A Bit More Detail

• Drew Rowsome reviews the offerings at the Toronto Queer Theatre Festival, here.


• blogTO notes the displeasure of the Junction at the removal of a wooden train platform, become a community hub, for condo construction.


• Bloor West Village, blogTO notes, hosts a museum--newly reopened in a new location--devoted to the poetry of Taras Shevchenko.


• Jamie Bradburn looks at vintage Toronto ads, these from the parties contending 1926 federal election.


• In this long-form CBC feature, Ioanna Roumeliotis writes about the new things the TTC is doing to try to prevent suicides on the subway tracks.

• r/toronto notes, via blogTO, that the old HMV at Yonge and Dundas is set to become a cannabis dispensary.


• The University of Toronto is being criticized by students for its handling of recent suicides and its mental health policies generally. CBC reports.


• blogTO notes that the Ralph Thornton Community Centre in Riverside will be throwing a Game of Thrones-themed festival in May.


• New changes to the regulation of secondary suites may make things easier in the Toronto rental market. CBC reports.


• Urban Toronto reports on two ambitious plans to densify Scarborough Centre.

• This feature in The Guardian examines the sufferings of the people who have been made victims of conspiracy theories.


• Global News takes a look at the strong support of New Brunswickers for the New England Patriots, rooted in a historical community that surely extends to the rest of Atlantic Canada.


• Atlas Obscura examines the communities being knitted together across the world by North American immigrants from the Caribbean of at least partial Hakka descent.


• The Guardian notes how, for many property-owners and residents, having Banksy graffiti on one of their walls might not be a blessing at all.


• The Japan Times looks at how a gatekeeper in the infamous Aokigahara forest in Japan, a favoured destination of people planning suicide, is trying to inspire them to live.

• Because of a lack of support from the University of Toronto, Ten Editions Bookstore on Spadina Avenue between College and Bloor has closed down permanently. blogTO reports.


• Statler's on Church Street, a popular Village bar known for its performance spaces, closed down suddenly on account of massive rent increases. blogTO reports.


• The famed Coffee Time restaurant at Coxwell and Gerrard, subject of a documentary that looks at this affordable coffee place's connections to locals, has closed down permanently. blogTO reports.


• Gilbert Ngabo at the Toronto Star reports on how Torontonians now have now choice but to use the Presto card. My experiences reflect others' in that things have been working out for me, so far.


• GO Transit's connections directly to York University have ceased in the wake of the subway extension, as promised. Many who depended on the direct link are unhappy that it is no longer being sustained. Global News reports.


• This Toronto Sun article shares the call of a brother of a victim who died by suicide at a TTC station for more action to prevent such unfortunate events.


• Steve Munro reports on the different challenges facing the TTC board in 2019.


• Enzo DiMatteo at NOW Toronto makes the case that Toronto needs to continue to address gun violence as a public health issue if it is to control this plague.


• A tall and skinny home in Riverdale that has gone on sale for $C 3 million has as many detractors as supporters. Global News reports.


• CBC Toronto notes that the new nickname of the Economist for Toronto and its tech sector, "Maple Valley", is not catching on with locals.


• Marco Chown Oved at the Toronto Star shares the story of Don Sampson, a long-time resident of the Toronto Islands who faces losing the family home there because he cannot inherit the property from his brother.


• The cast of the venerable Global Television drama Train 48, filmed on a GO Transit Lakeshore West train in 2003-2005, recently reunited. Global News reports.

• Why are the falls at Niagara Falls so famously compelling, even lethally seductive for some? Some human brains might be confused by the immensity. The National Post reports.


• The extent of the flooding in Brantford, inland from Hamilton on the Grand River, is shocking. The Toronto Star reports.


• The Saskatchewan capital city of Regina turns out to be the McDonald's breakfast capital of Canada. Global News reports.


• This essay in The Globe and Mail by Greg Blanchette looking at the rental housing crunch in the small Vancouver Island town of Tofino describes what's frankly a terrifying situation.


• If not for the fact that the CP Railway owned no property locally, the Vancouver suburb of Port Moody could well have become Canada's biggest west coast metropolis. Global News reports.

• Lisa Coxon of Toronto Life shares eleven photos tracking Toronto's queer history back more than a century.


• Michelle McQuigge reports for the Toronto Star that the Luminous Veil does save lives. I would add that it is also beautiful.


• In The Globe and Mail, Marcus Gee thinks it makes perfect sense for there to be a dedicated streetcar corridor on King Street.


• Ben Spurr describes a new plan for a new GO Transit bus station across from Union Station.


• Emily Mathieu reported in the Toronto Star on how some Kensington Market tenants seem to have been pushed out for an Airbnb hostel.


• In The Globe and Mail, Irish-born John Doyle explores the new Robert Grassett Park, built in honour of the doctor who died trying to save Irish refugees in 1847.

Justin Ling in VICE tells the story of three gay men who went missing without a trace in Toronto just a few years ago. What happened?

• Bloomberg reports on how the weakening yen is hurting some Hong Kong retailers, notes how Chinese are visiting Hong Kong in the search for approved vaccines, and observes Brexit may not change British immigration much.


• MacLean's notes a court ruling which states the Confederate flag is inherently anti-American, and reports on the Swedish Tourist Association's new campaign which offers people around the world the chance to talk to a random Swede.


