A Bit More Detail

• Them writes about the importance of queer spaces like coffee shops where people can gather while being sober.


• Folio links to a fascinating study examining why professional hockey players have not come out, and what might make them do so.


• JSTOR Daily reports on the fascinating process of recovering black queer history through researching articles in sensationalist magazines.


• Hornet Stories describes the fascinating, disastrous history of closeted New York City mayor Ed Koch.


• A controversy over the headlining of Ariana Grande at 2019 Manchester Pride led to a debate to questions of queer representation on Pride stages. Global News reports.

• This Guardian Cities article asks, rhetorically, if the LGBTQ community of Atlanta has a problem with racism.


• VICE tells the story of pioneering Jordan-based LGBT magazine My.Kali, the first in its country.


• Taylor Hosking at VICE writes about how cross-dressing on Hallowe'en, for her as a queer cis black woman, was a perhaps unexpectedly powerful experience.


• Mark Simpson praises Glennda Orgasm, the drag journalist persona of his friend Glenn Belverio. Is it time for her to come back?


• Florence Ashley argues at NOW Toronto that Pride Toronto is too corporatized to be salvaged, and that it would be best to start fresh.

• This Daily Xtra article makes the case for Freddie Mercury as a radical, queer, brown icon.


• This CBC Arts article features six men talking about why Carly Rae Jepsen can claim such a strong fanbase in queer audiences.


• CBC Arts reintroduces readers to Canada's first drag superstar, Craig Russell.


• Carolyn Strange at The Conversation looks at the background, recent and otherwise, behind tensions between Toronto LGBTQ communities and the police, rooted in the neglect and outright criminality of the police.


• Dorianne Emmerton at Daily Xtra argues that the Pride Toronto organization may be coming to a natural end, as its financial dependency on politicized funding means that it can no longer speak to the needs of queer and trans communities.

• Steve Munro reports on the latest report about upcoming Metrolinx stations.


• Understandably, the Church and Wellesley serial killer investigation is making the efforts of Toronto police to march in Pride problematic. (As it should.) The Globe and Mail reports.


• blogTO notes that the old Freeman Formalwear building on 556 Yonge, just below Wellesley, has been demolished following a fire.


• The Bank of Montreal is going to transform a huge chunk of the old Sears store in the Eaton Centre, southwest of Yonge and Dundas, into an urban campus employing thousands. The Toronto Star reports.


• The Bentway, underneath the Gardiner, is set to become a public art space. The Globe and Mail reports.

Mel went because he was a tremendous baby-kisser. Mel was never happier than when he was shaking hands and meeting new people and mixing with his constituents. Parades and street festivals were incredible fun.

But more importantly, Mel went because Mel recognized that he was mayor of the entire city.

Not just the parts which voted for him, and not just the parts which he found appealing.

One of Mel’s main goals as mayor was to bring the city together: to promote inclusiveness and mutual understanding, to promote and protect minority cultures, to foster an environment where people from all over the world can feel at home.

And if occasionally he had to something he found distasteful or uncomfortable to reach that goal? Mel would pull on his big-boy pants and get it over with.

[. . .]

This was one of the pivotal moments in Mel’s career as mayor. It set the tone for the rest of his term in office. It was a moment when he proved something important to his constituents: all that talk about “inclusiveness” and “mayor of the whole city” was more than just idle political chatter. He was going to put himself out there, he was going to make a good-faith effort to engage with minority cultures on their own terms, and he was going to use his power as mayor to encourage the values he espoused, rather than cynically ditching them after election night.

Mel was not a perfect mayor—but he got this part right. No matter what you thought about his politics and his policies, we all knew that he genuinely loved this city and its people. It’s part of why he absolutely roared to victory in the 2000 mayoral election.

Mel started with a city split nearly in two along ideological and geographic lines, and he turned it into a unified, cohesive and coherent metropolis. He healed the rifts which he himself had inadvertently created. And he left the city more united, more even and more inclusive than he’d found it.