THE PRIDE ISSUE
Published since November 21, 1910 Circulation 3,500 ISSN 0845-356X Suite 3-04 8900 114 St. NW University of Alberta Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2J7
MARCH 2020
Editor-in-Chief Andrew McWhinney
News Editor Adam Lachacz
Managing Editor Christine McManus
Arts & Culture Editor Ashlynn Chand
Art Director Peter Elima
Opinion Editor Payton Ferguson
Photo Editor Helen Zhang
Staff Reporter Khadra Ahmed
Online Editor Advertising ads@gateway.ualberta.ca Tina Tai Website www.gtwy.ca
Director of Finance & Administration Piero Fiorini
Webmaster Hugh Bagan Director of Marketing & Outreach Pia Co
Contributors Michael Abenojar Nana Andoh An Bui Katherine DeCoste Sofia Gauvin Yuri Marquez Bree Meiklejohn Naomi Pasatiempo Jack Stewardson Wenbei Sun Harmon Tamura Cover Erin Malo
Copyright All materials appearing in The Gateway bear copyright of their creator(s) and may not be used without written consent.
Volunteer Want to write, draw, or shoot photos for us? To get involved visit gtwy.ca/volunteer for more information.
GSJS The Gateway is published by the Gateway Student Journalism Society (GSJS), a student-run, autonomous, apolitical not-for-profit organization, operated in accordance with the Societies Act of Alberta.
Printing Printed in Canada at Capital Colour, on FSC‰ certified uncoated paper.
ILLUSTRATION SOFIA GAUVIN, “STONEWALL INN”
DEAR READER, Pride is usually a summer event, celebrated in June. But here at the U of A, we have our own Pride Week every March. As a result, celebrating Pride in March has become something of a tradition here at The Gateway, and we’re pleased to be continuing it in this year’s Pride issue. The LGBTQ+ community at the U of A and in the greater Edmonton area is diverse in both perspective and experience. While united under a single banner, LGBTQ+ people face countless issues as individuals, from finding a community to confronting one’s own insecurities. This month, our contributors each sought to capture a small part of LGBTQ+ life. Our writers gave voice to stories that often go untold, and our artists and photographers created new images of what Pride can be. We hope this issue inspires you to engage with the art you love, question the status quo, and carve your own path. g Proudly yours,
Christine McManus Managing Editor
Peter Elima Art Director
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CONTENTS ILLUSTRATION WENBEI SUN, “RUN FOR LOVE”
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In Support Searching for queer-friendly support? Learn about what campus has to offer.
The Shoulders We Stand On Learn about the rich history of LGBTQ+ activism in Edmonton and at the U of A.
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Resisting Rainbow Capitalism Go back to Pride’s roots as a social movement, not merely as an aesthetic.
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Game Changers Read about how the winners of The Amazing Race Canada are making a difference at home.
THE STUDIO 22
FEATURES
How to Beg for Forgiveness
How We Heal Discover how local queer poets use their art as a force for change.
To Find Inner Faith Explore how being LGBTQ+ can influence one’s relationship with religion.
DIVERSIONS 32 34
Pray at the altar of empty acceptance.
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Horoscopes Find out what (unofficial) Pride Month has in store for you.
Crossword Put your knowledge of LGBTQ+ culture to the test.
Comic “Memories of Green” A Fat Tire Vagabond Adventure
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NOTES
In Support ppression is a foul word. It calls to mind riots, violence, months-long protests. And for some people, that’s what it is: a constant and hostile struggle against the weight of inequality. But for others, it’s different. If you are able to “pass” in society, to make your way through the world relatively unknown, you might choose not to fight. And that’s okay. Battling demons that come from other people is the most difficult thing someone can do, and it isn’t your fault for being tired. The idea of facing oppression in an indirect way, like rallying with members of your community or seeking counselling, might seem trivial — but it’s not. In fact, seeking support is one of the bravest things a person can do. Every rally and law revision brings us closer to true equality, and though we still have a lot of work to do, there are more resources now than there ever have been for an LGBTQ+ person in crisis. The University of Alberta is a diverse place with people from all walks of life, and there are services here on campus for anyone who might be struggling, or who just needs a helping hand. The following is a guide to some of the most helpful places on campus for the LGBTQ+ community.
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The Landing
The Peer Support Centre
From the Students’ Union website: “The Landing is a Students' Union service at the University of Alberta main campus that offers support for gender and sexual diversity. We strive to promote gender equity on a broad scale, and advocate for the safety and acceptance of individuals of all genders and sexualities in campus life.” The Landing is a wonderful inclusive space for LGBTQ+ people to find resources, ask questions, or even just study and hang out in a safe space. They offer regular meetups for specific groups of people, and drop-in hours from Monday to Thursday.
According to LGBTQ+ activist organization Egale, 33 per cent of LGBTQ+ youth will attempt suicide, compared to just 7 per cent of straight cisgender youth. Suicide is never the answer, and talking to someone can be of great benefit. Even if you just feel like you need someone to talk to, you shouldn’t have to deal with the pressures you’re facing alone, and the Peer Support Centre is there to help. Though the Peer Support Centre is not specifically catered to the LGBTQ+ community, they still offer a wide range of useful counselling services. You can make an appointment, drop in, or even call. All of the volunteers and employees have extensive training, and if nothing else, they can act as a place for you to get whatever is bothering you off your chest.
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TEXT PAYTON FERGUSON PHOTO NANA ANDOH, HELEN ZHANG
The Sexual Assault Centre
First Peoples’ House
The Office of the Registrar
According to Statistics Canada, upwards of 90 per cent of sexual assaults are not reported, and of those who do report, members of the LGBTQ+ community are about twice as likely to experience sexual assault. The Sexual Assault Centre can offer counselling, both crisis and simple, and can help come up with a plan for proceeding. Whether the path is to the police, the hospital, formal counselling, or simply telling someone what happened is up to you.
First Peoples’ House is a resource for Indigenous communities. If you are Indigenous and would like to know more about what individual supports and systems you can receive, the First Peoples’ House can help. They have events year-round, and offer mental health, ceremonial, and financial resources to those who are struggling. They are LGBTQ+ friendly, including Two-Spirit individuals. If you’re Indigenous, this is a really great resource not only for LGBTQ+ issues, but also any other help you might need.
The first thing that comes to your mind when you think about LGBTQ+ support probably isn’t the Office of the Registrar, but it can be a very helpful place during a transition phase. They can assist you with changing your name, gender marker, and accessing other support on campus. This is especially useful for people looking to transition, and can be a great resource for any questions you might have about funding, social support, and special accommodations.
