Then Ismail joins a writing class at the University of Toronto where he meets Fatima, a girl the age his daughter would have been, who also belongs to his Indian Muslim community. When Fatima’s parents kick her out because they learn she’s queer, Ismail’s near-empty house presents a convenient (if not entirely comfortable) solution. Meanwhile, Celia, a recent widow, moves into the house across the street. Celia, battling her grief and her Portuguese community’s strict rituals of widowhood, finds herself drawn to Ismail. Ismail, who mostly shuns (and is shunned by) his neighbours in Little Portugal, finds he’s less fractured in Celia’s company. As Ismail’s relationship with the two women deepens, his demiexistence gradually fills with ripe, rewarding chaos.

With a quiet, inward-looking analysis of Ismail’s life, Farzana Doctor‘s Six Metres of Pavement asks how mourning can make way for grief when it’s cemented in by guilt, and if memories can be defanged. Simmering in the background is a remarkable portrait of immigrant Toronto. As an Indian in a Portuguese neighbourhood, Ismail is a double immigrant, and the narrative marks the myriad ways Ismail experiences the city as insider-yet-chronic outsider. With this second novel, Doctor confirms her adeptness at burrowing deep beneath the surface of things—and her gift for relating her findings with humour and grace.

The Dirt Chronicles is a delicate alloy of Burroughs and Gallant, walking an uncompromising line where the homeless, the junkies, the punks, and the dispossessed are one and all pushing against a threat sometimes left to vague societal pressures but otherwise embodied in the interweaving stories’ antagonist. The King, a sadist vice cop with a thing for rockabilly bent on breaking the dignities and backs of our heroes, is the Toronto underworld’s answer to Dr. Satan.

Her characters carry chips on their shoulders and monkeys on their backs, from the whipped and broken crackhead Darcy to the fragile, indomitable Ferret to the tragically incarcerated Eddie.

When they’re bent or broken, Dunnion narrates enough pain to pass sympathetic jolts to her reader. A visceral and violent book that could have set out to shock is instead touching. The dance between her characters’ strengths and weaknesses is compelling, readable, and tempers the handful of potshots she takes at the world of the well-fed and gainfully employed.

After Patrick Furey, a heartbroken and bullied gay student, hangs himself in his bedroom, there is no minute of silence, no special assembly. Instead, his school’s closeted principal forbids staff to share any information, fearing a teen suicide would damage the school’s reputation and possibly spawn copycats. Furey’s death may happen in the first few pages of Suzette Mayr’s fourth novel, Monoceros, but it echoes from cover to cover. His empty desk forces students and staff to contemplate the finality of his death, and the fact that they hardly knew the troubled student at all.

Suzette Mayr skilfully crafts each chapter from the perspective of one member of her colourful, but flawed, cast of characters. Furey’s secret boyfriend, Ginger, suppresses his grief to keep their relationship hidden, especially from his jealous girlfriend, Petra, who had scrawled “u r a fag” on Furey’s locker before he died. There is also Faraday, Furey’s unicorn-obsessed classmate, who wishes she had done something nice for Furey before he died, like written him a note saying “Hi” or donated her virginity to him.

In a tragedy laced with humour, Mayr engages readers with her meticulous attention to detail, providing vivid descriptions of not only her characters, but also the heavy emotions—grief, confusion, aching—churning inside them. Monoceros may spark a visceral reaction in some readers, especially as the unnerving words “faggot” and “homo” roll off characters’ tongues with teenage ease. But mostly, it is a thought-provoking tale of a boy who chooses to take “charge of his own ending” and the interconnected web of lost souls he leaves behind.

The contributors’ list features Canadian and American voices such as Vancouver filmmaker-author Amber Dawn, feministing.com’s Miriam Zoila Pérez, and Toronto literary darling Zoe Whittall.

The bright spots are many, but the most affecting essays are the ones that veer into the personal: a sexworker femme’s memories of her butch lover; gay club culture in the post-Stonewall riots era; attending a relative’s stag rather than the doe; wondering if breast reductions or testosterone injections make you less butch than trans and butches with babies.

