Gossip Guy: Lethbridge: Too Queer?
Since my arrival here in Lethbridge back in September 2007 (gosh—have I been here that long already?) I have been witness to a few trends in this great city; but trends are meant to be, and should be replaced with ideas of new aren’t they? Aren’t political powers supposed to change and mold with the times instead of remaining powerfully seated back in yesteryears? Shouldn’t we be removing past terms of hate and discrimination after moving forward for so many years?
When I first arrived in Alberta I was taken back a further 4.5 years into my past, to the point where I moved from my hometown of Wasaga Beach, Ontario to Toronto for school. I had finally left that redneck area where high school was sometimes like torture, and the attitudes were those of the ship yards; that’s what the area was developed for back during the World Wars. I had arrived in a new place, and taken up residence near Ryerson University, where I was to attend, but also directly in the middle of the gay village. The shackles of my former life were released from my ankles; I was in a place where I could truly just be me.
I was simply amazed at how progressive Toronto was vs. where I had come from. The simple things; holding hands, being affectionate, they weren’t only out on display between same sex couples, but also widely accepted. The rights I never thought I’d have back home were already available to me, just not there, but here. It was then I made a realization: it’s not rights we are fighting for right now, but acceptance of the people within our own country! We already have the rights we want; others back home and around the country who haven’t heard or been exposed to the news just think that we didn’t.
That singular thought is ringing back in my head today as I continually hear and see what our smaller city Albertan LGBTQ leaders are doing within Lethbridge. Compared to what I saw back in Toronto, these people have grown up within the ideals of those who have not yet accepted the rest of our country’s progressiveness. So even though we have those same rights, we are just fighting to educate our local communities now to accept them along with the rest of the major cities. It almost seems like a time lapse is continually expanding outward from the LGBTQ neighborhoods of our great cities, slowly expanding out like a bubble of tolerance and acceptance.
Unfortunately, this time lapse effect has also affected our LGBTQ leaders and how they continue to conduct themselves at public events. The notion that Lethbridge last year had its first “Anti-Hate Rally” in response to a University student becoming the victim of another student’s dislike for his sexual preferences is absurd. Reactively, the local gay community groups banded together in a demonstration targeted towards sending a message to the city, when in fact it was the actions of one individual that should have been the target. The ideals our leaders carry are those of reactive activists and not of politicians as they blamed our city for the attack when it wasn’t a mob of citizens; but just one man misconducting himself (I guess he hadn’t heard the news). Lethbridge was not at fault here. I believe in my rumble opinion that a singular isolated hate crime should have spurred a proactive plan being developed to prevent it from happening again; instead our community leaders reacted with a rally that appeared to drive a message to all of the population that we’re angry at them.
What happens when you put an activist into a political leadership position? It’s like letting a bull into a china shop.
A survey conducted recently of Lethbridge’s LGBTQ population was calculated on how they identified themselves: 4% of those surveyed responded that “Queer” is their identifying orientation. Now the current leaderships of the OUT Reach Southern Alberta Society (formerly GALA/LA) and the ULSU Pride Board of Directors have adopted the term “Queer” during many of their public events to represent our vast community and use it like a lightning rod when speaking to describe our community. Who made this decision? I’m a part of Lethbridge’s population and its LGBTQ community, but I am not queer. I do not feel it’s appropriate to use this small segment of “LGBTQ” to describe us all, especially after they went through the pain of renaming GALA/LA to use a more encompassing and inclusive term that “they” thought was more appropriate.
ULSU Pride has hosted the OUTspoken Conference two years running now; bless their hearts. However, even the student groups have adopted this old derogatory terminology describing to the general population we’re all “Queer” with such workshop names as “Queer 101, Queer & Christian Panel, Queer History in Lethbridge”. What happened to the diversity that our community groups always speak of advocating for?
Are we to be forever branded as Queers in our community with our leader’s standing on soap boxes arranging rallies at every outrage shouting out the all too familiar “We’re here, we’re queer, we’re here to stay!!”? It definitely seems that way as our gay community groups have suddenly adopted this term to “label” us all again after advocating for inclusivity and changing the name of GALA/LA to do so. Why this absurd contradiction? Why is 96% of our community represented in that survey being misrepresented? Why are our leaders still reacting to events in our community like it’s the 1980’s? Why does it seem like we are moving backwards in time? Why do we all have to be queer because they say so? WHY?
Gossip Guy, you know you love me -xoxo
[Gossip Guy is your online resource for anything you want to talk about, but should expect the awful truth as a response. The purpose of Gossip Guy is to offer dating advice and advice to anonymous individuals to provide a valuable (if not sometimes comical) resource to the LGBTQ community.]
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