Vancouver Pride

Breaking Out: Claus’ Story

1 September, 20261 September, 2026Leave a comment

In 1990, my teacher warned my best friend’s mom not to let her daughter, Daniella, hang out with me, because I was rarito – a Spanish word that directly translates to “queer.” Like its English counterpart, rarito means “a little strange,” or “a little peculiar.” In Mexico, it specifically refers to men who appear to be gay.

It probably wasn’t hard to see that I was gay: I never enjoyed playing rough games or sports with the other boys, opting instead to play house with the girls at my school. My teacher knew I was gay before I realized it myself. And, rather than choosing to provide support or guidance, she tried to isolate me—an already painfully shy and very socially awkward little boy— by separating me from the one person that I connected with fully at the time. As if a rarito, a queer, didn’t deserve acceptance.

I was seven-years-old.

As the years progressed, so did the insults. If I thought rarito was bad… I had it coming. When I moved to another state at the age of 10, I spent one year in an all-boys school. The insults there became more pointed – maricon, marica, joto, puto (all words for fag — we seem to have a lot of them in Mexico). I then moved to Canada at the age of 14, and was introduced to the English variants of these insults.

When I look at photos of my childhood, I see a naive little queer boy who smiled widely, unaware of the way others perceived me — when teachers called me queer behind my back, but not to my face. But in photos from my teenage years, I see sadness. Not the typical teenage angst, but something deeper. The sorrow of someone who sometimes wondered if life would ever get better.

At 42, I can look back at these snippets of my life with clearer eyes. To my teenage self, I can truthfully say (as cliché as it sounds): it does get better. But it also gets difficult in new ways, because self-acceptance, and pride, and queerdom, isn’t always linear:

In 1992, I had my first crush. His name was Mathias, a German classmate with golden hair… which is odd, because I’m not typically attracted to blonde men.

In 1996, I had a platonic bromance with my friend Jorge. I moved away the next year, and he came out as gay in our 20s. We kept in contact, but never saw each other again, and he died of Covid. I sometimes wonder if I hadn’t moved away, if he might have been my first kiss.

In 2000, I had a crush on a girl from high school. But at the same time, I was deeply attracted to so many of my male classmates. It was a very confusing time. I was repressing my sexuality so much, that when one of the guys I was crushing on slapped my ass during PE class — not sure if he was flirting or bullying me — I responded by slamming a hockey stick to his stomach. Hard.
A week later, he returned the favour, slamming a hockey stick against my shins, which fucked up my legs for years to come.

In 2002, at the ripe age of 19, I went on my first date… with a girl from university. Sarah was also my first kiss, which I didn’t enjoy at all. That same year, I went on my first date with a guy. His name was Danny. My name was “Nick…” yes, I used a fake name, because I was still terrified that someone I knew would find out I was gay! Danny was my second “first kiss,” which was more like it. He went on to become my first of many, (many… many) boyfriends

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When I came out to my friends at 19, their response was mostly positive, but I did lose some friendships over it. When I told my friend Nelda, she responded by asking me: “So what, you like it from behind?,” as if that is the only thing that makes a man gay. I was a virgin at the time… but to answer your question, Nelda – Yes, I do like it from behind.

A year later, in 2003, I came out to my brothers and then my parents. My middle brother had softened the blow by coming out the year before, which simultaneously made things better and worse. I didn’t know at the time that having multiple queer children in one household is actually very common.

In 2009, while holding hands with my boyfriend at the time, someone inside a passing car yelled “faggots,” and threw a jawbreaker at the back of my head. This was on Davie Street. During Pride weekend.

In 2014, I met Eamonn, and we got engaged five years later. When I got engaged, a woman who had worked in the same office as me for four years asked, after seeing my engagement ring, “Where did you propose to her?” I thought it was funny at the time. Then I realized how much of my life I still kept private from non-queer people I saw every day. It seems I’m allegedly “straight-passing” in some circles and find the constant “coming out” exhausting.

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My relationship with Pride has also had its ups and downs.

In 2004, I went to my first Vancouver Pride, and over the following two decades, I’ve been to many prides and queer-centric events throughout the world. London, Cape Town, Reykjavik, Buenos Aires, Guadalajara… even exotic Winnipeg — searching for queer joy in every time zone.

In 2022, I marched in a Pride parade for the first time, with the Vancouver Queer Irish group, and then again the following year. Yet, since last year, I’ve fallen out of love with Pride parades. With sponsor pullbacks, corporate and government support of an ongoing genocide, and the rights of trans and non-binary folks under attack, I’m feeling disconnected. I know we need visibility… but I keep wondering if we need to change the method. “The first Pride was a Riot,” they say… maybe it’s time we go back to marching on the streets, rather than parading on them.

In 2063, when I’m 80 years old, I’ll hopefully look back at today, and realize how good we had it. But I also hope that things will get much better for queer people over that time, because this, still isn’t it.

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In 1990, when I was 7-years old, my teacher called me Queer as an insult for the first time… behind my back, of course… Cabrona.

In 1998, someone wrote ‘faggot’ on the back of my sweatshirt in high school… and I wore it that way all day, because I didn’t notice until I got home.

In 2002, I came out as gay to my friends. A year later, I came out to my family.

In 2016, I began using the word Queer as an umbrella term to refer to myself, my friends, and other 2SLGBTQ+ people, in a positive light.

In 2022, I married Eamonn in two wonderful celebrations of the most immense queer joy, surrounded by so many of our friends and family.

Today, in 2026, I stand here, in a room full of queer people, telling our stories. And I finally realize: being a little strange, a little peculiar… a little rarito, if you will, is actually something to be proud of.

Breaking Out: Phi’s Story

20 August, 2026Leave a comment

Four months before my wedding, I was in full planning mode. Seating charts, handmade invitations, handmade ceremony programs, finalizing caterers and place settings, the works.

One evening, my fiancée, the man of my… parents’ dreams, was scrolling the TIVO, looking for the next show we should watch. He said, “Hey, what about this show? You heard of it? The L Word?”

My insides burned. “Sure,” I managed to say aloud.

I did not tell him I had already seen the series.

I did not tell him I knew The L Word inside out, that certain scenes were burned into the folds of my brain.

You see, long before living with him in Silicon Valley, I had lived in another valley, Lynn Valley, with my parents and sisters.

One of my sisters had brought a pirated copy of the whole DVD set back from China after a year of teaching abroad. One afternoon, sitting in our parents’ basement, I was thumbing through her giant folder of DVDs, and found this show.

With the first sex scene, my entire body responded. All the kissing. Touching. Fucking. Back then, I wasn’t registering the problematic parts of this series: how most of the actors playing lesbians were straight. White. How the sex scenes were so hetero-performative. I just saw boobs. And I liked it. I found myself sliding my hand down my pants and touching myself. Right there in the family basement. Afterwards, I was flooded with shame.

And then I pressed play and kept watching. I wondered how my sister had watched this show with her two roommates, wouldn’t it have turned them all on like it did me?

In the next episode came the next sex scene. And so did I.

Each scene whether it was sex, touching, a glimpse of something, gave me such massive, full-bodied orgasms, that getting through just one episode was quite exhausting.

All this flashed through my mind as my fiancee loaded up the show. I was anxious as shit. How was I supposed to navigate this situation? What would happen when we started watching this show and it started doing to me what I knew it had done before?

