LGBTQ – Page 2 – The Hungover Pundit

Mobilizing on Church Street

This coming Saturday, September 28, a self-proclaimed “Christian values” group has announced that they will march through the centre of Toronto’s “Gay Village”, the Church and Wellesley neighbourhood. The group, which calls itself “Christian Positive Space,” claims that they chose Church St. to march on only because of the traditionally-Christian connotations of the word “Church”… and therefore, according to the group’s spokesperson David Lynn, are only be promoting Christianity and not homophobia.

I have only two words to respond to that claim: Bull. Shit.

This march comes after months of so-called Christian street preachers — including the same “Brother Phillip” of the hate group “ServantHOODs” who incited attackers during the June 2019 Hamilton Pride event — showing up in the Village and harassing the LGBTQ+ community on the streets. This harassment has been to the point where police have arrested David Lynn himself (although, alas, not charged him) for disturbing the peace.

Christianity and Hate

Another week, another counter-protest in Hamilton, complete with Yellow Vest fascist fuckery on a variety of levels, including a yellow-vester attacking three anti-fascist protesters, police inaction, my being called “faggot” and “cocksucker” by one of the so-called “christian” contingent and — interestingly — Yellow Vest leader Justin Long making a speech denouncing racism and homophobia and singling out noted homophobic demonstrator Lily, in the same vein as his rambling wall of text announcement on Facebook last Friday.

Basically, being called a racist and homophobic fascist hurts his feelings and contributes to a media climate where the Yellow Vesters are viewed as fascists, so Long claims they won’t be racist anymore and everyone needs to stop being mean because that makes you the real fascists. And he can’t be a racist because he has a Jamaican girlfriend. And also American History X fits in there somewhere as well.

Insert derisive noise here.

I’m not going to bother to analyze Justin Long’s statements, because I genuinely doubt he’s sincere. And even if he is sincere, words are cheap; I’ll cling to my skepticism until I see some real action on the part of the Yellow Vests to reform their membership. And I won’t be holding my breath, even because the most cursory glance at the public pages of Yellow Vests Canada shows that nothing has changed: Their public pages are still full of racist, Islamophobic and homophobic comments, along with the usual torrent of abuse directed at the Prime Minister. God knows what the private pages are saying.

Keeping up with Current Events

Another Niagara morning, sitting on my back deck with a cup of coffee… and I’m not sure what to write about. I wanted to write about activism, socialist theory and how direct action works, but once again I’m being overwhelmed by current events in Hamilton.

It’s been a rough week, truth be told — I woke up yesterday to find my Twitter feed showing two different accounts of homo- and transphobic harassment (later in the day a third incident was added to that total), an extended thread on neo-nazi postering and stickering across the lower city, another friend talking about the best self-defence knife to carry for when (not if, but when) they get jumped by neo-Nazis, and another friend sending me direct messages looking for emotional support because the thought of leaving their house and walking down a Hamilton street triggered a severe anxiety attack.

As I tweeted yesterday… this is what a crisis looks like.

Don’t Feed the Trolls

This past Saturday, July 27th, was Chris “Helmet Guy” Vanderweide’s so-called “Rally Against Bullying” in Kitchener Ontario. It did not go as well as he’d hoped, and has been described in local media as a “fizzle.” This is because, despite the usual grandiose alt-right claims only about a dozen hate-group members attended the “rally.” Their numbers might possibly have been depressed because Helmet Guy had spent the previous week in an internet bitch-slap fight with the Nouns of Odin. In any case Vanderweide himself skipped his own rally for fear of breaking his bail conditions — which suggests to me that someone finally explained to him how bail conditions work.

Gatekeeping

The debate and discussion around Pride Hamilton continues, with an LGBTQ+ community debrief scheduled for Wednesday night to help people process the attack on Pride and its aftermath, as well as discuss goals for going forward; because of that the event is a private one for LGBTQ+ people in general (and their allies who were present at Pride) and is being billed as a safe space… insofar as any space is safe for our community these days. One of the things we keep hearing from LGBTQ+ people in the Hamilton is a sense of fear and isolation that has developed because of the attacks on Pride and the ongoing failure — I would go so far as to say refusal — of the police and city hall to address the continued flood of hate crimes in the city of Hamilton. This is what makes community events like debriefs so important as a tool of connection and healing; while attending a rally can be empowering, marching around and waving signs isn’t the complete package when it comes to dealing with trauma.