Through the ribbon of glass running along one wall in Halifax Regional Police chief Frank Beazley’s office, a rainbow flag is visible, draped on an apartment balcony. The icon sits perfectly off the shoulder of deputy chief Chris McNeil, who’s borrowing his boss’s office while he’s away. Dressed casually, a blue HRP pin on the […]
Halifax Pride
Posted inArts + Music
The march of progress
Ian McKinnon has been going to gay pride parades on and off for the past 26 years. For the last three years, it’s been “off.” Lacking substance. Middle-class conservative. Normal. These are the words he and others use to describe the parade—not just the Halifax Pride parade, but gay pride parades in general. Pride parades […]
Posted inArts + Music
His and hirs
JT Davis had reached his breaking point. The then-20-year-old New Glasgow resident called his girlfriend. They’d had an intense discussion about transsexuality earlier that day, and the focus of the conversation had stayed with him. When she picked up the phone, he said, “You know that thing you were talking about? I think I’m it.” […]
Posted inArts + Music
The destruction, rebuilding, vindication and progression of Lindsay Willow
Lindsay Willow is not who you think she is. For one thing, she’s not a jock; she’s a gym teacher, in part because she couldn’t imagine being stuck in a classroom all day. She’s a lesbian too. And she didn’t molest 17-year old Nadia Ibrahim, although that was the misguided allegation of John Orlando in […]
Posted inArts + Music
Metro transition
When Eric MacDonald first thought about becoming a man in 1992, he backed away from the idea. “There was very little information available to me about the transition process,” says the 35-year-old female-to-male transsexual, “and what I did know made me want to stay as far away (from it) as possible.” Transsexuals were freaks, and […]
Posted inArts + Music
Open competition
Catherine Meade still cringes whenever she walks by a schoolyard and hears the insults kids hurl at each other on the playing field. “Even though it’s 2006,” Meade says, “and we’ve had the right to marry for two years now, you still walk by many school grounds, and what do you hear, ‘fag,’ or ‘dyke.’ […]
Posted inArts + Music
Get out
Christ, I’m in such a mood just thinking about all this. In 2005 I am shocked (shocked! Say it in a high operatic voice tinged with contempt) that gay, lesbian, bisexual or just badly confused people still want to keep their sexualities as dirty little secrets. Cowards. Worse. As in the case of Ida Ho […]
Posted inArts + Music
Out and about
The side yard of the Parker home is a pleasant escape from the bustle of the city. Despite being located on one of Halifax’s busiest streets, the vine-wrapped gate at the side of the house leads into a lush green garden surrounded by high fences that manages to create the illusion of tranquility. But the […]
Posted inArts + Music
Cruising 101
In almost every town and city in the western world there are cruising areas. They can be well-known public landmarks or parks, or unobtrusive locations such as public toilets (AKA t-rooms). Cruising and cruising grounds came about as a way for queer men to meet other men in public settings—for predominately sexual purposes—without arousing too […]
Posted inArts + Music
Sex and the Pope
Long before the Material Girl claimed she had a dick in her brain, years before any of the grrls started rioting or Peaches donned a beard, there was Carole Pope. The former singer of Canadian band Rough Trade, self-described as “crude, lewd, rude and socially unacceptable,” has made a career from pushing, yanking and twisting […]
Posted inArts + Music
Till divorce do us part
It’s the classic story of love gone wrong. Ontario, the early ’90s. Girl meets girl, girls fall in love. For 10 years, the girls maintain a common law relationship, until that glorious day in June 2003 when the Ontario Court of Appeal finally recognizes the validity of same-sex marriages in that province, a decision the […]