As far as anyone knew, including myself, I was straight. The fact that I’d been binging the L Word on loop since my mid-20s was not something I dwelled on.
The fact that I’d been binging sapphic erotica since my late teens in that same basement didn’t even make a dent in my mind.
Everyone had their secrets, I figured. I never once questioned my sexuality. I just locked it all away in the closet that I didn’t know I had back there.

When my fiancee hit play and the first episode showed the first sex scene, things worked out in my favor. With that first sex scene, he kinda did that straight guy thing of “ohhh” at the sight of two women having sex.
He looked at me and I probably made a face like “____” like a desperate attempt to match his turn-on without betraying the depth of my own.

After the episode ended, he began to touch me and I was all too ready to comply. I jumped onto him and came so hard and so fast it left us both shocked. I had had roughly one to two orgasms with this man in the three years we’d been together. But this too, I put away.

The next day, I went back to wedding planning. I stood in the ribbon aisle at Michael’s, contemplating ribbons for the ceremony programs that I was hand-making. Snippets of the night before came unwanted to my mind, right there in the tubelit aisle at Michael’s.

I drilled down harder: lace or satin? I could not go there. Cream or white? More flashes of the night before, the intensity of my orgasm: nope. Not going there.
I knew what I needed to do: more sequins for my invitations. And off to the next aisle I went.

That night, we watched the next episode of the L Word. Same turn on, same raging orgasm.
Night after night, we watched, I came. And the following day, back to the crafting project that was my wedding.

Finally, my fiancee asked the question I did not ask myself. “Have you ever been with a woman? Have you ever wanted to?”

I caved inward. Memories of all those years of my basement self-pleasurings burned inside me and I fought with Herculean effort to say, “Nah,” and try to sound normal about it. And then neither of us knew what to say. So we just watched the next episode.

One afternoon, back at Michael’s, I studied the cardstock: plain or textured? The question came:
“Phi,” a voice inside said, “These nightly sex romps are great and all, but should we talk about what this means?”

But here was where that vast black void kind of clouded my vision. I didn’t know how to examine this. Or who to examine it with. Everyone I knew was straight. Everyone I knew was getting married or was already married.

But each time I asked myself, “Should we examine what’s going on here?” I would think, “Welll, it’s four months till the wedding. People have already bought their plane tickets. It would be rude to cancel.”

This was the actual thought that would go through my head: you can’t cancel a wedding. I have to get married because you can’t cancel a wedding. Back then, I lived by these rules. The you can’ts and you musts and you shoulds.

But the deeper truth, the truth that I would not piece together until years and years later, was this: the idea of listening to my body, the idea of following my desire, at that time in my life, four months before my wedding to the perfect straight brown man, uh uh. I couldn’t.

Because to listen to my body, to follow my desires would make me different. And different was bad. I was already way too different: being a writer, a traveler, wanting to birth novels instead of babies. I was nearly 30 and try as I might, I was not doing a great job at following the script that everyone around me seemed to just slip into so easily. Now my body wanted to add queerness to the list? Queerness was definitely not part of the script.

But getting married? That meant I could fit in. That I would belong. That I had finally done something right. It was all right there within reach. And at that time, I needed to belong, to be like everyone else, more than I needed to be my true self.

We can intellectualize our lust, we can tell ourselves “everyone reacts to the L Word that way”, we can talk ourselves out of what we desire, but sometimes, the body gives it all away. And you can still shove that shit down, and that’s okay too.

It would be years before I would leave my marriage, before I would come out and come in to my full queer self.

It would be years before I would see QUEER community with my own eyes. People who were queer and trans and poly and kinky and thriving.

But that day did come. Literally the same day I left my marriage, I came out. To the person who would become my best friend and my greatest unrequited love. I couldn’t hold it in any longer.

He was stir-frying broccoli for our dinner and I burst out with: “I think I like … girls.”

He nodded, fully accepting of this news. Over the following weeks, he guided me on my great coming out journey, starting with queer films I had to see.

“Hey, have you seen Blue is the Warmest Color?” he asked, naming an extremely sapphic film.
“Ummm… yes.”

Shame crept up my neck and into my cheeks. But he just laughed and said, “Oh friend, you’re so gay.” Not in a shaming way. In a way that felt like, “I get you, welcome home.”

Breaking Out: Beto’ Story

18 August, 2026Leave a comment

COVID Made Me GAY

It was late one evening, at dinner time, when my mother broke down in tears. A first for my then 29-year-old-ass.

We don’t cry in my family unless we are watching a sad movie. Even then, it’s a game of who can blink their tears back in the quickest. We don’t hug or kiss unless outside airport terminals and we only text “Love you!” right before takeoff, just in case the plane goes down.

Seeing my immunocompromised mother cry right in front of us, chicken still half-chewed in my mouth, I knew this was serious.

It was April, 2020. We had been hearing about this killer disease and every night we saw the case numbers creep closer to our own social circles.

After consoling her by saying that this would fizzle out in a few weeks (we were a bit short), I escaped to my bedroom.

Is this it? I thought. Is this how we go?

And more importantly: Am I going to die before getting to be gay?

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The first whiff of queerness arrived when I was 13, in a random dream where I saw my cousin laying in bed wearing bright blue briefs. I hovered towards him, Nosferatu-style, until my hand was but a millimeter shy away from his bulge, only to suddenly wake up.

That night sealed two fates: I was going to have a fluid sexuality and I’d never see the 3rd act of any sex dream.

For the next 15 years, bogged down by toxic prejudgments and not exactly feeling “100% top, masc to masc, no smooths, no twinks,” I was like: Why even bother? I’ll just carry on as a straightie, occasionally lusting for Zac Efron’s biceps like any normal, liberal dude.

But then COVID and the threat of imminent death appeared.

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In January 2022, I moved to Vancouver with three goals: be social, be gayer, and marry quickly to stay in the country. (I’m still missing the third, please inquire after the show.) By nightfall, I had downloaded Grindr.

“How goes it?” a faceless profile asked.

What does that mean? How goes what? I thought. “Hi. How are you?” I replied.

Though surely thinking I was a little slow, this faceless man kept texting and before I knew it he shot: “Send pics.”

“Ok. What do you want to see?”

“Dick and ass,” he replied.

What an assertive man, I thought. I hadn’t planned in advance, so I quickly scrammed to take some pics lest I lose the attention of this prized individual. I was more pressured than aroused, so my photos didn’t represent my full potential. Even so, I must’ve charmed him because he then shared his location.

I was staying at an Airbnb near 41st and Knight. The map showed him across Duffin Donuts, south of a Shell station.

“On my way,” I sent, and my body started shaking uncontrollably. Oh – wow. Being gay is super fun, I thought.

I went outside. The wind had picked up and that Pacific Northwest mist felt a bit like horizontal rain. The weather and my nerves were wreaking havoc on my Mexican skin.

As soon as I turned the corner where this dude lived, I froze. It was a dark, damp, and scary-looking backstreet. I’ll get murdered, I thought. I’ll star as a victim on one of those Netflix exploitative documentaries about homosexual cannibals, confirming my parents’ belief that gays are ‘More passionate than straight people’!

I ran back to my Airbnb.

“Sorry. I’m actually kinda cold – lol,” I texted.

“No problem. I get it. You’re new at this. I could tell,” the would-be-cannibal replied.

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Even though I eventually wanted to find my legally Canadian partner, I wanted to have some fun before committing. Unfortunately, within the following weeks I discovered I sucked at hookups.

