Jane Bledsoe, University of Wisconsin Press.

Antarctica, which Bledsoe has visited three times – feet-on-theground research that captures the southern continent’s blend of mystery, menace and majesty with ravishing immediacy – is as much a character in this crystalline novel as are the three women confronting the emotional puzzles of their lives in a riveting narrative.

Duvert and Lorin Stein, Faber & Faber.

It would be a mistake to pigeonhole this controversial book as solely about the politics of safe sex versus barebacking in the middle years of the AIDS epidemic. It’s first a heady intellectual narrative, a rich novel of ideas and then, amidst the tumult of personalities at war with each other, the story of romance gone awry.

I Came Out for This?, by Lisa Gitlin, Bywater Books.

Love comes late for Joanna Kane, who denied her sexual self well into her 40s. Debut novelist Gitlin’s breezy novel about a late-bloomer is told through sometimes manic, sometimes maudlin, sometimes wise, and sometimes simply wonderful journal entries, a narrative tack that propels the tale with engaging quirkiness.

Spanking New, by Clifford Henderson, Bold Strokes Books.

Spanky is an unborn baby who can flit from one character’s thoughts and emotions to another’s – a storytelling perspective that might have come off as a diaper-load of a gimmick. But Henderson handles the unorthodox point of view with inventive style and charm – and this is the other truly original queer read of the year.

Yield, by Lee Houck, Kensington Books.

Houck writes about 20-something queers with perfect emotional pitch, as they scramble to make their way in contemporary Manhattan, navigating uncertain years of youthful drift. This luminous debut novel captures big-city New York hustle with the values of small-town heart.

An Ideal for Living, by Marshall Moore. Lethe Press, 214 pages, $15 paper.

What better themes for a skewed-view gay novel than the concepts of self-loathing, gym culture and body image, abetted by a supernatural solution to avoirdupois and a money-buys-anything sense of entitlement? Moore’s razor-sharp dialogue and well-honed

Continued 

Krakow Melt, by Daniel Allen Cox, Arsenal Pulp Press.

It’s quite likely Cox’s second novel qualifies as one of the two most original queer stories of the year. Radek Tomaszewski is a sometimes-bisexual parkour-loving queer pyromaniac and activist whose fiery romance with fellow fire-lover Dora is set against a backdrop of Polish homophobia, Pope John Paul II’s death and the music of Pink Floyd.

By Nightfall, by Michael Cunningham, Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

The allure of astounding beauty and how the mind can betray the body are the core of Cunningham’s elegant novel about mid-age angst, the hollow nature of elites, the elusiveness of once-dreamed goals, and the vanity of unexamined lives – all qualms confronted in a poetically pyrotechnic mix of humor and pathos.

Hate: A Romance, by Tristan Garcia, translated by Marion

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 From Previous Page disdain for the concept of beauty at any cost makes this unsettling novel irresistible.

The More I Owe You, by Michael Sledge. Counterpoint Press, 336 pages, $15.95 paper.

Fascinating fact is transformed into sumptuous fiction in Sledge’s debut novel, in which he re-imagines poet Elizabeth Bishop’s 15 years in South America – when she was tumultuously in love with aristocratic architect and activist Lota de Macedo Soare – with extraordinarily atmospheric prose and unflinchingly emotional intimacy.

Best Nonfiction 2010 Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation, edited by Kate Bornstein and S. Bear Bergman, Seal Press Transpeople. Genderqueers. Trannies. Sex/gender radicals.

Transsexuals. They’re all represented in this prose-and-poetry anthology of intense, painful memoirs and breezy, joyous mini-biographies addressing the fluidity – sometimes hard-won, often wholly fabulous – of the sexual self, many voices mulling a singular theme and bringing younger gender outlaws into the queer literary mainstream.

The Lost Library: Gay Fiction Rediscovered, edited by Tom Cardamone, Haiduk Press.

Allen Barnett and Christopher Coe, Melvin Dixon and Robert Ferro, Michael Grumley and Paul Reed: fiction by writers taken by AIDS – too young, their books now out of print – is celebrated in Cardamone’s loving collection, part book review, part social history, part literary excavation and, in summation, a loving memorial for queer writing and writers.

Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man, by Bill Clegg.

Little, Brown.

The moral redemption at the core of Clegg’s relentless, selfflagellating memoir about hapless addiction and palpable paranoia is likely as psychically searing for the reader as it was for the writer. Clegg, young, handsome, in love and at the top of the literary management game in Manhattan, was everyone’s ideal – until he encountered crack.

Inseparable: Desire Between Women in Literature, by Emma Donoghue, Alfred A. Knopf.

There’s more to lesbian lit than The Well of Loneliness – and novelist Donoghue (Room, one of the best non-lesbian books of 2010) has done the research to prove it. With completely accessible (and often witty) prose married to rigorous academic research, this treasure trove focuses on writing about girl-girl relationships from the medieval to the modern.

The Bucolic Plague: How Two Manhattanites Became Gentlemen Farmers, by Josh Kilmer-Purcell. HarperCollins, 320 pages, $24.99 hardcover.

Kilmer-Purcell’s account of a retired drag queen and his Martha Stewart-employed boyfriend settling into a rural setting has many hilarious high points. But the stress of holding down day jobs while handling farm chores on weekends while launching an online business takes a toll on the men’s relationship too, a reality the author never shies away from.

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My Queer War, by James Lord, Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

As Congress dawdled over the inevitability of repealing “Don’t Act, Don’t Tell,” art historian Lord’s posthumous wartime memoir arrived at an opportune time. His cheeky recounting of WWII service as a practicing homosexual – he was good at it, once he eased out of the closet – makes clear that queers, even back then, were everywhere, even in the military.

Madre & I: A Memoir of Our Immigrant Lives, by Guillermo Reyes. University of Wisconsin Press.

Reyes, an accomplished playwright and theater professor, bares his soul with searing candor in this graceful memoir about growing up as a Chilean immigrant in America, a handsome lad drawn to other young men but nonetheless bedeviled for years by body shame, paralyzing fear expressed with a compelling combination of poignant honesty and rueful wit.

Just Kids, by Patti Smith, Ecco Press Though the likes of Burroughs and Ginsberg wander through Chelsea Hotel hallways of this memoir, they’re merely colorful bit players. The real stars, memorialized in pre-fame days, are then-waiflike Smith and her late-1960s cohort in cool ambition, Robert Mapplethorpe. Their relationship endured physically until Mapplethorpe’s death and, as this exquisitely tender book makes clear, emotionally well beyond his passing.

An Obscene Diary: The Visual World of Sam Steward, edited by Justin Spring, Elysium Press, Antinous Press.

Spring’s biography of tattoo artist, avid sexhound and erotic author Sam (“Phil Andros”) Steward is a gay nonfiction standout in its own right – but this limited-edition collection of Steward’s one-night-stand sketches, Polaroid pics of tricks, tattoo flash art and written remembrances from his “stud file” is a stunning visual companion to a story of a remarkable gay man’s life.

Role Models, by John Waters, Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

It’s hardly surprising that boundary-shattering filmmaker Waters claims an eclectic roster of role models – the women and men he says molded him into a healthily neurotic man. For a man whose shtick is to shock, what’s most shocking about these essays is how sentimental, unironic and humane they are.

Footnotes It was the year of queer life stories. Country singer Chely Wright asked readers to Like Me; actor (and Ellen DeGeneres’s wedded wife) Portia de Rossi wrote about her Unbearable Lightness; and, for former boy band performer and current balladeer Ricky Martin, it was all about Me: three performers wrote about their queer selves (and Wright and Martin came out) in not-bad autobiographies. (And, in January, muscularly fey Johnny Weir proclaims Welcome to My World – it’s the year of pop star tell-alls. But serious books told the stories of serious queer lives, too: R. Tripp Evans, in Grant Wood: A Life, tracks the subsumed homosexuality in the gothic artist’s life; Sjeng Scheijen, in Diaghilev: A Life, gays up a ballet master; long-closeted British novelist E.M. Forster (Maurice, published after his death in 1970), is caressed critically in Frank Kermode’s Concerning E. M. Forster, and his homosexuality is made central to his life in Wendy Moffat’s celebratory A Great Unrecorded History: A New Life of E.M. Forster.