Other entries are little more than Livejournalling, diary declarations about the Self, or laced with academic speak. Swinging from one end of the narrative spectrum to the other can feel confusing, but the message as a whole is that butch and femme are not two identities, but the work of many individuals who have created themselves in their own images.

Persistence isn’t just about gender performance. It weaves thoughtful threads about class, race, disability, pop culture, and media into an oft-parodied and stereotyped modern queer culture. It’s a worthy collection that brings nuance back to notions of dykes, femmes, butches, and lesbians all.

“Total Eclipse” (2005) by Will Munro. Photo by Sean Weaver, courtesy Paul Petro Contemporary Art.

It is impossible to speak of Will Munro. It is easy to talk about Will Munro(s).

Will Munro, the artist/activist/social wizard/impresario and all around wunderkind, passed away one lovely, clear-as-a-bell summer morning in 2010. He was 36.

In that too-short time, Will produced an enormous amount of highly influential, DIY-infused art, reinvigorated the Toronto, and by extension the Canadian, and some argue international queer club scenes—and I support that argument, having seen Will’s influence up close in countless cities far and wide. He empowered an entire generation of artists, who felt the ossified Canadian art scene was not for them, to simply make/display/distribute their art on their own terms.

You’ll note I’m using the “/” rather a lot—I have no choice. Will was so many things, Will made so many things.

I generally distrust the concept of “legacy,” but not in the case of Will Munro. His simplest and most inspired conceit was that queers of all stripes (homo-normative, hetero-normative, just plain fucking crazy, what have you) have far more in common than not, and can share a big sandbox with joy. And we did. For a decade, Will ran the legendary Vazaleen parties— mad, dressed-to-thrill events that spawned many, many subsequent cultural products and collaborations. And that’s putting it mildly.

The parties and the underlying concept—shared space for a diverse population—were both quickly copied, largely because a generation of queers had grown up under the segregationist, essentialist politics of the ’80s–’90s (dykes only go to dyke spaces, fags only go to fag spaces…oh, it was all so tiresome, so numbing), politics that no longer made sense, no longer reflected the day-today reality of the third wave of queer liberation. Suddenly, we all had a meeting place, and we used it.

Now it’s time for a more rigorous examination of Will’s beautiful, sexy art. Will’s social contribution is well-documented (and I’m doing it again), but his highly original art practice, one fuelled by punk-rock aesthetics, righteous rage, and delicious impertinence, rough homemade fashion, sex-worker rights, and queer youth advocacy, club and DJ culture, anti-corporatism, and, less remarked on, his long fascination with, and promotion of, queer cultural history (an interest that made him, again, unique in his generation) has been, to date, not as well-considered.

I sense a sudden boom in Munro studies coming. Retrospectives and monographs galore. More gifts from a relentless giver. It’s the least we can do.

But this is not the place for academic pursuits. Let other people get post-grad degrees off Will’s back.

Right here, right now, I just want to say thank you. I miss you, Will.

Manipulated photo from Kristin Nelson's series My Life With Pamela Anderson (2010). Images courtesy the artist.

Surfing the internet for a Grey Cup art project in November 2008, Kristin Nelson landed on a saucy image of Pamela Anderson. It immediately provoked a spark of inspiration that she couldn’t explain but also couldn’t deny. Thus emerged the seed of a body of artwork called My Life With Pamela Anderson that documents, in finely crafted fiber works and manipulated photos, an imaginary yet deeply felt relationship between the artist and the celebrity.

The Winnipeg-based multi-disciplinary artist has often explored the cultural representation of identity and sexuality, yet she had no feminist or deconstructionist impulse going in.

“I had a lot of hesitations about using her image,” Nelson says, “but in working out those thoughts I decided the main purpose would be to get to know her.”