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The UofA Administration Building
This list is, by nature, incomplete. There are many resources both on campus and in the city which can be used by LGBTQ+ communities. But it’s important to know that the University of Alberta, as an institution, has many resources for you to make use of. Facing oppression is hard. Searching for help in your time of need is hard. Despite this, and despite the fact that it might seem like the world is against you, there are always people and groups out there who want to support you. You are not alone. Whether you want help moving past a traumatic event, need financial support, or simply want a place where you can be around other members of your community, there is somewhere for you to go. g
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NOTES
The Shoulders We Stand On TEXT ADAM LACHACZ, CHRISTINE MCMANUS
1969
1972
1978
On the corner of 101 Street and 106 Avenue, Club 70 opened in the basement of the building which still occupies the site today. Club 70 was Edmonton’s first official gay and lesbian club. Prior to this, gay Edmontonians had unofficial rotating “spring up” gay hangouts at The Mayfair, The Corona, The Royal George, and the King Edward. For the safety of its members, it had a rigid gay-only membership policy. After a month of weekend-only business it was shut down after the landlords discovered its gay and lesbian only membership.
Michael Roberts, a member of Vancouver’s Gay Alliance towards Equality (GATE), enrolls at the University of Alberta. Brings formal political activism to Edmonton and helps form Edmonton’s GATE Chapter. Roberts initially begins a series of one-man activist activity by lobbying the provincial government for better encompassing human rights legislation. GATE posts its first classified advertisement in The Gateway which reads: Gay Alliance for Equality (GATE), Edmonton, holds regular meetings and a social drop-in every week. All gays welcome. For further information call GATE at 424-2011 or write to us at Box 1852 Edmonton. GATE was located in Roberts’ home, close to the U of A.
Womonspace, a social group for lesbians, is founded. The collective organized regular dances at community hall across the city, picnics, golf tournaments, gym nights, among other events.
1975 The Edmonton Journal, which tended to be hostile to GATE and other LGBTQ+ groups in Alberta, publishes a feature titled “Gays Quit the Shadows, Seek Place in the Sun.” Marks a shift for the organization who to this point refused to run GATE advertisements. It explored gay life in the city. Helps prompt the Journal’s feature writer Jim Benthein to publish an opinion piece called “Get it Straight; We Don’t Want to Change” where he wrote: “I am in a room full of homosexuals and lesbians and I’m frankly, uptight.”
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1981 Pisces Health Spa is raided by the Edmonton police.
1984 Gay and Lesbian Awareness Society of Edmonton (GALA) which forms earlier in the year plans the first Gay Pride Parade.
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1991
1994
2005
Delwin Vriend is fired from King’s College. Vriend files a complaint with the Alberta Human Rights Commission on the grounds that his employer had discriminated against him due to his sexual orientation.
An Alberta Court rules that sexual orientation is to be treated as a protected class within human rights legislation. In 1996, the decision is overruled by the Alberta Court of Appeal. Four years later the Supreme Court of Canada unanimously rules the exclusion of sexual orientation from Alberta’s legislation is a violation of the country’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Requires sexual orientation to be enshrined into Alberta’s human rights legislation.
Canada became one of the first countries to legalize same-gender marriages with the Civil Marriage Act. This milestone marked the end of a long fight for the LGBTQ+ community, but not the end of the LGBTQ+ rights movement in Canada. Youth homelessness, hate crimes, and everyday harassment and discrimination are still problems, but LGBTQ+ people and their allies can face them with the knowledge that we’ve overcome challenges before. We stand on the shoulders of giants, and one day, others will surely stand on ours.
1992 The human rights commission recommends that the term “sexual orientation” be included in the Individual Rights Protection Act. Michael Phair becomes Edmonton’s first openly gay city councillor and Alberta’s first openly gay elected politican. Went on to be re-elected for five consecutive terms after which he retired in 2007. While in office, he founds HIV Edmonton while championing LGBTQ+ rights and social justice issues. Phair is named in 2016 as Board of Governors Chair at the U of A, the top position at the institution's highest decision-making body.
1996 Lorne Warneke opens a gender clinic at the Grey Nuns Hospital in the neighbourhood of Millwoods.
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REQUIRED READING
TEXT KATHERINE DE COSTE ILLUSTRATION MICHAEL ABENOJAR
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ainbow-packaged Listerine. Pride-themed Mickey Mouse ears. Pride reacts on Facebook, a Pride icon for YouTube. Rainbow McDonald’s french fry containers. Most disturbingly, a rainbow-lettered “Make America Great Again” red hat sold alongside a matching t-shirt on Donald Trump’s website. Pride seems to permeate our entire lives during June, but what many of us don’t realize is that a large part of this is fueled by major corporations selling rainbow-themed merchandise one month out of twelve. The promotion of Pride is, arguably, a positive thing: it increases the visibility of the LGBTQ+ community. A teen growing up as the only out queer in a small town can find validation in rainbow merchandising that they may not have in their regular community; they may feel less alone. But the phenomenon of multinational billion-dollar companies capitalizing off queer struggle is an insidious alienation of Pride from the communities who formed it and who it was created to serve. More importantly, the phenomenon many know as “rainbow capitalism” is focused on those with sufficient purchasing power — notably the white, able-bodied, cis, upper-middle-class — to generate a market totally focused on them. According to activist Da’shaun Harrison, “‘Rainbow Capitalism,’ also referred to as pink capitalism, is a term used to detail the allusion to incorporation of LGBTQ+ rights into corporations with profit-incentives… Solidarity from these corporations has extended to gay marriage, but not abolition of the police.” Pride, commonly celebrated around the world in the month of June, commemorates the 1969 Stonewall riots. Beginning in protest of police raids at gay bars in New York City, the riots were led by trans women of colour, most notably Marsha P. Johnson and Silvia Riviera. Four nights of rioting eventually led to the celebration of the first Pride protest in 1970. The biggest issue with “rainbow capitalism,” then, is the separation between Pride as an aesthetic or party and Pride as a protest and political movement. Pride began at a time when LGBTQ+ people were regularly violently harrassed by police, their communities disrupted. Employment discrimination and poverty were rampant, with transgender people bearing the brunt of discrimination. While some argue that the queer community has made leaps and bounds in terms of tolerance and legal equality, legal and social realities even in the “progressive” Canada and United States show that Pride is still a necessary protest. In the United States, same sex marriage may be legal, but in 2016, dozens of queer people of colour were murdered at Pulse nightclub. Here in Alberta, it can take months or even years for trans people to be approved for life-saving gender-affirming care. Commodified “awareness” of the LGBTQ+ community has resulted in little change, especially for queer people