And another venerable British gay scribe’s life is also queered up in Selena Hasting’s The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham. More prosaically – but no less importantly – Will Fellows writes about grandmother Helen P. Larson and her Gay Bar: The Fabulous, True Story of a Daring Woman and Her Boys in the 1950s, and Archbishop and AIDS activist the Rev. Carl Bean tells how I Was Born This Way: A Gay Preacher’s Journey Through Gospel Music, Disco Stardom, and a Ministry in Christ by Archbishop Carl Bean.

Richard Labonte has been reading, editing, selling, and writing about queer literature since the mid-’70s.

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Rockin Night At The Museum Jubilations Rocks Out With Brilliant Show

By Jason Clevett Night At The Museum Of Rock N Roll is one of the best shows Jubilations Dinner Theatre has put on in quite awhile. With an awesome soundtrack ranging from Beatles to Van Halen to Journey, to incredible performances by the cast, it sets the bar for what the Jubilations product should be.

The concept parallels the “Night in the Museum” movies - Ted is a goofy security guard (Bob Cunningham, who also wrote and directed the show) at the Museum of Rock and Roll. When a voodoo guitar that Jimi Hendrix smashed during a concert is put back together, the wax figures come to life. Ted has to team up with the likes of Diana Ross (Crystal Chaitan), John Lennon (Craig Patrick Haley), Elvis Presley (Mat Andre), and former schoolmate Kelly Clarkson (Chelsea Scantland) to battle a wickedly evil Madonna (Erin McLean) as she tries to escape the museum. Every time the moveable stage spins around, you are eager to see which performer is next to come to life.

These musical icons are just a few of the artists that make an appearance over the course of the evening, and since

they are shown on the front of the program I don’t feel bad revealing them. But a total of 17 musicians are played by the chameleon cast. Andre in particular plays 7 different characters and nails each one perfectly. Chaitan shows incredible diversity and gender bending in her characters as well, while Haley’s Lennon is a dead-on impersonation both in look, mannerisms, and voice.

The difficulty in writing this review is in both trying to find the words to describe it without saying “awesome” over and over again, while at the same time not giving spolers.

So I will just say this. If you haven’t been to Jubilations in awhile, or ever, this is the show to see.

With the additional cast playing characters like Axl Rose and Stevie Nicks, and seeing the essence of some of music’s greatest performers brought to life, Night At The Museum of Rock N Roll is one of your best bets early this year for an entertaining night out.

Night At The Museum Of Rock N Roll Runs until February 6th, 2011 www.jubilations.ca

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A Thousand Laughs

Badly Named Product Edition One “L” Away from Ass Walking down the aisle at a local T&T Supermarket, there are a lot of odd names that jump out at you. Like this one! Mmmm, Collon.

Never has there been a more appetizing name for cake.

A Million Ways to Eat Sheet Go a little further down the aisle at T&T and you’ll find this crispy seaweed snack. I can picture the advertising campaign now: “After I finish a big spicy meal, I like to have a spicy Big Sheet!” The little dude certainly has a Sheet-eating grin on his face.

Cock for Dinner Anyone in the mood for some Spicy Cock Soup? You can find this one near the Cock Palm Sugar in your local Superstore.

Eat My Meat!

My buddy sent me one of these all the way from Japan!

So does this mean that Homo Sausage is made from the leftover parts of the homo? Would it be considered cannibalism if I ate some? Should I be concerned about ever being labelled a “pig”?

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Editorial

Immigrants and Refugees

Creating Safe and Positive Spaces for LGBTQ Newcomers

By Evan Kayne Canada is one of the leading countries when it comes to granting rights and freedoms to Lesbian, Gay, Queer, Bisexual, and Transgender citizens. Therefore, it is logical to assume many GLBTQ individuals from countries where freedom of sexual expression is repressed might want to come to Canada.

However, there is a disconnect for newcomers to our country, whether they be immigrants or refugees. While heterosexual newcomers have a support network geared towards them, many lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender newcomers face a system which barely supports them. This was the subject of the seminar “Creating Safe and Positive Spaces for QLGBT Newcomers” held mid-November as part of the Canadian Council for Refugee’s Fall Consultation 2010. This seminar saw speakers from the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants (OCASI) and Vancouver’s Rainbow Refugee Committee (among others) addressing the barriers and problems GLBTQ newcomers face.