It would always go something like this:

1 – Get horny EXCLUSIVELY after 11pm on a weeknight and find a suitor after an extensive background check.

2 – Invite them over after making sure—just in case—that they knew my big, rugby-playing roommate was sleeping next room. (I live alone.)

3 – Shiver uncontrollably during foreplay. “Are you okay?” “Just cold,” I’d whisper next to my roaring heater.

4 – Say goodbye with a “Sorry. I think I’m just tired,” after failing to finish the deal. “But coffee sometime?”

5 – I’d get blocked.

My body refused to cooperate with my desire for casual sex. After a few lukewarm wins, I theorized hookups weren’t my jam. I was, apparently, a monogamous family man.

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A couple months after, I had moved into my current place—a garden suite located in one of those “scary backstreets” which, turns out, are quite lovely. My Grindr exploits had slowed down since I started dating this dude who, I was sure, was going to be my forever.

Being my first homosexual relationship, I unfortunately fell infatuated with the guy, which made the text he sent me one night hit like a brick:

“Hey, I think I see you more as a friend.”

“Oh—“

“And I’m also kinda married.”

“Ah.”

I was not looking to break up a marriage, but I was baffled. What happened? Am I boring? Ugly? Not gay enough? What does his husband have that I don’t? Pick me. Choose me. LOVE ME.

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“Can you fart all over my face? You’re so hot,” read a message on Grindr. I had gone back to the app after a couple of weeks of listening to Sam Smith, journaling, and burning letters.

“Oh – wow. How does that work?”

“Special chair. You sit; I put my face under it.”

Despite just having a protein-heavy dinner, I politely declined. I’m pretty open but wasn’t in the mood to take that kind of a dive.

“You know you can monetize this?” my brother said after I shared the screenshot.

“I don’t think my visa allows for this type of entrepreneurial venture,” I replied.

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Months turned into years of me being on every app and meeting random men. I got better and more confident in my hookups and dates, but something still hadn’t quite clicked. Much like snow in Vancouver, nothing stuck. I was still missing something. I kept having these brief connections that led only to me sending them off into the night.

In January 2025, my brother and best friend both moved away during the same weekend, leaving me at zero: no friends, no family, no partner. After allowing myself a two-day pity party, I got to work on a new, more critical mission: finding community.

I started attending every event or public meetup that came across my desk. Running groups, drag show events, art exhibits, board game nights—nothing was off the table. I started dancing with strangers at 1181, cheering queens at Junction, sharing beers with bears at Pumpjack. And slowly, something started to finally click.

In my limited view as a prejudiced baby-homo, I thought being gay meant being a regular dude who happens to have sex with men—which is true. But I’d missed that being anyone means being a universe of thoughts, history, connections, feelings, beliefs, perspectives; and being part of a community meant sharing these universes.

By hyperfocusing on trying to find sex and partners, I had been living vicariously through morsels of experiences men shared with me between climaxing and the door.

It is through actively participating that I’ve started to scratch the surface of actually being part of a community. Talking to people, sharing stories, and celebrating one another is what has made me feel closer to “being gay.” And what a joy it’s been!

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“If you ever need your pits licked, let me know,” someone texted me the other night.

“Sure,” I replied. “… but we gotta be quiet. My big, rugby-playing roommate is sleeping next door.”

I still live alone.

Breaking Out: Sarah’s Story

12 August, 202612 August, 2026Leave a comment

It’s six pm on a rainy Saturday in January and I’m driving alone up Mount Seymour in the dark. My heater is on full blast but even so my windows keep fogging up. My windshield wipers fight furiously against the rain that turns to wet snow as I drive higher.

When I’d signed up for this event, I thought a full moon hike sounded like a lovely, romantic idea. It was my first outing with a hiking group I’d dared myself to join – an antidote to scrolling through dating apps or missing the ex who had recently broken my heart.

Immediately after signing up, panic washed over me. Willingly going out with a group of strangers is as far out of my comfort zone as, I don’t know, kissing an octopus.

But I knew I needed something different. My life as a single mom in the suburbs felt small, limited, and I was starting to feel small with it.

So I cobbled together a hiking outfit, packed a backpack with the things I thought I might need, and said yes.

In the weeks leading up to the hike my anxiety came in waves. I almost cancelled a dozen times. I worried about pretty much everything – would my raincoat look cute? Would the other hikers be boring? What if I was stuck for hours with annoying people? What if they thought I was boring? I scrolled through their tiny photos looking for clues of compatibility.

I hadn’t even thought to consider practical things like, for example, the weather.

So of course, the morning of the hike dawned rainy. With that Vancouver winter rain, ceaseless and daunting. It just kept coming down.

From my couch I alternated between refreshing the weather report and refreshing the event listing. As the day went on, the attendee list dropped from 12 to 8 to 6. I wondered if the hike would be cancelled, if I should pull out.

The more it seemed like it might not happen, the more I realized I really wanted it to.

“Fuck it,” I said, my backpack into the trunk.

As I pull into the parking lot, there might as well not be a parking lot – it’s just a wall of fog. Doubt crowds my mind. Am I the only one stupid enough to actually show up? Why did I think this was a good idea?

Finally, near the end of the lot I spot another vehicle. I pull up beside it and roll down my window. “I’m here for the full moon hike?” I say, cautiously, ridiculously, as wet snow pelts down.

Three women climb out of the car. One, a few years older than me approaches with a welcoming smile and an outstretched hand. Cute braids stick out from under her toque. I like her already.

“I’m Linda,” she says. “This is Joy, that’s Gina.” I recognized them from the photos, but here they were for real, organizing things in their backpacks, pulling on layers.

“You’ve got your ten essentials?” she asks.

I smile and nod like I know what that means.

I feel like such a fraud. Not knowing what to wear, I wore everything. A long sleeve shirt covered by a fleece covered by a down jacket with a raincoat over top.

I try to look like I know what I’m doing. I pull my Value Village rainpaints from the trunk and layer them over my sweatpants.

These women seem effortlessly technical – they have those backpacks with the water hoses to drink from, and Gortex jackets, and carabiners that rattle from their bags like Christmas ornaments. I guess it takes a certain kind of person to come out in these conditions.

I slide my feet into my old hiking boots, tighten the laces over two pairs of socks.

We throw our backpacks on, adjust our headlamps, and head out into the dark night. For awhile there’s nothing but the crunch of our feet on the snow and the wind whistling through the tall trees.

They’ve all met before, chat easily together, and I feel the familiar self-consciousness creep over me. Do I have anything to say?

A little way up the trail, we stop to put our microspikes on over our boots for traction. I pull mine out – cheap ones I bought on Amazon, with little grippy dots. Theirs have big metal teeth. Where they walk, I slide.

Have I mentioned that this is my first hike in months, if not years? That in all of my excitement to get out of my comfort zone and have an adventure, I forgot I’d be lugging my body along with me? You know that expression ‘your eyes were bigger than your stomach”, when you put more food on your plate than you can eat?

This was that, but adventure was the food and the limit was my neglected muscles.

Before long I am huffing and puffing, sweat pouring down inside my many layers.

When they ask about me, it dawns on me that I’m meeting people who didn’t know me before I came out. People who haven’t witnessed my transition from being partnered with a man to becoming comfortable as a queer woman.

I’ve gotten used to defining myself by what I felt I’d failed at – a marriage, keeping my family together.