of colour and people living in poverty. Instead, corporations profit off queer struggle without contributing to queer communities. Disney has come particularly under fire for excluding substantive LGBTQ+ representation from its major films, while commodifying Pride products for profit. A recent exchange in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker was touted as the first same-sex kiss in a Star Wars film, but the moment was fleeting; the exchange totalled less than 10 seconds of screen time, and Disney has continually avoided LGBTQ2S protagonists in its major titles, despite fan advocacy for pairings like Finn/Poe or a lesbian Elsa. In response to the ongoing appropriation of Pride for capitalist gain, many queer people have sought to promote their own art and work year-round. Such businesses thrive on community building, say Rebecca Blakey and Parker Leflar, owners of Edmonton store The QUILTBAG. The store, whose name is a rearranged acronym for the LGBTQ+ community, primarily carries queer and trans wares made by LGBTQ+ artists from Edmonton and across Canada. “We really try to make sure we’re as embedded as possible in community,” Leflar said. “We both come from backgrounds as organizers… this is really an extension of that, just in a different way.” They felt that there was a gap in Edmonton for queer and trans goods. While they recognize the importance of Pride-specific merchandise like flags and pins, they also believe it goes much further. “It’s a lot more than slapping a rainbow on something,” said Leflar, “We want people to share their work and support and learn from each other.” Not only does the shop provide a space for queer artists to sell their work in a more sustainable way, explained Blakey, but they also provide community programming. “So many queers have side hustles, that’s the nature of experiencing employment discrimination,” she told me. Hosting programming such as acupuncture, massage, astrological reading, and tarot reading allows queers who practice these skills to find a sustainable space to practice their business without upfront investment that many can’t afford. “It can feel safer to do one-on-one business out of a store, and even just sharing advertising space and networks of knowledge is important,” Blakey said. “We especially try to make a space for racialized queers,” she said. This acknowledgement of intersectional structures of oppression that change life for queer people of colour are especially important to community-builders, as major corporations tend to default to white audiences, or, in the case of organizations like the Trump campaign, are explicitly racist and white supremacist. It’s evident, however, that opening a queer-focused business can be a risk, even in 2020. While entrenched corporations whose influence stretch across the globe
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have certain protections in the form of wealth and lobbying influence, Leflar and Blakey took several precautions when opening The QUILTBAG. “We didn’t put ‘queer and trans’ on our sign for the first several months,” Leflar said. They’ve been struck with a conundrum of advertising versus safety. “We want our target demographic to feel safe, we can’t necessarily advertise in a mainstream way.” The pair rely on word of mouth to spread the news about the shop and the services it offers. While companies like H&M and Nike will donate token amounts of sales to LGBTQ+ charities, The QUILTBAG’s owners focus on grassroots, on-the-ground activism. After being present at September’s climate march and other protests supporting Indigenous sovereignty and resisting the recent UCP austerity budget, they explained to me that they see queer liberation as entwined in climate justice, disability justice, reproductive justice, and Black and Indigenous rights movements. Expanding their activism behind the faceless donation of a minor percentage of profits to charity, they’ve made themselves faces of community work in Edmonton. “When we say queer, we mean it in the fullest political sense of the term,” Leflar said. By subverting normative
power structures that affect many groups of people, they’ve remained true to Pride as a political resistance movement fighting for individuals and communities. It’s easy to buy a Pride flag from Amazon and praise McDonald’s for its rainbow packaging. And in a world where such gestures continue to draw vitriol, it can be encouraging to see support for increased queer visibility. But its important to remember that the CEOs of such companies care no more for queer people than for the workers they underpay and treat poorly, both in North America and overseas; the focus on profit will continue to commodify Pride, and when the gay community stops being profitable, the support will stop too. That’s why many queer people encourage those seeking to support the LGBTQ+ community to buy handmade, local queer artistry. It’s a more effective form of support; rather than helping to pay for a millionaire’s third yacht while participating in feel-good capitalist “slacktivism,” purchasers know they’ve helped a queer person get by in a world that is still too often designed to exclude and harm them. Pride is not just an aesthetic, but a political revolution for all oppressed people, and we cannot forget that. g
“When we say queer, we mean it in the fullest political sense of the term.”
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VOTE ONLINE MARCH 4 & 5 Make your voice heard! Vote for your UASU Exec & BOG Rep!
Don’t leave your faculty hanging. Run for Students’ Council or the General Faculties Council this year! Nominations Close March 9 @ 5pm Voting Days March 18 & 19
uasu.ca/vote
TEXT ASHLYNN CHAND PHOTOS COURTESY OF CTV
REQUIRED READING
r. James Makokis and Anthony Johnson, a married Two-Spirit Indigenous couple, captured everyone’s hearts on The Amazing Race Canada this past summer. However, it is their devotion to Indigenous and queer youth that makes them inspirational. Dr. Makokis is member of the Cree nation from Saddle Lake First Nation in Northern Alberta and works as a family physician at two clinics: the Health Centre on Enoch Cree Nation and his secondary location in South Edmonton. Dr. Makokis is one of the few physicians in Canada that faciliates the wellness of transgender and Two-Spirit people through hormone replacement therapy. Anthony Johnson is Navajo and works as a project coordinator at Kehewin Health Services. Both Dr. Makokis and Johnson’s heavily work involves issues that they are passionate about — in particular, issues pertaining to Indigenous communities and/or LGBTQ+ youth. “It’s important for young Indigenous people to see people like themselves in a positive way, because oftentimes in media, they don’t have the opportunity to see themselves,” Dr. Makokis said. Dr. Makokis’ commitment to health and public service has been lifelong as he wanted to be a doctor since he was five years old. But, for Johnson, his reasons to help people started for a different reason. “I experienced a lot of suffering in my childhood and in my adulthood. I want to help other people have less suffering in their lives,” said Johnson. “I’m not saying I do that, but my intent in my life is to do things that inspire people to heal themselves because everyone has pain, everyone has trauma, everyone has something in their lives that hold their spirit back from being its highest potential.” Dr. Makokis and Johnson decided to apply for The Amazing Race Canada because they are adventurous, but, more importantly, they wanted to show a different side to Indigenous culture and LGTBQ+ people. According to Dr. Makokis, they also knew the huge potential the
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REQUIRED READING
show would have for bringing awareness to the various issues they thought were important. They ended up becoming the first Two-Spirit Indigenous couple to win. “We know that because of who we are, because we’re both Indigenous, because we’re both Two-Spirit, because we both come from two different Indigenous nations, we would be representing a lot of people who often are not represented or don’t have a voice,” Dr. Makokis said. “When we were on the mat at the finish line, we were thinking about all of those people who are like us but don’t see themselves on TV and the [people] who might have [died in] residential schools [...], so it was very surreal and very emotional.” “Being on the mat and feeling this physical sensation, for me, it felt like gratitude and total grounding to the Earth and remembering all our ancestors and the people who came before us,” Johnson said. “The win isn’t just one moment, it’s a whole series of events that each has its own feeling and flavour.” There is a tumultuous history behind colonialism and Two-Spirit identity. Queer culture has been dominated by white voices as well. The contemporary use of the two-spirit was originially proposed by activist Albert McLeod in 1990 at the Third Annual Inter-tribal Native American, First Nations, Gay and Lesbian American Conference, held in Winnipeg. “If you think about what was happening with queer culture in the 90s, it was all about claiming space initially for gay rights, to lead off from Stonewall,’ Johnson said. “A group of people in Winnipeg who were all Indigenous gathered together to claim space inside that rights movement, they coined the term, Two-Spirit.” “Two-Spirit means many different things to many different people, but it’s a way for Indigenous people who are from the LGBTQ+ community can represent ourselves and our identity,” Dr. Makokis said. “It’s a contemporary way to describe gender and sexual diversity that exists in Indigenous communities prior to colonization.” According to Dr. Makokis, as each different nation discovers and learns what those teachings are, they’re remembering the language and the specific language of their nation that people from those diverse backgrounds use to be called. This language was affected by colonization through the churches and residential schools. The prize money that Dr. Makokis and Johnson won from the show will go towards building a center for Indigenous ceremonies and cultural events for the
