[URBAN NOTE] "Village no more"

[rfmcdonald]

Matthew Hays' Xtra! article raising the question of whether gay neighbourhoods serve any needs justifying their continued existence doesn't come to any judgements. Myself, I suspect that Dennis O'Connor, quoted in the article, may be correct in suggesting that migration to gay neighbourhoods, from their hinterlands within and without the countries in which these beacons of tolerance are located, may play a vital role in keeping them going. Think of it as replacement migration, if you would.

It was a moment that left me a bit taken aback. During a break from a journalism class I teach at Concordia University in Montreal, I was talking with one of my students. This young fellow is bright, handsome, ambitious, proudly queer and sexually active. “Do you live in the Village?” I queried, basically making small talk.

But this student stopped upon hearing the question and looked at me as if I had three heads. “Why would I want to live there?”

Perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised, given the growing chorus of existential soul-searching that is routinely heard when people discuss the idea of a gay village — that is, a neighbourhood that is specifically queer in a city. The stats have now become sadly familiar: with urban rents rising, gay-owned businesses and bookstores have been closing in Canada’s largest cities over the past decade, with chain stores and soulless condo skyscrapers taking their place. And since gays have gained far greater acceptance from the straight majority, queers have created new mini-hoods — Toronto’s Cabbagetown, Parkdale and Leslieville — or queer-friendly artsy areas, like Montreal’s Mile End. Add to that the emergence of the internet as the primary way to hook up sexually — the ascent of Generation Grindr — and some are declaring the very concept of the Village redundant and obsolete.

Which prompts the question: do we still need a Village?

Stan Persky, the prolific journalist, author and university instructor, who divides his time between Vancouver and Berlin, argues that yes, the relevance of gay districts has declined significantly over the past 20 years. And a big part of that, he suggests, is that being queer has become far more acceptable by the mainstream. “For some time, I’d say the years 1969 to 1994, from gay liberation years through to retrovirals, my identity as gay was constantly subject to some form of peril. It was supportive and nice to live in a neighbourhood where you felt reaffirmed daily by seeing other gays, being able to use gay institutions — bars, restaurants and bookstores — and generally living in an atmosphere of greater public safety. The need for that sort of support and mutual identification diminished enormously as the political struggle for the public acceptance of homosexuality succeeded.”

Persky points to a post-gay period, in which being “gay is now among one’s list of identifications without it requiring constant self-conceptualization or prioritizing, as discrimination against homosexuality has been legally overcome, for the most part, in Canadian politics. Public recognition of gay as simply one more part of the complicated human story has steadily increased.”