But here, and now, I can be whoever I want.

The further we climb, the easier conversation flows. One of the women just got back from a trip to to Peru and tells us about her hikes there. I talk about the time I spent living in Chiang Mai in my twenties, and as I do memories come rushing back. Not just memories of tuktuks and pad thai, but of who I was then, independent, confident, curious.

A woman with a taste for adventure.

Near the top we stop in a sheltered valley to discuss our options. We’d planned to climb to Pump Peak to have our snack at the viewpoint. The snow is coming down hard now and visibility is next to nothing. Maybe we should turn back. “But we’re here,” I say, surprising even myself. “Let’s go for it.”

So the four of us, like trekkers on the ascent to Mount Everest, set off up the icy bank for the climb towards the peak. There’s no path, just a sheet of white and shadow under the beam of our headlamps. We are comical, occasionally losing our balance and knocking each other over as we slip backwards.

Finally we make it. The wind whips around us and we search in all directions for a glimpse of the elusive moon.

Instead, it’s almost as though the clouds thicken – we howl with laughter at this epic failure.

I pull out my granola bar, thinking that will suffice as a hiking snack. Not with these ladies. Joy whips out a stove and manages to light it in spite of the wind and rain. She finds her pot and starts cooking gnocchi, of all things. Linda makes hot chocolate and someone produces a bottle of whiskey. Gina lays a tarp on the snow for us to sit on.

I feel like a kid, giddy with the novelty, the make-your-own-fun of it.

This is so much better than a mediocre first date on Commerical drive.

I’ll be honest – originally I joined the group because thought I might meet a woman.

Instead, I met women. Strong, independent women who climb mountains in the dark for fun. Women who see terrible weather not as a reason to stay home, but as part of the adventure.

On the way back down, certain sections of the trail are perfect for sliding and so we do – our feet up in the air like kids. Our screams and laughter echo across the valley, up to the dark sky.

Driving home that night, I am soaked, exhausted, grinning and eager for more.

The moon never appeared that night.

But I felt something else come into view: a version of myself that was still growing, still exploring, still willing to say yes to things that scared me. That night, somewhere between the parking lot and the summit, something had shifted.

For the first time in a long time, my life felt bigger than the boundaries I’d been living inside.

A few months later we returned to Pump Peak for the Strawberry Moon – a larger group this time, the fairweather hikers – and we were treated to a spectacular moonrise over the mountains. This time I brought my newly purchased hiking stove, my backpack with a waterhose. This time I was the one greeting newcomers with a smile and an outstretched hand.

Celebration!: JJ’ Story

21 July, 202621 July, 2026Leave a comment

“Please report the video. I hate that your faces are on there with no consent. Getting everyone to report it.”

It’s 2023 and I’m at a bar on a first date. He’s in the bathroom when I get the text from my work wife; it’s accompanied by a Twitter link, posted by an account I’ve never heard of, Libs of TikTok, with the caption: “Elementary school in Vancouver held a pride parade today. Homeschool your kids!”

Even before playing the video, I recognize myself in the thumbnail.

The video starts with me walking by shouting “Happy Pride!” followed by my students and several parents, waving, cheering. A few more clips of students walking by, smiling, waving rainbow flags, before it ends.

My date sits back down, and I show him the video, and proceed to chuckle about some of the comments.

“Give me an S, Give me an I, Give me an N, SIN!”

“Those boys look “sissified” to me”

“It’s a free for all, next is orgy day”

And my personal favourite, the one that, to this day, I still lowkey want to get tattooed on my body: “Homeschool > homoschool”

Already the video has hundreds of thousands of views. I want to keep reading the comments, but don’t want to be that guy, so I put my phone away, and break the tension with a quip.

“How does it feel, knowing you’re on a date with a queer icon?”

The next day our staffroom is buzzin’. Coworkers tell me they’ve reported the video, my principal checks in to see if I’m okay. The video quickly balloons to 1.4 million views. In the comments, someone posted a screenshot of me from the video, wearing a rainbow cape and shiny cowboy hat, with the caption “Found the groomer!”

Another person comments on my picture, “He’s just a flat-out molester. He doesn’t even bother with grooming.”

My friend at the union reaches out, says there’s a lawyer on staff if I’m interested in trying to have the video taken down. We all report it, but all that does is hide the video on our accounts.

Repeatedly, I say I’m okay. That we’re celebrating Pride for the kids who don’t know they’re queer, or don’t feel comfortable being open about it yet, and if it makes things easier for even one of them, then it’s worth it.

But writing this story and revisiting that video in 2026—thankfully stalled at paltry 1.7 million views—my whole body still burns.

I scour the video’s comments section for the funniest pull quotes, trying to discern what’s awful in the entertaining-let-me-read-this-out-loud-to-strangers way and what’s awful in the oh-boy-I’ll-probably-have-to-talk-about-this-in-therapy way. The margin between them is narrower than you think.

I was bullied and called gay before I even knew what that word meant, but I knew that I was supposed to vehemently deny being it.

In sixth grade, I received a friend request online from the email account “jjisgay99@hotmail.com,” one of those memories that’s hilarious now, but at the time, felt like someone had ripped the uvula from the back of my throat.

I’d stay in the closet for almost two decades longer, dating women, participating in casual misogyny. Talking about which actresses I thought were “hot,” but really, I probably just thought they had a nice smile.

It wasn’t until 2020, when, after having my first session of therapy, I knew I was ready to start living authentically. The next day, my 30th birthday, I came out to the majority of my close friends at a socially-distanced pie-themed hang in the park, scrawling “I’M GAY” on the inside of a pie box—the pie was peach-cardamom, obviously.

The atmosphere was one of compounding disasters: sitting on blankets six-feet apart, unknowingly about to embark on the second wave of the pandemic. The sky was muggy and thick with forest fire smoke and a recent looper moth infestation surrounded us with thousands of fluttering bugs.

It was one of the best days of my life.

After coming out during lockdown, I struggled with how to relate to the queer community I suddenly found myself identifying with: my main connections being gay meme accounts on Instagram and a parade of COVID-safe dates that always ended back at my apartment. Dr. Bonnie Henry would certainly agree our activities involved a curve, though none flattened.

One first date, after a guy spent most of the night talking about how much he wanted a boyfriend, we ended back at my apartment, carnally making out on the couch, before he climbed on top of me, squeezed my cheeks together, and hawk-tuahed a single oblong strand of saliva slowly into my mouth. “Sir, we are in a pandemic here, you can’t just spit in people’s mouths, especially without asking first.” We still had sex, of course.

Fucking this rogues’ gallery of strangers felt necessary at the time. Fleeting connections to the gay community, sharing coming-out-stories with cum still leaking out. Hearing about Internet chatrooms and early cruising. I was a cultural anthropologist, absorbing every detail and mentally cataloguing to better understand where I fit.

Later that school year, I was recruited to help organize my school’s first-ever Pride celebration. Starved from no parties in almost 15 months, I brought a finely-curated selection from my personal tickletrunk for my kindergartens. Flamingo sunglasses, a taco hat, sequined fans, an inflatable telephone.

Suddenly, at 30-years-old, I was marching in my first Pride parade.

For the past six years I’ve helped organize and grow school Pride celebrations, each with their own lil’ moments. After our neighbourhood parade in 2024, we headed to the school’s backfield and performed a flashmob to families, all to the song “Born This Way.”