From Left: Anthony Johnson, Dr. James Makokis Kehewin Cree Nation. “One of the things that we need in order to make progress in Indigenous communities is spaces for Indigenous peoples to have Indigenous ceremonies and while many nations have their own ceremonial grounds, having a physical space for activities like cultural teaching, pipe ceremonies and craft nights,” Johnson said. “Different things that are positive events for the community, those types of spaces are limited on reserves, especially spaces that are dedicated specifically for cultural events are very rare.” Their advice to university students is to create space for marginalized people wherever you go in your career or professional endeavors. “It’s really important to create a conversation about diversity and inclusion wherever you’re at. If a place isn’t accepting of you or not holding that space, then create it,” Johnson said. “Let people see the beauty of what makes you different.” Dr. Makokis and Johnson understand that it’s hard being queer and hard being somebody that society tells to fit in the box. Dr. Makokis and Johnson want other Indigenous people and queer people to adhere to their team name, Team Ahkameyimok, which means “never give up” in Cree, and be honest with youself by accepting who you are. If you’re an ally looking for a way to support Indigenous communities or LGBTQ+ people or both, Dr. Makokis believes in advocating for them whenever you can. “If people see any sort of injustice happening to anyone, then they need to step up and voice their concerns and voice their support, so it’s not minorities standing alone,” Dr. Makokis said. “We need allies all the time.” “Let’s create a loving vibe in the queer community,” Johnson said. g
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HOW WE HEAL: A LOOK INTO EDMONTON’S QUEER POETRY COMMUNITY TEXT BREE MEIKLEJOHN PHOTO HELEN ZHANG
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2014, I went through my first major depressive episode. It was the beginning of ninth grade. I was coming down from the high of summer, ready to start my first official year of high school. But even though I had every reason to be excited about the coming year, something didn’t feel right. That fall, I played volleyball with teammates that I was constantly comparing myself to. Like many teenagers, my self-esteem was at its lowest, not only as a player but also as a person. It definitely didn’t help that a few of those teammates had discussions about another girl they suspected of being a lesbian and how disgusted they were with her. These were people I was supposed to bond with, who were supposed to have my back on and off the court. But after hearing that I waddled right back into the closet, prepared to hunker down for a few more years, and isolated myself from the rest of the team. Even after the volleyball season ended, my mental health didn’t improve much. I was desperate for a sense of community, so I turned to a church group that tried teaching myself along with a group of girls the ways of Christ-honouring femininity. Lessons like the virtues of having a quiet soul, marrying a Godly man, and having children. The “rose metaphor” was taught with particular enthusiasm — that young women such as ourselves were roses; every time we let a man touch us we lose a petal, and who would want a rose with only a few petals left? As for the what this church group thought about queer people? One youth pastor asserted that while gay people exist, they could never truly know what it was like experience love. Unsurprisingly, this just ended up making things worse. I took all the fear and all the shame and pushed it down to a place I had no intention of letting see the sunlight again. Things I used to be interested in didn’t bring me any joy anymore, I couldn’t connect with my friends, and I
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was eating so little my face lost all colour. I remember not believing I would live through it and how I desperately wanted to disappear. I know many teenagers experience similar emotions, and with the benefit of hindight I now know that most of those feelings were due to the fact that I was a baby gay with a lot of questions about myself and the world around me, and no creative outlet to get those feelings out. So I began to write them down. I separated them into stanzas, embellished them with metaphor and called it a poem. It was a 14-year-old’s idea of a poem, but I suppose we all have to start somewhere. Being closeted and being able to write down these feelings became cathartic, especially since I couldn’t tell my mom “everything in life sucks and boys are cute but so are girls” and be taken at all seriously. But it wasn’t until moving to Edmonton and beginning to explore my identity more in depth that I began to consider poetry seriously as a medium of self-expression. With university came the opportunity to more safely lean into my queer identity, and a different setting in which to process the last 18 years within that identity. My upbringing in Saskatchewan while being queer is where part my focus lies in my own writing. A small, rural, conservative town is not the most welcoming place for queer identites, and once I was able to escape from that I was able to realize that my experiences weren’t universal. Suddenly learning that what you perceived as normal was actually harmful was alienating: I went from a place with no roadmap for who I was supposed to be, to a place where everyone else already seems to know who they are except me. I didn’t have any representation in literature growing up to guide me, so I resolved to write my own. That was the beginning of my journey in queer poetry. Many queer poets go through similar phases of writing down your questions in hopes you can create your own answers.
Matthew Stepanic
One of my creative writing professors referred to poets of the past as our ancestors, if not by blood then in spirit. We as queer people have many ancestors to look to: poets ranging from Sappho to Oscar Wilde, Audre Lorde, Ifti Nasim, James Baldwin, jaye simpson, Amber Dawn, and Jack Kerouac. While being able to look to the past can be helpful, it is just as important to have modern queer poets to look to for navigation. Luckily, Edmonton has a colourful community of queer poets and creatives to help guide newcomers. One of the busiest is Matthew Stepanic. Editor of Glass Buffalo magazine, author of collaborative novel Project Compass and Relying on that Body, as well as one of the managers of the local LGBTQ+ and BIPOC bookstore Glass Bookshop, Stepanic considers himself a confessional poet who enjoys writing about queer awareness that highlights his own queer persepectives. “Poetry has always been a form of therapy... I really enjoy confessional poetry where the poets just [feel] very honest with me,” Stepanic says, “and so I might want my
poetry to be more honest and authentic in terms of what it is to me.” It makes sense that poetry can be cathartic, and more often than not, therapeutic. In English classes I remember thinking how sifting through figurative language felt like torture, trying to find the hidden meaning behind each poem to get the right answer on a test. But as I gradually found an appreciation and love for poetry, I came to understand that this kind of language can help contextualize our experiences. Talking about them or telling someone else about what you’ve gone through is one thing, but poetry can give you a path to empathy. To let your reader feel what you feel. But when we talk about queer poetry in particular, what does it mean? What standards differeintiate queer poetry from non-queer poetry? “[Queer poets] talk about being queer or being in queer relationships, what it means to be queer,” Nisha Patel says. Patel became Edmonton’s Poet Laureate in 2019, acting as ambassador to the Edmonton Literary Arts and
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“Poetry can give you a path to empathy. To let your reader feel what you feel.”
