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Outside the gay ghetto

© Van Waffle

At no other time of year do the various aspects of my identity seem to create so much tension. Van the father looks forward to his daughters getting out of school, and spending some precious weeks with them. Van the writer feels a particular surge of creative inspiration when the linden trees are shedding their elusive sweet lime fragrance. Van the naturalist is drawn to the burgeoning woods and fields. And Van the sexual and social being wants to celebrate Gay Pride and a sense of solidarity with his friends.

Part of the problem is that gay and lesbian culture is largely urbanized, though not entirely. So every year on the last weekend of June, while Lake Fletcher is getting warm enough for swimming and the forest is full of bird song, I find my heart tugging me to downtown Toronto.

I've never lived there, but it's a home away from home. Part of me is there. And Pride has become more important to me than any traditional holiday. I'm simply proud of being a human being, unashamed of my sexuality, sensuality and sensibilities. I happen to be attracted to men: erotically, emotionally and spiritually. I happen to have a boyfriend of six months.

Few people need to undertake courageous acts on a daily or weekly basis. But for me it requires genuine courage to walk down the street holding hands with the one I love. I know people who have suffered serious injury for doing so. I have had rocks thrown at me for doing less. I regularly hear homophobic slurs called from car windows, not in the small city where I live, but in downtown Toronto where my boyfriend lives, within blocks of the supposedly safe gay enclave.

That's what I'm proud of: having the courage to survive and be happy despite the ignorance and violence of this world. There's no question I need the gay and lesbian community. Here are the friends, and strangers too, who affirm my sense of self-worth, integrity and freedom.

What troubles me is how far mainstream gay culture strays from a meaningful connection with nature.

Before anyone else gets a feeling of moral superiority, I should point out that this separation is an inevitable outcome of living in an oppressive and hostile world. Historically, gay youth in rural areas have been most vulnerable to ridicule and ostracism. They've had little or no social support. Like any other persecuted minority they had to form communities of their own. For decades they have fled to cities. And urban ghettoes provided fertile territory for the political movement that has earned us some essential rights and freedoms.

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