When I’d talked to my kindergartens about what other Pride celebrations involved, my students globbed onto the idea that people sometimes dress up, and asked if they could wear costumes—which is why, in videos of that flashmob, you can see Disney princesses and superheroes dancing to Lady Gaga.

I want these to be the stories I share about school Pride, but it’s important to know it’s not all rainbows and five-year-old Captain America dancing to Gaga.

Like when kindergartens from my class are noticeably absent the day of the parade, because their family “doesn’t celebrate Pride.”

A parent’s venomous email to a colleague, calling everyone at the school pedofiles; the same parent who, later that month, smiled and cooed to me about how she hoped her son would be in my class next year.

The idea that schools are somehow brainwashing youths by showing support and normalizing words like “bisexual” and “trans.”

“I’ve been teaching for decades, and I can barely teach these kids math. And I’m a math specialist!” a colleague shared with me, exasperated. “They think I can somehow influence these kids enough to change their whole ideology or gender?!”

Knowing teachers who’ve been doxxed, received death threats—putting themselves at risk while trying to make things safer for queer youth.

There’s decadent irony that, in tandem with writing this story, I’m helping organize this year’s Pride at my school.

We’re going bigger, bolder, louder. A coworker designed a Pride 2026 logo with our school’s mascot, and managed to get custom stickers donated. We’re inviting neighbouring schools. We have a whole spirit week planned, a dance party, a photobooth. We’re getting T-shirts made as a fundraiser. I get giddy thinking about how amazing this year will be. Usually that excitement drowns out all the what-ifs.

I’ve been working on a handout, highlighting statistics about queer youth, for families to help understand the importance of Pride. Pulling from Statistics Canada empirical gut-punches like how queer youth are twice as likely to describe their mental health as being poor; they’re more likely to be targeted for bullying, experience homelessness, and twice as likely to consider suicide; how trans and non-binary youth are twice as likely to experience cyberbullying.

I triple-check my sources with a diligence I wouldn’t have dreamed of during my English undergrad, knowing these stats will be scrutinized with the vigor that only a bored, privileged suburban parent can muster.

I hate having to take the more thoughtful high road. Having our “We want every kid to feel safe being who they are” met with “You’re all pedofiles,” coming from zealots whose churches, businesses, and governments knowingly protect actual predators. But I digress.

Progress can sometimes feel small.

The odd joy of when reading a book to my class, a student refers to someone as “gay,” and my body seizes up like they’re using a slur, when in fact, the book has a family with two dads. Gay as a descriptor, not an allegation.

It took until my mid-30s before I saw being gay as a gift. A hard-won title after a lifetime of being teased for liking things I didn’t even know I liked yet; the finally-satiated hunger of someone who spent years eating what they weren’t craving. Let’s hope the next generation gets to feel this lucky some day.

And if you need to contact me or have any questions about this story, you can always reach me at jjisgay99@hotmail.com.

Celebration!: C.’s Story

18 July, 2026Leave a comment

You know how they say big things always come in threes? On March 31st this year I had three big things to celebrate, which is a nice change of pace from last year’s three big things, which were decidedly less fun.

March 31st 2026 marked my four-year Van-iversary.

Four years since my husband and I quit the grown-up jobs that were slowly killing us and invested our theoretical house deposit in two one-way tickets and six months’ worth of rent in one of the most expensive cities in the world.

Four years since we filled our folks’ sheds with a decade’s worth of hand-me-down furniture, expensive kitchenware, second-hand books and records, and a couple of pricey-but-priceless artworks—all the trappings of a couple in their late twenties who finally graduated from undergrad sharehouses to cosplaying as adults.

Four years since we farewelled our family and friends at what will likely be the only “retirement party” we’ll ever have, and flew across the world to a city we’d never been to and where we knew one person. Vaguely.

Four years since we rented the first (and only) place we looked at, a basement suite advertised on Facebook marketplace by a new account with no profile picture. Turned out fine, they were a lovely family, and I’m pretty sure I sealed the deal by complimenting their ugly dog.

Four years in our 500sq foot flat with two windows and a resident mouse called Jonathan. Four years is the longest I’ve lived in one place since I was a child.

And each day of those four years, I’ve woken up feeling a bone-deep sense of gratitude. I can walk out my front gate, head four blocks north down our magnolia-lined street to the park with the pollinator meadow and beach access, where you get a flawless view across the inlet to the mountains, where it snowed on our first Christmas, and where I saw the northern lights. Twice!

Four years that I’ve been able to say I get to live here!

It’s been four years since I looked in the mirror and saw myself buried deep beneath a lifetime of trying.

Four years of gently prying that moldering heteronormative mask out of fingers stiffened with the effort of clutching it like a lifeline.

Four years of deep exhales, of space and safety and community and sliding scale counselling. Four years of freedom and finding a happiness I didn’t think was possible for me.

And that’s just the first big thing to celebrate!

March 31st is also Trans Day of Visibility, which feels fitting as it’s really only since moving to Vancouver that I’ve been able to become visible to myself, let alone others. It’s a day that highlights Trans JOY, so it’s kinda nice to celebrate the joy I’ve found here.

The joy of visibility is so much more than being seen, though.

It’s being asked my pronouns when meeting someone new, or even better, when the other person introduces themself with their pronouns first.

The joy of visibility is hearing a grownup customer tell their kid “go ask that person, they look like they work here.” It’s working in such an accidentally queer workplace that they/them has become the default until otherwise corrected.

The joy of visibility is making the conscious effort to “be the me I want to see”, and finding out it’s actually working. It’s being told that you actually are the visible queer person (Cool Gay Elder™) in someone’s life that makes them feel like they, too, are possible.

But the biggest joy is feeling known and seen by people who just get it. So that means that I get to build my friends’ flatpacks and lift their heavy boxes, and then they call me strong and handsome, and it goes straight to my head.

It’s dancing at the birdhouse and being hit on so respectfully that you forget for a second that you should probably tell them you’re married… and when you do, they’re so nice about it and say “well, what a lucky person” and they wish you well, and somehow that whole experience is one of the hottest things that’s ever happened to you.

This year I went all out: maximum visibility, maximum joy.

On March 31st, I submitted my very trans, intensely personal thesis about nonbinary intelligibility and identity in middle-grade fiction, thereby ensuring that I will remain visibly trans in one pocket of cyberspace for the rest of the internet’s existence. How’s that for something to celebrate!

I am trying to get more comfortable with the idea of celebrating myself. It’s something that doesn’t come naturally, perhaps the result of growing up in Australia, terrified of being the poppy that grows too tall, only to be eviscerated by the same people in charge of doling out the fertiliser.

After a lifetime of moderating myself to be just enough, never too much, believing that any sort of self-recognition is boastful, I’m re-learning what achievements actually look like, to me.

So, aside from the big things, like acknowledging the fact that I’m graduating from my second master’s degree tomorrow (entirely paid for by a federal scholarship, which inherently values the importance of my gay little research!), I’ve been celebrating myself in less obvious, more honest ways…

Like the fact that I allow myself space to be bad at (some) things and give myself room to grow.

Despite gaslighting myself for the past three years, I actually can drive in Vancouver.

I can do nearly 2 push-ups. My goal is five—and has been for the past three years—but this time I think I’ll get there.

I have no idea how much I weigh anymore, and that thought doesn’t panic me. I’m just letting the soft animal of my body love what it loves.

