Xtra - Toronto's Gay and Lesbian News Issue 716

CAMBODIAN SEX WORKERS On the streets of Phnom Penh ›14

TORONTO’S GAY & LESBIAN NEWS

LESBIAN MATRIMONY Forty stories of lady love and divorce › 23 #716 APRIL 5, 2012

FREE

40,000 AUDITED CIRCULATION

EASY WRITER WRITER DANIEL COX MERGES SEX & TEXT IN HIS NEW NOVEL

›19

COMMENT 8 XCETERA 9 NEWS 11 OUT IN THE CITY 17 XPOSED 24

PLUS

G U ID E M A G TRAVEL S .COM E C T IO N M o n tr eal res Vienn a, Berltos, in a nd m ore ›2

6 – 30

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XTRA! APRIL 5, 2012 TORONTO’S GAY& LESBIAN NEWS

HARVEY L. HAMBURG Barrister, Solicitor, Notary Public Many Years of Experience in Real Estate, Wills and Estate Administration

Roundup #716

While MPPs debated anti-bullying legislation inside Queen’s Park, antigay religious protesters faced off against students fighting for gay-straight alliances on the lawn outside.

›12

NEWS

OUT IN THE CITY

REGULARS

Farewell Fetish Fair

Daniel Allen Cox

Comment ›8 Xcetera ›9 Xposed ›24 Index ›31 Classifieds ›31

Sex work in Cambodia While Thailand is known as a destination for international sex tourism, in neighbouring Cambodia sex workers rely mostly on local business. Xtra looks at the dangers of sex work in a country still recovering from years of civil war and genocide. › 14

Travelling t-girls Now that an Ontario court has decriminalized brothels and other aspects of sex work, some travelling trans sex workers wonder if their jobs will become easier or more difficult. › 16

Serving our community for more than 25 years 120 Carlton St., Suite 215 (at Jarvis St.) e-mail: hhamburg@sympatico.ca

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Duelling protests

FEATURE

One of Xtra!'s Best of Toronto 2002, 2007 & 2010

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NEWS

The Church Wellesley Village Business Improvement Area has decided to stop hosting the annual street fest devoted to all things kinky and queer. Xtra’s Andrea Houston gets the scoop. › 11

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APRIL 5, 2012

The Montreal writer and former sex worker and pornstar’s latest novel follows the life of a 40-year-old Los Angeles actor who becomes paranoid after losing a role to a younger man.

Xtra sat down with Cox in Montreal to chat about what he calls his “most mainstream” book. › 19

COLUMNS

Editorial ›8 Guest column ›13 Porndoggy ›33

ONLINE

Derek McCormack The beloved gay novelist has been diagnosed with a rare form of appendix cancer. Toronto friends are organizing an art sale and party to help raise money for McCormack’s recovery. › xtra.ca

LISTINGS

Art & photography ›18 Health & issues ›18 Music ›18 Leisure & pleasure ›20 Stage ›22

Ian Harvie Harvie, the first female-to-male trans person to hit the comedy circuit, was recently in Toronto and sat down with Lucas Silveira in an Xtra exclusive. › xtra.ca

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t Workplace Matters t Human Rights Issues t Discrimination and Harassment t Human Resource Strategies

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Comment HIV in Toronto

IT’S A SAD DAY FOR CANADA WHEN DIAMOND JUBILEE MEDALS ARE BEING DISTRIBUTED WITH THE HELP OF A KNOWN HOMOPHOBIC WOMEN’S CLUB.

INBOX Parkdale

Editorial Rob Salerno

T

WO WEEKS AGO, I FOUND myself at the Newmarket Health Centre, where Conservative MP Lois Brown was making an announcement of new funding for the AIDS Committee of York Region (ACYR).

It was a tastefully subdued affair. ACYR’s executive director, Radha Bhardwaj, gave a speech outlining the accomplishments of her organization and some of the unique challenges of providing services for HIV-positive people in the sprawling region north of Toronto that’s home to more than one million people.

Brown spoke eloquently of her own relationship with HIV, forged when her mother, a retired nurse, saw the virus emerging in the region and decided to volunteer with patients many other health professionals refused to treat.

Brown then announced that the agency was receiving $162,400 over two years from the Public Health Agency of Canada’s (PHAC) AIDS Community Action Program (ACAP) to fund a “Community HIV Engagement Program,” which will “increase awareness and visibility of the impact of HIV/AIDS in the region and will improve individual, organizational and communitywide knowledge about HIV prevention and transmission,” according to a government press release.

The announcement noted that a big part of the new program will focus on engaging at-risk populations, including the homeless, drug users, youth and immigrant women. Notably absent from the press conference and briefings was any mention of gay men, who still make up the largest cohort of new HIV diagnoses.

But perhaps that’s not surprising. The epidemic is different in York Region than it is in Toronto, ACYR board chair Marnie Sigmar explained to me. More gay men live in the city or would feel more comfortable accessing services there. In York Region, which has the thirdhighest number of HIV cases in the GTA after Toronto and Peel, the clientele is noticeably more female and immigrant or ethnic minority.

Sigmar seemed very interested

in attempting more outreach to gay men but confessed that she isn’t sure how to do that given there aren’t any gay bars or gay neighbourhoods in the region. She said ACYR would try to reach out on social networking sites and the internet.

Shortly before ACYR received its funding, the AIDS Committee of Toronto (ACT) found out it was losing the funding it had received for years from ACAP to run services for women and Portuguese-speakers.

PHAC had reworked the ACAP funding criteria to limit the number of programs a single agency could receive funding for, specifically to spread the money further outside of Toronto, where many older AIDS service organizations have run multiple programs for years.

Again, that shouldn’t be surprising. Toronto is home to 75 percent of Ontario’s 26,000 estimated HIV patients – almost 20,000 people.

For comparison, ACYR estimates its client base in the low hundreds.

This isn’t to denigrate the good work ACYR does. Nor do I think it’s as simple as the Conservatives punishing gay downtown Torontonians for not voting Conservative and rewarding the tiny organizations in Tory-friendly suburban ridings — really, do you think HIV workers are a target Tory demo?

Besides, the Tories have a third of Toronto’s ridings now, too.

The changing nature of the epidemic requires flexible and dynamic responses from our government and our service providers, and that can be provided only with stable and predictable long-term funding.

Instead, PHAC left agencies across Ontario dangling for months, then hastily issued a call for funding over the Christmas holidays, leaving organizations with little time to table serious new proposals.

I’m unconvinced that a provincewide wellness retreat for HIV-positive women or services for lusophones are the best use of limited public funding to fight HIV, but by keeping ASOs in the dark and limiting their number of applications, the government hobbled their ability to respond to the epidemic in new and better ways.

The result will likely be increased stresses on AIDS services in Toronto, decreased awareness in the epicentre of the crisis, and a resulting increase in the HIV caseload in Toronto.

PHAC and Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq should be ashamed.

Rob Salerno is an Xtra Toronto reporter.

“The outcome that we seek is this — gay and lesbian people daring together to set love free.” Xtra is published by Pink Triangle Press, at 2 Carlton St, Suite 1600, Toronto M5B 1J3.

I AM SURE THIS WILL ALL blow away, eventually [“Parkdale Event Overshadowed by Accusations of Discrimination,” xtra.ca, March 15]. When The Parkdale Drink first opened they held a few queer events; there’s been a lull for a few years as the owner says it may not be a good venue. Some queers don’t drink — maybe they lost money. I certainly don’t think she’s homophobic. Same with Blondies, a few doors away, which held Scissors. It bombed at that location and has now moved to Neon bar up on Bloor St W, where it’s apparently doing great. Xtra has never loved the Queer West Village concept as they do Church St. This is only the second or third story on the Village in the last 10 years. Things change; events move around.

Michael F Paré Toronto, ON

EMS THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM is, Where were the police in all this [“Prevent EMS Delays: Hearst Jurors,” Xtra #715, March 22]. Paramedics stage because of a possibility of safety threat to their persons (regardless of forensic audit of this call and the resultant hindsight being 20/20). Police are dispatched because they are equipped to deal with threats — you know, ballistic vests, guns, tasers, handcuffs — the items paramedics are not provided, nor trained to use.

Anyone looking to point fingers at any other conjured reason has a private agenda that really only speaks to how little they know about emergency services and how willing they are to exploit this tragedy to further their own agenda. Police are dispatched to staged calls. Police took 38 minutes to arrive at this call, and this is the medics’ fault why?

P Buck Toronto, ON

Send your correspondence by mail to 2 Carlton St, Suite 1600, Toronto M5B 1J3, email comment@xtra.ca, or log-in to xtra.ca and comment directly. We may edit letters.

ously and instead must be pointed out to his own peers to be taken out back after church.

Johnny Blackstar Toronto, ON HE SHOULD BE THANKFUL he was not doing this in the United States. It is unlawful under federal law for anyone but postal delivery workers to put anything in a private mailbox. I, for one, would press charges.

Colleen Harper Parkville, Maryland

Diamond Jubilee IT’S A SAD DAY FOR CANADA when Diamond Jubilee medals are being distributed with the help of a known homophobic women’s club at a time when the British Commonwealth has made clear its respect for human rights and had denounced human rights violations in formal colonies. The Queen will surely take note of that, and I hope she finds a way to slam it to Harper, er, diplomatically but publicly.

Hugo Malt Moncton, NB THE HARPER REGIME HAS A strong element of bigots and haters supporting its existence [“Homophobic Group to Help Award Diamond Jubilee Medals,” Xtra #715, March 22]. Harper caters to them.

These are the people who accuse the gay community of having some sort of hidden agenda when fighting for simple rights of equality. Harper and his goons are the ones with the hidden agenda.

REAL Women of Canada are, in fact, not the real women of Canada, but they are Harper’s choice. We must all work very hard to defeat Harper’s regime in the next election if we are to survive and not be forced back into the closet.

Darryl Regina, SK

Village closures Calgary anti-gay activist PERHAPS I’M A BIT JADED, as I grew up in Alberta [“Calgary Police Arrest Anti-Gay Activist,” Xtra #715, March 22], so I tend to downplay much of the ridiculous press I read from that lovely hotspot of angst and intolerance. But as usual in such stories, one of Whatcott’s own published blatherings puts it all into a bit of a bigger perspective: homofascist government censorship. While I agree with those who keep us apprised of his peculiar brand of crazy, I also change the tenor of my response lest I give credence to his argument by taking him seriously. Let’s keep track of where the crazy violent redneck is right now. But I reserve a special brand of scorn and contempt for the slackest of the slack-jawed yokels out there, and he is definitely in that particular circle of hell that begs to be taken seri-

SAD TO SEE REITHER’S CLOSE [“Closures in Village,” Xtra #715, March 22]. That was my favourite spot to sit outside on Church St. I can understand that the owner wants to retire, but I wonder why the business wasn’t sold as a going concern?

I think with a little revamping it could be a thriving business once again. Did high rents make such a sale prohibitive? Was it a victim of greedy landlords? It would be nice if Xtra could dig deeper to give us the background story behind this closure.

Kevin Brown Toronto, ON

Ontario budget THERE IS A POPULAR perception that since antiHIV drugs are getting better and better, HIV-positive people are no longer dying of AIDS [“Ontario Budget Hurts People Living with HIV/AIDS,”

xtra.ca, March 28] and are able to work and lead productive lives. To prevent government cutbacks to social programs that HIV-positive people use, AIDS activists should try to produce statistics and examples of HIV-positive people who are too sick to work — with an explanation of why these people can’t work despite being on anti-HIV drugs. Otherwise, the popular perception that HIV is now a manageable disease will continue and the cutbacks will keep happening.

Ironically, this popular perception is being fuelled in part by the campaigns of AIDS activists against criminal sanctions for HIV-positive people who have unprotected sex without disclosing their HIV status to their partners.

These campaigns argue that since antiHIV drugs are so good in reducing viral load and keeping people healthy, there is a low chance of an HIV-positive person infecting another person during unprotected intercourse.

Paul Jatherton Toronto, ON

Brian Burke WHILE I REALLY ENJOYED THE article [“Brian Burke Is On Side,” Xtra #715, March 22] and am really thrilled that the You Can Play project is gaining considerable momentum, especially with my beloved Maple Leafs, I must say that even as an ally, I was admittedly a bit put off by the interview with Schenn, Liles and Komisarek. Basically asking the players to out their teammates seems wholly unprofessional and entirely not the point of the initiative. To me, it’s about acceptance and about tolerance and about allies learning and growing and changing the ways they may have viewed/said things in the past. Well done on the article; I think it’s great.

But I would encourage a bit more of the use of a kid-gloves approach when dealing with those who may not be as knowledgeable or familiar with the topic. The NHLers are getting there, and I think their hearts are in the right places. Let’s just make sure we help them along properly instead of taking potential steps backwards.

Lily S Ontario I CAN SPEAK FROM experience on two instances [“Will the Burkes’ You Can Play Campaign Change Hockey Culture?” xtra.ca, March 22]. One day I overheard in a small-town restaurant booth four teen boys talking about a gay teammate on their hockey team; the sniggering and badmouthing spoke volumes. The other example was the other night at the hockey game where the woman proposed to her girlfriend on the ice; homophobic remarks were heard all around my partner and me.

One little girl was telling her dad about it and he did everything he could to change the subject.

Susan White Toronto, ON

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XTRA! APRIL 5, 2012

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noteworthy › updates › ephemera

Xcetera THE AWARD GOES TO . . .

Compiled

by Jeremy Feist

ANIMAL ATTRACTIONS

WATERSPORTS No, it’s not just a lame joke from Glee anymore: scientists have confirmed that male dolphins really do engage in homosexual behaviour, and they can get pretty kinky about it. The study observed more than 120 male dolphins partaking in “very intense” gay relationships, making dolphins the first animal other than humans to get into BDSM. In related news, Grindr has announced a new gay cruising app for dolphins, called Flippr.

Pornstar

LET THE GAMES BEGIN

FAMILY UNFRIENDLY

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If you’re looking for a little more bang for your buck, for lack of a better term, you can’t go wrong with Jesse Santana. The renowned gay pornstar cleaned up at the annual Hookie Awards, a celebration of gay escorts and rentboys, winning both Best Body and Mr International Escort. However, the win was undercut when, in true award-show fashion, Santana’s acceptance speech was played out by the house symphony.

Two Pennsylvania lesbians are calling out a sports club in their town after they were denied a family discount. Despite the fact the women are in a committed relationship and raising a five-year-old daughter, staff at the club refused to see them as a family, saying the discriminatory decision was based on “economics” rather than politics.

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Military academy hosts Condom Olympics With the demise of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell in the States, students at Norwich University, one of the world’s oldest military academies, are honouring their newfound sexual freedom by organizing the Condom Olympics, wherein men and women in uniform compete to win condoms while celebrating gay pride. So far, the games are a huge success, with morale on the rise and STD rates plummeting.

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11

dispatches › issues › opinion

Upfront HIV/AIDS

IGNORING WOMEN’S, GAY AND TRANSGENDER VOICES IS ANOTHER FORM OF VIOLENCE. Ly Pisey › 14

VILLAGE NEWS

Federal cuts force ACT to cancel programs Rob Salerno THE AIDS COMMITTEE OF TORONTO is ending two long-standing programs that serve HIV-positive women and Portuguese-speakers due to cuts in programming grants from the federal government.