In some ways the work is typical of Nelson’s art. She strives to get to know people and places and to reveal over-looked or un-thought-of aspects of them to herself as much as to her audience. The much sought-after Drag King Trading Cards (2007 and 2010), for instance, featured portraits of butch women in packs like those of sports stars for sale at corner stores. These subversive collectibles allowed Nelson to collaborate with and explore her own relationship to the queer community.

Manipulated photo from Kristin Nelson's series My Life With Pamela Anderson (2010). Images courtesy the artist.

Currently, however, Nelson’s interest is finding more universal points of entry to her art. Her most recent subject, however, proved a challenge: How do you get to know someone so famous, not to mention already a well-worn subject of cultural criticism?

“It was important for her character that I stay quiet about the project and not justify it,” Nelson says. As she researched lesser-known aspects of Anderson’s life, Nelson decided that she would put herself in, thereby going beyond a critique of celebrity consumption to a playful take on how we absorb the lives of the famous into our own.

In the most striking pieces, pin-up pictures of the actress have been transformed into shimmering, larger-than-life cross-stitch portraits executed in yarn on aluminum panels. Also, in line drawings made from yarn and nails and manipulated family photographs, Nelson and Anderson hang out, watching TV and riding bikes, like old pals in gauzy dreams. The whole effect softens the celebrity’s official image and transforms preconceptions of its audience, too.

Large cross-stitch tapestries from Kristin Nelson's series My Life With Pamela Anderson (2010). Images courtesy the artist.

On the one hand, Nelson’s work is laugh-out-loud funny, a luscious manifestation of celebrity idolization. On the other, the needlepoint technique highlights Nelson’s patience and care for her subject. “She’s a very dehumanized person, even in scholarly discussions by feminists,” Nelson points out. “She’s something to bitch about, or insult. She’s talked about in terms of either-or, but nobody is just an image of themselves.”

Indeed, in Nelson’s images, Anderson is neither Madonna nor whore, but something less sensational—a focal point for talking about sexuality and popular representations of it. “I’ve learned to see her in a different light, rather than categorize her as ‘other’ than myself,” Nelson says.

Currently, she is making another series of smaller cross-stitches about what she imagines was a real turning point in the actress’ life, this time patterns generated from the landscapes of a well-known leaked video from the mid 1990s of Pamela and her then-husband, Tommy Lee, having sex on a boat. The hope is that people may recognize the images. As Nelson explains, “Discussing is more interesting than showing.”

Jenny Vaughan

Jenny Vaughan is no stranger to the hybrid role of journalist, leader, and advocate. She now occupies a unique position as the Accra, Ghana-based eyes and ears of Journalists for Human Rights, a media development organization with operations throughout sub-Saharan Africa. Currently, her job ranges from ensuring the professional and personal well-being of a team of journalists currently placed in Ghana and Malawi, to leading training programs with soldiers from various African countries on interaction with the press. Yet her fascination with the points where journalism, leadership, and international advocacy work coincide dates back much further. Born and raised into a family of journalists and politicians in Toronto, the 25-year-old has been navigating those worlds all her life.

Vaughan first worked in African media in the summer of 2009, as a reporter for the Daily Monitor, a national newspaper in Uganda. Sample stories from this time saw Vaughan on the back of a bodaboda motorbike in August 2009, weaving through traffic on Kampala’s red dirt roads to cover the story that businessman Benjamin Mukasa had been illegally detained by an army major in Kampala. “For two days,” says Vaughan, “he says he was starved, beaten, and refused access to a bathroom.”

Vaughan knew covering that story would be dangerous, because it involved exposing human-rights abuses committed by the army. But, as she puts it, “I didn’t hesitate when my colleague asked me to interview Mukasa. It’s because of stories like this that I became a journalist.” While at the Monitor, Vaughan also produced features on refugee rights, sexual harassment, and youth empowerment. “Human rights abuses often go unreported,” says Vaughan, “which is why I believe the work of Journalists for Human Rights is so important.”