I’m learning to trust my own opinion more instead of being swayed by whoever is talking the loudest at the time, and sometimes I can even sit in the discomfort of holding two different ideas at once.

Sometimes I ask for help when I need it.

Sometimes I am even capable of being deeply honest in therapy.

My grey hairs are really starting to come in and I’m genuinely thrilled about it because it’s proof that I’m getting older

I am healthy

I am happy

I am still here

And I reckon that’s something to celebrate

Celebration!: Beto’ Story

17 June, 2026Leave a comment

SPORTS!

My father was a decorated athlete for a brief period of his life, and like many men his vintage, he wanted his eldest son to be one as well.

That is why, during my early school years, I was arbitrarily enrolled in a new sport at the start of every grade. Each year began with a fresh activity and ended with a full introspective account of the embarrassments I endured and the numerous disappointments I served my father.

The sport of choice for third grade was baseball. Before being enrolled, I had never even touched a bat. My dad, much more excited than I, bought me the full kit: a used mitt, a second-hand bat, and some balls. He then commanded me to join him in the backyard for “practice time.” I suppose I did a decent job; next day my father didn’t feel the need to storm the coach’s office to beg for my removal.

I enrolled late into the season. I know this because that Saturday I set foot on the field—for the first time in my life—I did so without a uniform and with only twenty minutes of prior training with dad. My teammates looked professional. Assigned the New York Yankees uniform, they wore iconic white and navy blue stripes that shone like fresh snow under the morning sun.

I was wearing olive green pants and a gray hoodie.

The coach, a seemingly intuitive man, took one look at me and deduced that I could hardly distinguish between a bat and a mitt, and that I was dying of terror.

“Right field,” he said, pointing to a far corner of the park.

In case you don’t speak “the base-ball”, right field is where the least action happens. Most batters hit right-handed, sending the ball to the left. Balls would only come to me if there was a left-handed batter on the opposing team, or if there was a glitch in the Matrix and the bat hit the ball at the EXACT spot to send it towards my side.

And not to spoil the story for you, but if you’re listening to this, it’s because one of those two fucking things was exactly what happened.

I walked the long trek to practically another country to wait for the two hours of the game to pass without me having to intervene whatsoever. I was there, shifting my body weight between my two legs while my nylon pants made that “FFFT! FFFT!” sound, when I saw the opposing team get into position.

They wore the Tampa Bay Rays uniform. Deep purple shirts with dark gray pants. If our team looked like an elegant albino vixen, they looked like that purple mascot from Mcdonald’s–– menacing, I mean. And the cherry on top of this horror sundae: they were the fourth graders. The bigger, stronger, faster, fourth graders.

The whole scene was too overwhelming for this 8-year-old.

My father? Safe over by the stands, eating some fried pork rinds with Valentina sauce at nine AM. So, perhaps not that safe actually.

For most of the game, I just had to stand on the grass, something I have always been good at. The intense part happened on our turn to bat, when I furtively had to keep telling every kid behind me in line, “Oh, you can go before me,” until our turn was over.

That’s how I passed the time, and I don’t know if it was the mental numbness–because it definitely wasn’t because I was having a great time–but suddenly I realized we were already in the last round. And the Rays were batting.

The mood was tense. As my dad tried to explain on the car ride back home, we were leading by one point. We needed one more “out” to win; a home run for the Rays would mean defeat.

Clearly, all this I semi-understood right up until a couple of minutes ago, when I Googled “How to play baseball” to write this story. On that Saturday in question, I was standing obliviously in my peaceful right field, about 350km from where all the action and excitement was happening, skinny and sun-burnt like a human Slim Jim from all the exposure I was soaking.

Suddenly, a batter with a precocious mustache appeared. This creature went to the plate and hit the ball as if it was the crotch of his absent father.

I watched as the ball rose through the air like a rocket—heading towards me.

I had roughly three seconds to calculate the trajectory of my entire future. My eyes followed the ball like a predator: Velocity, weight, curvature, differential equations, air resistance, and the Coriolis effect. I was teetering on the fine line between glory and total catastrophe.

And finally, when the ball was a few meters above me, I decided to take the best possible strategy: I closed my eyes, stretched out my left arm, and prayed for the best.

THUNK!

The physical and emotional stress of the previous seconds had left me disoriented. My vision was blurry, and in my ears there was silence with a slight, sharp tone.

Gradually, I regained my senses. A steady echo came from my team’s dugout.

When I finally opened my eyes, I could see blurry white patches running towards me. There was a slight weight shift in my hand, and when I turned to see it, my eyes finally focused: a steaming ball resting inside my mitt.

I didn’t even have half a second to examine it because I was violently rammed by a group of children dressed in white. Then I finally was able to translate the steady echo from a second ago: “BE-TO! BE-TO! BE-TO!” They yelled as they ruffled my hair and patted me on the torso amicably.

I felt on top of the world. I was living in my own Hallmark movie. The game had finished, and my actions had made the team win, my team—The Yankees of the Cristobal Colon Primary School.

Through the chaos, I glimpsed the stands. My dad had gotten up so fast from his seat that his pork rinds were spread all over; he was clapping like never before. Had I been closer, I wouldn’t have been surprised to see a couple of tears running down his face.

After three years of insatiable searching, we finally found a sport in which I excelled at.

…

Unfortunately, my delusions of grandeur betrayed us. My teammates quickly forgot that game in which I had been the star when, the following Saturday, I failed to catch a ball that caused an opposing team’s home run. Never again in the entire school year did I catch another ball, and much less hit one. After all, baseball wasn’t my thing either.

And my dad? Despite my excellent debut, after a couple of months, opted to just drop me off at the entrance to the baseball park, and pick me up after the game. The following year, when I decided to try basketball, I don’t remember seeing him at any event.

I don’t blame him. It must be painfully uncomfortable to watch your kid constantly suck at sports. Four years into the failed experiment to have an athletic son would defeat even the most willing.

This is not a childhood trauma or a deep scar in our relationship, though. Years later, he was able to find some solace by cheering on my creative endeavours.

Anyway, I was not born for competitive sports. But while those four years of me dipping my toes in them were incredibly anxiety-inducing and humiliating, I now think they are worth it just for the memory of that cold Saturday morning, when for a brief moment in time, my dad and I were able to share the same passion.

Celebration!: Nicholas’ Story

7 June, 2026Leave a comment

I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you
– Walt Whitman, Song of Myself

Note from the Author:
The following is an old piece I submitted to The Globe and Mail around Mother’s Day last year. It’s a letter to my departed Mother, who died in 2010 after a battle with cancer.

***

The thought of losing you was so staggering and overwhelming that, in tears, I proclaimed that I would make you proud of me. Your last words to me, although in truth I seldom think of them, were that you already were.

I was fifteen when you said that to me. And as this year is the fifteenth since your death, it seems appropriate to reflect. I don’t need to ruminate on whether or not you are proud—you have already said so—but rather, I want to reflect on whether or not I am truly proud of myself; and, by extension, if I bathe in the warmth, light, and love that a mother wants for her child.

When I was thirteen, surly like all teenagers, we often butted heads. You felt I was wasting my life away on the internet, and I thought you should back off and leave me alone. Despite changing logins, hiding keyboards, and unplugging modems, I would always find a way back online. You didn’t know that the internet was the only place I felt comfortable expressing myself, and that I found other nerdy teenagers who loved spending time with me. All I wanted to do was hang out with my friends. Just like any other kid.

