Tag Archives: Canada

Canada Lifts Restrictions On Blood Donations By Gay Men

CANADA: Government Survey Finds 91.8% of Canadians Are “Comfortable” With LGBTs

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Last summer Canada’s federal government measured how “comfortable” Canadians felt with gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people playing significant roles in their lives to better access and understand the challenges faced by Canada’s LGBT community.

According to the  mid-summer poll commissioned by the Privy Council Office an overwhelming 91.8 per cent of those surveyed said they would be “comfortable” if a next-door neighbor was gay, lesbian or bisexual and that 87.6 per cent said they would be “comfortable” if a neighbour was a transgender person.

The Privy Council Office (PCO) is the federal department that supports the work of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). Weekly polls are part and parcel of the PCO, and for the survey on the week of July 26, the body included six questions that gauged Canada’s attitudes towards its LGBT community.

How comfortable would you be in each of the following situations?

  • If you had a next-door neighbour who was gay, lesbian, or bisexual
  • If you had a next-door neighbour who is a transgender person
  • If you had a manager or supervisor who is gay, lesbian, or bisexual
  • If you had a manager or supervisor who was a transgender person
  • If you had a doctor who is gay, lesbian, or bisexual
  • If you had a doctor who was a transgender person.”

The poll found 90.5% of the respondents said they were “very comfortable” or “somewhat comfortable” with a gay, lesbian or bisexual boss and 88.2% were “comfortable” with having an LGB doctor and 79.9% “comfortable” with having a transgender doctor.

“It’s really good to see the attitude of Canadians changing and being more open and inclusive,” said Helen Kennedy, executive director of the LGBT advocacy group Egale Canada. “We obviously have more work to do. But it’s definitely a step in the right direction.”

Edmonton Pride Cancels Parade After Being Held Hostage By Demands of Social Justice Groups.

Edmonton Pride Cancels Parade After Being Held Hostage By Demands of Social Justice Groups.

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Less than two months before the annual Edmonton Pride parade was set to take place, the Edmonton Pride Festival Society board of directors voted to cancel this years parade partly to do with demands made by two local social justice groups.

Last Thursday, a board meeting was held to discuss a list of demands put forward by Shades of Colour and RaricaNow, two organizations that represent queer people of color in Edmonton. The demands included spaces for queer people of color, a sober dance party, $20,000 to be given to both Shades of Colour and RaricaNow, and a “public accountability statement” of the harm EPFS has allegedly done against queer people of color.

The same two groups organized a demonstration that shutdown last year’s Pride parade for over 30 minutes calling for the organizers to uninvite Edmonton police, RCMP and military personnel, amid a Canada-wide debate over the presence of police in Pride parades.

Four representatives from the two groups were invited to speak at last week’s meeting, according to Clayton Hitchcock, co-chair of the Pride Festival Society. But roughly 30  showed up and pushed their way into the room. One of the members of the board feeling unsafe called the police.

V. Guzman of Shades of Colour, a Latinx non-binary person who uses they/them pronouns, said no one from the group was arrested and police were co-operative.

Later that day, the festival announced on Facebook the meeting had been moved to a second location and later decided to cancel the Pride parade.

“In light of the current political and social environment, it has been determined that any attempt to host a festival will not be successful,” reads the email from the board of directors. “Please keep in mind that we are a not-for-profit organization run almost solely by volunteers.”

Despite the cancellation of the parade the other Pride events are still going forward.

“Losing the parade is a blow,” said one of the owners of the Evolution Wonderlounge in Edmonton . “Losing that massive Pride in the Park party is certainly a blow. But Pride isn’t cancelled.”

Canadian Gay Serial Killer Bruce McArthur Gets Life Sentence

Canadian Gay Serial Killer Bruce McArthur Gets Life Sentence, Gruesome Details Revealed In Court

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Serial killer Bruce McArthur, who killed and dismembered at least 8 gay men he met in Toronto’s Gay Village district, was sentenced on Friday to life in prison with no chance for parole for 25 years.

Justice John McMahon called the 67 year-old McArthur a sexual predator who killed for his own “warped sick gratification” and said the victims suffered slow and painful deaths. He called their dismemberments pure evil, and said that McArthur’s guilty plea spared a jury four months of graphic and gruesome evidence that would have likely required counseling after.

“All or most of the victims were vulnerable individuals who were lured to their death,” Justice McMahon said. “The accused exploited his victims’ vulnerabilities, whether they involved immigration concerns, mental health challenges, or people living a secretive double life.