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reflecting the life of the city within poetry. She’s also 2019’s Canadian Individual Poetry Slam Champion, and author of I See You and Limited Success. “There’s actually a second aspect to queer poetry which is you — a queer person — writing poetry and the poetry you write is queer because you wrote it, not necessarily because it touches on queer themes,” Patel explains. “So for me, queer poetry is both of those things. It’s both poetry that speaks to the subject directly, and it’s also poetry that comes from a body that is queer, that is politicised. I think it’s important to value both of those in the discourse of what differentiates queer poetry from non-queer poetry.” In this way, a queer person’s poetry and queer identity are always inherently linked. As a queer person, anything you write could undergo analysis from a queer viewpoint, even writing about the most mundane aspects of life. Stepanic speaks about the venn diagram of queer identity and queer themes within poetry, that you can have both present at the same time, but one will always be present in the ways we create art. “If I write a poem about what I ate for breakfast, in certain ways it inherently is queer because its me eating a queer breakfast and maybe even the way that things come into it somehow reflect my queer identity.” Stepanic tells me that a queer identity makes a poem queer, but that a queer reading that can be done into any queer artist’s work without them consciously making their art aestetically queer because it inherently affects so much of our lives and how we create art. He thinks back to one of his first writing professors who said anything we write is political whether or not you think it is. The very existence of marginalised people is political because our rights to exist, to bodily autonomy, to get married, to speak, or to be visible are debated. Even those with privilege, who may not include politics in their art, are making a political statement because it’s privilege that allows them to make that choice in the first place. So the abscence of queerness in a queer poets work is in some way, queer in itself. As much as politics and queerness are interliked, so too is queer art. “Art has always been linked to movements such as queer liberation and other types of liberation,” Patel points out. “So I think it’s important moving forward to recognize that this is an ongoing conversation, and that queerness, even if it does become accepted in the mainstream, is always going to manifest in different challenges and different ways for every person.” Keith Haring’s pop art calling for action during the AIDS crisis, non-binary artist Claude Cahun’s self portrait, Gilbert Baker’s design of the original pride flag with each colour of the rainbow representing different meanings
are a few examples. So is the symbolism of the pink and black triangles as a reminder of the suffering of queer people during the Holocaust, and a call for us to never let it happen again. These challenges appear in different ways when you consider the different personal identities of each poet. Intersectionality, coined by law professor and social theorist Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989, asserts that people can face multiple forms of oppression within different identity markers. These identities do not exist separate from each other; one aspect will inform the others, creating a convergence of disadvantage. In addition to a poet’s queerness, they may also have to contend with gender identity, race, class, nationality, mental illness, or neurodivergence that can further marginalise them within life. Some describe intersectionality like light shining through a prism; depending on where the light hits, it can create a full spectrum of colour. Likewise, depending on identity, the same oppressive systems can affect individuals differently.
Nisha Patel
Patel notes that “in the past, a lot of media depictions of queerness were queer white people, they were queer cis people.” But the times, she argues, are changing. Intersectionality has brought attention to the fact that there are further nuances to queer experiences, and all experiences of oppression are linked. Emerging now is a transformation of what it means to be queer. These intersections play a part in how one is viewed in the world, and poetry can function as a means to resist systematic oppression of those identities. Jordan Abel views writing through a similar lens. An assistant Professor in the Department of English and Film Studies at the University of Alberta, winner of the Griffin Poetry Prize, and author of Nishga, Injun, Un/ inhabited and A Place of Scraps, says that much of the queer writing he reads is also Indigenous writing and vice versa. “I think the concerns of the queer writers are at the forfront of my thinking. Their concerns are multifaceted,” Abel says. Writers like Billy Ray Belcourt, Tommy Pico,
Gwen Benaway, and Arielle Twist, are just a few writers who are queer and/or trans and concerned with myriad issues. “So it’s not just gender, it’s not just sexuality, it's also Indigeneity and race… [and] more generally, also colonialism.” Poets are just as politically involved as any other type of artist, and when you live a life wherein your right to exist is not respected, what choice do we have but to speak to these issues in the best way we know how? While our artwork can function as a means of resistance and healing, in many cases it unfortunately stems from previous trauma. As Patel puts it, “trauma informs a great deal of art, just because it is traumatic existing in a world that wants you dead, or with people who want you dead, or don’t want you to exist. That kind of trauma is not easily undone.” While this is true, the relationships between our negative experiences and our art can be complex. Sometimes it feels like in order to be seen as a legitimate queer poet, or as fitting the mold of an aesthetically queer
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“Trauma informs a great deal of art, just because it is traumatic existing in a world that wants you dead.”
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artist, you have to write about those traumas. While poetry has functioned as a means for my own healing from my own wounds, it doesn’t have to be the only thing you are remembered for as a poet. There’s a misconception about queer poets — especially queer poets with other intersections — that they have to be defined by their trauma and mental health. Abel says believes this to be a huge issue. “I think particularly with Indigenous writers [the expectation] tends to be trauma narratives, and with queer Indigenous writers there tends to be that expecation of deep vulnerability.” To Abel, these expectations are limiting the range of human experiences queer Indigenous poets can express. “I think writing that operates outside of those boundaries is totally possible and I think we need to continue to create spaces for that type of writing.” Patel also believes that trauma doesn’t ever disappear, but queer poets learn through art, and how to let it affect us in ways that allow healing. “I do wish that the world didn’t exist in such a way in which trauma is a regular thing for so many [people of colour], and mentally ill people, and for queer people,” Patel says. “I think trauma manifests in different ways for each poet and ultimately it'll be up to them how they want their trauma to affect them, and how much work they want to do around their trauma.”