Of course, as an adult I can expand my perspective and see myself as a confused parent worrying about their child, not understanding what would attract them about spending their entire day in front of a computer, worrying about the long-term damage it could cause. But I also know that I was miserably depressed and anxious even before you left us, and I wish you could’ve trusted me more.

People often say that mothers know their children better than themselves. For me, you knew I was gay before I was willing to admit it. Remember the day you called me a cocksucker while driving me to my shift at the radio station? That didn’t help things. Did you know I would become a man who, despite choosing to live with no regrets, would always wish that he came out to you before you died? That losing you would unlock a torrential floodgate, give me the courage to come out shortly after when I was sixteen? Probably not, but I’m sure you aren’t surprised.

When I turned eighteen, my loneliness was so turbulent, and the loss of you still so raw that it propelled me with a feverish desire to to be independent and become a grown man. I moved from BC to Nova Scotia, spent a summer in Scotland proper; spent nights upon drunken nights away from home, beer-taps flowing, cajoling with strange men I couldn’t understand, finding myself in their arms, trying to find my place in the world.

I eventually found myself where you were born, Toronto, finishing up the eighth year of a hellish undergraduate experience. I was twenty-five, dealing with COVID lockdowns, and my therapist called me out for never acknowledging your passing. She was right, and the solution was clear: I’d do a shot of tequila on the upcoming anniversary of your death. That was what the family did at the first memorial after all. It was a no-brainer.

I then chose to share that tradition with another family—my rugby family. A group of gay men (and their supporters) who gave me structure and community, allowed me the space to channel my emotions, helped me become the man I am today. One day after practice I gathered everyone together, gave them dingy plastic shot glasses, and poured the tequila. Told them that my mother was watching us and would help us win our upcoming tournament, silently promising that I would pull this off somehow.

My team took the shot for you; shut out a team from Perth, Australia in the finals after they said they’d kick our ass; I won forward of the tournament for leading my pack; your warrior’s spirit shone within me; I fulfilled a promise to myself; we achieved this together.

Winning that championship at twenty-seven is my finest accomplishment so far. It was with profound emotion that I moved back to BC shortly after the tournament, a type of bittersweet that comes from knowing you’re making a responsible decision. It was time to stop running away from you and move back home where I belong.

I’m now thirty years old, and it’s funny how the goals for my life are intersecting more with the goals you had for me. I don’t want to spend time online anymore; I want to engage in the offline world with my friends. But above all, I am a damn proud little cocksucker who’s living authentically in an increasingly challenging world.

Mom, I am happy to say that I am proud of myself. I’m a man who’s confident enough to part the clouds with my bare hands, bathe in the warm rays of the sun as it shines upon me, embrace myself in my entirety, and feel the love of the world as I walk on Wreck Beach with my friends, baring everything for all to see, as the world made me.

Summer Loving: Camille’s Story

15 October, 202515 October, 2025Leave a comment

This is not your typical steamy summer romance (although trust me, I have tried). My story is more of a love letter. A love letter not to a person, but to a place. This place. Vancouver.And it’s a story that spans almost two decades, from my first visit as a first grader to my moving here just last summer. If you have watched The Summer I Turned Pretty, this is kind of like that. But queer. And hopefully, with better writing. Do it for the plot, as they say.

Now, I haven’t done this sort of thing since university so I’m a little out of practice. In this essay I will… no, I’m just kidding.

A little bit of context. Like some of you, I am not originally from here. I grew up in Belgium. I went to catholic school, sang in the church choir, etc, etc. I can confirm that the catholic school to queer pipeline is real.
And don’t get me wrong, my love for Vancouver is not the same as dislike for Belgium. I love it there and I’m proud to be from there. I talk about it pretty much all the time. The people I miss, the food, the history, and culture. The fact that Belgium was the second country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage in 2003. And yet it’s a perfect example of how different legislation can feel to daily life.
Because. Growing up there for me also meant growing up with a lot of baggage. I lived and went to school with mostly white, cisgender, straight, conservative people. My home life was a crash course in emotional survival. This and other factors made it feel like I was keeping more and more inside as the years went by. Naturally averse to any type of confrontation, I kept my head down, twisted and bent myself so I wouldn’t cause any waves, trying not to catch any attention. It was a survival strategy, something I wasn’t always aware I was doing, but, over time, it shrinks you.
Now, it’s not like Belgium doesn’t have queer people. Trust me, as someone who got a liberal arts degree, sometimes it feels like I have met most of them. And although I attended university with plenty of rainbow merch and queer friends, sometimes it still felt like I was playing a part. My real, true, queer self was starting to make appearances, before I commuted back home at the end of the day and faded into that washed-out version of myself again. I was learning how to use non-binary pronouns in French and then going home to hear how queer people shouldn’t make such a spectacle of themselves.

Something I have left out until now is that me and my sister were lucky enough to spend many summers here in Vancouver while growing up. Something I definitely did not understand or appreciate while it was happening. Why was I being shipped off to the other side of the world every summer to be with people I hardly knew or understood? Why did I have to leave my home, my friends, my language, and everything that was familiar to me? Weirdly enough, these are some of the most vivid memories I have from my childhood and adolescence. They say you can’t remember an actual emotion, only the memory that feeling left behind. Maybe that is why summers in Vancouver are so bright, painted in colorful emotions, happy, sad, and angry. Because there was a lot of anger. There were a lot of tears. But at times, I was also happy.

I had a lot of firsts here:
This is where, as an angry tween in the middle of summer, I watched my first pride parade. Right on Robson Street. I did not know what was happening; I just remember it being loud and bright and colorful.
When I was a little bit older, Vancouver is where I had first dates, best dates. Most memorably the girl who planned a walking date to visit the best independent bookstores in the downtown area. For someone with a literature degree, that’s about as hot as it gets.
I spontaneously booked a walking tour called “The Really Gay History Tour,” diving into the queer history of this city. And I felt it. A hum, a buzz, whatever you want to call it. Something small, brave, vulnerable sitting in my chest, making its presence known. This place felt good, right.

Deciding to move here was not intentionally something I chose to do for myself. It made sense for a bunch of boring legal reasons and like many, I was a bit adrift after finishing university. What do you mean there isn’t anything I’m working towards over the next 4 years? I made the choice, initially for a year, to be closer to my sister, who had been living here for years. Probably the least problematic relationship I have in my life, the person who I have leaned on (sometimes a little too much) since we were 2 lost kids in this city. It was a risk. Once again, I was leaving my home, my friends, everything I knew, but this time it was my own choice, and it was for longer. But even though I was comfortable there, I was still clenching. I was myself, but I could still feel myself purposely not taking up space at times.

So. Since I recently passed my 1-year anniversary of moving here (or my Vaniversary, as I like to call it), I thought it made sense to do a little performance review.

After many many, many job applications, I started working at what I am convinced is the queerest workplace in the greater Vancouver area. If our queer staff members were given the day off for Pride, there would be no one left to keep the place running. The people I have met there, dare I say the friends I have made there, mean more to my little gay heart than I can express.
I have also joined a queer fitness class (yes, that is a thing, and I could not recommend it more). After a fun night out dancing at The Birdhouse, I woke up the next day not with a hangover, but with a hangover and my lower back in spasm. This queer cardio class, pitched to me as “gay line dancing,” seemed like a smart solution and has led to another first. My first time actively, loudly, proudly participating in a pride event earlier this summer.
It definitely hasn’t always been easy, though. In the past year, I have experienced more than one type of heartbreak here. The distance and space have given me a lot, but they have also taken things from me. Missing out on friends’ important life events, not getting the chance to say a final goodbye. Sometimes I feel like I am living a parallel life. It is so hard to fight the urge to regress into who I used to be when my old life comes knocking.

