Jessica Dollard, festival and programming director of Fairy Tales.

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Pride Festival 2009
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Saturday, September 5 - Sunday, September 6

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Happy Pride Week, Calgary!

What’s that? You didn’t know it was Pride Week? You didn’t even know Calgary had a Pride Week? Then set your sights downtown as the festivities kick off this weekend. Sunday morning, the Calgary Pride Parade will march down Stephen Avenue, culminating in an outdoor festival at Olympic Plaza to celebrate the city’s mosaic of sexual diversity.

It’s tempting to call Pride Week a “gay” event, but that’s only the tip of the iceberg. A better term is GLBT, which stands for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, though sometimes the acronym expands to include Q (“queer” or “questioning”), I (“intersex”), another T (“two-spirit”) and more.

“People often think that all lesbians, bis, gays, trans, etc., are all the same, but we’re not,” says James Tweedie, the executive director of Calgary Outlink. “There are communities within the community. A gay man won’t have the same issues as a lesbian woman and a trans person won’t have the same needs as a bisexual man.”

Calgary Outlink is a resource centre for the city’s GLBT community, providing peer support, referrals, education and networking opportunities, along with a drop-in resource library. “We provide a safe place for people to be who they are,” says Tweedie. “There is still discrimination against people with different sexual orientations, bullying and homophobic slurs, which can make people stay quiet. Here, they can be free and totally open.”

Calgary Outlink’s biggest program is peer support, which consists of several groups that Tweedie explains are “a place for like people to meet other like people, share their stories and resolve that it’s OK to be who they are.” Some of the many groups include New Directions, for individuals who identify as transsexual or inter-sexed; the Calgary Networking Club, for business professionals; Beyond Acceptance, for parents of GLBT individuals; and Inside Out, a youth group — which, in partnership with the University of Calgary’s Queers on Campus, will have a float in this year’s Pride Parade.

“Pride Calgary provides a voice and a positive presence for the LGBT community,” says Tweedie. “The parade raises awareness in the general society that we exist, and I cannot emphasize enough how much they are needed in the city.”

People in the heterosexual world often ask why there needs to be a Pride Parade. After all, we don’t have a Straight Parade. “Well, yeah, you do,” counters Jessica Dollard, the new festival and programming director of the Fairy Tales Presentation Society. “It’s called the Calgary Stampede Parade. It’s called walking down Ninth Avenue. Everything else is about heterosexual culture and events like the Pride Parade are so important for anyone who feels isolated.”

Fairy Tales’ mandate is to showcase queer film and video to southern Alberta and its main vehicle is the annual International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, now entering its 12th year, which screens films from Alberta, Canada and around the world. “Our films are about, or made by members of, the LGBT community,” says Dollard. “There’s something comforting for me about watching a movie and seeing two women in a successful relationship, or having a Hollywood breakup, or whatever. People can see themselves on the screen — ‘Hey, that’s about me! She reminds me of my ex-girlfriend!’ I think that kind of representation fosters acceptance.”

In addition to the festival, Fairy Tales offers regular programming throughout the year and a new program called Reels on Wheels that brings queer films to Albertan communities that would otherwise have no access to them. “Pride is the foundation of what we do,” says Dollard. “It’s about increasing accessibility and allowing the queer community to feel comfortable with seeing queer couples and queer stories and celebrating queer artists.”

Sometimes, though, Dollard finds that pride is an uphill battle. “I think all parts of our community are fighting against destructive stereotypes,” she says. “All you see on the news is fetish culture and buttless chaps, which are just one part of a huge group. A ton of my friends have kids and live as families in the suburbs — it’s so crazy to think that such a diverse group of people can be identified in one way. These stereotypes are just labels that allow mainstream culture to put us away in a drawer.”

Tyler Faulds agrees. The parade, even for part of the GLBT community, has become “an excuse” to be overtly sexual, over-the-top and sometimes obnoxious, he says. “If a straight man were to wander down the streets in his underwear, or a straight woman were to expose her breasts down Centre Street, they would surely be arrested. There are so many things that we can be proud of, than an in-your-face, ‘I’m-here, I’m-queer. Get-used-to-it’ attitude.’”

Faulds, who is photographed kissing his lover on this issue’s front cover, says GLBTs, from the butch lesbians to flamboyant boys, are all basically looking for the same things as straight people: respect, love and caring. “We, as all humans do, have hopes and dreams, the capacity for love and the need for companionship,” he says. “We celebrate and exonerate the one difference that sets us apart — the way we have sex.”

Carey Fraser, who, through the Fraser Group, has been a supporter of Fairy Tales for several years, has encountered similar challenges. “We all kind of get painted with the same brush. The media tends to pick out the most salacious or over-the-top aspects of our community,” she says. “I’m proud of everyone and those who are more flamboyant and noticeable are pioneers; by being proud of who they are, they forged the path for the rest of us. But I wish people could focus more on the fact that we’re just like everybody else. We have families, we go to church, we run businesses and we’re involved in so many good things, like social justice and human rights.”

The Fraser Group, whose office doubles as Gallery 213 on the top floor of Art Central, is a fundraising organization that connects non-profits and charities to donors. “For a long time my focus was international, but recently I’ve been turning my attention more to local causes,” says Fraser. “My heart and passion is for the gay and lesbian community, getting really plugged in and working there. Part of overcoming our challenges is for gay and lesbian leaders to get involved in politics and community leadership, to create that visibility and presence.”

For Fraser, part of her visibility in the community is annual attendance at the Pride Parade. “I’ll go to the parade, not to mention the dance party,” she laughs. “Everybody will be there, I’ll reconnect with old friends. I think it’ll be fun!”

The Pride Dance, which takes place Saturday night at Belgo, is a hotly anticipated party every year, but for those who crave an alternative to the bar scene, the GLBT community is rich with more athletic options. Apollo Calgary, for instance, offers an inclusive and welcoming environment for everything from volleyball to curling to golf. Or you can check out Different Strokes, Calgary’s GLBT swim club that’s been running since 1995. “When I was first coming out, the swim club was how I met my first gay friends,” says Jamie Rice, the club’s treasurer. “It’s a nice, non-threatening way to enter the gay community — and the first practice is free.”

For Zoltan Nagy-Kovacs, who has been a club member for over seven years, Different Strokes provides a healthy way to socialize. “We take breaks between the workout sets to chat and you get to meet a big range of people, in terms of age, background and profession,” he says. “There are even some straight people who swim in these clubs. It’s a different attitude; it’s not just about the workout, it’s also about meeting people and interacting.”

Different Strokes takes part in the Pride Parade every year, as an opportunity to spread awareness about the club. “Swimming can be a bit intimidating,” says Rice. “There’s the whole body-image issue that people are worried about, so it’s great for them to see a group of us in the parade and realize that it doesn’t matter what body shape you have, it doesn’t matter if you’re young or old, you can be part of this club and not feel self-conscious. We’re not all young with stereotypical swimmer bodies; that’s not the point at all.”

Inclusion is the name of the game and the organizers of Pride Calgary want to invite the whole city to celebrate with them. “The parade will include all sorts of GLBT organizations, but also places like ATB Financial and Metro Magazine,” says Sam Casselman, the president of Pride Calgary. “The festival has live DJs, vendors, food, beer gardens, a kid zone — there’s lots for everybody to do.”

For Casselman, Pride Week is about visibility. “In day-to-day life, people aren’t encouraged to be gay, out and proud,” she says. “The big thing is for us to come together, feel safe and be ourselves. We’re people just like everybody else and the more we get out there, the more people can feel like that’s OK.”