[Image-1] Halifax’s Pride festival is finally here, but not everyone is celebrating. The 11-day long festival kicks off today, arriving in the wake of the Pulse nightclub shooting last month that left 49 people murdered in Orlando, Florida, and a surge in protests across the United States and Canada against the use of police violence. […]
LGBTQIA+
Posted inArts + Music
Let’s learn non-binary drag with Rhett Slutler
[Image-1] Rhett Slutler spent the first year of drag learning the rules: Don’t show your tape. Make sure you’re not using a song that has too high of a voice in it. Make sure you’re using the right amount of socks in your pants. Then they started performing non-binary drag, moving beyond the strict binary […]
Posted inArts + Music
Five must-see picks at OUTeast Queer Film Fest’s fifth year
In 2010, OUTeast co-founders Andria Wilson, Jenna Dufton and Krista Davis were working at the Atlantic Film Festival “and we saw all these line-ups of people whenever there was a film with queer content,” recalls Wilson. “We just kept seeing it, day after day, and we wanted this opportunity to reach that audience, to be […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Love conquers hate at candlelight vigil in Halifax
[Image-1] Several hundred people gathered on a drizzly Monday evening in Halifax to try and prove that love is stronger than hate. The candlelight vigil on the North Common was held to honour those killed in Orlando this past weekend, in what has become one of the worst mass shootings in American history. At least […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Nova Scotia creates new supports for transgender employees
[Image-1] On the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia, Nova Scotia’s provincial government has published its new Guidelines to Support Trans and Gender Variant Employees. The document is designed to ensure an equitable, safe, inclusive and respectful workplace for those in the public sector, and applies to more than 10,000 employees, managers and deputy […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Memories of a founding mother of gay and lesbian activism
[Image-1] There was scarcely a gathering of gay and lesbian activists in 1970s Halifax that Anne Fulton wasn’t involved in, or late for. An original member of the Gay Alliance for Equality, incorporated in 1973, Fulton was something of a founding mother of the city’s gay and lesbian activist community. “She was one of the […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
The long-form census won’t recognize non-binary Canadians
[Image-1] The reinstated mandatory long-form census will still ask Canadians to identify as either male or female when it’s mailed out later this spring, ignoring the thousands of transgender individuals who don’t fit that sexual binary. Luckily, there’s a workaround. The census was restored by the newly-elected Liberal government in November after having been scrapped […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Ending the gay blood ban is easier said than done
[Image-1] If they’re not careful, the Liberals’ election promise to end Canada’s discriminatory gay blood ban could end up slipping through the bureaucratic cracks. The newly-elected Liberal government promised to end the restrictions Canadian Blood Services has in place preventing the donation of blood by men who have been sexually active with other men, but […]
Posted inArts + Music
North Mountain goes in a new direction
North Mountain Premiere Wednesday, September 23, 9:15pm Park Lane Cinema, 5657 Spring Garden Road $11.25 Bretten Hannam shot his first feature film, North Mountain, over 13 days in January down near Kejimkujik—the Mersey River and Caledonia area, not too far from where he grew up in the Annapolis Valley. It was brutally cold. “We finished […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Lessons learned on the Iranian Railroad for Queer Refugees
[Image-1] In 2005, Iranian queer activist Arsham Parsi became a refugee in Canada. Through his Iranian Railroad for Queer Refugees, he’s helped more than 1,100 other LGBTQIA Iranians escape a country where the punishment for having a same-sex relationship is death. In Halifax, LGBTQIA Iranians are supported by the Rainbow Refugee Association of Nova Scotia. […]
Posted inArts + Music
Meet the three amazing artists creating public art for the Halifax Common
Three artists representing the LGBTQ+, Aboriginal and African Nova Scotian communities will collaborate with the municipality to create public art on three pedestrian plazas.
Posted inNews + Opinion
New app offers free legal help for transgender Canadians
It’s been a big year for the visibility and mainstream acceptance of the transgender community. But trans individuals still statistically remain underemployed, more at-risk of incarcerations, with lower incomes and often left alone to navigate a legal system that’s generously described as confusing. Which is where JusticeTrans comes in. The new mobile phone application offers […]