Because of changes made to the Public Health Agency of Canada’s (PHAC) AIDS Community Action Plan (ACAP) program guidelines in December 2011, ACT was not eligible to apply for grants that it had received for years to run programs previously offered by the groups VIVER and Voices of Positive Women (VOPW).

ACT had taken over VOPW’s annual wellness retreat and a project to implement a peer network for women living with HIV/AIDS across Ontario in 2010 after VOPW shut down and PHAC issued a call for organizations to take on VOPW’s work. After two years of running the retreats, and extensive work to establish the beginnings of the peer network, ACT was told it could no longer receive money to continue these programs.

ACT has also acted as a sponsor for VIVER’s ACAP grants since 2003. VIVER had run a community education project and case management project for Portuguesespeaking people living with HIV. Because VIVER did not have an active board in December 2011 when the new call for proposals was announced, a proposal could not be submitted and ACT was told it could not apply on VIVER’s behalf.

The new call for ACAP funding was much criticized for appearing only after a long delay, leaving uncertainty in how AIDS service organizations were going to receive funding in 2012. The call was sent out Dec 2, with only four weeks before a deadline that came over the Christmas holidays.

Service providers also complained about glitches in the application software and confusing language that seemed to require them to propose completely new programs.

And despite the fact that the total funding envelope remained constant at $12.1 million, the call for proposals was opened up to more organizations and the maximum individual grant amount was raised, meaning that there would be fewer successful applicants, and some programs that had been funded in the past would not receive new funding.

Ultimately, agencies were told that they would be limited to ap-

plying for one operational grant and one project grant only. John Maxwell, ACT’s director of programs and services, says the agency was told specifically that it could not apply on behalf of VOPW and VIVER. But a spokesperson for PHAC disputes that account.

“AIDS service organizations can also submit applications on behalf of satellite sites, sponsored agencies, sponsored programs or sponsored coalitions,” says Sylwia Gomes, senior media relations officer at PHAC. “The AIDS Committee of Toronto was informed they could sponsor two operational projects, namely, Voices of Positive Women (VIVER) and Positive Youth Outreach, in addition to one operational and one time-limited project of their own.”

WE WERE TOLD, YOU COULD HAVE ONE PROJECT. —John Maxwell, ACT’s director of programs and services The problem is that neither VOPW nor VIVER are still operational. So even though ACT is willing to take on the services they provided, it doesn’t qualify to continue receiving funding for them.

“We asked expressly about what do we do about this money that formerly belonged to Voices of Positive Women, and we were told, You could have one project,” Maxwell says.

ACT was already planning to apply for its own projects: Health Promotion for Gay Men and Women Living with HIV, and Positive Youth Outreach. Without funding for the other projects, ACT can’t afford to offer them anymore.

Gomes says that PHAC limits the number of applications per organization because it “anticipated a large number of interested applicants in Ontario” and they wanted to have as many successful applicant agencies as possible.

But that ignores the reality of the HIV epidemic on the ground, where 75 percent of Ontario’s cases are in Toronto, Maxwell says. Toronto organizations often must serve larger and more diverse clienteles than organizations in other regions.

Fetish lovers protest the 2011 decision to rebrand the annual fair. ANDREA HOUSTON

Local merchants axe Fetish Fair ’Man cannot live on queer dollars alone,’ says BIA manager Andrea Houston S U M M E R I N T H E CH U RCH AN D Wellesley Village is about to get a little less kinky now that members of the local business association have decided they will no longer host the Church St Fetish Fair.

David Wootton, manager of the Church Wellesley Village Business Improvement Area (BIA), said the board has unanimously decided to instead host several family-friendly “partnership” events throughout the summer that will attract a wider range of people to the Village. If there are to be any street closures, it will be for events involving the area merchants, he says, like a sidewalk sale or patio extensions.

The Fetish Fair, which ran for seven years, stopped drawing the crowds it used to, he says.

“Fetish Fair as we know it ended last year,” Wootton tells Xtra. “Our concern this year is keeping doors open because, as you know, more and more businesses are leaving the street. We don’t want to

see the Village die. We figure our job here is to ensure that we do as much as we can to bring in traffic and return traffic into the area . . . Man cannot live on queer dollars alone.”

The BIA is making tough decisions because merchants are treading water financially. “Yes, Loblaws has been a huge disruption . . . It’s a challenge with this BIA, working with its members, whether they are LGBT-positive or not. There is an assumption that we just serve the LGBT community, but we have an obligation to ensure we remain a destination for queer people. So we have to play that balance really well.”

Wootton is not closing the door to future partnerships with Toronto Leather Pride or other community organizations that may decide to pick up the torch and host a similar fetish event on Church St. Jack Pearce, president of Toronto Leather Pride, has seen the writing on the wall for a while, and the confirmation of Fetish Fair’s cancellation was not at all surprising. He says his goal is

to eventually take the reins and add a street-fair element to Toronto Leather Pride Weekend, which takes place Aug 9 to 11, at Zipperz.

“Fetish Fair died two years ago,” he says. “In a way, we have already replaced Fetish Fair. What we saw last year was not Fetish Fair.”

In 2011, the BIA decided to rebrand the Fetish Fair into the Church St Village Fair: Leather to Lace. Not every business owner approved of the change.

To protest the BIA’s sanitization of Fetish Fair, Pearce led a protest march along Church St the afternoon of the Village Fair.

This year, Pearce says, all fetish events will be kept strictly on the patio at Zipperz. “That’s just a cost-effective decision for us. Down the road, maybe even next year, we may expand things.”

The Fetish Fair cost the BIA $53,000, a quarter of its budget, Wootton says.

Other BIA events throughout the year, such as Halloweek, will continue.

For more on this story, visit xtra.ca.

12

Toronto’s gay & lesbian news

XTRA! APRIL 5, 2012

ONTARIO NEWS

LEGAL NEWS

Ontario budget hurts people living with HIV/AIDS

Sex work ruling flawed: activists

THE MCGUINTY GOVERNMENT’S FIRST budget as a minority government made sweeping cuts to public sector wages, supports for the poor, and culture and infrastructure grants.

Part of the government’s move to contain costs includes a freeze on Ontario Works (welfare) rates and the Ontario Disability Support Program, which will affect many Ontarians living with HIV/ AIDS who rely on assistance during periods when they’re too sick to work.

While these benefit rates are not being cut, because the cost of rent, food and other necessities tends to rise with inflation, recipients will effectively lose purchasing power while the rate is frozen.

Activists have long called for these programs to be reformed instead so that they wouldn’t penalize recipients who can work in reduced capacity. At present, if recipients receive any income, their benefits are clawed back, reducing the incentive to work.

“For a person living with HIV/AIDS on ODSP and struggling with poverty, it’s going to be a real challenge,” says Murray Jose, executive director of the Toronto People with AIDS Foundation. “There’s no question it’s going to have a real impact, and it’s going to be a struggle to live in a manner that supports them and meets basic needs.”

—Rob Salerno For more on this story, visit xtra.ca.

Experts say Ontario court didn’t go far enough Luna Allison WHILE THE ONTARIO COURT OF Appeal’s March 26 decision to legalize brothels is a landmark ruling that will make life safer for many sex workers, it does little to support those who still work on the streets, say sex-work advocates.

The ruling also failed to remove the indecency clause, a provision of the bawdyhouse law that has historically been used to target gay men.

Five judges ruled on the appeal of a September 2010 Ontario Superior Court decision by Justice Susan Himel, which struck down three Criminal Code provisions related to sex work.

While Ontario’s highest court agreed with Himel on two provisions, striking down the bawdyhouse law as it relates to sex work and modifying a law that makes it illegal to live off the avails of sex work, three of the five judges chose to uphold a law that governs communication for the purposes of prostitution.

“I do worry about my street colleagues,” commented Valerie Scott, one of three litigants in the case, at a press conference following the decision. “What are they going to do? We have to figure out something to make these women and men safe.”

The court’s overturning of the bawdyhouse law will make it possible

to operate indoor sex-work businesses.

Meanwhile, the modification of the law concerning living off the avails of prostitution makes it possible for sex workers to hire employees — including drivers, receptionists and bodyguards — without legal consequences or threat of interference from police.

“The government lost their appeal,” says Terri-Jean Bedford, another litigant. “The laws are changing, and the authorities are now engaged.”

The decision, which is binding in all regions of Ontario, will likely be used as a precedent for other provinces and territories in order to work toward the decriminalization of sex work. Both sides will be allowed to appeal as the court stayed its judgment for 30 days.

Alan Young, who acted as counsel on the case, has indicated that the group will most likely not appeal the decision unless the government does.

Meanwhile, Maggie’s, a Torontobased advocacy group organized by and for sex workers, released a statement calling the ruling a letdown.

“The anti-prostitution laws work together to jeopardize sex workers’ safety. It is not tenable to have a safe place to see a client if you can’t screen him first or clearly set out what you offer, your rates and your safe-sex requirements,” says Kara Gillies, a long-time sex worker and activist for

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ible violation of freedom of speech.”

Kinsman says failing to remove the indecency clause in the bawdyhouse provision is another missed opportunity, noting it has been used by police against gay establishments since the mid-1970s, including during the Toronto bathhouse raids of 1981.

Since money is not usually exchanged for sex in gay bathhouses, the “indecent acts” clause has long provided a legal excuse for raids and bawdyhouse charges.

—With files from Andrea Houston For a look at how Vancouver and Ottawa police are changing how they police sex work, visit xtra.ca.

on other pages Guest column – Sex workers deserve dignity and respect ›13 The life of a travelling t-girl ›16

Anti-bullying bills spark Queen’s Park protests Andrea Houston

B.Sc., LL.B., TEP

legal reform. “Further, many streetbased workers don’t have access to an indoor place to work.”

Laurentian University professor Gary Kinsman agrees, noting that while the legislation is a step forward for those working in private spaces, it makes life even harder for street sex workers.

“For the bottom rungs of sex workers . . . indigenous women and nonwhite women, this means that the type of major policing and the sweeps of sex workers will continue to exist,” he says.

“It is a very incomplete decision.”

Kinsman also worries about the continued criminalization of communication surrounding sex work. “There is more vulnerability for sex workers,” he says. “You have to do it really rushed and size up whether a client is safe or not. It is the criminalization of speech surrounding a possible activity that hasn’t yet taken place. It is an incred-

EDUCATION

The all new

ROBERT G. COATES

Nikki Thomas, of Sex Professionals of Canada, stands with litigants Terri-Jean Bedford and Valerie Scott on March 26. ANDREA HOUSTON

1981

HUNDREDS OF CATHOLIC AND evangelical parents, led by several antigay religious leaders, decried Bill 13 and “homosexual sex clubs” on the steps to Queen’s Park March 29.

About 20 feet away, a small group of smiling, rainbow flag–waving people chanted and cheered, “Bullying is mean so vote 13.” The quickly organized counter-protest consisted mostly of students, who held up colourful handmade signs in support of Bill 13 and gay-straight alliances (GSA).

MPPs are currently debating two anti-bullying bills: the Liberals’ Accepting Schools Act (Bill 13) and the Conservatives’ Bill 14, which would not mandate the creation of support groups for queer students in all schools. Bill 13, in contrast, would make it law that schools establish welcoming environments for queer youth and provide supports, such as GSAs, if requested by students. Second-reading debate for Bill 13 will likely continue sometime in April.

Bill 14 has passed second reading and was sent to the Standing Committee on Social Policy March 29.

NDP MPP Cheri DiNovo, a member of the United Church clergy, says Bill 14 fails to provide urgently needed supports specific to queer and trans students, those at greatest risk of bullying, depression and suicide. To the anti-gay protesters she said, “I remind you that Jesus was very outspoken about how

we should treat our neighbour, and he said we should love them . . . He never said anything about homosexuality.

Check your scripture.”

But speakers and protesters at the anti–Bill 13 rally were unapologetic about their feelings toward lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people. Several religious parents — some of whom were accompanied by small children, who also held “Stop Bill 13” signs — said they don’t want their children learning about homosexuality at all in the classroom.

Dan McCash, a member of the Campaign Life Coalition, said Catholics are being bullied into allowing “homosexual sex clubs.” McCash believes a GSA is the same as a gay bathhouse. “I’m going by my past observations of these clubs, which are places where people meet and have their sexual encounters when they want to have them and meet people of a like mind,” he said.

A Halton Catholic District School Board trustee was also at Queen’s Park in support of Bill 13 and students fighting for GSAs. Paul Marai, who is openly gay, was thrust into the spotlight when the chair of the Halton Catholic board famously compared GSAs to Nazi groups. Marai says he supports student-led GSAs and Bill 13. “These Catholic parents are the minority,” he says, pointing to the anti-gay protesters. “Most parents are very supportive.”

Conservative MPP Rick Nicholls (Chatham-Kent-Essex) delivered

some encouraging remarks to the anti-gay protesters. “You know, I — as a believer, I just want you to know that my real rulebook says that you hate the sin but you love the sinner . . .

There are far-reaching repercussions if Bill 13 is passed because it’s just one agenda after another, after another.”

I REMIND YOU THAT JESUS WAS VERY OUTSPOKEN ABOUT HOW WE SHOULD TREAT OUR NEIGHBOUR, AND HE SAID WE SHOULD LOVE THEM. —Cheri DiNovo

On March 26, Conservative MPP Lisa MacLeod said Bill 13 and Bill 14 will likely be merged during the committee phase. On previous occasions, Education Minister Laurel Broten has vowed that GSAs will be mandated in all schools if students request them.

Meanwhile, a coalition of Canadian organizations, including PFLAG, Canadian Auto Workers and EGALE, has formed to support Catholic students fighting for GSAs. For more on this story, visit xtra.ca.

more at xtra.ca

XTRA! APRIL 5, 2012

13

PROSTITUTION LAWS

BORDER CROSSING

Sex workers deserve dignity and respect

US Customs may recognize same-sex couples

Guest Column Lindsay Blewett

A

S A SEX WORKER I WAITED in excitement and fear early March 26 to hear the news of the Ontario Court of Appeal’s decision regarding Canada’s prostitution laws.

When it was revealed that the court had upheld the communication provision, while striking down the bawdyhouse law (following a 12-month stay) and modifying the living-off-the-avails provision (which comes into effect in a month), I felt totally deflated.

I am a sex worker with a great deal of privilege, something I acknowledge and try to use to help those with less privilege. The court’s decision to uphold the communicating provision means the most vulnerable sex workers are still criminalized; in effect, they are the only sex workers currently criminalized. I am not fighting for some sex workers’ rights; I am fighting for all sex workers’ rights, but especially those who are most at risk under the law.

There is currently a predator in Ottawa targeting street-based workers, as former Ottawa police chief Vern White attested when he warned street-

based workers at Minwaashin Lodge, a centre for aboriginal women who have experienced abuse, in early December of last year.

Despite impassioned pleas from various community organizations asking police to stop the street sweeps that target these vulnerable women, Ottawa Police Service refused.