While these traumas may come to many queer people in many forms, queer poets their communities to fall back on. The most endearing part of being a queer creative in Edmonton is the chance to be a part of such a vibrant literary community. As queerness is beginning to be more accepted and visible in society, queer poets are able to continue to inform and influence each others’ work. Abel believes that the community is influencing one another quite directly, especially within the queer Indigenous poetry scene. "All of those writers are reading each other, and citing each other, and listening to each other, and engaging with each other in really meaningful, substantive ways,” Abel says. “It’s a growing community that’s very concerned about supporting each other and that’s wonderful.” Patel tells me that it’s extremely important for queer poets to connect to each other, not only to provide accountability in how we speak to each other, but also how we present ourselves to the rest of the community and the world. “I think queer people, especially people who are seeking community naturally seek each other out,” Patel says. “So often you will find people who go through periods of loneliness and isolation who will later find queer allies and queer friends who they will bring into
FEATURES
Jordan Abel
their own circles… we look for one another, we support one another, we elevate each other’s work, and that in itself contributes to our own processes.” Our past and present are fairly clear, but the future of queerness is still a murky image on the horizon. After discussing the modern literary community in Edmonton, I asked each of the poets what they hope people take from their art, and where they see the future of queer poetry going. Stepanic tells me he wants people to emotionally connect with his work, and to find out that he isn’t alone in his thoughts and emotions. “What I would like to see[…] hundreds of years in the future where [this] world doesn’t exist any more, is this idea of the universality of queerness,” he says. If everyone is queer, there’s an abscence of the need to label anything as queer. It would just be poetry. This particular image may be a mirage, however: Stepanic also tells me he doesn’t believe it could ever happen given how the queer community wins some acceptance battles, but loses many more. Abel hopes his writing starts a dialogue about what it means to be Indigenous and to exist in this place. He hopes to help others in some way, particularly people who are in similar positions to what he experienced, and that his work helps them get to places faster than he
did. “I think we’re currently in a moment where people are willing to listen. There seems to be a trajectory there,” Abel says. “It seems that not too long ago, people were not interested in listening. My hope is that more people continue to listen and that creates spaces for more people wanting to write and create because they know that there are others out there that want to hear those stories.” Patel says she will continue in writing for the liberation of all people and work for further liberation and representation of marginalised and intersectional identities. “I think for me being a queer poet, as well as a woman of colour, as well as a mentally ill person, there’s so many intersections that exist,” Patel says. “The thing I’m most triumphant about is being able to tell a story that does exist at that intersection of everything about me. I’m able to provide insight into a life that maybe isn't on display in many other places, but is relevant and salient for a lot of people reading my work.” Even as queerness becomes more visible in mainstream media and art, there will always be new battles to fight, traumas to heal from, and injustices to resist. But queer poets have the support of their communities, and people to look to for guidance. As our art forms and self expression continues to evolve, we will continue to pick up a pen and write. g
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THE STUDIO
TEXT NAOMI PASATIEMPO ILLUSTRATION AN BUI 22 GTWY.CA
May God Forgive You May god forgive you may od forgive you MAY gOD FORGIVE YOU
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How to Beg for Forgiveness See instructions*
* 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
Break up with your loving girlfriend Prostrate yourself in front of the kind Calgarian man who pointed out your sins Go to the nearest Catholic church and jump into their holy water Take out the steel wool you always carry with you and start scrubbing** Drag your bloody, sin-free flesh to the altar Ask god God why “he” made you gay***
** the more blood released, the more sins released *** don’t expect an answer g
to find inn
“Queer people don’t grow up as ourselves, we grow up playing a version of ours The massive task of our adult lives is to unpick which parts of oursel
- Alexander L
TEXT PIA CO PHOTO YURI MARQUEZ ART DIREC
nner faith
on of ourselves that sacrifices authenticity to minimize humiliation & prejudice. s of ourselves are truly us and which parts we’ve created to protect us.”
exander Leon
ART DIRECTION YURI MARQUEZ, PETER ELIMA
FEATURES or a couple summers at the beginning of university, I was a cabin leader at a religious summer camp. I loved my time there. At camp, everything seemed like a different world; you could be whoever you wanted to be. To try something new, I constructed a persona as a cool-girl camp jock. My cabins played the funniest pranks, I taught riflery and slingshots, I was known for being small but terrifying in full contact sports, and I knew that the kids adored me. However, because I’m introverted and mild-mannered in the real world, I was sensitive in creating spaces even the most introverted girls could participate in. Every time I got a new batch of campers, I encouraged the girls to always feel free to approach me in private or slip a note under my pillow if there was anything they needed me to know about them to make their camp experience as fun as possible. I will never forget one particular blue sticky note a camper put under my pillow. My cabin that week was a mix of personalities that were all getting along very well from the first hour they were together — all except one girl, who was rather withdrawn. She spoke softly, looked nervous, and sat on her bed as we all got to meet each other instead of on the floor. I knew the note was from her immediately. It read: I’m sorry I’m like this. I don’t want to be. I ask God every night why He made me like this and makes me feel this way about other girls. I’m really sorry. Please don’t tell the other girls. My heart and stomach immediately felt like they were filled with rocks and my ears felt like they were filled with cotton. The sorrow I felt reading the note is one I have not felt since. I spent my only break that afternoon sitting on a toilet seat with my knees clutched up to my chest, sobbing as quietly as I could into my arms, unbeknownst to the happy campers playing outside. After my break ended, I stepped back into my camp persona, sprayed some kids with water guns, and faced the rest of the day. To be frank, I don’t know if I personally believe in God. But by some work of fate, I am thankful this girl was in my cabin. She didn’t know and she doesn’t know to this day, but I was struggling with the exact same feelings and pain. She was a cross-legged little girl sitting in a cabin with a heart wrenching secret, I was a brand new adult just better versed in self denial. At camp, I was living the cool-girl camp jock persona I had carefully created, but in real life I lived a carefully constructed persona as a good reverend’s daughter. We both felt like we were drowning in guilt. The struggle we both faced is bridging the gap between spirituality and sexuality.
When two supposedly diametrically opposed paths promise you freedom and goodness, how does one go about choosing which path to take? Both paths offer unconditional love, self fulfillment, and joy. Each path is relevant to you in a really visceral and real way. Just about everyone tells you it’s impossible to choose both paths. This is the predicament that LGBTQ+ people who were raised religious or are interested in religion face. Social structures and culture have insisted in positing sexuality and spirituality as elements of being that cannot be in tandem with each other. For LGBTQ+ people with religious influence in their lives, the new beginning offered in the transition into adulthood goes beyond normal lifestyle and academic changes and challenges - it is a new opportunity and a chance to look inwards. For some, this introspection leads to people being unable to reconcile their queerness and religion. For others, a new and more independent space allows for a chance to personally construct a bridge between these two fundamental aspects of their identities.
For many, the journey to self discovery is necessarily a private ordeal. Family and culture can complicate one’s ability to be overt about their experiences. A South-Asian Muslim student who wishes to remain anonymous as she is not out, under the alias Sara, feels this tension. “I generally grew up feeling like I was a part of two worlds,” Sara says. “The South Asian world of my family and religious community and other being the white ‘Canadian.’” She continues, “In my mind growing up, I generally felt that they were incompatible, and just didn’t exist within each other.” Resolving this tension is difficult for many Canadians of colour, especially when other aspects of one’s identity come into play. Sara is no exception. “When I learned more about queerness and realized and adopted the fact that I was queer, it became one more thing for me to figure out as complexity of who I was.,” Sara explains. “Queerness was not talked about in my world, and was something that I learned and understood through the cultures I was witnessing.” In retrospect, Sara identifies some memories in her childhood and youth that were indicative of her sexuality. “In the fourth grade during a playground prank, a girl asked everyone, ‘if you could date someone in this group, who would you date?’ I answered a girl, and that was the first time I remember that being made fun of and seeing people make fun of someone for saying something that could be interpreted as gay,” Sara recalls.
