We're Pretty LGBT+ Friendly, Eh?

These days we finally have our priorities correct in Canada.

When I moved from Manitoba to Alberta 20 years ago, it was the most homophobic province in all of Canada. But now look at us! Woo hoo, Calgary and Mayor Naheed Nenshi, you rock!

Exactly how LGBT+ friendly is Canada? Hey, just look at our friggin' money!

And these are our postage stamps!

And this is our Prime Minister!

Why, we even love our neighbour to the south in a very special way!

Do you know why Canada is so LGBT+ friendly? Well, I'll tell you. It's all in our top secret demographics --

strongermonster:

individual canadians confirmed as 5 gays in a trench coat

That's right! We've been fooling the world for years! We are ALL LGBT+ in Canada!

Oh My Gay Brothers!

I tend to like men in general, but I luuuuuuuuv gay men in particular, the sassy little buggers!

And hey, here's a nod to the Leather Community too --

Lez Be Friends!

Cuz wild wimmin don't get the blues!

Back-to-Back Stanley Cups!

Woo hoo! The Penguins won the Stanley Cup last night for the second year in a row!

This brings the Penguins' total number of Cups won over the years to five, tying the Edmonton Oilers' record for most Cups won by an expansion team. Hopefully, this will be the spur the Oilers need to defend their record and win a sixth Cup next year!

And just because it's Translesbigayapalooza month on my blog, I'll end this post with a photo of hockey sticks wrapped with Pride Tape! This is an anti-homophobia-in-hockey initiative started right here in Edmonton and now supported by various teams around the NHL.

Journey to Your True Self

I've known my fair share of trans people over the years and have always found them to be brave, deep-thinking and fascinating individuals who are making one of the most profound journeys a human can undertake.

The non-binary and increasingly fluid conceptualization of gender is a truly revolutionary idea. It's one of the most important developments of our historical era, I believe. So here's a few memes and lols in tribute to the community in the vanguard of that change!

So much hatred and violence get directed towards the trans community on a scale that is truly appalling. I have no doubt, however, that the trans community shall overcome in the long run! And those of us who are cisgendered must actively demonstrate ourselves to be unflagging allies in their struggle as well.

Even their pets are discriminated against!

But you know what? They have friends in high places. Very High Places indeed.

And because it's Father's Day today, here's a special acknowledgment of the Dad of the Year --

That's what love is all about. Happy Father's Day, everyone! [Oops, sorry, it appears I'm a week early and Father's Day is next Sunday, June 18th -- d'oh!]

The Politics of Alphabet Soup

Finding a single, all-inclusive term for our community has always been a challenge.

At the beginning of the modern struggle for our civil and human rights in 1969, "gay" was used as a blanket term. But that word made lesbians feel invisible. So then our moniker became "gay and lesbian." That made bisexuals feel invisible. Hello, "lesbigay!" But trans people said "hey, what about us?" and so "translesbigay" started to appear.

For a while, hope arose that the reclaimed word "queer" might be suitable as a one-size-fits-all expression. However, too many people still feel the hurt of that term as a homophobic slur and don't want that word to apply to them.

So for quite a few years, we used the following acronym and everyone was more or less happy with it:

Since the turn of the century, though, more and more distinct groups have started defining themselves as members of our community and naturally want their own piece of the acronym pie. In Canada, the most recently generally accepted full community acronym is:

This stands for: lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, intersex, queer, questioning, two spirit, asexual/ally.

But over the past few years, a P and D have crept into the mix as well -- pansexual and demisexual.

The goal of a single, all-inclusive term seems to be fast disappearing over the horizon. For a while, I thought "rainbow" might solve the problem, as in "rainbow community" or "rainbow tribe." While "rainbow" did get some traction for a few purposes, it has not become the standard default term.

I see that many newspapers and media outlets have thrown in the towel and simply use the abbreviated acronym LGBT, since those four letters represent the main groups of our community. But I've also sometimes seen a plus sign added on to the end of the acronym to signal that it is a truncated term -- LGBT+ -- so that the + indicates that there are other groups too, without naming them.

I hope some day a miraculous, all-inclusive word will be devised that makes everyone feel visible, acknowledged and happy, but I'm not holding my breath. I think alphabet soup will be with us for quite awhile.

So in the meantime, just chill and have a nice sammich with your soup, everyone!

Closet Funnies

The Closet is not a fun place to be but once you're out, we can all laugh about it!

Remember that most poignant scene of all in the movie Brokeback Mountain? Ennis visits Jack's oppressive and hostile childhood home after his death and while there, finds hidden in his closet Jack's coded shrine to the early days of their love -- Ennis' and Jack's shirts nestled together on one hanger next to a postcard of Brokeback thumbtacked to the closet wall. That scene breaks my heart every time I see it.

So let's give the last word on long-term life and love in the closet to the middle-aged Jack --