Some of the barriers are obvious, others more subtle; and even with obvious barriers there are complications that GLBTQ immigrants/refugees face, of which service providers may be ignorant. For example, language may be a barrier; yet even if you have a working knowledge of either of Canada’s two official languages, a GLBTQ newcomer from a different country may struggle with the binary gender options. As an example, this can really impact transgender newcomers – what pronoun do you tell people to use if you’re unsure yourself?

Additionally, a huge barrier is that a newcomer’s claim may hinge on them revealing their sexual orientation. How many of us remember how difficult it was for us to come out of the closet to a friend or family member here in our native land? Now try doing this with a complete stranger and for some, add the barrier of overcoming ten, twenty or more years of internalized homophobia.

Ori Garcia of Vancouver’s Rainbow Refugee Committee told us the best way for us to understand what a QLGBT claimant goes through is to imagine we are vacationing in another country and we get into trouble. As she puts it, “I don’t know anything about the place, I don’t know the language, I don’t know where I can go, I don’t know the resources...what if something happened to me?

Where can I go? Should I call the police – can they be helpful?”

Because claimants are facing these barriers and questions, addressing GLBTQ newcomer concerns requires a bit of a slower, nuanced approach at times. Even if an individual’s claim for entry into Canada is based on their sexual orientation, approaching the subject with a claimant may take several attempts, and above all, one has to work at their comfort level. Often one has to let all claimants know that alongside all the usual newcomer resources, there are also resources for GLBTQ individuals. People working with refugees and immigrants have to also communicate that there are safe spots and welcoming organizations if a claimant comes forward.

Besides the difficulty for GLBTQ newcomers, existing groups working to make the claims process more queer-friendly are struggling with how to diplomatically broach this problem with agencies and other newcomer support groups. Given the media coverage/criticism and xenophobic attitudes of some members of the public, government and private agencies are a bit sensitive to any criticism – even if it’s to offer them suggestions on how to better address GLBTQ concerns.

For claimants using these government agencies and services, creating a trusting atmosphere is another barrier. In Canada, on the whole we know the government and the police to be reliable and somewhat trustworthy. Many immigrants/refugees are fleeing countries where trusting the authorities is the last thing they want to do.

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Ori gives the example of her experiences. She moved to Cancun thinking it would be more of an open society for a trans-woman.

The police arrested her for prostitution (to which she wryly notes “I probably was the most conservative prostitute ever – I was wearing a long skirt and sandals”). She had a choice of staying in an unsafe jail environment for days or paying off the police. So telling someone with her past experiences to “trust the police, trust the government” when they are in Canada is a big step.

This fear of the authorities and worry about jeopardizing their claim may make GLBTQ newcomers reluctant to go to the police or authorities here in Canada when they have a legitimate safety or human rights concern (e.g. a landlord may evict them if they discover the claimant’s sexuality – instead of taking legal action on the basis of a Human Rights violation, the claimant will simply run from the problem). This could happen because on one hand claimants are told not to get into any criminal troubles with the police (as it could jeopardize their claim); but on the other hand, they are not reassured you can trust the police or government to protect you when you are in danger or when your rights are being compromised.

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The speakers at the seminar had a few suggestions on how to resolve some of these barriers, but the big one was through sensitivity training of the agencies and support groups. As a start, questionnaires should be redesigned to be inclusive of claimants with GLBTQ concerns. As Sharalyn Jordan from the Rainbow Refugee committee told me: “put it out there in front as part of the whole package”. Much like health or survey questionnaires which have questions not relevant to the individual, an encompassing, inclusive approach could help reach GLBTQ newcomers.

As well, Ori mentioned a simple change on interpersonal dynamics when meeting face-to-face with a newcomer may be helpful to GLBTQ claimants: “Sitting there with this big face, this mean look at somebody who’s coming from a huge background of fear and persecution, that’s not going to help this person open themselves to explain why they’re coming here”.