• Juan Cole at The Nation reports the exceptional unpopularity of Egypt's transfer of two islands in the Gulf of Aqaba to Saudi Arabia.


• National Geographic considers the concept of dam removal in parts of the United States.


• Open Democracy examines the awkward position of Russian culture in the Ukrainian city of L'viv.


• Science Daily notes findings suggesting that the genes which influence homosexuality are found in most people in the world, explaining why homosexuality is common.


• The Toronto Star reports on a thankfully foiled, but still horrifying, suicide pact involving 13 young people in Attawapiskat, and notes Denmark's turn against even people who help refugees.


• Wired describes Yuri Milner's proposal to use powerful lasers to launch very small probes to Alpha Centauri.

Rex Uttak liked to laugh, especially when his aunt, Mary Ann Uttak, got him going, as she loved to do, because he could get her right back by cracking a joke or doing something silly. Then they would both start laughing until their eyes watered, and they would try to choke back their giggles until the next joke flew.

That was Rex, says his aunt, an 11-year-old boy full of laughter and light. Mary Ann remembers coming home on August 10, 2013 and seeing her nephew and one of his cousin’s asleep on a living room couch. She touched his cheek and whispered goodnight. By the next morning Rex was dead. The little boy who liked to laugh had hanged himself.

Rex Uttak was one of 45 Nunavut Inuit to take their own life in 2013, a cascade of tragedies that triggered a special coroner’s inquest into the high rate of suicide in the North that convened in Iqaluit on Sept. 14 and concludes Friday.

Since 1999, 479 Inuit have killed themselves in the territory — by hanging, gun, overdose and stabbing — out of a population of about 28,000. To put the numbers in perspective: an Inuit age 15 years and older is 9.8 times more likely to commit suicide than a Canadian living in the south, while the suicide rate among Inuit children, aged 11-14, is about 50 times the national average. Of the 45 suicides in 2013, 12 were women and 33 were men, mostly between the ages of 15-25.

Rex Uttak was the youngest. The oldest was 72.

"We don't support that, religiously," Alcorn's mother told CNN on Wednesday, her voice breaking. "But we told him that we loved him unconditionally. We loved him no matter what. I loved my son. People need to know that I loved him. He was a good kid, a good boy."

Crossing out the name "Josh," the 17-year-old signed the name "Leelah" in a suicide note posted to Tumblr.

[. . .]

In her interview with CNN, Carla Alcorn referred to her child as her son and used male pronouns.

[. . .]

Carla Alcorn told CNN that her child was depressed and that counselors and a psychiatrist gave the teenager medication.

"He just quit talking about (being transgender)," she said.

She worried Wednesday that hateful messages directed toward her and her husband are making them out to be "horrible people," she said. She has other children, she said, and they are incredibly sad about losing a sibling.

When I was 14, I learned what transgender meant and cried of happiness. After 10 years of confusion I finally understood who I was. I immediately told my mom, and she reacted extremely negatively, telling me that it was a phase, that I would never truly be a girl, that God doesn’t make mistakes, that I am wrong. If you are reading this, parents, please don’t tell this to your kids. Even if you are Christian or are against transgender people don’t ever say that to someone, especially your kid. That won’t do anything but make them hate them self. That’s exactly what it did to me.

My mom started taking me to a therapist, but would only take me to christian therapists, (who were all very biased) so I never actually got the therapy I needed to cure me of my depression. I only got more christians telling me that I was selfish and wrong and that I should look to God for help.

When I was 16 I realized that my parents would never come around, and that I would have to wait until I was 18 to start any sort of transitioning treatment, which absolutely broke my heart. The longer you wait, the harder it is to transition. I felt hopeless, that I was just going to look like a man in drag for the rest of my life. On my 16th birthday, when I didn’t receive consent from my parents to start transitioning, I cried myself to sleep.

[. . .]

After a summer of having almost no friends plus the weight of having to think about college, save money for moving out, keep my grades up, go to church each week and feel like shit because everyone there is against everything I live for, I have decided I’ve had enough. I’m never going to transition successfully, even when I move out. I’m never going to be happy with the way I look or sound. I’m never going to have enough friends to satisfy me. I’m never going to have enough love to satisfy me. I’m never going to find a man who loves me. I’m never going to be happy. Either I live the rest of my life as a lonely man who wishes he were a woman or I live my life as a lonelier woman who hates herself. There’s no winning. There’s no way out. I’m sad enough already, I don’t need my life to get any worse. People say “it gets better” but that isn’t true in my case. It gets worse. Each day I get worse.

That’s the gist of it, that’s why I feel like killing myself. Sorry if that’s not a good enough reason for you, it’s good enough for me. As for my will, I want 100% of the things that I legally own to be sold and the money (plus my money in the bank) to be given to trans civil rights movements and support groups, I don’t give a shit which one. The only way I will rest in peace is if one day transgender people aren’t treated the way I was, they’re treated like humans, with valid feelings and human rights. Gender needs to be taught about in schools, the earlier the better. My death needs to mean something. My death needs to be counted in the number of transgender people who commit suicide this year. I want someone to look at that number and say “that’s fucked up” and fix it. Fix society. Please.