Founded nine years ago, JHR—of which I am International Programs Director—works with local media in a variety of sub-Saharan African countries to shore up the power of the fourth estate. It does this by foregrounding a culture of human-rights reporting in a media environment where life is cheap, and respect for human rights is frequently the last priority.

But Vaughan’s engagement with this kind of work predates her time at JHR. Uganda, for example, made international headlines in January 2011 when gay activist David Kato was murdered. Yet Vaughan was on that issue two years prior, co-producing a television documentary about Uganda’s criminalization of homosexuality for iChannel and working closely with gay rights activists who risked their safety to expose injustice.

Her time in Uganda proved to her the power the press has to educate and empower communities in developing democracies, especially when it comes to human rights—an ethos she has refined during her time with JHR. With such a heady mix of media work, leadership, and development to her credit, I’m fascinated to see what Vaughan does next.

I moved to downtown Hamilton, Ontario, in 2005. We bought our three-storey Victorian home near Copps Coliseum at a price that would have been unheard of in Toronto. The corner we lived on had been labelled “the most dangerous corner in Hamilton.” But my shaved head and tattoos stood out less here than in the fashionable, gentrified neighborhoods of downtown Toronto.

I noticed that a) there were lots of sex-trade operations near our house— for instance, massage parlours and the Hamilton Strip strip club—and b) there were also two anti-abortion establishments nearby. Our neighbourhood was like many other Canadian neighbourhoods: some people believe sex is for fun and pleasure, whereas others believe sex is specifically for making babies.

That’s why I’m so proud of Big Susie’s. Big Susie’s is (to quote their website) “a working group by and for sex workers in Hamilton and the surrounding area.” Their purpose is to “fight back against the stigma and silence that degrades, devalues and dehumanizes sex workers and their work.”

The organization was born because of an odd and somewhat unfortunate intersection between politics and art. In 2009, a small local art gallery featured a series of photographs the artist had taken from the window of his studio, which was near a notorious alley used by hookers. The photographs were explicit and voyeuristic and—most importantly—were taken without the consent of the subjects. Trendy artists and people from the suburbs who visited the little gallery seemed entertained by a scandalous glimpse of Hamilton’s sexual working-class underbelly. But local sex-trade workers were angry. Weren’t they people too? Did someone have a right to photograph them and make an “artistic statement” about their bodies and their lives, without their permission? The protest against this exhibit led to the birth of Big Susie’s. Is all art political? Definitely, yes. Should artists be challenged when they consistently make work they characterize as apolitical, when in fact it is not? I (not to mention Bertolt Brecht!) would say yes.

As an out gay man and a drag queen, I have always been proud to be promiscuous. It makes me feel safe to have an organization in my town that is sex-positive and defends the rights of women to use their bodies in any way they wish in consenting sexual situations. Some feminists assume all prostitutes are victims, and proceed to speak for them, as if they didn’t have a voice of their own. But, lo and behold, they do.

Institution out of time: A Catholic convent and boarding school circa 1880. Photo courtesy Canadian National Archives.

In Alberta, Ontario, and Saskatchewan, parallel education systems still exist: the secular public school boards, and separate Catholic school boards. It is time to abolish that system. The problem of separate school boards is not their Catholicism; it is their separateness. Public funding elevates one religious tradition above all others, and in secular, multicultural contemporary Canada, that is no longer a viable option.

The propriety of the Catholic school system was up for debate recently when the Halton Catholic District School Board banned gay-straight alliances because, as the chair Alice Anne LeMay said, such student groups are “not within the teachings of the Catholic Church.” An investigation by the gay and lesbian newspaper Xtra! later found that such groups are effectively banned in all 29 of Ontario’s Catholic school boards. Just a year ago, Catholic leaders, including Catholic school board trustees, led the charge against a new sexual education curriculum for all Ontario public schools, and successfully scuppered the new scheme.

These episodes are troubling, but keeping score of who wins which policy scuffle is beside the point. These problems stem from the overarching fact of constitutionally entrenched religious public schools. Separate school boards for Protestants and Catholics are a function of Article 93 of the 1867 Constitution Act, intended at the time to protect minority religious rights. The reasons that a 4th century European institution should have been embedded in our 19th century constitution may have made sense at the time, but that time is long past.

