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 […] More »

Some LGBT would-be parents find ways to thwart foreign bigotry—while others simply walk away The test kitchen of the Bayview Village Loblaws grocery store in North Toronto is packed. Around 30 women and men sit clustered in pairs in a horseshoe, framed by the cupboards and counters lining the room. They are almost all white, […] More »

Best Canadian Essays 2010, the second annual collection of its kind from Tightrope Books, again includes a feature article that originally appeared in This Magazine. The collection includes Paul Gallant’s essay on the state of Canada’s gay rights movement in the wake of same-sex marriage legalization, “Over the rainbow“, from our September-October 2009 issue. Sounds […] More »

The It Gets Better Project—the hugely popular series of videos kicked off by advice columnist Dan Savage a few weeks ago in response to a series of high-profile suicides by gay teens—got a contribution this week from a group of queer Canadian celebrities. The slickly edited video above gathers the stories of more than 30 […] More »

When the new study guide for immigrants applying for Canadian citizenship was published last November, a reporter asked Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney why there was no mention of Canada’s world-leading (but still-in-progress!) record on equal rights for gay and lesbian people. Here’s what Kenney said: “We can’t mention every legal decision, every policy […] More »

Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered athletes will find the first-ever Olympic pavilion welcoming them in 2010, a place at the Games to hang out, chill out, or come out. “The whole purpose behind Pride House” — actually a conference room at Whistler, B.C.’s Pan Pacific Hotel—“was really to create a dialogue about homophobia within sport,” […] More »

Queer rights are on trial left, right and centre this month. Here in Canada, an HIV-positive gay couple from the States has won their appeal against Citizenship and Immigration Canada. Until now, the majority of HIV-positive applicants have been excluded because of the excessive burden they posed on health services. This couple was initially rejected, […] More »

Uganda may soon follow Nigeria in making homosexuality an offense punishable by death. The proposed legislation was apparently sparked by a visit from American members of the ex-gay movement, who believe homosexuality can be cured through therapy. Most of these groups though have since denounced the bill, which is perhaps a mark of how extreme […] More »

The legalization of gay marriage in Canada has coincided with an era that might be dubbed the first “queer baby boom.” As such, this generation of queer parents and their children have been forced to adopt the ambivalent role of pioneers in a social space in which the model of the “traditional” nuclear family does […] More »

You’ve probably noticed by now, unless you’ve been hiding under a rock or just standing endlessly in line to offload your garbage, that Pride is in full swing. I have to admit I find Toronto Pride kind of overwhelming. This is largely because I come from Scotland, where Pride is shared by two cities who […] More »