Now, with the communication law upheld, police are free to continue to harass, abuse and arrest the most marginalized sex workers. This law was upheld by a vote of three to two. The judges supporting the communication law proposed that since the bawdyhouse law was now repealed, outdoor workers would be free to move indoors.

This faulty logic assumes that streetbased workers will a) have the resources to do so and b) the desire to move indoors. It is ridiculous to deduce that street-based workers will be able to afford homes or places to work from.

I find it strange that workers who quietly ply their trade on the street are considered a nuisance, but the many students lining the streets trying to get passersby to donate to Green Peace, Amnesty International, the Red Cross or many other organizations are not, despite the fact that they solicit pedestrians.

What exactly is so horrible about someone asking you for a good time?

If you are not interested, say no! It’s

that simple. Not only that, but the communicating law is redundant. There are already laws in place to deal with noise, public disturbance and other alleged social nuisances.

If police or government have a problem with street-based sex workers, they should address it by providing better social services, which government has instead been slashing. Eliminating one of the few avenues these sex workers have to survive is not the solution.

The government must stop cutting funding to community organizations that work with the most marginalized people.

Furthermore, in all of these discussions surrounding community wellbeing, it is assumed that sex workers are outside of the community, that we are a nuisance to be curbed. I’ve got news for you: we are part of the community already and we’re not going anywhere.

Was the Court of Appeal’s decision a step in the right direction? Absolutely.

But we’ve got a long way to go before sex workers are recognized as persons with dignity and respect whose work is considered legitimate and important by all.

Lindsay Blewett is an Ottawa-based sex worker.

Toronto at Night by Ryan G Hinds, can be found on xtra.ca

Richard J Dalton Jr THE UNITED STATES MAY BE POISED to treat its own same-sex couples as families at the border, but it’s unclear whether the change would apply to Canadians and other non-residents.

Current US regulations allow families living together to fill out one Customs form if they are related by blood, marriage or adoption. But the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act defines “marriage” as a union between one man and one woman, so same-sex couples are often told they’re not families when crossing the border.

According to the existing form, “Each arriving traveler or responsible family member must provide the following information (only one written declaration per family is required).”

The Customs agency is proposing to allow those in a “domestic relationship” to fill out one form as well, such as two adults in a committed relationship with shared financial assets and obligations, including long-time companions and couples in civil or domestic partnerships.

The change would also extend to more children in the family, including foster children, stepchildren, halfsiblings, legal wards, other dependants and individuals with guardianship relationships.

The move is part of a push by the administration of President Barack Obama to recognize more rights for gays and lesbians. But Obama has not yet come out in favour of gay marriage.

Despite the explicit language of the proposed change, a Customs spokeswoman doesn’t know if it would apply to foreigners as well.

In August, Xtra wrote about East Vancouver couple Karen-Marie and Andrina Perry, who were upset when Customs agents told them at the border that they weren’t a family. KarenMarie Perry says the new regulation, if adopted, would be good news.

“For me it’s a huge issue when our bond of marriage is broken at the border like that,” she says. “However, I’m still mindful of political work that needs to be done regarding borders’ heightened security and the diminishment of civil liberties, the harassment of trans folks at the border and the recognition of the rights of all queers, whether they choose to marry or not.”

For more on this story, visit xtra.ca.

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XTRA! APRIL 5, 2012

INTERNATIONAL

Struggling for a legal distinction between human trafficking and sex work

Sex work in Cambodia S H aving the right to a career path like anyone else seems a small thing to ask. In Phnom Penh, however, transgender sex worker Sam Sela, from Women’s Network for Unity (WNU), the 6,400-member sex workers’ union in Cambodia, has been rejected for jobs even in low-wage restaurants and garment factories.

Being instantly recognizable as transgender means she is denied work even in this “live and let live” Buddhist society advertised in tourist brochures as gay- and lesbian-friendly. Sela explains, “I joined the WNU union because I faced so much discrimination from my family, friends and society that I could not get regular work.”

As well as transgender and male sex workers, WNU is made up of women who work in hostess bars, karaoke clubs or massage parlours and do freelance sex work. The union has 5,000 members in the capital Phnom Penh and another 1,400 throughout the country.

In Cambodia, the 2008 Law on Suppression of Human Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation and the severe stigma attached to doing adult sex work make it almost impossible for sex workers to access justice, healthcare and social-security systems. In response, WNU advocates for legal and human rights, as well as safer working conditions, including condom use.

Above all, WNU aims to amend Cambodia’s antihuman-trafficking laws and have the government

support their right to work. The WNU slogan, Sex Work Is Work, demands that sex workers be taken seriously as people having an occupation and that a distinction be made between human trafficking and voluntary, adult sex work.

They are particularly troubled by some police arrests under the “rescuing and raids” program. Ly Pisey, WNU assistant, explains, “Guidelines from the Ministry of the Interior define all sex workers as victims, ensuring the police arrest everyone during raids, not just children and sex slaves locked in brothels. But we are not all victims.

“Also, the law targets every activity involved with sex work, such as soliciting in public and procurement. These activities allow us to perform our work — yet everything has been made illegal.

“Worst is the contradiction between the trafficking law and Cambodian government HIV programs,” Pisey says. “Anti-trafficking police seize condoms as evidence during raids to crack down on sex workers. Sometimes they have to swallow condoms to avoid arrest. Sex workers are now afraid to possess condoms. This goes against HIVprevention advice and endangers our health.”

Sela speaks in her capacity as a WNU organizer.

She has been twice elected to the position. “At WNU, we are adult sex workers over the age of 18.

No one is forcing us. We aren’t victims. We don’t have pimps. Poverty and debt make most of us enter sex work.”

She places a hand over her heart and her eyes melt. “I love my gay boys.”

Paula Stromberg

peaking in the WNU offices in northeast Phnom Penh, Sela adds that tricks with local Khmer men bring in less than $1.50 (Canadian). Cambodian brothels, unlike in nearby Thailand, are set up for locals, not tourists.

Many are dirty and uncomfortable. Clean toilets, showers, fresh sheets and towels are rare. Freelance sex workers earn $5 to $10 a night, enough to support a family.

Around the world, legitimizing the selling of sex is as inflammatory an issue as abortion rights, and just as sharply divisive. Abolitionist feminists, characterized as coming from wealthy countries, want to abolish the sex industry and free all sex workers, who they see as victims in need of rescue.

In an opposing stance that Pisey says is fairly new to Cambodia, WNU members are demanding the right to work like everyone else and want the police to stop brothel raids that oppress them in the name of “rescue.”

After a government pronouncement that sex workers are an affront to traditional Cambodian culture, WNU members joined with garment workers and their children to hold a Buddhist ceremony known as Bun Phka, where a group raises funds for a temple and other good works — a demonstration that sex workers respect tradition and religion the same as the rest of society. In a public march, they carried a banner reading, “We are your partners in poverty reduction.”

Another WNU official, Keo Tha, an eroticmassage sex worker, commented, “Cambodia is

a poor country. Poverty is the root of this complicated situation. We don’t have many options.

People are slow to accept that sex work is work.

We get no respect and become doubly vulnerable on top of our poverty.”

As graceful as an Apsara temple dancer, Sela straightens her already elegant posture and points out that transgender people have many talents that Cambodian society is not ready to acknowledge. “As well as working as an activist leader, I can do fashion design, sing, give dance performances, and I know a lot about cosmetics. People reject transgender people like me, yet I have a lot to offer.

“Like all WNU members, we’d like to be respected as legitimate workers and also have access to the same opportunities open to everyone, such as working in offices, shops and major companies.”

Adult sex workers at WNU want to be recognized as human beings who are making choices about their lives. They want rights other workers enjoy, such as access to healthcare, job training and education.

To avoid being marginalized as radicals, WNU is careful to align itself with other social justice groups and cooperate with, rather than criticize, the Cambodian government. The strategy is working. “For the past two years we’ve been working closely with government officials, and now we face less police violence,” Pisey says. “When we’re arrested, we experience less robbery of our property, less rape and fewer beatings. But we still need space to work safely.”

more at xtra.ca

XTRA! APRIL 5, 2012

FACT SHEET By the numbers Population: 15 million Gross national income per capita: $760 (US) Tourists in 1993: 118,000 Tourists in 2009: 2.1 million Percentage of Buddhists: 95 Canadians of Cambodian origin: 20,000 Canada’s contribution to the Khmer Rouge tribunals: $2.9 million MATHIEU YOUNG

Khmer years The Khmer Rouge was the name given to members of the party that ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979.

The tyrannical Pol Pot, a Maoist revolutionary who was at the helm of the party for three years, led the Khmer. In that time he presided over one of the worst genocides of the 20th century, resulting in the deaths of more than one million Cambodians.

Recovering from genocide

TODD BROWN AND CHEA THAL

While it has seen massive growth in the last decade, Cambodia remains one of the poorest countries in Asia. It is also one of the most corrupt, ranking just above North Korea and Afghanistan. Years of war and instability resulted in an older population with little education and low literacy rates, which means most still rely on agriculture for survival.

Cambodia’s fastest-growing industry is tourism.

Abuse of sex workers

MATHIEU YOUNG

The best way to fix problems of violence and poverty is to stand in solidarity with sex workers as they fight to transform the industry. For WNU members, sex work is a labour rights issue and sex workers’ rights are human rights.

Seeking support from workers around the world, Sela and Pisey ask that overseas readers send their names and addresses with a message from their own countries — “We support WNU sex workers in Cambodia” — by emailing wnusw. cambodia@gmail.com.

I

n the sex workers’ union office in Phnom Penh, a banner pinned to the wall reads, “Don’t talk to me about sewing machines. Talk to me about workers’ rights.”

Cambodia’s anti-human-trafficking law has given rise to police raids on brothels where sex workers are “rescued” and retrained for jobs in low-wage garment factories. Workers get minimal instruction to operate sewing machines and usually receive no wages during the two- or threemonth training period.

Women’s Network for Unity (WNU) assistant Ly Pisey points out, “When you finish your sewing training, you have no real profession and no marketing knowledge. People need skills to run their own businesses, like financial management and how to track profit and loss.”

There are about 350,000 workers in Cambodian

garment factories, and 80 percent are women. The garment industry is the country’s largest employment sector, but workers earn just $61 a month, the minimum wage, and face dangerous working conditions.

“You can never earn enough to support yourself, let alone a child or family,” Pisey says.

And there is often an ugly truth behind the “rescue industry,” which is largely funded by international aid. “International donors criticize our government for corruption and human rights violations, but Cambodian sex workers also ask that donors demand accountability that their programs don’t harm human beings like us. The law and the rescues and raids program lead to abuse.

“We all hate human trafficking, especially when children are affected. However, rescuing consenting adult sex workers and sending them to sew is not economic empowerment.” Pisey adds that “rescue industry” organizations get millions of dollars to set up programs without listening to what sex workers say they need.

“Ignoring women’s, gay and transgender voices is another form of violence. Well-meaning policies implemented without consultation with sex workers can also do harm.”

Paula Stromberg is an NGO journalist covering women’s empowerment, human rights and GLBT projects around the world.

PAULA STROMBERG

“For far too long, police and other authorities have unlawfully locked up sex workers, beaten and sexually abused them, and looted their money and other possessions.” Elaine Pearson of Human Rights Watch, from its 2010 report Off the Streets: Arbitrary Detention and Other Abuses against Sex Workers in Cambodia.

Gay rights

SEX WORKERS ARE NOW AFRAID TO POSSESS CONDOMS. — Ly Pisey, Women’s Network for Unity assistant

Gay sex is legal in Cambodia so long as it occurs between consenting adults in private. However, while Cambodians are traditionally openminded when it comes to gay rights, the government has been slow to enact legislation that protects gay people. In 2007, the Cambodian prime minister publicly disowned his adopted lesbian daughter, yet at the same time called on the public not to discriminate against gays.

The King likes queens clockwise from top left:

The evening streets of Phnom Penh are unsafe for sex workers; Cambodia remains one of the poorest countries in Southeast Asia; eroticmassage sex worker Keo Tha and transgender MSM Sam Sela (right) are two of five officials at Cambodia’s Women’s Network for Unity; police regularly target and arrest sex workers living on the streets of Phnom Penh.

“It’s not their fault if God makes them like that . . . Gays and lesbians would not exist if God did not create them.”

Former King Norodom Sihanouk, who supports same-sex marriage.

Cambodia Pride The first LGBT Pride event was held in Phnom Penh in 2003. It is now an annual event.

15

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Toronto’s gay & lesbian news

XTRA! APRIL 5, 2012

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

FEATURE

Indian police censor exhibit

by Canadian artist

The life of a travelling t-girl

INDIAN POLICE CENSORED A PHOTO exhibit by Indian-Canadian artist Sunil Gupta after they received an anonymous complaint claiming that the pictures are obscene.

The exhibit, titled Sun City and Other Stories: Paris-San Francisco-Delhi, was on display in the New Delhi Alliance Française and opened to a positive response March 23, according to The Hindu newspaper. It consisted of 16 still colour photos taken in Paris, highlighting the city’s gay life.

Following a complaint, Delhi police sent in an inspector to speak with the Alliance management. Apparently, the Alliance decided to close the exhibit following the inspector’s visit, although an official with the Alliance claims that the decision was made in consultation with Gupta.

Gupta claims a third party told him that the exhibition would be shut down.

Xtra has previously reported about Gupta’s work in Canada and his recently published book, Queer.

Although unofficial discrimination is still common in India, gays recently won a court case decriminalizing gay sex. Unfortunately, a challenge to the decriminalization case has been brought before India’s Supreme Court.

The court recently decided to reserve its judgment in the case, meaning a decision will not be rendered for several months. —Rob Salerno Visit xtra.ca for an interview with Sunil Gupta.

UK gay mag drops ‘adult’ ads BRITISH GAY MAGAZINE ATTITUDE has announced that it is no longer accepting ads from “adult” businesses, including the gay cruising website and mobile app squirt.org.

Squirt is operated by Pink Triangle Press, which also publishes Xtra.

The decision came as a shock to Squirt’s marketing department, which had been advertising in Attitude since 2009. Squirt was informed of the decision March 9, when new artwork the company submitted for an ad was rejected.

“Unfortunately we can no longer accept adult advertising and are unable to carry this advert,” wrote Andy Goddard, Attitude’s group advertising manager, in an email to the Squirt marketing department. Goddard later clarified that the magazine is attempting to woo more mainstream sponsors by banishing the adult ads.

“The decision to remove adult adverting certainly wasn’t taken lightly as it counted for a fair proportion of our advertising revenues but it was felt that if Attitude ever wanted to become a ‘coffee table’ lifestyle product then we really had no choice,” Goddard wrote.

Jeffrey Freeman, Squirt’s web marketing manager, says the decision is unfortunate, but the magazine has a right to choose its sponsors.

“While the likes of adult advertisers like Squirt provided steady ad revenue to outfits like Attitude, they clearly calculated they could chase some mainstream business they would not have been able to with an adult-themed advertising section,” he says. —Rob Salerno For more on this story, visit xtra.ca.

Constant travel not as glamorous as it may seem, say trans escorts Peter Berton SALESPEOPLE DO IT; SO DO MUSIcians. So do travelling t-girl (trans girl) escorts: they spend much of their working lives on the road.

