Get out of the gaybourhood
fab magazine Toronto
By Jason Timermanis
If queer men are a bit confused about what we’re fighting for, it’s probably because the majority of us haven’t been fighting. Unlike most struggles for equality, the Canadian queer marriage war was won with a relatively bloodless rustle of legal papers, and by a small contingent of dedicated people. Though the victory was an important one, we must remember that it was a battle that granted a degree of equality to only a fleck of the global queer population, and that the final decision wasn’t made by the Canadian public (which is currently split on the issue), but by judges.
While choosing a new Canadian battle will give hope to the global queer populace that the marriage battle can be won in other countries, and that there is continued progress beyond it, it is also an acknowledgement that queer Canadians aren’t looking beyond our borders, or at queerness in the context of Canadian popular opinion. Whether it’s waged to enlighten the masses within our borders or those outside them, the next war will be one of authentic representation and visibility, in which we stake our legitimate claim to a world outside our predominantly white, upper-middle-class urban ghettos and the limiting, marketed notions of what queer can be.
My first image of gay was a house. In the quiet Toronto suburb I grew up in, people watched their kids play T-ball on weekends and spent hours tending their chemically treated lawns. Gay was a word I seldom heard spoken by adults, and it was spoken only in reference to a particular house around the corner, inhabited by two men. But in the 14 years I spent living around the corner, I barely saw them. So gay remained a house. My friends and I peeked into its windows and dared each other to ring its doorbell. We stomped its pretty red flowers into sticky juices beneath our sneakers and used the excuse of Halloween to toilet-paper its trees. We saw what we wanted in its empty square eyes. For me, the occupants of this house epitomize where we are in the fight for equality – staking out new space but failing to fill it.
The public portrayal of queers, like most media portrayals, is defined by who has the deepest pockets to attract marketers. Influential representations free of profit-driven motives have become sadly antiquated. This has caused white, childless queers with penchants for fashion and youth worship to become the dominant representation of queers, and gaybourhoods have been built around their desires. And while yes, they may accurately represent a great number of queers, what of the long list of exclusions – non-whites, trans people, anti-capitalist queers or queer parents, just to name a few – who aren’t or have no desire to be as marketable? If we really care about the diversity we’re so quick to espouse, we should be fighting to have diversity manifested and celebrated around us in spaces, events and images that support and explore divergent or contradictory realities of what queer is. We need an attack on two fronts, the first aiming at greater visibility in straight society, and the second aiming inward, back at ourselves, making sure our little army is actually embodying and celebrating the message being shouted at the front lines. We are wonderfully complicated and can’t continue to allow ourselves to be reduced to a handful of images or shirt brands or behaviours, waving rainbow flags that have become little more than marketing tools for brand cohesion. And since little changes if we stand around in a circle jerk of theorizing, here are a few practical actions that would increase diversity and visibility:
• Show some self-respect and ban the term “straight-acting” from your vocabulary. Queer males have become synonymous with femininity because straight men are policed by gays and straights alike into repressing feminine characteristics. Allow a straight guy to be feminine without accusing him of being closeted, and a gay man to be masculine without labelling it performative.
• Get out of the gaybourhood! Support autonomous queer establishments outside of the queer village. [ all more reason to visit Gay Toronto's new Queer West Village] Support anything that promotes queers interacting outside of the self-referential insularity of ghettos, and the few identity boxes found there. How about more places that promote queer men and women interacting with each other instead of segregating themselves? Or straights and queers? A night celebrating queers new to Canada instead of Best Ass? DIY fashion nights as an antidote to the legions in Abercrombie & Fitch uniforms? There’s more to us than what’s being marketed at us.
• State your sexuality whenever you’re presumed to be straight. Preconceived stereotypes exist because those who defy them have the option of hiding. As a minority, we are in the strange position of being able to appear and disappear at will. Don’t hide when it’s convenient. Movements are built on personal sacrifices, and the world needs more examples of what queer is, in all its facets.
If queer is going to regain its function as a fluid identity category with anything resembling solidarity, and if we are to fight any war, we need to regroup. Our intended diversity needs to become a lived reality before we can successfully extend out from ghettos where, marriage or no marriage, we still have a lot to prove.