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FEATURES Sara’s perceptions about queerness are inherently intertwined with her ideas about romantic relationships in general. “Going to camp as a kid was the first time I was able to hang around people my age without adult supervision. I remember having a huge crush on someone there and feeling distraught over the fact that I wasn’t allowed to date them or pursue a relationship with them,” Sara recounts. “I remember really wanting that idealized western dating experience of liking and falling in love with someone, and the more I was asked about my culture from my white friends, the more we both played a part in constructing a tangible divide between our worlds. I cried a lot about the incompatibility I thought was there.” This alienation that Sara felt was exacerbated by the people reinforcing stereotypes directly to her. “They would ask me things like: ‘You’re Muslim, Pakistani, Brown? Does that mean you’ll have to get an arranged marriage?’ That question, in particular, was key in shaping how I saw my potential for relationships with other people,” Sara explains. “In always trying to provide an answer, I accidentally played into other people’s imposed narratives and started believing and feeling the stereotypes, prejudices, and fear that other people had of my culture and Muslim women and girls.” “When I thought about being queer, I wondered if I was still Muslim. I became hyper-aware of people’s beliefs about queerness. I remember feeling a lot of frustration. If I identify as Muslim, and if people who claim to be Muslim are sometimes intolerant or even downright cruel to queer people, can I be a Muslim?” “My dad gave me an answer that satisfied me once: ‘People who kill or hurt others in the name of Islam aren’t Muslim.’ I found relief in that. I felt that maybe there was space, at the very least, that Muslims could be tolerant of queer people and not be so hostile,” Sara expresses. “I remember being satisfied with that at the time — that maybe tolerance could be a start.” Community supports have been integral to Sara’s journey with her identity; different supports help to bolster the different parts of herself. “I want to give a shout out to The Landing! They are such an essential space on campus full of understanding people, and I’m grateful for the fact they exist. If they didn’t exist, I think campus would be and feel like a less accepting place, and I know my own relationship with my queerness and faith would have developed differently,” Sara acknowledges. “Having this space made all the difference in learning and unlearning, and I hope we never take a space like that for granted.” The Islamic Family and Social Services Association has been a cornerstone for Sara’s development as a Muslim. “Their youth program, The Green Room, was a valuable space for me. They do exceptional work, consistent-
ly providing a space to foster an incredible community of Muslim youth to grow, connect, and feel like they belong,” Sara says. “As a person who feels like I belong to both [the queer and Muslim] communities, I would definitely want to give a shoutout to both of them. For me, there haven’t been too many opportunities to access services at the intersection of both — so having both spaces has been so meaningful. “
To D Santo, non-binary psychology student and community activist, exploring these paradigms of his identity feels more like coming home. “I’m in the middle of transition. I wouldn’t say that I’m religious because I immediately associate that with Catholicism, because I went to an all-girls Catholic school for seven years in the Philippines,” D says. “I would say that it’s more that I’m coming back to my roots in traditional Pilipino spirituality.” To D, the issues surrounding the struggle to reconcile queerness and religion for Pilipinos is rooted in historical issues. “When exploring the interactions between what it means to be queer, religious and Pilipino, we necessarily have to look at history and colonialism and how it shifted the Pilipino collective conscience,” he says. “Prior to colonialism, our communities were even very matriarchal,” D explains. “For example, the babaylan were women and trans femmes who were great healers and leaders in communities.” Shamanistic and mysterious, the babaylan were found all over the Philippines prior to colonization by the Spanish empire. They were arbiters of wisdom and spiritual guidance in their communities, and were in contact with spirits and other mystic forces. When the Spanish colonists gained a stronghold over the islands and Catholicism became ubiquitous, the babaylan were persecuted and punished, accused of witchcraft and black magic. “It was colonialism that weaponized religion and imposed a heteronormative binary system on Pilipinos,” D says. “We actively must do work to try to reclaim the knowledge and nuanced understanding of gender and sexuality that our ancestors had. It’s difficult, though, because much information was lost and destroyed. I guess 400 years of occupation would do that.” The damages of colonization are challenging and long lasting, but activists like D are optimistic that the key to the future is held in the wisdom of the past. “I’d like to acknowledge even though we still have so much work to do in reclaiming our traditions on gender and sexuality, Pilipinos have always been resilient people despite everything we have lost.” D acknowledges that the work of overt reclamation of Pilipino identity within Canada offers protections that are not available back in the Philippines. “We truly
“Saying I’m non-binary is an act of resistance and decolonization.” MARCH 2020 29
FEATURES have a privilege to reclaim ourselves here in Treaty Six within the diaspora. It would be and is more challenging in the homeland.” It is through community that D has found and built in Edmonton that he has been able to discover himself. “So much of the good change in my life happened outside of campus, honestly, through co-community organizing,” he explains. “I found myself being educated through interacting with other queer and trans black, Indigenous, and other people of colour.” “Nuanced identities seem to be a commonality across BIPOC culture,” D adds. “I am really interested by the parallels between [two-spirit] folks and our traditional views on queer and trans Pilipino identities. This parallel and others make me feel like I am part of something bigger than myself, and it is truly comforting.” Most critically, there is a radical power in self identity, and D works to embody this. “Saying I’m non-binary is an act of resistance and decolonization.”
I asked D and Sara if they had any words of advice for students just starting the process of exploring their spirituality and sexuality.
To D, introspection and self love is key. “Something that has legitimately helped me is just looking in the mirror and reminding myself I deserve self compassion, taking inventory of my lived experiences,” he says. Taking into consideration the goodness of Allah is really important to Sara. “I recognize a lot of people grow up with a lot harsher more internalized message than I did growing up. I promise that there’s nothing wrong with you — Allah made every single thing in this universe, including you, and made you the way that you are,” Sara says. “Being queer is not a punishment, through many of us are told that it is. These are all parts of you that people will tell you don’t fit together, but you are whole, and you are exactly the way Allah intended you to be.” “Allah made you remarkable and your queerness is just another part of who you are.” Speaking to the specific intersection between being queer and Muslim, Sara believes that this self-discovery can bring you closer to Allah. “I hope people get a chance to see how queerness can be an opportunity to know Allah better and even grow closer to Allah, despite what everyone says,” Sara says.
“Allah made you remarkable and your queerness is just another part of who you are.”
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FEATURES “Your faith is your relationship between you and Allah only. When it comes to queerness and reconciling faith, instead of feeling like it's a fight between both, I hope people have a chance to see harmony. It is through this experience I’ve been able to see the complexity of people.” “You’re allowed to be queer in any way you want to be. Sometimes it seems the western ideal of being proud means being loud, but that shouldn’t be the only choice someone feels they have, nor can it, unfortunately, be feasible for everyone,” Sara adds. “I want to assure you that you’re allowed to be both Muslim and queer in any way that you need to be. I trust you, and I know Allah does too because after all, Allah is the most Gracious and Merciful, Kind and All-Knowing.” D is a strong believer in redefining our communities. “Religion and sexuality don’t have to be a crossroads, nor does it have to be an intersection,” he says. “We have the ability to build a new home for ourselves.”