Demand for t-girls to travel has increased in recent years, as oncelocal escorts become widely known through sites such as Shemale Canada, Tgirlforums and Backpage.

Admirers surf these pages, where they can find photos, phone numbers and websites of t-girls who post their travelling schedules online.

Calgary’s TS Sunshine (t-girl escorts often prefix their names with TS to communicate their transsexual orientation to clients) has lived in cities across Canada. She now calls Calgary home. “Being an escort is not for everyone, but a girl has to do what a girl has to do,” she says. “Transitioning is very expensive, and for many t-girls, escorting is a way to make ends meet.”

She says t-girls travel for the same reason any escorts travel.

“First, I want to connect with clients who have expressed an interest in seeing me but who live in other cities . . . Second, clients enjoy seeing new girls. Being a ‘new face’ brings with it the opportunity to meet new clients.”

When Toronto-based TS Dita began escorting, she saw no reason to travel. “I thought, What was the point?” she recalls. “I was living in Ottawa at the time and thought, ‘I have a good enough clientele here; why move around and make things complicated?”

But she was soon looking for ways to make more money, so she headed to Montreal to try her luck. “Before I even knew it, I was hardly home anymore,” she says.

Today, both Dita and Sunshine divide their time between their home cities and occasional forays across the country.

“I visit a few nearby cities fairly regularly because it is so easy to organize local trips,” says Sunshine, who is adding an international tour this year.

“I advertise my stays ahead of time, and I usually keep my visits to a few days in each city so as not to overstay my welcome.”

Dita has cut back on travel. Even though the road is profitable, “it’s just too much of a hassle,” she says. But after a while, requests from out of town start to accumulate, and so she packs her bags and goes out again.

She mainly spends time in Ontario, balancing her visits against perceived market potential. “How long I stay depends on which city I go to,” she explains. “For example, I will stay a week in Toronto, Niagara Falls or Kingston.”

As for the romance of the road?

“What romance? Life on the road

I HAVE BEEN ATTACKED, STOLEN FROM, THREATENED AND HARASSED

BY CLIENTS. sucks,” Sunshine says. “Ask anyone who travels for a living and they will tell you the same thing.”

Travel brings with it the stress of living out of a suitcase, surviving on hotel food, and missing lovers, friends and family. There are also the physical dangers of being in a strange place, even for a well-dressed TS escort living in a decent hotel. “An escort is at risk of being the target of violent crimes,” Sunshine says. “This is true at home and perhaps a little more on the road, where she may not have a support network around her.”

Surviving on the road takes brains and constant vigilance: “Being careful and screening clients a little more than usual helps to mitigate the risk,” Sunshine says, “but this is a dangerous business and a girl must have her wits about her.”

Dita agrees, noting the importance of not being too flashy. “Dress normally.

You can sparkle a little, but you don’t want to stand out.”

Even when escorts take all possible precautions, things can still go terribly wrong.

“I have been attacked, stolen from, threatened and harassed by clients,” Dita says, noting that hotels often kick out travelling t-girls.

Local escorts also don’t take kindly to competition on their turf. Sunshine is sympathetic to their feelings: “I don’t want to travel to other cities and take too much business away from local t-girls,” she says. “That’s just rude.”

Ironically, Sunshine says police are not a major problem for travelling t-girls. In fact, “on the road, legal issues are virtually nonexistent,” she says, noting she struggles more in Calgary, where escorts have to pay for licences

Calgary’s TS Sunshine, left, is adding an international tour to her schedule this year; TS Dita regularly tours Ontario cities.

and follow bylaws.

The possible decriminalization of sex work, now before the Supreme Court of Canada, could see this kind of regulation extended to other cities, says Ruby, another travelling escort. Representatives for Vancouver sex workers have been arguing before the Supreme Court since 2007 that a constitutional challenge to Canada’s sex-work laws should be allowed to proceed.

The Court is currently deciding whether the group meets the legal requirements for representation in the case.

Meanwhile, on March 26 the Ontario Court of Appeal struck down two Criminal Code provisions related to sex work. The government has 12 months to make changes to the laws that have been amended as a result of the case.

“Right now, travelling escorts can only be charged with keeping a common bawdyhouse,” Ruby explains.

“However, the law states that the location might be ‘habitually’ used for prostitution. So a hotel room might not qualify for that particular violation.

Because of this ambiguity, local police departments are often hesitant to lay charges when informed that a travelling escort is working in a hotel.”

Ruby says that now that brothels have been decriminalized in Ontario, municipalities might choose to restrict licences for escorts. “Calgary and Edmonton already do this, so it’s not unreasonable to assume other municipalities will follow suit.”

Under these decriminalized rules, a travelling escort could be charged with a bylaw infraction rather than a criminal charge. This means a sex worker caught with a single client can be busted for “escorting without a valid licence.”

As benign as this infraction sounds, the up-to-$10,000 fine attached to it is not. As a result, Ruby warns that the “police, as part of bylaw enforcement, might actually be more inclined to tar-

get travelling escorts, because they can do so while using fewer resources, with a lower burden of proof, and they can line the city’s pockets in the meantime.”

For now, t-girls will continue to ply their trade across the country and beyond. When it comes to profit, there’s no better way to make money.

“A thousand a city is the smallest amount I like to make,” says Dita.

“Some days are a hit and some days are a miss.”

“Sometimes people think that escorts make a fortune,” Sunshine says.

“That isn’t the normal case. There are a limited number of clients, and many escorts want a piece of that pie. It can be a pretty thin slice when everybody gets their share.”

So is the effort worth it? Yes, says Dita, considering there are limited opportunities for “out” t-girls. Apart from the adult industry, where their “marketable assets” have commercial value, t-girls have a hard time finding work.

“Canada is a really good place to live and most people are very accepting of t-girls, but finding a good job is still difficult,” Sunshine says.

For now, the best job for Sunshine is her current travelling gig. Her next tour stops in Red Deer, Edmonton, Calgary, Saskatoon and Regina.

“Go ahead, take the plunge — give me a call,” reads her current profile on Shemale Canada. “You’ll be glad you did.”

on other pages Sex-work ruling flawed: activists ›12 Guest column – Sex workers deserve dignity and respect ›13

on the web For more on these stories, search xtra.ca using the following article titles: ›The dangers of sex work in Canada ›Trans sex workers still most vulnerable ›Sex-worker groups argue before Supreme Court

more at xtra.ca

XTRA! APRIL 5, 2012

17

arts › entertainment › leisure

Out City IN THE

NEIGHBOURHOOD

IT’S POSSIBLY THE ONLY CANADIAN NOVEL THIS YEAR WITH A GRAPHIC RIMMING SCENE. Daniel Allen Cox ›19

ON STAGE

Secret Handshake Gallery Mutual St space provides peer support for schizophrenics, including those with artistic flair Serafin LaRiviere LIKE MANY, MY UNDERSTANDING of schizophrenia used to be a hazy mélange of dual personalities and that old Ingmar Berman film Through a Glass Darkly — you know, a sort of Jekyll/Hyde characterization that ends in tragedy but never really explains the complexity of this oft-misunderstood mental illness. It’s never been the sort of thing people really like talking about, because admitting to this stuff has historically meant a one-way ticket to ostracism and a white padded cell.

But now we know more. We know that schizophrenia can be controlled with medication, understanding and support. Sadly, society still tends to be somewhat repelled by any instability related to the mind, and it’s not easy to put a sympathetic face on an illness

programs for its members, as well as public events that reach out into the general community. The Secret Handshake Gallery is one of those attempts to foster social engagement, a space where artwork from both members and non-members is displayed. Members are encouraged to take part in art workshops organized by the committee, and the gallery gives them the opportunity to showcase their work.

One of the gallery’s most popular events is its monthly Mutual Readings series, hosted by performance artist, painter and poet David Bateman.

“It’s open to members and nonmembers alike,” Bateman says. “It’s usually poetry, but presenters also show their work, or something else performance-related. Last time we had a clown performance. It’s very diverse.”

ESCAPING

ROUGH

WATERS Robert Chafe’s latest tale of race and salvation Shannon Webb-Campbell

Gaynica, a painting by David Bateman, is on display at the Secret Handshake Gallery.

that robs its victims of the ability to interact appropriately with others.

“So many people think it’s just about some crazy shopping-cart lady screaming at everybody on the street,” says Michael Cobb, a board member of Toronto’s Secret Handshake peer support group for schizophrenics. “But if people would take the time to find out more, they’d know that schizophrenics are just trying to live out their lives like everyone else.”

Cobb notes that many schizophrenics remain undetectable to the general public if provided with suitable care and appropriate medications — a truth that hit surprisingly close to home a few years ago.

“I was part of the general ignorance, too, until my partner told me he was schizophrenic,” Cobb says. “It can be challenging at times, but he’s 100 percent well right now. All it takes is empathy and understanding.”

The group sponsors a variety of

Bateman became involved with the gallery through a friend, poet and mental health advocate Bill Bissett. While the gallery is devoted to schizophrenia-related issues, supporters like Bateman often come in to share work that sometimes has a difficult time finding its place in mainstream spaces.

“The gallery totally embraces queer culture,” says Bateman, whose eclectic, queer-centric paintings have also graced the space’s walls.

“It’s such a comforting, welcoming space where everyone is welcome and encouraged to take part.”

the deets SECRET HANDSHAKE GALLERY Viewings by appointment Mutual Reading series, last Sunday of every month at 7:30pm 189 Mutual St For more information, email godsavethedragqueen@ yahoo.com

EWFOUNDLAND IS A place where stories have always played a role in governing the human condition. Certain stories a r e experienced, others passed down by elders — some affect us forever.

Robert Chafe, a gay Governor General’s Award–winning playwright, knows this, incorporating powerful stories into his work. When he first heard the tale of Lanier Phillips he knew he had to retell it.

Phillips was the only AfricanAmerican survivor aboard the USS Truxtun, which ran aground off the coast of Newfoundland near the town of St Lawrence in 1942, along with a ship it was escorting, the USS Pollux.

Phillips was among 46 men rescued.

Having grown up in the American South amid segregation, he was surprised when townspeople treated him kindly. One local, Violet Pike, was surprised when she could not scrub Phillips’ skin white — she thought his black skin was oil from the shipwreck that wouldn’t come off.

Pike nursed Phillips back to health in her home. He was so touched by this treatment he later donated money to the community so that a playground

could be built.

Chafe says something in the tale called out to him.

Oil and Water is the result. The story of Phillips’ life and an homage to the island, it blends an a cappella score of Newfoundland folk music and AfricanAmerican gospel.

“The play is this father grappling with this memory at this moment of crisis in his daughter’s life,” Chafe says. “He’s grappling with this trauma from early in his life and sharing it with her to save her the way St Lawrence saved him.”

Chafe dedicated the play, which will be released in book form by Playwrights Canada Press later this spring, to his grandmother.

“There was something about Violet Pike and the seclusion and isolation that bred an innocence,” Chafe says.

“When I heard about the mistake, I thought of my grandmother — she would have been that person.”

For Phillips, it was the first time in his life he was treated as an equal by white people — he was offered tea in china cups, dined with the family, and slept in a bed. Those few days in Newfoundland forever changed the way he saw the world. He returned to St Lawrence in February for the 70th anniversary of the disaster. He died

top: Starr Domingue (as Vonzia) and Jeremiah Sparks (as Lanier) in Oil and Water. above: Robert Chafe says he fell in love with Lanier Phillips’ story years ago. PETER BROMLEY

soon after, on March 12, just days shy of his 89th birthday.

“I’m very sad. I guess that’s an understatement; I’ve been pretty messed up for a few days,” says Chafe, who had met Phillips and spent two and a half years researching his life.

“I fell in love with his story a long time ago; he was this kind of mythic person to me. I remember the first time I called him on the phone . . .

I was shaking.”

Chafe pauses, tears welling in his eyes.

“There is this almost false connection you establish as a subject,” he says. “I realized yesterday that what I am really upset about is he was just really good. He was a really good person. The more I look around at the world, it could use more people like him.”

Chafe recently relocated to Toronto from St John’s to pursue a fine arts master’s degree in creative writing.

His previous works, Butler’s Marsh and Tempting Providence, were nominated for Governor General’s Awards.

He won the award in 2010 for Afterimage, a play based on Michael Crummey’s short story of the same name.

the deets OIL AND WATER Wed, April 18– Sun, May 6 Factory Theatre Mainspace 125 Bathurst St factorytheatre.ca

18

Toronto’s Toronto o gay & lesbian news

XTRA! APRIL 5, 2012

IMMIGRATION LAW

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Shawn Desman hosts the high school choir competition on April 13 & 14.

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LIVE LOVE LARGE 2012 Friday April 20th Metropolitan Community Church of Toronto 115 Simpson Ave.

Featuring: The A-Men Kelly Perras The Screamin’ Sarahs Doors Open at 6:30pm Showtime at 8:00pm Tickets: $25 in advance $30 at the door

ART & PHOTOGRAPHY Ladies First The fifth annual art show has paintings, illustrations and prints inspired by globetrotting female pop icons. Artists include Pilar Alvarez, Vicki M, Cynthia Frenette, Paige Reynolds and others. Thurs, April 5, 7–9pm. Shanghai Cowgirl, 538 Queen St W. Free. thetartgallery.com

All proceeds to the Toronto People with AIDS Foundationy

Get those blue balls rolling. Cocktail and connect while raising funds for the AIDS Committee of Cambridge, Kitchener, Waterloo and Area.

Registration required. Sat, April 14, 1pm. Brunswick Frederick Lanes, 385 Frederick St, Kitchener. $30 bowling, $35 dinner, $60 both. kwfriendsofdorothy.ca

C Magazine Auction 2012 A contemporary art fundraising extravaganza showcasing donated works from Guy Maddin, Karen Azoulay, CN Tower Liquidation, Sandy Plotnikoff and many more.

Wed, April 11, 6pm. MOCCA, 952 Queen St W. $75, $750 patron group. cmagazine2012.eventbrite.com

Extraordinary Artists Workman Arts and the Art Gallery of Ontario present a two-day artsand-educational event aimed at promoting awareness of mental health issues. The Mad Couture Catwalk gets the cogs turning on day one, and day two has an all-day symposium. Fri, April 13, 7–10pm; Sat, April 14, 9:30am–5:30pm.

AGO, 317 Dundas St W. $15–160. workmanarts.com

HEALTH & ISSUES Legit Toronto Accessible legal counsel for samesex partners immigrating to Canada.

Explore options and connect with others. Thurs, April 12, 7–10pm.

519 Community Centre, 519 Church St. Free, donations accepted.

416-392-6874. the519.org

Divorce Talks Live Join the dialogue on the pressures and hardships of separation and divorce in a results-oriented atmosphere. Tues, April 17, 6:30pm.

79 Shuter St. Free. mutualsolutions.ca

Positive Routes to Recovery

For more information or to purchase tickets, please contact: www.livelovelarge.org or infolivelovelarge@gmail.com

Dorothy’s Best Charity Bowling Tournament

A peer-facilitated support group for gay and gay HIV-positive men taking a harm-reduction approach to substance use. This safe and non-judgmental environment focuses on individual goal-setting.