• Jason Timermanis is a writer who currently lives in Toronto, plotting his next escape
fab magazine Toronto
By Jason Timermanis
If queer men are a bit confused about what we’re fighting for, it’s probably because the majority of us haven’t been fighting. Unlike most struggles for equality, the Canadian queer marriage war was won with a relatively bloodless rustle of legal papers, and by a small contingent of dedicated people. Though the victory was an important one, we must remember that it was a battle that granted a degree of equality to only a fleck of the global queer population, and that the final decision wasn’t made by the Canadian public (which is currently split on the issue), but by judges.
While choosing a new Canadian battle will give hope to the global queer populace that the marriage battle can be won in other countries, and that there is continued progress beyond it, it is also an acknowledgement that queer Canadians aren’t looking beyond our borders, or at queerness in the context of Canadian popular opinion. Whether it’s waged to enlighten the masses within our borders or those outside them, the next war will be one of authentic representation and visibility, in which we stake our legitimate claim to a world outside our predominantly white, upper-middle-class urban ghettos and the limiting, marketed notions of what queer can be.
My first image of gay was a house. In the quiet Toronto suburb I grew up in, people watched their kids play T-ball on weekends and spent hours tending their chemically treated lawns. Gay was a word I seldom heard spoken by adults, and it was spoken only in reference to a particular house around the corner, inhabited by two men. But in the 14 years I spent living around the corner, I barely saw them. So gay remained a house. My friends and I peeked into its windows and dared each other to ring its doorbell. We stomped its pretty red flowers into sticky juices beneath our sneakers and used the excuse of Halloween to toilet-paper its trees. We saw what we wanted in its empty square eyes. For me, the occupants of this house epitomize where we are in the fight for equality – staking out new space but failing to fill it.
The public portrayal of queers, like most media portrayals, is defined by who has the deepest pockets to attract marketers. Influential representations free of profit-driven motives have become sadly antiquated. This has caused white, childless queers with penchants for fashion and youth worship to become the dominant representation of queers, and gaybourhoods have been built around their desires. And while yes, they may accurately represent a great number of queers, what of the long list of exclusions – non-whites, trans people, anti-capitalist queers or queer parents, just to name a few – who aren’t or have no desire to be as marketable? If we really care about the diversity we’re so quick to espouse, we should be fighting to have diversity manifested and celebrated around us in spaces, events and images that support and explore divergent or contradictory realities of what queer is. We need an attack on two fronts, the first aiming at greater visibility in straight society, and the second aiming inward, back at ourselves, making sure our little army is actually embodying and celebrating the message being shouted at the front lines. We are wonderfully complicated and can’t continue to allow ourselves to be reduced to a handful of images or shirt brands or behaviours, waving rainbow flags that have become little more than marketing tools for brand cohesion. And since little changes if we stand around in a circle jerk of theorizing, here are a few practical actions that would increase diversity and visibility:
• Show some self-respect and ban the term “straight-acting” from your vocabulary. Queer males have become synonymous with femininity because straight men are policed by gays and straights alike into repressing feminine characteristics. Allow a straight guy to be feminine without accusing him of being closeted, and a gay man to be masculine without labelling it performative.
• Get out of the gaybourhood! Support autonomous queer establishments outside of the queer village. [ all more reason to visit Gay Toronto's new Queer West Village] Support anything that promotes queers interacting outside of the self-referential insularity of ghettos, and the few identity boxes found there. How about more places that promote queer men and women interacting with each other instead of segregating themselves? Or straights and queers? A night celebrating queers new to Canada instead of Best Ass? DIY fashion nights as an antidote to the legions in Abercrombie & Fitch uniforms? There’s more to us than what’s being marketed at us.
• State your sexuality whenever you’re presumed to be straight. Preconceived stereotypes exist because those who defy them have the option of hiding. As a minority, we are in the strange position of being able to appear and disappear at will. Don’t hide when it’s convenient. Movements are built on personal sacrifices, and the world needs more examples of what queer is, in all its facets.
If queer is going to regain its function as a fluid identity category with anything resembling solidarity, and if we are to fight any war, we need to regroup. Our intended diversity needs to become a lived reality before we can successfully extend out from ghettos where, marriage or no marriage, we still have a lot to prove.
• Jason Timermanis is a writer who currently lives in Toronto, plotting his next escape
Excellent article, and sound advice. Thank you for sharing - and yes, I intend to visit Queer West Village in T.O. :)
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