But. There is one memory that I keep going back to. It was August 2024, right after I moved. I packed my book and towel and biked on one of the crappy Mobi bikes to sit at English Bay Beach. The pride parade was going by. I watched the colours. The sun was shining. I could hear the waves on the beach and felt the wind on my face. This memory is so warm and bright in my mind, because I felt so… peaceful. And even though I had no idea what was coming in the year ahead, I felt I could finally, truly exhale.

Summer Loving: Luis’ Story

13 October, 202513 October, 2025Leave a comment

This is a story about my on-and-off love affair with, metaphorically, the beach, open waters, and the sea.

My first ever date was in the first post COVID summer, in coastal Victoria.
I ventured out to meet a guy I met online. Through text, he was emotionally available and aware he was avoidant. The hot beach day was the perfect environment to bring any incompatibilities to the surface; looking back, I realize how the sound of crashing waves was a beautiful, soothing sound, but being caught underwater as the currents break was not. Almost immediately, we were in an anxious-avoidant trap, and it would take me two years’ worth of poems, and counting, to learn how to love myself enough to not go into steep shorelines unprepared.

After that, my longest ever relationship, although it is best defined as a situationship, was here in Vancouver with a guy I used to say was the sea, Poseidon himself. If I went with the flow, I had a wonderful time; the best dates, though technically hangouts, were trips to the beach. Blissful sunny happiness quickly clouded by my capacity to receive love that did not come with any strings attached, and unfortunately, without this clarity of what I needed, intention, I was once again in an anxious trap. A strong cycle manifesting itself like a lunar calendar. Fortunately, through poetry I was able to capture and reflect on the push and pull of the tide through this period of my life, and wonder where and why I was repeating it. Similar to the erred myth that the Aztec calendar was believed to foretell the end of the world, and not that the Aztecs were resetting their seasons, this loop of breakups and reconciliations revealed itself at the beach on January 1st:

In 2012, my cousins and I went into the sea.
Before we realized, the high tide took us away.
We tried to swim as we screamed mayday,
I split from my cousins and tried to get help,
We all got away, but not the fear that I felt.

I don’t trust the sea like before,
my sandcastle falls when a wave knocks on the door.
My comfort zone lays in more stable terrains
I even ask friends to play the water levels in videogames.
So you could say I am afraid of the sea,
Because I wouldn’t be able to blame it for drowning me.

The sea did not try to kill us, we ventured too far.
The sea does not have a memory, we remember the scar.
The sea will drown you if you let it be guide,
The sea behaves in a pull and push of the tide.
I compared you and the sea, and now I don’t know what to do with this commentary.

Let me offer my hand and help you down from the pedestal,
Take a hammer to the columns and pipes and let the water flood my skeletal.
I lean towards the synchronicity:
It’s the color blue that beacons to me.
The blue in your eyes, or the blue in your name,
Or the blue in the way you move.

I want to get out of the water, but I don’t know how.
Question the trail dripping from my body,
Wonder:
If it was an emotionally aggressive father, no,
If it’s how I process emotion and choose a path to follow, no,
If it’s how my Mexican blood reacts like oil to Canadian waters, no,
else trying to heal every other part of me when the pipes in my sandcastle are spilling water, yes.

This life isn’t sustainable.
You can’t heal personality.
I’m never in reach of the perfect standard of healing every single part of me.
How many rooms do I split myself into before I forget where every part went initially?

In this new layout of my castle, where do I fit your memory?
The thought makes the tide in my mind go red, I’ve ventured too far.
I can reason the sea’s behaviour but not a man’s vocabulary.
For that ethical ambiguity, I have no vacancy.
Not for the men I am unsure if I even “dated”,
or whatever definition fits from your dictionary.
Not for those whose banter belittle me,
Make a joke out of me and try to convince me it’s funny.
Not for the men who cross my boundary,
And dare to say the walls of my castle are imaginary.

It’s through time, in each wave that hits the sand.
That the sea and sand bank resemble each other’s hand.
I lose sight of what works for me and start becoming part of a narrative
That exists only in your mind and what I twist into poetry.

Only when I focus on what I felt
not what you said does the tide relax.
I know I’ll put the memories, the good ones left,
Not in the sea or the places we spent time in,
But in a brand new room.
Of people I rode the bus with, whom
I flirted like we were strangers,
driving away from Wreck beach, away from the currents and dangers.

Destined to get at different stops.
Dead calm waves, the high tide drops.

The idea that a place can have revealing properties is not a new one. In The Exterminating Angel, by Luis Bunuel, dinner party attendees become trapped in a sociological limbo that eventually reveals all their secrets and unravels their relationships. Robert Östlund’s Triangle of Sadness, Prime Video’s Yellowjackets, William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, break and rebuild social hierarchies after crew and travellers are castawayed.

I’ve gone to the beach alone, with friends, family too, and have found similar results: an exposition of ideals and compatibility. Do you go to the beach with people who leave trash behind? Do you? How comfortable are they seeing their and other people’s bodies? How comfortable are you? Is their job really “beach” and are they qualified for it? Are you? Do they go to the beach only during summer? Do you?

I love that poetry, like the sandy coast, is as much an external as an internal space. Privacy shared publicly coexists with the secret agenda of knowing, being “in” on personal intimacy of a shared story. Being caught naked or seen in your underwear has a different moral weight than being seen at a beach wearing a range of birthday or bathing suits.

After spending the last day of Vancouver Pride weekend at Oasis in Wreck Beach with a diverse, safe, stable group of friends, I wrote about these conclusions in a poem called The beach:

I love the smell of sunscreen, sand, coconut oil;
Touch hungry, I’m picky as to who I ask for help.
At a shy distance from the ocean, water, turmoil,
I’ve learnt going to the beach’s Reckoning itself,

Of what is not said but felt: interpersonal health.
Here, where there’s not much to do but connect
We watch, talk, listen, or that’s what I’d expect,
We wear our comfort levels, habits, our neglect:

Wreck/Jurassic/Oasis, SPF, over, under dressed.
By the coastline, waves flirt with the sandbank.
A touch, a kiss here and there, a look at a chest,
A drift, a rip current wipes the shore prints blank,

Washed it away. Replaced by beautiful patterns.
The tide’s intention revealed in the rill and ripple:
It is Nature, to mix below the surface, “we” aren’t
But an undertow of elements chasing currents is.

As in, not ideal, life at the beach. I’m sunburnt
From a Sun’s hand, the Moon takes over control,
Rising and setting the pace of the ebb and soul.
I head home to myself, entirely made up of sand.

Today, as I visit familiar or new beaches, I am more aware of my qualities and needs, because I’ve been to the beach and continuously see how anxious, shy, body-dysmorphic, sexy, creative, secure I and others can be.
Today, firstly, I know myself and get a life jacket for open waters, wear a speedo and SPF 50, and trust I am capable of swimming… for survival, probably not for recreation.
Today, if I am curious about the health of my relationships, with myself or with somebody else, I go to the beach.