Tues, April 3, 6–8pm. The 519 Community Centre, 519 Church St. Free. the519.org

Dorothy’s Best Charity Bowling Tournament takes place on April 14.

MUSIC Unison Benevolent Fund Benefit Proceeds from this fundraiser provide discreet financial relief to struggling musicians. Hosted by the Lisa Particelli Quartet, with performances by Barbara Lica, Sly Blue, the Royal Jelly Quartet, Koller, the Heavyweights Brass Band and Astrogroove. Wed, April 11, 7pm. The Old Mill Inn, 21 Old Mill Rd. $20 recommended donation. unisonfund.ca

Show Choir Canada Juno Award–winning recording artist and hunk Shawn Desman hosts this fabulous competition of high-school show choirs giving it their all. Preliminaries Fri, April 13, 11am; finals Sat, April 14, 2pm. Sony Centre for the Performing Arts, 1 Front St E. $18–35. sonycentre.ca

Spectra Queer Idol rebrands itself as a nonprofit organization that welcomes performers of all varieties. Knock opportunity on its ass and take advantage of this new platform to hone your craft and take it to the next level. Mandy Goodhandy hosts the Mill Street Brewery Pre-Show, and Paul Bellini hosts the Holiday Inn Showcase. Fri, April 13, 10pm.

No cover till 10:30pm, $7 after. spectrashowcase.com › continued on page 20

more at xtra.ca

XTRA! APRIL 5, 2012

19

IN PRINT

An excerpt

THE INNER LIFE OF

Danıel Allen Cox Montreal novelist launches third sexual thriller, Basement of Wolves

T

Matthew Hays

HE FICTION OF Montreal writer Daniel Allen Cox is almost alarming in its intimacy. He leads readers into the heads of his protagonists, revealing their most private, dark, twisted and intensely sexual thoughts. The result is an unusual validation of his readers’ inner lives. Cox’s universe isn’t exactly comforting, but it’s certainly honest.

That quality is again on display in his latest novel, Basement of Wolves.

It’s the story of Michael-David, a Los Angeles–based actor who turns that crucial age of 40 and loses a prized role to a younger actor. Desperate to keep working, Michael-David takes a part in a mysterious art film in which he is to co-star with a pack of wolves. But when the project begins to fall apart, he holes up in an old hotel, where he loses his grip on reality and descends into paranoid frenzy.

This latest story is distinct from Cox’s earlier novels for its more surreal flavour and its clearer narrative thread.

“I guess this is my most mainstream book, whatever that means,” he concedes. “Though it’s possibly the only Canadian novel this year with a graphic rimming scene. And the word fuck appears more than 90 times, double my last book. I guess my vocabulary is getting better.”

Cox gives great quote, so interviewing him is always intriguing. Sitting in a bistro in Montreal’s Mile End neighbourhood, he sips his scotch with full, pouty lips. He speaks with a barely perceptible stutter, pausing on the occasional consonant. It’s endearing and ludicrously sexy.

“Sex and writing are both always on my mind,” he says. “Text is like fluid, so it’s inherently sexual. When bodies are interacting with text, whether writing, editing, translating or consuming, it’s like the exchange of bodily fluids. In my life, both sex and writing are liberating. So I like to mix them up and see what happens. The results, I hope, are sexy. Whatever they are, I get off on the process.”

Cox’s novels seem to lead readers to build imaginary cinematic landscapes. His 2008 debut book, Shuck, feels a lot like an early Gus Van Sant film. The story captures the sleaze of New York’s gay-porn milieu extremely well, probably because Cox actually lived it. In fact, a large measure of his cachet comes from his time as a Manhattan sex worker and pornstar.

Cox — yes, that is his real name — says those are defining experiences for him.

He fondly recalls, for example, seeing a woman fist a horse in a seedy peep show in lower Manhattan. Sadly, the Manhattan he captured in Shuck no longer really exists.

The experience of reading Cox’s 2010 book, Krakow Melt, is also a bit like watching a movie. The story is a strangely revelatory romance among

DALLAS CUROW

IN MY LIFE, BOTH SEX AND WRITING ARE LIBERATING. SO I LIKE TO MIX THEM UP AND SEE WHAT HAPPENS. THE RESULTS, I HOPE, ARE SEXY.

pyromaniacs fighting homophobia in Poland.

“The films of David Lynch have had a huge impact on me,” Cox says. “And Basement of Wolves is my most cinematic book, for sure.”

Praise has followed Cox with each new title. He has been shortlisted for an impressive basket of literary awards — ReLit, Ferro-Grumley, Lambda — but has yet to win. “I’m running out of Susan Lucci jokes,” he says. And just as Basement of Wolves launches, Cox reveals his latest bit of news: he’s collaborating with Toronto auteur Bruce LaBruce on a screenplay. The project already has a good deal of buzz surrounding it.

Titled Gerontophilia, it’s the story of an intergenerational romance between a teenager and an octogenarian. Cox describes it as “beautiful and fearless.”

Still, Cox has mixed feelings about his growing notoriety. His Wikipedia page was hacked a few times by people with seemingly odd intentions. And a few of his fans seem to have a hard time separating fantasy from reality.

“Of course I’m thrilled when someone likes my work,” he says. “It’s such a great compliment. But recently I’ve had some run-ins with overzealous fans, people who have lost a sense of the boundaries between us. There were moments when it was physically threatening. At the same time, of course, the praise from critics and readers is flattering. It’s an odd combination.”

Today is a brand new morning, but my heartburn starts once Tim pulls the chair in front of me and sits at my table.

“You,” I say.

“Don’t act too excited.”

“You ditched me the other day.”

I sound upset, but I’m actually happy to see him.

“Dude, you were fine. It was a good thing to find your own way out.”

Today he’s wearing black jeans and a plaid long-sleeved shirt. It’s wrinkled and smells like sweat.

I shuffle my slippers and they bump into skateboard wheels.

“What are you doing here?’’

“I could ask you the same question, but I don’t,” Tim says, giving me attitude. Those eyelashes must be two miles long. “I guess I just like it here.

And you’re interesting.”

It’s the merry-go-round. Young hustler has a tired ruse I decoded two decades ago. Maybe I even invented it. Soon enough, his knee will graze mine. If I move away, he’ll split. If Ihold the thigh firm, it’s a clear invitation. Our interaction was scripted before we ever met.

Yet, under the table, all I can feel is the skateboard, the edge of the sandpaper grip on the top of the plank against my shin. His long legs have seemingly disappeared.

“Wanna go on the roof tonight?” he asks.

“Don’t you have any wild parties to attend?”

“The Doctor doesn’t call me anymore. We can bring Jack Daniels and Coke up there.”

“You want me to buy it, I guess?”

“If you want to, that’s cool I can pay for it.”

“No, no, I insist,” I reply a little too sarcastically.

I can’t achieve subtlety before two cups of coffee. I take forty bucks out of my bathrobe pocket and slip it to him.

“That’s really not necessary,” Tim says.

“Don’t be silly. See you at eight.”

“It’s gonna be a blast, you’ll see.”

After Tim leaves, I realize he’s got me where he wants me. I can’t ask any questions about his life, though I’m dying to know. Does he work? Go to school? Where does he live, and what frees him to spend his days with me? I can’t ask him, because that would license him to probe my hot air balloon. Until pop. Can’t let that happen. Maybe this arrangement is for the better. I prefer silence to lies. My immediate and most pressing worry, however, is that we didn’t set a meeting place, and I’m not sure if he remembers my suite number.

—From Basement of Wolves

by Daniel Allen Cox

the deets BASEMENT OF WOLVES Arsenal Pulp Press $16 Daniel Allen Cox reads from Basement of Wolves Sat, April 14, 7pm Supermarket 268 Augusta Ave, Toronto

20

Toronto’s gay & lesbian news

XTRA! APRIL 5, 2012

listings ›

Trendy Junction Condo $299,999 for 2 bedroom with parking! Have you considered life in ‘The Junction’?

For more listings, go to xtra.ca

› continued from page 18

LEISURE & PLEASURE Older LGBT Social

Full Service Listing and Buyer Representation.

Meet new friends at this afternoon social and take part in light exercises. Refreshments provided.

Transportation available. Thurs, April 5, 2–4pm. SPRINT, 140 Merton St. Free.

JOE SIPIONE Sales Representative

ROTC Toronto

Call me direct at 416-720-6611 or email joe.sipione@live.ca for this or other Toronto Condos.

joesipione.ca Not intended to solicit persons under contract to another real estate brokerage.

BUY | SELL | INVEST | LEASE

The Righteously Outrageous Twirling Corps is recruiting new members to participate in Pride 2012. No experience necessary. Sat, April 7, 12:30–2:30pm. Church St Public School, 83 Alexander St. Free. rotctoronto.com

Nina Arsenault performs at the reopening of Glad Day’s events space on

Naked Swim

Mother of Gay or Straight Son(s)? $50 for 1/2 hour You are invited to participate in a study on the possible biological basis of sexual orientation.

Mothers will fill out a short questionnaire and give a small blood sample.

Please contact Dr. Anthony Bogaert (Brock University, St. Catharines, ON) at tbogaert@brocku.ca or 905-688-5550 ext 4230 for more information.

If you decide to participate, our researchers will come to your home or place of mutual convenience.

This research has been approved by the Brock University Research Ethics Board (10-282; reb@brocku.ca or 905 688-5550 ext. 3035)

Open House

Get sticky and wet with the hot and hirsute guys of TNT!Men. Tues, April 10, 8:15pm. Harrison Pool, 15 Stephanie St. $8, $5 members, $4 students. tntmen.org

Glad Day Bookshop celebrates the reopening of its new events space with performances by local luminaries Nina Arsenault, Troy Jackson, Mickey D Licious and more.

Sat, April 14, 7–11pm. Glad Day Bookshop, 598A Yonge St. Free. gladdaybookshop.com

Playing with Dominance and Submission Give and get what you want with confidence and creativity. Thurs, April 12, 7–9:30pm. Good for Her, 175 Harbord St. $33. goodforher.com

Sex Toys 101 Amanda DeSilva explores the nuances of sex toys, from classic dildos to emerging high-tech pleasure devices. Sat, April 14, 7:30– 9pm. Come As You Are, 493 Queen St W. Free. comeasyouare.com

Shabbat Celebrate with an unaffiliated, inclusive and egalitarian congregation on the last day of Pesach. Sat, April 14, 10:30am. Miles Nadal Jewish Community Centre, 750 Spadina Ave. Free. shirlibeynu.ca

How To Be Kinkier Book Launch Northbound Leather hosts the launch of author Morpheous’s sexy new book, with an appearance by cover girl and bombshell Ava Destruction.

Featuring naughty performances and a fully equipped and monitored dungeon. Sat, April 7, 8pm. Revival, 783 College St. $15. northbound.com

Dance of D/S Workshop Ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight? An erotic approach to dance focused on the dynamics of dominance and submission. All genders and orientations welcome.

Tues, April 17, 7:30–9:30pm. Come As You Are, 493 Queen St W. $30, sliding scale available. comeasyouare.com › continued on page 22

LIGHTS! CAMERA! AUCTION! Inside Out’s 2012 Festival Launch Party An evening of live entertainment, previews of the 2012 Festival and silent auction fundraiser.

Suggested donation: $10. All proceeds will support our new youth program: Inside Out Reach

Thursday, April 26, 2012 7:00 pm – 11:00 pm. | The Burroughes Building 639 Queen St. W. | 6th Floor

DJ Craig Dominic Performers include: &K\ 5\DQ 6SDLQ DQG )OXII\ 6RXIˊH

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XTRA! APRIL 5,2012 The all new

Your next hookup is closer than you think.

xtra.ca The deďŹ nitive news source for gay and lesbian Canadians

21

22

Torontoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s gay & lesbian news

XTRA! APRIL 5, 2012

listings â&#x20AC;ş

For more listings, go to xtra.ca

â&#x20AC;ş continued from page 20

STAGE Bliss CĂŠline Dion speaks through an oracle and addresses a group of Walmart cashiers in Olivier Choinièreâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s internationally celebrated play. Translated by Caryl Churchill. Runs till Sun, April 8, various showtimes. Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, 12 Alexander St. $33. totix.ca

The McComedy Show An evening of sketch, standup and comedic videos, with performances

by Shannon McDonough and Michael McLean and a special appearance by Divinesque. Thurs, April 12, 7pm. The Flying Beaver Pubaret, 488 Parliament St. $10. pubaret.com

Torontoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Gay & Lesbian Business Directory â&#x20AC;&#x201C; is online!

indexdirectory.ca

Forever Plaid One for the money. Four young, dumb and full-of-cum singers are killed in a car wreck en route to their ďŹ rst big concert in this homage to the guy groups of the 1950s.

Fri, April 13â&#x20AC;&#x201C;Sun, April 29, various showtimes. Lower Ossington Theatre, 100A Ossington Ave. $45. lowerossingtontheatre.com

All listings published in Index are also featured on the searchable online version at indexdirectory.ca

Twelfth Night or Whatever Director Kelsey Goldbergâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new comedy puts the Shakespeare classic in a headlock and situates the play in a downtown Toronto rave. Featuring the handsome Evan

indexdirectory.ca y

Sheila McCarthy hosts One Night Only on April 16.

Sapach, Jenn Sartor, Julian Munds and more. Audience encouraged to wear neon. Runs Mon, April 16â&#x20AC;&#x201C;Wed, April 25. Breakout Studios, 1541 Bayview Ave. $15, $10 students and arts workers. snobbishtheatre.com

One Night Only: An Evening of Song & Laughter Linda Kash and Sheila McCarthy host a diverse lineup of acclaimed artists, including Thom Allison, Micah Barnes, Theresa Tova, a cappella choir Varsity Jews and more. Mon, April 16, 8pm.

St Lawrence Centre for the Arts, 27 Front St E. $50 and up. hgjewishtheatre.com

BLANSHAY & LEWIS

Canadian Immigration Lawyers Certified by the Law Society of Upper Canada as a Specialist in Immigration / Refugee Law

ROBERT ISRAEL BLANSHAY, Barrister & Solicitor JACQUELINE M. LEWIS, Barrister & Solicitor â&#x20AC;&#x153;iTendremos el agrado de asistirle en espaĂąol!â&#x20AC;?

â&#x20AC;&#x201C; CARLOS SEBASTIAN: 905-939-9233

Before going to Robert Blanshay we shopped around and bumped into insincere and complacent consultants. Robert Blanshayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s law Office handled our case in a professional, efficient, targeted, at times even tough, yet friendly manner.

It was worth every penny.â&#x20AC;?â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Ramiro, Mexico

presents

Quicksand & Nine

â&#x20AC;?Â?Â?Â?Â?â&#x20AC;ŚRambunctiously Provocativeâ&#x20AC;ŚBoldâ&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x201D;Toronto Star

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2007

Free consultations available for certain immigration categories.

228 Gerrard Street East, Toronto, Ontario M5A 2E8 5 t ' E: robert@apply2canada.com www.apply2canada.com

20 of Torontoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sexiest, virtuosic dancers in 1 electrifying evening!

2 original journeys into a vivid labyrinth of 9 intense human encounters in 60 minutes.