The precedent for ending separate education exists. Quebec secured a constitutional amendment exempting it from Article 93 in 1997, and thereafter reorganized its school boards along linguistic lines, not religious ones. Newfoundland and Labrador merged their school boards into one non-denominational system in 1998.

The United Nations Human Rights Committee has already urged Canada [PDF] to “adopt steps in order to eliminate discrimination on the basis of religion in the funding of schools in Ontario.” Polls find significant public support for the idea, and it would undoubtedly save millions in administrative overheads. But pressure from the UN, public support, or financial incentives are all secondary to the simple truth that creating a singular, secular public school system is the right thing to do.

The problem is political will. No party is willing to touch the issue, especially after Ontario Progressive Conservative leader John Tory’s disastrous 2007 campaign promise to fund all religious schools, for which he was widely ridiculed. Party leaders fear, probably correctly, that proposing a merger of the separate and public school boards would be labelled as anti-Catholic. It is not. It is an acknowledgment that times have changed and state-sponsored religious education of any type or denomination is no longer appropriate.

Syrus Marcus Ware. Production still by Joshua Allen from "Ten," directed by Sarah Sharkey Pearce.

For the last two years, anyone weary of the increasingly commercialized and blissfully apoliticized nature of Pride in Toronto has made a beeline for the back-to-the-future experience that is the Trans March. It’s small, friendly, community-based, unendorsed by any corporate interest. It’s also politicized, giddy, and endearingly disorganized, the way many of us remember Prides of yore. It’s not just nostalgia that draws a bigger crowd each year, though — it’s the sense that trans activism has taken up the social-change banner from a gay movement that dropped it the moment the right to marry became the dominant political cause.

Syrus Marcus Ware, a baby-faced, 35-year-old trans guy, was happily agitating for a trans presence at Pride even before the march got organized. In 2008, he and a buddy “pushed and pushed and convinced” the organizers to start a trans stage (now a regular feature of Pride celebrations), but he’d been kick-starting trans, black, and prison-related causes long before that. Like many trans people, he came out first as gay, became an activist in high school (“I wanted to change attitudes at school and in my family,” he says, “and had a strong belief that the world could, and should, be different”), finally coming out as trans in 2000 after grappling with his feelings for at least a decade. Since then, he’s more than made up for lost time.

He’s an artist (painting, performance, and video) whose work often blurs into activism and whose activism can have the exhilaration of art (a program co-ordinator for youth and young adults at the Art Gallery of Ontario, he’s not wary of blending politics with art appreciation—his take on the recent Maharaja blockbuster show stressed the impact of British imperialism as much as it did the exhibit’s splendour). He’s a host of CIUT 89.5 FM’s Resistance on the Sound Dial. He helped create the publication Primed: The Back Pocket Guide for Transmen and the Men Who Dig Them. He’s involved with Gay/Bi/Queer Transmen Working Group, with a mandate to provide sexual health information to trans guys who have sex with men. He helped develop TransFathers 2B, a pilot course for trans men considering parenting (he recently got pregnant and is in a relationship with another trans guy). He works for prison abolition, both culturally, through the Prison Justice Film Festival, and politically, through the Prisoners’ Justice Action Committee, a group building abolition strategies within the black, indigenous, and trans communities.

If the gay movement opened the door to sexual diversity, the trans movement seems to be kicking it off its hinges, encouraging exploration well beyond gay, straight, and bi, creating a happily dizzy-making world where guys get pregnant, where that bearded dude with the great pecs turns out to have a vagina, where that gorgeous babe intends to keep her penis because she no longer has to comply with cultural expectations of gender. And the rest of us? We get a gender playground, open to all. “There are so many human variations outside the cookie-cutter paradigm of human desire,” says Ware. “We have to stop pathologizing them.” He’s working on it.