Making this connection, creating a safe space can be done by getting existing members of that particular ethnic/political/ nationality/sexual orientation (etc) volunteering to help newcomer agencies. Ori recounts how she was working with someone who provided her information about transgender issues, medications and support. On one hand, she took in the information, but she also thought Who is this guy to tell me these things? How does he know what I’m experiencing? Yet, at the end of the discussion, when the individual came out to Ori as a trans-man, “there was a huge sense of relief” as she had connected to someone who could identify with her concerns.

If an existing agency or support group doesn’t immediately have someone with similar concerns with which the claimant can connect, they shouldn’t worry about their aid not resonating with claimants. Sharalyn emphasized “...we’re not saying we don’t want or valued allies. Valuing and having allies is critical in eliminating issues surrounding LGBTQ newcomers.” The panel was trying to say if there is someone who has gone through the claim process or someone who is from a similar background, let them speak; encourage and help them to step forward for newcomers.

Looking forward, the speakers at the seminar did encourage everyone to be patient with the process of change. Yes we may see the occasional article about some government official turning down a GLBTQ person’s claim because they felt the claimant “wasn’t gay enough”, yet there are many, many more gay, lesbian, transgender or bisexual claimants who do get their claim allowed. And while not all of us may have the resources to directly work on these issues, Sharalyn from the Rainbow Refugee Committee tells us there are small ways we can help: “the Queer community has an important role to play in addressing some of the anti-refugee and antiimmigrant discourse that is out there now.” We can lend our voices to this and counter some of the myths and wrong beliefs people have towards newcomers, because some of those newcomers are from our community, and deserve the right to freely embrace who they are in Canada.

Links and further information: Please note many of the scenarios above may not apply to all GLBTQ newcomers. Many, because of their educational or economic background, have already researched this information,and make their sexual orientation the main part of their claim. Furthermore, they may have already spoken to Canadian resource groups prior to arriving in Canada.

As for the links below, the first three are from conference organizer (Canadian Council for Refugees), the Rainbow Refugee Committee and OCASI: Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants, two of the speakers at the seminar. The links following are agencies we’ve been told are GLBTQ specific. Sadly, we couldn’t find any local links in either Edmonton or Calgary.

I was told the Mennonite Newcomer Centre in Edmonton (and one would assume Calgary) was gay friendly, but at the time of press, I have yet to hear back from them. http://www.ccrweb.ca http://www.qmunity.ca/adults/community-groups-andmeetings/rainbow-refugee-committee/ http://www.ocasi.org/index.php http://www.legit.ca/ http://www.emcn.ab.ca/ http://www.centrefornewcomers.ca/index.shtml

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Music

Hear Me Out Best of 2010

By Chris Azzopardi

10. Fearless Love By: Melissa Etheridge

Hearing the musician return to her zenith and kill songs with raging burn was a rush like no other. She blows the spiraling top off the title track, spilling desperation into a Kings of Leon-like arena rock tune, and sticks it to her home state on the rip-roaring fireball “Miss California.” She doesn’t always bite down hard, though: Her narrative about family and illusions on “Gently We Row” is as beautiful as her own fearless love.

9. The Union

By: Elton John and Leon Russell Two music greats got together and created, well, more greatness.

Theirs is a Union, but so much more: a rare act of appreciation – the album came to be because of John’s fandom for Russell, a soul veteran – deeply felt in their exchanges about war, morality and expensive shoes. It crosses genres, from gospel (“Hey Ahab”) to piano rock (“Monkey Suit”), with hat-tips to the ’70s era that both were born out of. Oh, and did we mention that it’s John’s best album in, like, forever?

6. Speak Now By: Taylor Swift

No one hates Taylor Swift as much as they might say they do. It’s why the Southern sugarplum’s as big as she is, something her third album – as she expands past her limited pop-by-numbers palette – strongly justifies. Love is, as expected from a boy-crazy 21-year-old, what brings out the best in her songwriting (which, here, she exercises in full) with “Back to December” and “The Story of Us,” all about the tickles and tortures of relationships that Swift’s so good at exposing. Speak now, later, whenever – just keep doing it, Taylor.