Gays smoke more than straights (and not because weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re so hot).

1 premise in 2 spectacular dance languagesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Post Modern and Classical!

April 12â&#x20AC;&#x201C;14 (Thursdayâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;Saturday), 2012 at 8pm Fleck Dance Theatre, 207 Queens Quay West Box Office: (416) 973-4000 www.indance.ca

Blitz & Shitz.

On xtra.ca.

more at xtra.ca

XTRA! APRIL AP 5, 2012

IN PRINT

23

MUSIC

Love and (lesbian) marriage Forty stories of love, matrimony and activism Shannon Webb-Campbell FROM PROPOSALS TO MATRIMONY and even divorces, Here Come the Brides! ReďŹ&#x201A;ections on Lesbian Love and Marriage is a collection of marriageequality stories from more than 40 contributors.

It offers insights from lesbian, bisexual and trans women on life before and after the words â&#x20AC;&#x153;I do.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;We were inspired by the rise of marriage rights for lesbian and gay men around the world,â&#x20AC;? says co-editor Audrey Bilger, a professor of literature and a writer for Ms Magazine. â&#x20AC;&#x153;In particular, we saw that marriage equality had reached a tipping point in the United States. The last two years have been transformational, from the ruling that Proposition 8, the California marriage ban, is unconstitutional, to the Obama administrationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s refusal to defend the discriminatory Defense of Marriage Act.â&#x20AC;?

Michele Kort, Bilgerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s co-editor, is the author of three books, including Dinah! Three Decades of Sex, Golf, and Rock â&#x20AC;&#x2122;nâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Roll.

Kort and Bilger were inspired by reading wedding announcements of same-sex couples and seeing videos and photographs online. Here Come the Brides is dedicated to all stages of

Co-editor Audrey Bilger also writes for Ms Magazine.

romance and matrimony. â&#x20AC;&#x153;One particular favourite is our conversation with Kate Kendell, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights,â&#x20AC;? says Bilger. â&#x20AC;&#x153;And Phyllis Lyon, who was able to legally marry her partner of 50-plus y e a r s, D e l M a rtin, shortly before Del passed away in 2008.â&#x20AC;?

Bilger says Heather Purserâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s tale of bringing same-sex

marriage rights to the Suquamish Tribe in the Pacific Northwest is inspirational. She also recommends Patricia Croninâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s story about creating a sculpture of herself and her wife. Entitled Memorial to a Marriage, the sculpture sits in a New York City cemetery.

Canadian contributions include Susan Goldbergâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s touching essay â&#x20AC;&#x153;Four (Same-Sex) Marriages and a Funeral,â&#x20AC;? a story of love, family and loss, and Katherine Arnupâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s â&#x20AC;&#x153;Crossing Borders,â&#x20AC;? which explores the authorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s uncertainty toward marriage and how it changed.

The editors say that Here Come the Brides took two years to create and that the process was a testament to heart and perseverance. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The day we located Heather Purser and she agreed to write for us felt very triumphant,â&#x20AC;? Kort says.

Bilger adds, â&#x20AC;&#x153;And politically, while we were about to send the book off to the press, New York State legalized marriage for same-sex couples. Amelia Sauter, who contributed a cartoon for the collection, actually revised the ending of her piece to reďŹ&#x201A;ect that major victory â&#x20AC;&#x201D; as did Patricia Cronin. It feels good to be a part of this popular civil-rights movement.â&#x20AC;?

the deets HERE COME THE BRIDES! REFLECTIONS ON LESBIAN R LOVE AND MARRIAGE Edited by Audrey Bilger and Michele Kort Seal Press $17

A SWEET PERFUME â&#x20AC;&#x153;If I was mysterious about my gayness I think that would be really shitty of me to do, and I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want to do that. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m gay, so when I write love songs or songs about my life it just happens,â&#x20AC;? says 30-year-old Mike Hadreas, aka Perfume Genius, who is performing in Toronto on Sunday, April 8.

For the full interview, visit xtra.ca.

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REGISTRATION DATES: Wednesday March 28th at the Churchmouse & Firkin: 6:30pm â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 9:30pm Saturday April 14th at Woodyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s: 1pm â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 4pm

Check out American Life Leagueâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s unintentionally hilarious attack on Planned Parenthood.

The News Roundup. On xtra.ca.

24

Torontoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s gay & lesbian news

XTRA! APRIL 5, 2012

XPO SED Anna Pournikova

I had a little industry soiree at Parts & Labour during Canadian Music Week, and this ray of sunshine performed. His name is T Mills: heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s really tall and has hands the size of baseball mitts, with the longest piano fingers Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve ever seen. Just sayinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;. Heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s also got a hit song on the old Nationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Music Station called â&#x20AC;&#x153;Vans On.â&#x20AC;?

Fave lyric: â&#x20AC;&#x153;Let me take my slippers off and fuck you with my Vans on.â&#x20AC;? Riiiight?

FML Mondays and Clintonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s are doing the battle of the Madonna parties in honour of Madgeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new album, MDNA. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve already heard that itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the most emo of her albums in a long time, maybe because itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the longest sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s gone (four years) without putting out something *cough* original. In this snap, Lena Over lays about listening to the new tracks and thinking up enough tribute outďŹ ts to last the whole summer.

CMW was such a shit-show of booze and industry and out-oftowners that I feel like three days just blurred by. The 4am licence is the best and worst thing ever created. In this photo we have former Montrealer Ryan Armes on the left and current Montrealer Stefan on the right. I love their laid-back, early-summer garb.

So happy that men are getting scruffier and growing out their chest hair these days but keeping the cuts of their clothes lean. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s JFK-era shit. Sexy as fuck.

Philip Tetro (who is also doing the Clintonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s party â&#x20AC;&#x201D; more to come on that in the next installment) poses with an amazing Madonna by none other than Heroine Marks, and on the right is DJ Alessandro. I love the gap in Ms Marksâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; teeth; Madge is becoming the new Barbra Streisand with her look, except with Barbra it was all about taking movie deals as vehicles to show off her nails (Prince of Tides, anyone?), and with MDNA itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s all about doing tours to show off her legs. Either way, nothingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s more fun than an all-night Madonna-a-thon.

Snap! is the AIDS Committee of Torontoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s annual silent and live auction of photos chosen from a yearlong competition they run.

The photos were amazing! But the crowd was even better â&#x20AC;&#x201D; lots of nice suits on corporate men who look younger than their years and smell even better. And hello â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the Earlsmen (CJ, Gregory and Jason, pictured here) are the beefcakes who present it. A great success.

After a few days of grizzled shows for CMW, it was nice to go to The Hoxton for Dragonette and Young Empires. The crowd was decidedly more fresh-faced, better dressed and, well, just more gay.

And thank God for that. Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s only so long you can hang out with breeders before you need your brethren to keep you sane. And my sanity crew, from left to right, are Stefan, Mica, Mike and Marty. That place was full-on from start to finish. If you havenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t checked out either band yet, do yourself a favour and handle that immediately.

Just wanted to slip this one in from the 10th anniversary at The Barnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s College Night, which was jammed. Surprise, surprise. Host Daniel McBride poses with his friend Benjamin. That night has been a success since the beginning. It really is a juggernaut of pretty young things on a Wednesday, of all days. Long live The Barn!

Lauren Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Nizzle, or Lauren-Out-Loud as sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s known on the internet, hosted a party called Tweetgasm at the Gladstone where bloggers gathered to enjoy some beverages, geek out about the internet and hopefully tweet the shit out of it. She has lovely skin up close, and I picked up some tips on analytics over pints. Pretty decent night if you ask me.

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XTRA! APRIL 5, 2012

NIGHTCLUB LISTINGS

TUES, APRIL 10 TICOT Toonie Tuesday, with Candice Kelly and Nikki Chin, at 9pm; Vocal Rehab, with DJ Elyse, in the Zone and All Request, with DJ Quinces, in Tangos, both at 10pm; Bittersweet, with Honey Brown and Olyvia Chin, at 11pm. Crews & Tangos, 508 Church St. No cover. crewsandtangos.com

THURS, APRIL 5

SAT, APRIL 7

DJ Peter Rauhofer spins hard house beats for the hipsters. 10pm. The Hoxton, 69 Bathurst St. $30. prismtoronto.com

Easter Weekend Blowout Party, with DJs Alyson Calagna, Shawn Riker and The Collective in the Video Lounge. 10pm.

Fly, 8 Gloucester St. $10 before 11:30pm, $15 till 1am, $20 after. flynightclub.com

Michelle Ross turns it on at 9pm; Amanda gets it on at 11pm. George’s Play, 504 Church St. No cover. playonchurch.com

Dirty Bear sprays manly musk, with DJ Rob Ladic spinning for the hirsute hunks.

10pm. The Barn, 418 Church St. $5. dirtybear.ca

Snakepit, with guest DJ Regina the Gentlelady. 10pm. Henhouse, 1532 Dundas St W. No cover. henhousetoronto.com

DJ Sydney Blu spins serious house beats for the stylin’ crowd. 10pm. The Hoxton, 69 Bathurst St. $15 advance. ticketweb.ca

THURS, APRIL 12

Easter Weekend Kickoff Party, with DJ Alessandro spinning fun house for all the disco bunnies. 10pm. fly, 8 Gloucester St. No cover before 10:30pm, $10 after. flynightclub.com Fit, with DJs Phil V and Kris Steeves spinning in the east end for the first time.

10:30pm. WAYLA, 996 Queen St E. $5. waylabar.com

FRI, APRIL 6 Glitch Underwear (or less) Party: Blacklight Fantasy, with DJ Kevin Bailey.

9pm. Goodhandy’s, 120 Church St. $6, $4 students before 11pm; $8, $6 students after. goodhandys.com Big Primpin’, with DJs Kevin Ritchie and Phil V spinning hip hop for the homos and their friends. 10pm. Wrongbar, 1279 Queen St W. $5. wrongbar.com Dirty Sexy Party, with Sofonda Cox, featuring pornstar James Huntsman.

10pm. fly, 8 Gloucester St. $10. flynightclub.com The Pool makes a splash with a cabaret and dance party. DJ Kaleb Robertson spins, hosted by Alex Tigchelaar.

10:30pm. Buddies, 12 Alexander St. $5. buddiesinbadtimes.com Pop House gives it up, with DJ Sumation spinning top 40, house and dance tracks, hosted by Benjamin Gibson. 11pm.

Byzantium, 499 Church St. No cover. byz.ca

Tapette: Édition Printemps has franco gays lining up for the dance extravaganza, with DJ Phil V on the decks. 10:30pm. Henhouse, 1532 Dundas St W. No cover. henhousetoronto.com

SUN, APRIL 8 Stage to Screen Show, with Donnarama and Daytona Bitch, at 6pm; Drag Legend at 9pm; Georgie Girl and Donnarama welcome Sofonda at 11pm. Woody’s, 465 Church St. No cover. woodystoronto.com

MON, APRIL 9 Mix Fix Mondays has rotating DJs spinning the best of disco, ’80s, ’90s, hip hop and more. 9pm. Crawford Bar, 718 College St. No cover.

Glitz and Glam, hosted by Carlotta Carlisle, puts RuPaul on screen at 9pm; Candice’s Star Search at 11pm. Crews & Tangos, 508 Church St. No cover. crewsandtangos.com

WED, APRIL 11

Pup Night, presented by the Black Eagle Kennel Klub, with Northbound Leather, gathers pups, handlers and spectators for panting, licking, belly rubbing, and other on-all-fours action. 10pm.

Black Eagle, 457 Church St. No cover. blackeagletoronto.com Smirnoff Best Chest Contest, hosted

by Georgie Girl, with DJ Mark Falco.

Midnight. Woody’s, 465 Church St. No cover. woodystoronto.com

FRI, APRIL 13 The Amazing Drag Race Final: New and Slightly Used Performers have the finalist queens or kings competing for $1,000. Hosted by Savanaugh Davenport, with judges Farra N Hyte, Justin Rockhard and Kevan Latrace.

9:30pm. Out Lounge & Eatery, 540 King St W. Oshawa. $5. outlounge.ca Spectra is Queer Idol turned non-profit.

Mandy Goodhandy hosts the Mill Street Brewery Pre-Show; Paul Bellini hosts the Holiday Inn Showcase. 10pm.

Goodhandy’s, 120 Church St. No cover before 10:30pm, $7 after. goodhandys.com That Time of the Month is all about allfemale R&B, soul and hip hop. 10pm.

Henhouse, 1532 Dundas St W. No cover. henhousetoronto.com

25

Georgie Girl and Donnarama welcome Sofonda, Honey Brown and Heroine Marks at 11pm. Woody’s, 465 Church St. No cover. woodystoronto.com

MON, APRIL 16

B. East gets DJ Cory Activate spinning house and top 40; presented by Chris Munro and Dale C. 10pm. WAYLA, 996 Queen St E. $5. waylabar.com

Mix Fix Mondays has rotating DJs spinning the best of disco, ’80s, ’90s, hip hop and more. 9pm. Crawford Bar, 718 College St. No cover.

Daddy Next Door, with DJ Dwayne Minard spinning house for the 30+ crowd.

10:30pm. Winchester Kitchen & Bar, 51A Winchester St. $7. winchesterkitchen. com

TUES, APRIL 17

Rockstars grooves the Village, with DJ Geoff Kelleway spinning house. Hosted

by Karl & Rommel. 11pm. Byzantium, 499 Church St. No cover. byz.ca

SAT, APRIL 14 Open House Party shows off Glad Day Bookshop’s gorgeous new events space, with performances by local artists Troy Jackson, Nina Arsenault and Mickey D Licious. 7–11pm. 598A Yonge St. No cover. gladdaybookshop.com Animal House is a beast, with DJ Neill MacLeod spinning house. 10pm.

Goodhandy’s, 120 Church St. $5 before 11pm, $10 after. goodhandys.com Fly Las Vegas, with DJ Billy Lace (NYC) and a chance to win Matinee Vegas Festival passes. 10pm. Fly, 8 Gloucester St. $10 before 11:30, $15 till 1am, $20 after. flynightclub.com

TICOT Toonie Tuesday fundraiser, with Candice Kelly and Nikki Chin, at 9pm; Vocal Rehab, with DJ Elyse, in the Zone and All Request, with DJ Quinces, in Tangos, both at 10pm; Bittersweet, with Honey Brown and Olyvia Chin, at 11pm.

Crews & Tangos, 508 Church St. No cover. crewsandtangos.com

WED, APRIL 18 Soul Sistas Nicolette Brown and Jada Hudson take the stage at 9pm; Foreplay, with Farra N Hyte, at 11:30pm. Crews & Tangos, 508 Church St. No cover. crewsandtangos.com Snakepit: Love on Top — Beyoncé dance-a-thon, with DJ Phil V spinning for B-lovers and booty shakers. 10:30pm.

Henhouse, 1532 Dundas St W. No cover. henhousetoronto.com

For complete listings on the go, scan the QR code below.

