Human Rights, Isreali Trans Rights, and Sex Clubs!

Day2

The view from out the balcony is outstanding!!!! We took our time getting started with out day, a Starbucks in the basement. After deciding on our day clothes and looking fabulous we walked up toward Toronto College just amazed at the plethora of wonderful pro pride propaganda everywhere!!!!! Thankfully while wondering about a bit, a alcohol vendor was handing out free margaritas, so we had something refreshing to drink while we searched out our way.

Lets be honest for a moment, I got lost on the way. The grounds where we got lost were beautiful though; it was the front of the legislative Parliament. Sitting there himself was a good looking man sitting along on a bench looking a bit nervous. After a short conversation he pointed us in the wrong direction and explained he was waiting for a job interview to begin. TO our surprise he ran after us to explain he made a mistake and guided us in the right direction. What a nice guy, hope his interview went wonderfully.

Thank goodness our community is brightly colored! There was a small picnic goin on outside the conference with rainbow balloon arches wafting in the warm humid air of the afternoon.

The conference was sold out unfortunately, in fact it sold out just two weeks after posted it back at the end of March. This was a disappointment until we learned how expensive the conference was ~ 400 dollars, and upon further random conversations many delegates from the represented 70 countries had colleagues who were not able to attend because the tickets went so fast. I did meet a wonderful delegate from the Caribbean islands in the washroom whom had just flown in from DC Tatina obviously distracted by her past visit to our capital. Hope we bump into one another again. Thank there was a public and free plenary session in the afternoon which the conference gladly gave us tickets to. And was only an hour or two away.

The plenary session was amazing. Hopping a taxi to avoid the downpour which had begun in short order. The first two speakers where the past prime minister of Iceland Jóhanna Sigurdardóttir and her partner Jónína Leósdóttir. Johanna not only pulled Iceland out economic collapse but she spoke about the process of falling in love and what it was like to fall in love while holding public office and than what it was like to finally marry after 15 years of pretending to be friends and living apart. It was amazing to hear such a world leader speak of her politics and her love life and how the world media made a larger deal of it than her home country. Her wife spoke in a beautiful manner about accidentally falling in love with this, at the time union leader, and loving city meetings because she got to see her new love. The story was touching. Later on she spoke about being a first wife and traveling to China. China was wonderful by the way. The story was inspiring. Toward the end Johanna just spoke over and over how the majority  of the worlds GLBT population is in horrible situations and that we must continue to hate and fight and fight for the continued rights of one another.

The second speaker was Edith Windsor who was the case that over turned DOMA. She was sitting there speaking with the openly gay judge Harvey Brownstone, whom had become a dear friend to her after marrying Edith and her wife Thea in Canada. Edith was outstanding!!!!! The nitty gritty of the case was fascinating, how the lawyers had to control her image during the case, and what it was like to have just lost her wife and fight a case against the supreme court. Strong woman. What was also amazing was how she spoke the current situation as she sees it for LGBTQI populations, and yes she actually included the "i"! First off she was quick to point out that she was "main stream gay", and she was quick to point that the majority of the audience was also mainstream gay and that it was important to remember that she has the majority of her rights now. She also spoke about the fact she had no idea about the difficulties that the Trans population has to deal with, and she said we must be LOUDER!!!! Because the mainstream gay don't even have a clue about what you are going through. She spoke about being at the Stone wall riots, and not understanding why the queens pushed over the police cars, at the time. She talked about the one good thing about the AIDS epidemic really brought the lesbian ad gay communities together. She ended with the fact that their are over 200,000 queer youth on the streets, and this needed to be fixed (Yes she openly used the word queer). When asked what she was going to do next it was to read a whole book in the Hamptons!

A cup of coffee later, and a continued rainstorm we ended up at the JCC, Jewish community center, to hear from gay organizers in Israel speaking about their fight! How they fought the Israeli way, with the law, taking each right they needed. It was illegal to be gay a short while ago in Israeli. I asked about what it was that Trans populations are doing successfully in Israel, and the speaker said Radical Activism is the only thing that is working for them. The trans situation does not appear to be any better in Israel than it is here. It is important that the situation is Israel does include the Arabs living there, their world is extremely worse.

The rain still coming down in sheets, we caught a taxi back the Elephant and Castle bar were we had some dinner and tried to absorb the day. It was about 11 now and Brenda decided to head back the room. I started to the head to the "Trans World Pride Party" at the Bovine club. The waitress said it was a wonderful place and directed to the best trolley route and walking  route.

The Bovine club was amazing! A funky ass little club in the fashion district it took only five minutes to make friends and head to the roof top tiki bar to laugh and chat with the beautiful woman I met! It was a pretty wild crowd, heading up to the rough top there was a performance piece being done by a person shooting up on stage, I couldn't watch that one. Wound up back at the room by 2:30 or so and started to wind down for the evening.