What I once thought was my unforgivable sin, intertwined in my being, I now consider my most precious quality. If God exists, I was gifted with and created with something unbelievably special — the ability to love so strongly and so indiscriminately.
My queerness has made me an astronomer, tracing the freckled constellations on her back. I am a topographer, studying the valleys and mountains of the smile wrinkles by his eyes. I am a writer, acquainted with writing down thoughts I could not articulate verbally for much of my life. I am a warrior, fighting for goodness for myself and others. My queerness has given me community, compassion, and contentment. It has given so much more than I could ever see it taking. If there is a God, I would like to say thank you. The day that my camper passed me that blue sticky note, I slipped an orange note under her pillow in return. Other than that, I treated her exactly the same as everyone else in the cabin. By the end of her summer camp week, the camper was having fun with the other girls and contributing to antics. On the last day of camp, we happened to be walking by ourselves back from the washroom, she passed the orange note I had written her back to me. Years later, I want to echo that message to those of us still discovering and rediscovering who we are in our religiosity and sexuality. Thank you for being who you are. g
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DIVERSIONS
HOROSCOPES TEXT HARMON TAMURA VISUALS PETER ELIMA
ARIES
TAURUS
GEMINI
CANCER
Cute people abound this month but no guarantee they’re gonna be buying what you’re selling. Go for it even if you don’t seem like their type. The worst they can do is say no.
There is someone in your life who doesn’t understand your sexual orientation or gender. They may just be new to the idea. Understanding that acceptance thrives under diplomacy will be the key to helping them be supportive.
This month, take the time to introspect and think about what makes you proud to be who you are. True pride comes from knowing who one is.
You have an unfortunate name. And you are a crab. So sayeth the stars.
ATHLETICS
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LEO
VIRGO
LIBRA
SCORPIO
Storm clouds in your future threaten to rain on your parade. Take a chance and dance in the rain. Nothing is more virtuous than the proud ray of sunshine in the middle of a monsoon.
You have a friendly (or more than friendly) date coming up. Look your best. You’d be doing yourself a disservice to not flaunt your best outfit every once in a while.
You may be feeling a bit left out of the events this month. Don’t be afraid to try something new this year to stir things up. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Someone you know may not be as accepting as you hoped they’d be. It’s not giving up to give them up. Consider it a way to give them a harsh yet necessary wake up call.
SAGITTARIUS
CAPRICORN
AQUARIUS
PISCES
Acceptance comes in all forms and from all places. Have faith that for every chance of a negative reaction there is the possibility that you will be pleasantly relieved.
Saturn moves out of your sign this month but don’t let that stop you from having a good time. Not all that glitters is gold, and we can have just as good a party without him.
Never apologize for who you are; a good compromise leaves everyone equally miserable.
Whether you’re looking for boys, girls, nonbinary folks, or any of the above, times have been tough on the dating front. It’s time for a break; enjoy single life. Ultimately, you’ll always have to live with yourself. g
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CROSSWORD TEXT & PUZZLE CHRISTINE MCMANUS
ACROSS 3. Classic colour scheme for Pride events. 7. Known as The Lesbian ________, this activist group used flashy displays (like eating fire in front of the White House) to bring visibility to lesbian issues in the 1990s. 9. Character who came out in season three of Stranger Things. 10. A style of dance created by drag queens of colour in the 1980s Harlem ballroom scene. 11. Breakout single of gay singer and songwriter Lil Nas X. 13. _____ Butch Blues: a prolific novel by Leslie Feinberg about life as a butch lesbian in 1970s America. 14. Current residence of Vivek Shraya, trans artist and assistant professor of creative writing.
Find answers on our website, gtwy.ca
Taking a course at Athabasca University? Be sure to check out The Voice Magazine! AU's official student publication proudly supported and funded by the AU Students' Union.
www.voicemagazine.org 34 GTWY.CA
DOWN 1. 1992 pop album by Edmonton-born butch lesbian icon k.d. lang. 2. Last name of the woman who organized the first formal Pride parade, earning her the title “Mother of Pride.” 3. First name of the bisexual gospel singer and guitarist known as “The Godmother of Rock and Roll.” 4. The province where Canada’s first transgender judge, Kael McKenzie, was appointed in 2015. 5. The initials of Queer Eye’s non-binary hairstylist. 6. While a number of trans women graced the stage before her, this drag queen was the first to come out prior to competing on Rupaul’s Drag Race. 8. This singer’s LGBTQ+ fans have taken to throwing Pride flags at him during concerts, in the hope that he will wrap them around his shoulders as he sings. 12. During the 20th century, queer men were sometimes called “Friends of _______.”
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Student Admission: $10 ($8 MatinĂŠe) Metro Cinema is a community-based non-profit society devoted to the exhibition and promotion of Canadian, international, and independent film and video.
Student fares & express packs available!
metrocinema.org Little Women (2019) Opens March 8 Jo March reflects back and forth on her life, telling the beloved story of the March sisters - four young women each determined to live life on their own terms.
Dave Made a Maze March 25 @ 7PM Dave, an artist who has yet to complete anything significant in his career, builds a fort in his living room out of pure frustration, only to wind up trapped by the fantastical pitfalls, booby traps, and critters of his own creation.
DAILY SERVICE ACROSS ALBERTA
The Return of the Living Dead
March 28 @ 9:30PM
When two bumbling employees at a medical supply warehouse accidentally release a deadly gas into the air, the vapors cause the dead to rise again as zombies.
u Calgary u Camrose u Cold Lake u Edmonton u Fort McMurray u Grande Prairie u Lethbridge u Red Deer
Just relax, or be productive along the way. Arrive revived. Metro Cinema at the Garneau 8712-109 Street | metrocinema.org
Metro Cinema receives ongoing support from these Arts Funders:
1-800-232-1958 | REDARROW.CA
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DIVERSIONS
cREATED BY: jACK sTEWARDSON tHE ‘gRAM: kOOLESTMAN
“M e m o r i e s o f G r e e n ”A Fat Tire Vagabond aDVENTURE aS THE bLOODSUCKER PUTS ME IN A hALF-nELSON, i sLIP BACK IN MY mEMORIES...
...bORN ON THE bIKE pATHS OF THE oLD tOWN. aGONY bEGETS lIFE.
tRAINED UNDER INCREDIBLE STRAIN... a bODY...
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i jOINED THE fORCE FOR SOME sTABILITY.
tHE BABES wERE JUST a bONUS!
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sHE mADE THE lONG nIGHTS wORTH IT. rIGHT UP UNTIL THE bETRAYAL...
bUT ALL OF IT: THE gOOD... THE bAD... iT ALL BEGINS TO FADE... lIKE fALLING lEAVES...
leAVING ME WITH NOTHING BUT GREEN. 36 GTWY.CA
cONTINUED
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printing
Lower Level Students’ Union Building subprint.ca