Connor & Pooch Step-down Party on the second floor, while Bootblack Jake rubs it deep. 10pm. Black Eagle, 457 Church St. No cover. blackeagletoronto.com

SUN, APRIL 15 Hollywoody Broadway Show, with Donnarama and Daytona Bitch, entertains at 6pm; Drag Legend at 9pm;

ENTER FOR YOUR CHANCE TO WIN Win a pair of tickets to see United In Anger: A History of Act Up on Friday May 4th, 3pm, at the TIFF Bell Lightbox 1 as part of the 2012 Hot Docs Festival.

Send your name and contact info to contest@xtra.ca

by April 26th. Some restrictions apply.

Only winners will be contacted.

A World of Gay Adventure

Montreal

The third in a three-part series

The city’s food scene masters cuisine, ambiance and charm Story by David Walberg Photography by Carrie MacPherson

A

DIVINE CONFLUENCE OF traditions blesses Montreal’s food scene.

For starters, there is the simple fact of French heritage and the corollary commitment to method, to professionalism and to pride in food well prepared and well served.

But other traditions would seem to fly in France’s face. These are the Québécois traits that give cuisine in the province’s largest city its character and charm — traits shared, interestingly, not with France but with Denmark.

These two societies, being small and folksy, share a communal culture where everyone likes to be on the same level.

They take pride in jolly gregariousness and banishing hierarchies, romanticizing le p’tit gars, the little guy. In restaurants, this means a lovely sense of informal camaraderie, in stark contrast to the serious pecking orders of French cuisine.

They also share bad weather. Cold and dark for months on end, both places love comfortable and cozy interiors. Much of the joy of eating in Montreal and Copenhagen comes from warmth: warm and inviting hosts in warm and inviting environments.

IN TERMS OF THE FOOD ITSELF, MONTREAL has become known in recent years for highend reinventions of hearty peasant cuisine: comfort food for foodies.

Martin Picard, Quebec’s biggest celebrity chef, is widely believed to have kick-started

Le Gros Jambon, above and top left, opens early and closes late. Left, the Elvis sandwich arrives smothered in chocolate sauce.

the continent-wide fad for gourmet poutine variations.

His restaurant Au Pied de Cochon audaciously boasts an entire foie gras menu amongst heaps of meat and offal, including headcheese and a whole pig’s head for sharing. The duck confit comes in a can from which it is famously plopped onto your plate, quivering gelatinously. Fries are cooked in duck fat, piglets are roasted to a crisp and the eponymous pig’s foot is served with still more foie gras.

Picard’s latest cookbook includes recipes for squirrel and beaver in which the head, tail or paws are saved for presentation oomph at the table.

But times are changing, and other chefs are branching out to include lighter and subtler food.

Eloi Dion, chef at Van Horne (1268 Ave Van Horne), is a master of melding delicate flavours into complex symphonies. His panseared pickerel is served in a subtle kombu daishi broth that incorporates the distinct flavours of bacon, soy, mirin and sake. His demi-glace involves roasting bones for three days to ensure all bitterness is banished. It’s a pure demi-glace, without the lily-gilding crutches of tomatoes or cherries.

Van Horne co-owner Sylvie Lachance provides the room’s charm. She is an engaging, quirky collector of art and eclectica. The restaurant houses some of her acquisitions, including the doors from the Iran Pavilion at Expo ’67 and a wall devoted to paper plates silkscreened by Roy Lichtenstein.

The restaurant is small and intimate.

The tiny open kitchen suggests not the presentational pomp of a celebrity chef on display, but rather the sense that no one has thought to put up a door to contain the mayhem. It’s an amusing contrast to the tranquil dining room populated by tony patrons from nearby Outremont.

“I THINK IF THERE IS A TREND IT WOULD be simplify rather than fancify popular dishes — that whole purity of the plain-butquality ingredient,” says Patrick Meausette, who owns two restaurants — Cluny ArtBar and Titanic — with Rob Hack. “That is going on in other cities, too, but the Montreal twist is not to get fussy about it, to not keep raising the prices and the fancy names. I hate fancy, long-winded names for dishes — unless they are funny.”

Both restaurants occupy funky industrial spaces. Titanic (445 Rue St-Pierre) is in a former fur warehouse in Old Montreal, while Cluny (257 Rue Prince) shares an old foundry building with an art gallery.

“The new hit on our Titanic menu is scallopine Milanese,” Meausette reports.

“Breaded pork pounded thin and deepfried. We serve it in an onion-bread sandwich with a caper remoulade. No one bats an eye at a fried-meat sandwich. We try to keep it healthier by controlling the frying temperature, so there’s less oil absorbed, and serving it with spinach.”

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Above, Van Horne co-owner Sylvie Lachance poses with a tuna tartare.

Right, fish bathes in a delicate kombu daishi as chef Eloi Dion and staff cook up a frenzy in the background.

Pastry chef Amy McKinnon, below right, bakes rustic pastries at Olive et Gourmando.

Far right, Patrick Meausette (in apron) and Rob Hack have turned a former foundry into Cluny ArtBar.

“We have always done the idea of improving simple, almost ‘home,’ or at least ‘country,’ cooking and using Mediterranean ingredients, sometimes out of context. We take recipes we love and modernize them: bundt cake with olive oil, yogurt and lemon zest. Or I make bread pudding without bread and substitute day-old croissants and add rhubarb or dried cherries.”

Lesbian pastry chef Amy McKinnon, of Olive et Gourmando (351 Rue St-Paul Ouest) agrees. “The current trend in Montreal dessert is a combination of high-quality ingredients, unique flavour combinations and a sense of nostalgia. It’s pretty common to see desserts that your grandmother used to bake, only made with a twist. Whether that twist is a high-quality cocoa or an added flavour element, there’s a lot of interesting mixtures of old and new.”

“I think we’re all really interested in knowing where our ingredients come from and are willing to put the extra effort into making products completely from scratch.

You’ll find a lot of places making their own cheeses, tonics, candies and breads.”

“The personal touch with dessert is another trend in Montreal baking right now,” McKinnon says. “It’s common to be served by the person who made your pastry. There are a lot of beautiful shops with a small staff or no staff at all in Montreal. Les Chocolats de Chloé, Cocoa Locale and Patisserie Rhubarbe are some of my favourites.”

THE MONTREAL TWIST IS NOT TO GET FUSSY ABOUT IT, TO NOT KEEP RAISING THE PRICES AND THE FANCY NAMES. —Patrick Meausette, restaurateur At Titanic and Cluny, the personal touch goes on behind the scenes, too. “We have been a haven for many lost souls, people new to the city, people getting their footing,” Meausette says. “Many of our staff are new immigrants, and some of them have come out while working with us, so I guess we are a nurturing environment.

I think the most important thing was to show them that it was normal to be gay or not and that they were accepted by their colleagues and the clients. Maybe some of the best thinking we have instilled has been with straight new immigrants who worked with us and who found a new understanding about gay people, which they admit they would never have had in their original countries.”

on the web

New & notable Chuck Hughes is a celebrity chef, host of the Food Network show Chuck’s Day Off. Garde Manger, his inaugural restaurant, quickly became a destination in Old Montreal. Just around the corner, Hughes recently opened Le Bremner, which he describes as a “seafood diner.” Le Bremner (361 Rue St Paul Est) is informal and has a comfy back patio reminiscent of a cottage deck. The restaurant specializes in cocktails and sharing plates, which include giant fried oysters and mackerel escabèche with crème fraîche.

Le Gros Jambon (286 Rue Notre Dame Ouest) is a new hotspot in Old Montreal, open early and closing late. Try the Elvis sandwich: peanut butter and fried bananas inside grilled bread topped with chocolate sauce.

Nora Gray (1391 Rue St-Jacques) is a new darling of local food critics.

Inventive Italian food and a thoughtful wine selection are wrapped in a sleek minimalist interior. Choose from wildboar ragu over pumpkin ravioli or pistachio-stuffed leg of lamb with a side of kale gnudi.

Van Horne ›vanhornerestaurant.com Le Bremner ›crownsalts.com/ lebremner Titanic ›titanicmontreal.com Cluny ArtBar ›cluny.info Olive et Gourmondo ›oliveetgourmando.com Nora Gray ›noragray.com

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Vienna

FSKKING

A dynamic city where cultures co-mingle Armando Mendonça with files from Guidemag staff Take the phone off the hook and disappear for a while It’s all right, you can afford to lose a day or two When will you realize Vienna waits for you

T

H I RT Y - F IVE YE ARS AG O, piano man Billy Joel sang those lyrics in the song “Vienna,” on his breakthrough 1977 album The Stranger, celebrating a city where cultures co-mingle.

The City of Waltzes retains the elegance of centuries past. It’s a monumental city filled with churches, museums, concert halls and government buildings of such massive scale you can’t help but recall this city was once the centre of the AustroHungarian Empire. Now the capital of the rather small country of Austria, it seems a bit oversized but has regained some of its former importance by hosting a number of international organizations, including the United Nations and OPEC. Prince Eugene of Savoy, famous for pushing the Ottomans away from the gates of Vienna and back to the Balkans over the course of several wars, was widely known in his lifetime to prefer same-sex intimacies. His mark remains at his summer residence, the two Belvedere palaces. Situated amidst extensive gardens, the palace complex is considered one of the world’s finest baroque landmarks.

This year Vienna’s über-chic arts and culture scene is celebrating the 150th birthday of Gustav Klimt. A pioneer of the Modernist painting style, Klimt spent most of his life in Vienna and is best known for The Kiss, which is currently on display at the Belvedere. Almost 200 of Klimt’s drawings are on exhibit at the Albertina museum.

Near the Belvedere, the Museumsquartier (known as the MQ), the eighth-largest cultural area in the world, is a playground for art lovers.

The vibrant district is home to the Leopold Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, the Kunsthalle Wien exhibit centre, artists’ residences and studios — as well as a great selection of restaurants, cafés and bars. Cool lounge-like chairs are spread throughout the MQ. Although not as famous as those of Berlin and Paris, Vienna’s gay scene sizzles and goes late into the night.

Many of the clubs, bars and restaurants are clustered just southwest of the ring road surrounding the historic city centre, around Pilgramgasse, Neubaugasse, Museumsquartier and Karlsplatz U-bahn stations.

There are dozens of major events every year, including film festivals, circuit parties, bear gatherings and, of course, the Rainbow Parade in June.

One of Vienna’s greatest events, the Life Ball, will celebrate its 20th anniversary on May 19 at Vienna’s historic city hall, the Rathaus. Life Ball reinvents the great Viennese Ball tradition with glamorous, outlandish performances and inspirational speeches that celebrate the beauty of life and cultural diversity. Organized by AIDS

Vienna trip advisor BARS & CLUBS Mango Bar Red Carpet

LODGINGS BaKul Guesthouse Wombat’s City Hostel

RESTAURANTS & CAFÉS Café Standard Palmenhaus

SHOPPING & SERVICES Löwenherz Sexworld International

SAUNAS & SEX CLUBS CSDVIENNA.AT

At top, a panoramic night view of Vienna. Above, queens strike a pose at the Rainbow Parade, Vienna’s Pride celebration.

Life, Life Ball raises money to support people in areas of the world most affected by HIV/AIDS. Holiday Inn Vienna City is a charming family-owned and -operated hotel with stylishly appointed rooms and a great terrace on which to enjoy breakfast. It is located near the Naschmarkt, a well-known meeting point with more than 120 market stands offering delightful culinary choices, from Viennese to Indian to Italian. The Saturday flea market is not to be missed; relax with a local beer for some great peoplewatching. The Naschmarkt area is within walking distance of many gay bars and Vienna’s most famous street, Mariahilferstrasse, the city’s main shopping avenue.

Fleming’s Deluxe Vienna City Hotel, also situated in the heart of the city, opened for business in early 2011.

This luxury hotel offers all the amenities you would expect from a deluxe property: multiple room categories, a brasserie and wine bar, fine dining, and fitness and wellness facilities. It’s

within comfortable walking distance of the underground and many sightseeing attractions. Fleming’s is a classact company that recently supported the CANFAR event in Toronto, Bloor Street Entertains.

Austrian Airlines operates non-stop service from Toronto to Vienna. For more information, visit austrian.com.

LIFE BALL May 19, 2012 This star-studded HIV/AIDS charity event and fashion show at Vienna’s Rathaus runs until 5am. It should be on everyone’s party bucket list.

VIENNA’S PRIDE & RAINBOW PARADE June 12–16, 2012 Celebrations, including the beginning and end of the parade, take place in Rathausplatz. The parade is June 16. A closing show is held in Rathausplatz.

Pride parties are held in clubs scattered throughout the city.

Kaiserbründl Sauna Sauna Frisco Find information on more than 100 gay and lesbian places of interest in Vienna at guidemag.com.

on the web Vienna Tourism GLBT ›wien.info/en/vienna-for/ gay-lesbian Holiday Inn Vienna City ›holidayinn.com/vienna-city Fleming’s Deluxe Vienna City ›flemings-hotel.com Life Ball 2012 ›lifeball.org or ›voxtm.ca/diversity

VIENNA IN BLACK Oct 24–28, 2012 A five-day, four-night international leather and fetish event, with dinner and brunch events, a bike tour and much more. The weekend coincides with Austrian National Day (Oct 26), when the Austrian military parades on Heldenplatz (Heroes’ Square).

Guidemag.com

A World of Gay Adventure

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HUSTLABALL.COM

Berlin

Left, the Bode Museum on Museum Island. Above, HustlaBall is one of the most sexdrenched events on the circuit.

DALBERA

as the entrance to the city palace of the Prussian monarchs. The square immediately behind, Pariser Platz, is home to embassies and the luxurious Hotel Adlon Kempinski, which offers a twostar Michelin restaurant, a luxury spa and an outdoor terrace overlooking the gate. Sunday brunch is a sublime culinary experience.

Located in the middle of the Spree River, which flows through the city centre, is the famous Museum Island, consisting of five internationally significant museums: the Old Museum, the Old National Gallery, the Bode Museum, the New Museum and the Pergamon Museum. The entire complex, worth a trip for the buildings themselves, was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1999. Once you

Germany’s capital is a mecca for gay tourists Armando Mendonça with files from Guidemag staff

B

ERLIN IS ONE OF THE MOST gay-friendly cities in the world. A vast and diverse set of gay scenes, thoughtful civic amenities and tourist-friendly pricing make Germany’s capital a popular destination. The city is a mecca, and not only for gay people.

Prices here are reasonable compared

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to other European capitals, and rentrefugees from other EU countries and beyond are flocking in, creating an evermore-cosmopolitan ambiance. English is firmly established as the second language of most people, especially in the west, so English-only tourists will have little trouble communicating.

Berlin’s — and the country’s — most notable monument is the Brandenburg Gate. Restored over a two-year period, starting in 2000, this iconic structure, located west of the city centre, served

get through the extensive collections, or if you need to rest, you can escape by way of the charming cobblestone paths to the island’s hidden gardens, quality restaurants and boutiques to recharge.

Look no further than KaDeWe for your shopping pleasure. Located in the city centre, close to the Wittenbergplatz U-Bahn station, KaDeWe is Continental Europe’s largest department store. The variety of brand names and quality of product is comparable to Holts in Canada, but bigger. The surrounding area features an array of exquisite shops, wonderful restaurants and quaint parkettes. Other shopping districts include Alexanderplatz, Friedrichstrasse, Hackescher Markt, Kurfürstendamm, Tauentzienstrasse, Spandau Old Town, Schlossstrasse and Schönhauser Allee. Flea markets are also very popular and can be found throughout the city.