From our balcony

Pride picnic at the College

HRC conference

Shameless Selfy

Cute Cafe Racer

Johanna and Jonina

Edith and Harvery

World Pride in Kitchner......

Day 1

Flying over lake Michigan I saw the Chicago skyline for the first time in my life. My Mother was born here, and my grandfather was a career musician for the windy city, but for now the O'Hara airport and distant skyline is a beautiful reminder of my families history.

Being it is vacation, and being that Brenda and I have such a grand time together we took a quick stop one of the many "Cubs" sports bars in the airport and shared a toast to the week that is sure to unfold!!! This is history, only occurring once every four years, and being the first time ever in North America, World Pride is something neither one of us is totally prepared for.

Meeting people of Queerness from the Iran, North Sweden, Germany, France, Egypt, South Korea and so many more is going to be beautiful. That the 3.5 million people that will be frequenting the same concerts, human rights talks, and streets as us fills me with Joy. How do other countries fight their battles for equality? With so many fights finished, and so many ongoing the amount we can learn from one another is fills my bones with the electricity of the moments ahead. People change the world, and in about an hour Brenda and I will be sharing the same space.

It may seem foreign to some, and obvious to others that so many people would gather simply because they are not straight, but those of us who this exemplifies, it will be a place to breath just a little bit easier, laugh a little bit freeer and love a little bit easier.

Lets not forget it is going to be one heck of a party though! And one with stunning and interesting people from all over the world, I suddenly have Jack Whites new song, Lazarus sneaking into my mind "my bones are electric!

While approaching our landing Brenda and I started to inquire about what was planted in all of the cornfields below us. Also we noted that the fields were square and not circular. Now Brenda later told me that she thought this was bizarre considering that we were landing in the Gigantic city Toronto…. Or were we?

Kitchner…. um no, said the well dressed man beside us, Toronto is roughly an hour or two from Downtown Toronto… oh shit! After explaining in a voice that was easy to over hear, that Orbitz lead me to believe that we were landing in Toronto a nice man, whom we ended up getting to know very well later that evening, explained that the same thing happened to him so he rented a car…. Do you have room for two more??

Thank god he said yes, and for the next three hours we found ourselves driving through the quaint Toronto country side in driving down rain, praying that our cell phones would wake up so we would have access to a map that did not require crayons.

"Are you both drunk?" Yelled a woman whom we would later learn to be Princess through a bathroom stall  in McDonalds. I suppose she was responding to me conversation through stall to Brenda. I laughed a little and eventually is came out that we were from America, were lost and desperately trying to get to World Pride. She and her friend squeed and offered to drive us to Toronto seeing as we were just about a half an hour out. You see we had driven right past it the driving rain and stopped because Brenda had a gut instinct that we had missed it. After parting ways in the parking lot she made us promise that we would knock back a couple of shots for her.

Our phones finally woke up and we rolled into the Eaton Chelsea roughly about 8pm. We quickly made it into the hotel bar, had a drink, a bite and I developed a phantasy crush with the Jazz singer who was performing; qawinkidink but it is also the Toronto Jazz Festival and I do believe Handy man is the most fantastically dirty song from the thirties:)

We wondered about a bit, landed in another bar  for a night cap and are laying in bed excited for the day to come. The human rights convention starts bright and early; bright is  not so much the issue as the early part!

General side notes: Canada has signs that read "Gentle Delays ahead" "Toronto Pride is everywhere" (That last one was huge on an overpass coming into the city). I didn't get hassled about my gender not matching my passport. The nice woman Kayla said the entire hotel was sold out, and that World Pride was the only thing of note going on in the city! The elephant and the castle bar

People of Note: The Jazz group was, (look up) in the Monarch Pub, Josh our driver, Charlie the concierge that could not ready a Google map(he had a dreamy accent though), Jim the Alaskan in Chicago,

Shortest Customs Line Ever!!!!

Bumming a ride:)

Not the busy Toronto Airport!

On the heels of Mpls Queer Prom, 4" to be exact

Hell's Kitchen and Queer wonderfulness gave way to a day of packing, laundry, some hormone blood work, my girlfriends decision to take on the VA and of course wonderful coffee.

Politics arrived early in the apartment; why is there local acceptance by the gay community to use the term tranny freely and often in a pejorative way? No answer as of yet.

When my friend, Brenda, and I arrive in T-Dot tomorrow morning and get ready to explore and soak up what it means to be "Pride" across the entire world this blog will capture the general GRAND ness of it all, but also to search out how other countries have successfully fought for the rights of their communities and kept their GLBTQAI from harming itself with inner politics and misunderstandings.

Toronto-Pride 2013

Getting ready for Toronto World Pride 2014