5. The ArchAndroid (Suites II and III) By: Janelle Monáe

Retro and funk collide in this wonderfully conceived canon of Janelle Monáe’s futuristic world, a mindblowing saga stretched over 70 crazy minutes. Taking off from 2007’s debut EP about a robot-led land, it turns the Kansasborn ingénue’s easy “soul” tag on its head, spins it around, and makes musical gumbo out of it. What a mess you’d think, what with all the influences (from James Brown to Michael Jackson, and then pastoral folk and crazy theatrics), but it’s uniquely spellbinding – like nothing, and everything, before it.

8. Contra

By: Vampire Weekend The shameless sophomore album from the indie hipsters came out earlier in the year, so by now, in this breakneck music industry, it should be long forgotten. Had it not been for how the N.Y. quartet expertly merges classical components with dainty pop melodies, making feathers of harmony that ease their way in, it would’ve been.

But the airiness of Ezra Koenig’s voice floated to the clouds and the songs were some of the most smiley sounds to fall on ears.

7. We Are Born

4. The Suburbs By: Arcade Fire

Never one to disappoint, the Montreal supergroup tempered their tiptoe-totakeoff bombast, stepping back from bloated epics to deliver this resonating rock opus. Impressive again is how transcendent their sound is, especially with the majestic “Sprawl II” and lines like, “Let’s go for a drive and see the town tonight/There’s nothing to do but I don’t mind when I’m with you.” It plays out like the fleeting years of life – except in life, you can’t go back. The Suburbs at least takes you there.

By: Sia

The singing Aussie, especially known for bummed-out numbers that hurt like hell, danced her way out of downers with this jiggy shake-up splashed in rainbow colors. A nod to her adoration for the ’80s era, even covering – and one-upping – Madonna’s “Oh Father,” Sia’s messages of optimism and survival were also intrinsically hers despite dollops of toy pianos, chimes and child chirps (see standouts “The Fight” and “Never Gonna Leave Me”). A new Sia was born, indeed, and cooler. Than. Ever.

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3. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy By: Kanye West

Hated like few others, the rapper’s narcissism often gets in the way of his crafty, boundary-breaking work. This time, it was the reason for it, as he probed his own reckless psyche for a thrilling, demented, self-deprecating, even vulnerable genre buster that stretched hip-hop beyond its roots and into classic rock (uh-huh: That’s an Elton piano solo on “All of the Lights,” which boasts an impressive guest list) and electro-dance of extreme grandeur. Songs are big as his ego, but just try turning away.

2. Go

By: Jónsi

1. Body Talk By: Robyn

Her body talked, but did you listen? The irresistible (and overlooked) Robin Miriam Carlsson – flooding the club scene with her genius trilogy, which culminated in a 15-track masterpiece of shoulda-been-hits – wisedup a genre that’s otherwise become insipidly dumb.

“Dancing on My Own” was moving in every sense, and the hearty “Hang With Me” and “Call Your Girlfriend” only confirmed what a refreshing, distinct diva of dance-pop this delicious Swede is. Innovative, transparent, entrancing, geeky and adorable – Robyn’s a firecracker that just kept popping.

Hope got a new name this year: Jónsi Birgisson, lead singer of Iceland’s Sigur Rós who, for the first time, went solo.

Going at it alone, with support from his boyfriend Alex Somers and conductor Nico Muhly, proved revolutionary as he gave the vox behind some of the most soulful classic-rock restored life – working his soaring instrument into kaleidoscopic bursts of orchestral whimsicality. From the ecstatic “Animal Arithmetic” to the consuming swell of “Grow Till Tall,” Jónsi was the sun, singing.

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Photography Queers on Campus PJ Party at Club Sapien, Calgary

Xmas Dinner at the Calgary Eagle

Calgary Men’s Chorus Concert

Les Girls Night at Twisted Element, Calgary

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Photography Pink Party at Club Sapien - Calgary

Terry Stevens Anniversary Show at Twisted Element, Calgary

Backlot Xmas Party - Calgary

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Photography New Years Eve at Backlot, Club Sapien, Calgary Eagle, FAB, Girls Groove Dance, Texas Lounge, Twisted Element and Village Bistro - Calgary

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Photography Fashion Show at Flash - Edmonton

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Photography New Years Eve at Buddy’s, Flash, Junction and Woody’s - Edmonton

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