The Guardian reported: “The court heard heard that McArthur staged photographs of his victims’ corpses, posing the bodies in a fur coat and black leather hat, and – in two cases – with a cigar between their lips. and that McArthur kept photographs of his victims – many of them taken while they were alive. McArthur also shaved and stored the facial hair from his victims,

McArthur was in the middle of a ninth murder when police knocked on his door, The Independent reports: “Police, who had been monitoring the 67-year-old landscape gardener as a potential suspect, moved in for fears another murder was about to take place. When they arrived, they found McArthur had chained the man – identified in court only as John – to a four-poster bed and placed a black bag over his head. He was taping his victim’s mouth shut at the moment police knocked.”

McArthur pleaded guilty to killing Andrew Kinsman, Selim Esen, Majeed Kayhan, Dean Lisowick, Soroush Mahmudi, Skandaraj Navaratnam, Abdulbasir Faizi and Kirushna Kanagaratnam.

JMcMahon said that even if McArthur lives to 91, the chances of him getting parole are remote at best.

Amazon Tells GOP Senators It Won’t Sell Books That “Frame LGBTQ+ Identity As Mental Illness”

Gay History: January 4th. – Marsden Hartley’s Cubism , Saskatchewan, and After Stonewall

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January 4, 1877 – Marsden Hartley the American painter, poet, and essayist. is born in Lewiston, Maine.  Hartley was in Paris at the creation of the cubist movement. His friends reads like a phone book of the gay who’s Who on the time: William Sloan Kennedy, Thomas Bird Mosher, Oscar Wilde, Gertrude Stein, to name only a few. The love of his life was Karl von Freyburg a young German soldier who was sadly killed in battle in 1914. References to Freyburg were a recurring motif in Hartley’s work, most notably in Portrait of a German Officer (1914).

January 4, 1976 – In Saskatoon, the Saskatchewan Court of Queen’s Bench rules that term “sex” in the Saskatchewan Human Rights Act does not include sexual orientation and turns down a job discrimination case brought by Doug Wilson. Wilson decides to abandon pursuit of legal redress.

January 4, 1977 – The first issue of After Stonewall: A Critical Journal of Gay Liberation is published in Winnipeg. The magazine continued into the early 1980s.

Related image

Portrait of a German Officer by Marsden Hartley

Canada Lifts Restrictions On Blood Donations By Gay Men

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Approves Coin To Celebrate Gay Rights

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Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has approved a dollar coin to celebrate the gay rights and commemorate the 50th anniversary of the decriminalization of homosexuality in Canada.

The dates 1969 and 2019 will be on the coin, as well as the word ‘equality’ in English and French. . The Mint refused to provide an image or information about the new coin — including its release date and the artist’s name — saying it wants to “maximize the impact” of the official launch.

The coin’s approval follows new legislation that came into force last June, as part of Justin Trudeau’s 2017 apology to Gay and Lesbian Canadians for past acts of discrimination by the authorities.

Homosexuality was legalized in 1969 while Justin Trudeau’s father, Pierre Trudeau, was prime minister. The elder Trudeau had earlier declared as justice minister that “there’s no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation.”

45 GOP House Reps Sign Letter Demanding Trump Removes LGBT Rights Provision In NAFTA Replacement Deal

45 GOP House Reps Sign Letter Demanding Trump Removes LGBT Rights Provision In NAFTA Replacement Deal

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The letter is spearheaded by Colorado Rep. Doug Lamborn who has a 100% rating from the Family Research Council and has the usual lunatic GOP suspects standing behind it including: Virginia “Matthew Shepard’s killing was not a hate crime” Foxx, Steve “Mein Herr” King, and Louie “Crazy  as a Loon” Gomert.

Washington Examiner reports:

A group of 45 House Republican lawmakers wrote President Trump Friday stating that they were “deeply concerned” by the inclusion of “sexual orientation and and gender identity language” in the U.S.-Mexico-Canada-Agreement on trade.

The representatives said the inclusion was “inappropriate and insulting to our national sovereignty” and urged Trump to remove the language. The letter suggests the president may loose some key Republican support when the deal, which would replace the North American Free Trade Agreement, comes before before Congress for approval next year.

The letter is in reaction to language in Chapter 23 of the USMCA deal, which requires the the three nations to “implement policies that protect workers against employment discrimination on the basis of sex, including… sexual orientation [and] gender identity” among other requirements.

 

We are currently trying to see if the signatures match to what is on file for each GOP Representative.

 

Gay Male Facebook Group Refuses to Accept Trans Men

Gay Male Facebook Group Refuses to Accept Trans Men

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The Facebook community page Vintage Gay Toronto is coming under fire for limiting membership of their group to only homosexual men who were born male and have not changed sexes. 

The group describes itself as a place for “memories/discussions of bars, people and events gone by PRE-2000, exclusively for & about Toronto’s gay male community.”