Gay life is easily found in the Schöneberg, Kreuzberg, Prenzlauer Berg and Friedrichshain neighbourhoods. Best known to tourists are the quiet treelined streets of Schöneberg, a little south of the area between Wittenbergplatz and Nollendorfplatz U-Bahn stations. It has a well-established, multifaceted gay community, and you’ll often see same-sex affection and leathermen in full regalia alongside families and kids on bikes. It is also the location of the big summer street events: the Stadtfest lesbian and gay festival and the Christopher Street Day celebrations.

Most of the gay bars, clubs and shops are located in Schöneberg, including the gay-owned and -operated Axel Hotel, which offers chic accommodation, outdoor and rooftop terraces, wellness facilities, bars, and a cocktail lounge and restaurant. Christopher Isherwood, who wrote so evocatively of Berlin, lived in this neighbourhood (at Nollendorfstrasse 17) more than 70 years ago. As in other German cities, › continued on page 30

Be YOU in Manchester

Find out why YOU should be at Manchester Pride? Voted ‘Best Pride’ for the last five years by the UK’s Pink Paper, isn’t it time YOU booked a trip to Manchester! visitmanchester.com/lgbt

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A World of Gay Adventure

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Montreal beats

on the web For a full list of Montreal festivals ›tourisme-montreal.org Mutek ›mutek.org Piknic Électronik ›piknicelectronik.com Osheaga ›osheaga.com

Piknic Électronik.

MIGUEL LEGAULT

Guidemag.com

CARIBBEAN COMFORT

Montreal is now solidly established as a city with a Hot Music Scene — and not just because The New York Times and Rolling Stone say so. During the warm summer months, at the peak of the city’s extensive festival season, there are opportunities aplenty to hear what’s on offer: from big names to small, in a range of genres. Just in time for those making summer plans, the organizers of three key music festivals have revealed their plans for 2012.

The five-day, multi-venue Mutek festival (May 30 to June 3) is the main event of an international organization dedicated to promoting cutting-edge electronic music and sound art. Founded in 2000, Mutek has grown steadily in scope to become one of the world’s leading events of its kind, featuring many of electronic music’s most established figures, while providing a platform for new talents.

Jeff Mills, Nicolas Jaar and Shackleton will headline the 2012 lineup, which also features Kode9, Jimmy Edgar and Apparat Band.

If you like your electronica a little more accessible, check out Piknic Électronik, a weekly outdoor dance party that kicks off May 20 and runs every Sunday through the end of September.

Held on Île Ste Hélène in Parc Jean-Drapeau, under Alexander Calder’s gigantic L’Homme sculpture, it’s an afternoon/evening rave that draws clubbers outdoors and away from the heat of the city. It features both A-list and emerging DJs and draws an eclectic crowd of hipster gays, sophisticated professionals and teens too young to get into the clubs.

Also held in Parc Jean-Drapeau is the largescale, multi-stage Osheaga Music and Arts Festival (Aug 3 to 5 — conveniently, that’s the Ontario Civic Holiday weekend). Now in its seventh year, Osheaga draws the big-name touring bands, including, in the past, Coldplay, Ben Harper, Sonic Youth and Arcade Fire, as well as less well-known up-and-comers. The recently revealed 2012 lineup includes Feist, Florence and the Machine, Sigor Rós, Snoop Dogg, Metric, the Black Keys, MGMT and The Weeknd, among many others.

Strolling Lions Dive beach in Curacao. CURACAO TOURISM BOARD

Curacao is gaining recognition as one of the gay-friendliest Caribbean destinations. And with its natural beauty, rich history, stunning architecture and vibrant arts scene, it has something for everyone. Gay-friendly bars and accommodations are plentiful, and many hotels belong to the International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association; at 17 members and counting, Curacao has the largest IGLTA membership in the Caribbean.

Boston’s Edge magazine has named it the best gay destination in the Caribbean, and Frommer’s chose it as a top destination for 2012, the only Caribbean country to make the list.

The island’s big gay celebration is the annual Get Wet Weekend in September, a four-day Pride-ish event filled with parties, cultural events and dances, put on by Curacao Gay Plasa, the local gay community group. Many hotels offer discounts for the event, and the country’s tourist board offers island-wide savings packages for those who book travel during Get Wet Weekend.

There’s always lots to do, however, and with its pristine dive sites, secluded beaches and year-round sunshine, it’s a great place to unwind any time. Nightlife is focused in the capital city of Willemstad, a culturally diverse UNESCO World Heritage Site sprinkled with colourful 18th-century Dutch buildings.

Visit gaycuracao.com and curacao.com for more details.

Off-season delight Discover Key West’s off-season charms with free accommodation for three nights at the popular Island House guesthouse for gay men.

Guests who book a four-night stay at the resort before the end of June 2012 will receive three bonus nights (mid-July to mid-October, weeknights only).

Voted best gay resort by Out Traveler and Planet Out, Island House offers a poolside café/ bar that never closes; complimentary happy hour every evening; a health spa with gym, Jacuzzi, steam room and sauna; and a naked pool party every Sunday afternoon.

Visit islandhousekeywest.com for conditions and details.

Comfort and charm.

COURTESY OF ISLAND HOUSE

Berlin › continued from page 29

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the straight folks blend right in. A few minutes’ walk from Nollendorfplatz station is Mann-O-Meter, a queer community centre with information on gay Berlin.

The U-Bahn will take you from Schöneberg to Eberswalder Strasse and Schönhauser Allee stations, in what was once East Berlin. Around and between the two stations, the Prenzlauer Berg neighbourhood is full of interesting sights. East German gay society emerged from an alternative art and political milieu, which came of age under the old regime behind the wall. The district retains, almost a generation later, a distinct appearance and atmosphere from that of the former West Berlin. There are gay sex shops, saunas, restaurants and bars here, but gay sensibilities and perspectives owe less to American and Western European models than to their own historical roots.

Kreuzberg and Friedrichshain districts also have an alternative feel and are growing in popularity with gay people looking for lower housing prices and a more multicultural mix.

There are many beautiful parks scattered throughout Berlin, not least the cruisy Tiergarten, where one can enjoy the summer sunshine without a stitch on and raise nary an eyebrow — not surprising in one of the most gay-friendly cities in the world.

GAY PRIDE/ CHRISTOPHER STREET DAY FESTIVAL June 21–23, 2012 Numerous events, a street fair in and around Motzstrasse, Gay Night at the Zoo and festivities along the Spree River, all leading up to a parade.

FOLSOM FAIR BERLIN Sept 8, 2012 Europe’s largest leather and fetish event runs noon until 9pm, with more than 20,000 people attending. The fairground features food and drinking areas, shopping, information booths and live music from Europe’s hottest DJs.

HUSTLABALL CIRCUIT FESTIVAL Oct 19, 2012 The biggest HustlaBall franchise brings together people from around the world who are looking to explore their erotic senses freely without fear of discrimination.

For more information, visit airberlin.com.

Berlin trip advisor BARS & CLUBS Blue Boy Bar Prinzknecht

LODGINGS Tom’s Hotel Arco Hotel

RESTAURANTS & CAFÉS AndaLucía Tapasbar Maharadscha Indian Restaurant

SHOPPING & SERVICES Mister B Prinz Eisenherz

SAUNAS & SEX CLUBS Apollo Splash Club Treibhaus Sauna Find information on more than 200 gay and lesbian places of interest in Berlin at guidemag.com.

on the web Visit Berlin ›visitberlin.de/en KaDeWe Shopping Centre ›kadewe.de Axel Hotels ›axelhotels.com

more at xtra.ca

XTRA! APRIL 5, 2012

Toronto’s online directory of gay-owned and gay-friendly businesses

indexdirectory.ca

indexdirectory.ca ACCOMMODATIONS - BRITISH COLUMBIA The Eagle’s Nest B&B

DRAG 866-766-9350

Take a Walk on the Wildside 416-921-6112/1-800-260-0102

Newbright Painting Performance Painters

416-985-8639 416-449-6204

PARTY PLANNERS

ACCOMMODATIONS - ONTARIO

ELECTRICAL CONTRACTING

Crewman & Co

Bond Place Hotel 416-362-6061 Deer Park Lodge Lakefront Resort 519-482-9116 Holiday Inn 416-542-6008 Neill-Wycik Summer Hotel 416-977-2320 Trinity House Inn 1-800-265-4871

B O Y Electric

PET CARE

FOUNDATION REPAIRS

PET MORTUARIES & CREMATORIES

G J MacRae Foundation Repair 905-824-2557

Pets At Peace

ACCOUNTANTS

HAIR REMOVAL

PET STORES & SUPPLIES

LJ’s Laser Hair Lemoval Clinic 647-971-9855 Hamilton location 289-237-7089

Helmutt’s Pet Supply Pet Cuisine & Accessories

Hema Murdock

416-696-6653

ADULT Stag Shop

416-323-0771

ADVERTISING Raymond Helkio Advertising /Design

raymondhelkio.com

AIDS/HIV RESOURCES Medical Compassion Clinic

647-291-0420

APPLIANCES Coast Wholesale Applicances coastappliances.com 647-348-0104

ART SUPPLIES Aboveground Art Supplies

416-591-1601

ARTS & CRAFTS Wise Daughters Craft Market 416-761-1555

AUTOMOTIVE SALES & LEASING BMW Autohaus

905-886-3380 x17309

BANKRUPTCY MNP Ltd

416-248-7937

BARS & CLUBS (TORONTO) fly Nightclub

416-410-5426 416-907-4487

PHARMACIES

HEALTH & PERSONAL CARE

PHOTOGRAPHERS

Front Door Organics 416-201-3000 Midtown Dental Centre 416-966-DENT(3368)

Michael Mooney Photography mooneyphoto.ca

HEALTH FOODS & NUTRITION

PSYCHOLOGISTS

Front Door Organics The Big Carrot

Becky Liddle

416-201-3000 416-466-2129

HEATING & AIR CONDITIONING 416-920-7200

Bryant Renovations 416-260-0818 G J MacRae Foundation Repair 905-824-2557

John Montague Jude Johnston

REAL ESTATE

647-287-1962

David Kajin Louis Amaral

416-651-8889

Dixie MacDonald Gaelen Patrick

IMMIGRATION

INSURANCE Kenton Waterman, Investors Group Financial Services 416-860-1668 Kenton Waterman, Investors Group Financial Services 416-860-1668 416-924-4671

C’est What? Brew/ Vin Pub Restaurant Cocina Lucero Grand Hive Mansion Restaurant and Bar Hair of the Dog The Blake House The Churchmouse & Firkin Zelda’s Restaurant & Bar

SHOPPING

416-340-2437

Doc’s Leathers & Motorcycle Gear

Front Door Organics

416-777-2755 416-392-6646

LEGAL SERVICES

416-465-7143

CHIROPRACTORS gesund

416-913-5170

CHURCHES Metropolitan Community Church of Toronto

416-406-6228

CINEMAS

AIDS Committee of Toronto Canadian Lesbian & Gay Archives (CLGA) Enterprise Toronto Rainbow Ballroom & Latin Dance Club of Toronto

416-779-0662

Ferreira-Wells Immigration Services

416-504-8888

416-651-8889

LIGHTING

COMPUTER SALES & SERVICE

Living Lighting on King

Contemporary Computers 1-877-724-9000

MASSAGE CERTIFIED/REGISTERED

CONCRETE - CONTRACTORS G J MacRae Foundation Repair 905-824-2557

COSMETIC SERVICES Midtown Dental Centre 416-966-DENT(3368)

COUNSELLING AIDS Committee of Toronto 416-340-2437 Change4U2 416-827-7578 David W Routledge 416-944-1291 John Montague 416-523-6449 Phillip Coupal Counselling 416-557-7312

CRISIS SERVICES & SHELTERS AIDS Committee of Toronto

416-340-2437

gesund The Power of Touch.com

416-925-7665

MOVING & STORAGE Agility Moving & Storage Ltd 416-654-5029 Avery Moving & Storage 416-239-9565 EL Cheapo Movers West 416-599-2728 East 416-463-5779 Manhattan Movers 416-259-2181 Word of Mouth Movers 647-827-2637

MUSICIANS

DATING SERVICES

Robert Graham

NATUROPATHY

DENTAL SERVICES

gesund

Adelaide Dental 416-429-0150 Dr Kevin Russelo & Associates 416-966-0117 Galleria Dental 416-534-9991 Midtown Dental Centre 416-966-DENT(3368) Yonge & Bloor Dental 647-350-3501

OPTOMETRISTS

DJ Craig Dominic soundcloud.com/craigdominic

416-913-5170 647-330-2539

MEATS & DELICATESSENS St Jamestown Delicatessan

Midtown Dental Centre 416-966-DENT(3368)

DISC JOCKEYS

416-364-9099

Dr Jason Hershorn

416-465-4927 416-913-5170 416-922-5511

ORGANIC FOOD Front Door Organics

416-201-3000

PAINTING CM Painting & Decorating Leon’s Painting

647-588-1774 416-995-4016

416-260-0818

RESTAURANTS & CAFÉS

LEATHER LIFE

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Torontoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s gay & lesbian news

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Ace Rockwood: Jack-off of all trades

I

N THE ENTERTAINMENT INDUstry, your name isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t simply a moniker used for identification, but rather a brand under which you must operate. You can coast on a famous name, lazily relying on unearned credentials without doing any actual work, or you can cultivate an array of skills and talents, build esteem amongst your peers and ensure that you maintain a long-lasting and sustainable career. Ace Rockwood is from the latter camp.

Rockwood has been in the business for more than ďŹ ve years, performing with mainstream studios such as Lucas Entertainment, Channel 1 Releasing and Black Rayne Productions. After signing with Black Rayne, Rockwood decided the time was right to launch his own line of movies, which heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll be starring in and directing. His directorial debut, NY Sex Chronicles, has already been released, and so far the reception is overwhelmingly positive. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve worked behind the scenes for a few companies that Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve had good relationships with,â&#x20AC;? says Rockwood, who started in porn at 18. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I did everything from shoot scenes to office

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work, so this helped me out a great deal with the technical aspect of it.

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Rockwood says the transition from acting to directing has been a natural one. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I will say, the craziest part of it all is how many people I communicate with on a given day,â&#x20AC;? he says. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Now I wake up with 15 text messages a day

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sometimes: models, web designers, camera men . . . I ďŹ nd it very simple to direct a scene, as long as you have good, horny models. Since I have shot so many scenes, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s very clear in my head what angles I want to get or how I want the feel of the scene to go.â&#x20AC;?

Rockwoodâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s multitasking â&#x20AC;&#x201D; to perform as both a model and direct his own line of movies â&#x20AC;&#x201D; speaks to the current state of the gay porn industry. Simply being hot as fuck and having a huge dick and a perfect ass isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t going to cut it anymore. Now itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s about being able to strike a balance and be all things to all people without losing your identity. You need the adaptability to ďŹ ll whatever role is required coupled with a personality to distinguish yourself from your peers. In simpler terms, know who you are and donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be afraid to work it to its full potential.

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