Glad Day Bookshop in Toronto is the world’s oldest queer bookstore. Founded in 1970 by Jearld Moldenhauer, it’s been run out of six physical locations and one sturdy backpack. Currently an accessible coffee shop, bar and bookstore, it’s been governed by a collective of 23 queer owners since 2012. Find out what makes Glad Day so glad to see you in this installment of The Gays Did What Now?
The Pussy Palace is back! Sort of. In November 2022, the club that hosted the Pussy Palace relaunched the pre-pandemic women and trans bathhouse night called, uh...Sapphic Aquatica? Held in the same historic bathhouse as the Pussy Palace, the pansexual swinger’s club, Oasis Aqualounge, ran another monthly women and trans bathhouse event from 2012-2019. Thought to be yet another permanent pandemic casualty, the party is back, back, back again in yet another form with the same fishy name.
It’s Gay Christmas, y’all! For decades, Toronto’s Gay Village has transformed into a massive, costumed block party for Halloween. But why? Learn about the legendary Halloween Drag Balls in the city, the clock tower that we’ve all forgotten, and the deeply Trans history of the one night a year you can dress as your true self, and no one can ding you for it.
An upcoming multi-media exhibition at the The ArQuives — Canada’s LGBTQ2+ archives — brings a new lens into the queer history of 20th century Canadian nightlife. Titled “ONSTAGE/OFFSTAGE,” the exhibition explores “the ways stage performance in nightclubs, cabarets, and drag venues offered opportunities for self-actualization for gender fluid, trans, and gender non-binary individuals in the second half of the 20th Century.” The curator, Jordan King, is a multi-disciplinary artist, performer, and writer who is currently […]
Daniel Laurin, a PhD Candidate at the University of Toronto, recently launched an exhibition that offers a glimpse into a rich visual archive of mid-twentieth-century erotic photography. Titled Beefcake, the exhibition features 45 black and white photographs, 17 periodicals, and three photo albums that have one thing in common: the celebration of the male body. Most of these materials date from the mid-twentieth century, they were produced in the United States, and they circulated widely […]
If you find yourself in Toronto’s East end this Pride season, drop by Gallery 1265 at the University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC) to experience The Pussy Palace: An Instagram Story. Commissioned by UTSC’s Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Office and the Positive Space Committee, this interactive, self-led exhibit blends digital art, narrative text, and interview soundbites from the Collaboratory’s Pussy Palace Oral History Project, immersing patrons in an “average night” at the Palace. The Pussy Palace […]