VTG is exclusively for gay MALES (actual, born, genetic) over 18 years old,” it reads. “Are you a gay male in the actual definition? (Member requests will be declined, failing to answer all three questions.)”

San Diego Lesbian and Gay news which first reported on the group reached out to the groups moderator David Bennett, via private asking him if trans men could join. His answer:.

“Sorry, no. The group is for actual homosexual men,” he said. “Dysphoric females are not and can never be men, so are therefore naturally (and quite obviously) excluded.”

When asked about the outrage by trans activists Bennett replied: “I have little care or concern of the opinions of trans activists. “You may quote me.” 

Vintage Gay Toronto currently has 755 members.

 

Canadian Gay Serial Killer Bruce McArthur Gets Life Sentence

Police Recover Sixth Body of Gay Man From Toronto Gay Serial Killer Dump Sites

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The Toronto Sun reports:

Toronto police have now recovered the remains of six individuals in an investigation into what they have described as the work of a serial killer. Bruce McArthur, 66, has been charged with five counts of first-degree murder in the disappearances of Andrew Kinsman, Selim Esen, Majeed Kayhan, Soroush Mahmudi and Dean Lisowick.

Speaking Thursday at a home on Mallory Cres., near Bayview and Moore Aves., where Bruce McArthur mowed the owner’s lawn in exchange for storing landscaping equipment in the garage, Det. Sgt. Hank Idsinga said Kinsman’s remains are among those recovered.

Investigators have expanded their search to more than 30 properties tied to McArthur’s landscaping business. Police have been at the Mallory house since Jan. 18, when they arrived with a search warrant forcing Karen Fraser and Ron Smith to leave their home.

In 2001 McArthur bludgeoned a man with a metal pipe and was convicted on three counts – possession of a dangerous weapon, assault with a weapon, and assault causing bodily harm – in 2003. The attack was so violent that he was sentenced to two years less a day of a conditional sentence, and three years probation as well as having a host of conditions imposed upon being spared jailtime. He was banned from the streets that constitute Toronto’s gay village and forbidden from consorting with male prostitutes. 

McArthur had a profile seeking sexual encounters on SilverDaddies.com a dating and sex site for older men and their admirers.

 

Canadian Gay Serial Killer Bruce McArthur Gets Life Sentence

Toronto Serial Killer Charged With Three More Murders [VIDEO]

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Via The Toronto Star

Toronto police have announced three additional counts of first-degree murder have been laid against Bruce McArthur. Detective Sgt. Hank Idsinga told reporters Monday that McArthur is being charged with three additional counts of first-degree murder in relation to the deaths of Majeed Kayhan, Soroush Marmudi and Dean Lisowick.

Lisowick was never reported missing to police. Investigators believe he was murdered between May 2016 and July 2017. He would’ve been 47-years-old at the time of his death. Marmudi was 50-years-old when he was reported missing by his family in Scarborough.

Idsinga told reporters that the remains from “at least” three victims were found at the bottom of three large planters, which were located on properties linked to McArthur. Police have obtained over a dozen planters from around the city.

Police have identified 30 properties linked to McArthur, and “have conducted searches at the majority of them,” Idsinga said. Police believe there are more remains at some of these properties, and are actively working to uncover more.

Police had been investigating McArthur (pictured above) for months.

We do believe there are more, and I have no idea how many more there are going to be,” Idsinga said. “We’ll lay more charges as we get them.”

 

Serial Killer Arrested In Toronto, Charged With The Murder of 2 Gay Men

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Toronto police charged a 66-year-old man for allegedly murdering two gay men and admitted they believe he’s responsible for several other deaths after a rash of disappearances in Toronto’s gay community.

Via The National Post:

Homicide Detective-Sgt. Hank Idsinga said Bruce McArthur, who works as a self-employed landscape designer was arrested at 10:25 a.m. this morning after significant progress was made in the investigation into the Village disappearances on Wednesday. 

Although no bodies were recovered, McArthur was charged with the first-degree murder of Andrew Kinsman, 49 and Selim Esen, 42. Kinsman was last seen on June 26, less than two km away from the Village, a downtown neighbourhood known as a hub to the LGBTQ community. Two months earlier, Esen was last seen one block north of the neighbourhood. 

Idsinga said both Kinsman and Esen had a relationship with McArthur formed through dating apps. 

Police had been investigating McArthur for months, they said. Yesterday, they discovered evidence that “pushed [them] over the edge.”

“We have some evidence that leads us to believe there are further victims,” said Idsinga. “We are aware of the other missing men from the village, and we’re trying to identify whether they’ve become victims of Mr. McArthur as well.”

After denying there was a serial killer behind a rash of disappearances, Idsinga refused to label McArthur a “serial killer”.