LGBTQ & Trans Pride in Toronto: Not everyone is welcome at flag raising ceremony

By David Menzies
|
June 02, 2021

UNSPORTING

How Trans Activism and Science Denial are Destroying Sport

On Tuesday, we dropped by Toronto’s Nathan Phillips Square, home to City Hall (and a never-ending vortex of woke-ism). We were going to take in the raising of the rainbow flag, which is emblematic of the LGBT community. Correction: LGBT is so last decade. According to the City of Toronto, the new and improved moniker is 2SLGBTQ+, which we were told stands for two-spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, intersex and questioning communities.

And evidently, June 1 was a very significant day in Hogtown history, as it was the 40th anniversary of Pride Toronto and the 30th anniversary of the city proclaiming Pride Day. (Can you believe it? The City Hall bureaucrats were a decade behind pronouncing their love for Gay Pride! What a bunch of homophobes!)

But we had some questions to ask. For example, what exactly does two-spirit mean?

Now this is a query chock full of danger, folks. After all, remember back in December 2017 when Tucker Carlson of Fox News interviewed Stephen LeDrew?

LeDrew is a former Liberal Party of Canada President, and the interview with Carlson focused on a new gender identifier code that is now being embraced by the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario. You see, LGBT is just sooo lacking in inclusivity. So it was that this federation of smart educators refers to this group with a 15-letter (!) identifier. Namely, LGGBDTTTIQQAAPP.

This lovin’ spoonful of Alphagetti stands for: Lesbian, Gay, Gender-queer, Bisexual, Demi-sexual, Transgender, Transsexual, Two-spirit, Intersex, Queer, Questioning, Asexual, Allies, Pansexual and Polyamorous. (As an aside, do you notice that one letter is conspicuously absent, namely “H” for “heterosexual”? You know, that silly sexual orientation that comprises about 98% of the people on this planet? But I digress...)

Anyway, back in ’17, Carlson asked the query I was hoping to ask at City Hall the other day. Namely: “What does two-spirit mean?”

And the painfully politically correct LeDrew — who was actually standing up for the Alphabet Soup People — responded thusly: “Well, two-spirit, it sounds like someone doesn’t know if they are fish or fowl. They don’t know if they are frick or frack. So, they are clearly confused. And you know, again, if you are confused, what better place to go than to be at school.”

Yikes!

Alas, at the time, LeDrew was a Bell Media personality. But after this interview aired, LeDrew was soon fired by Bell Media for his analysis of two-spirit. (Apparently, there’s no such thing as “confused” people in the LGGBDTTTIQQAAPP community!) And to think LeDrew was trying to convince Carlson that free speech was an actual thing in Canada!

In any event, we also had other questions for the master of ceremonies — er, can we still use the word, “master”? Such as: if the “T” in 2SLGBTQ+/LGGBDTTTIQQAAPP stands for “transgender,” then why are there two separate flags being raised: the rainbow flag for the whole pride enchilada and the transgender flag just for the transgender folks? Isn’t that double coverage for the T-people? Or are transgender folk so super-special these days they actually get their own flag? Baffling…

But the thing is, when we got to City Hall, the flag-raising event was roped off for special invitees only (COVID, or something, you understand). So it was that it took place on an upper level of Nathan Phillips Square, which was fenced-off to the great unwashed masses (which presumably included media types like us who might ask the same sort of questions Tucker Carlson was asking four years ago; thus, only polite government-funded Media Party outlets were allowed near the flagpole).

All of which was too bad — and a little exclusionary, don’t you think? After all, according to the City of Toronto, the “Q” in 2SLGBTQ+ stands for “questioning” and I think that as journalists, we’re members of the “questioning community.” That’s what we do, after all: ask questions.

But alas, with Mayor John Tory calling the shots in Hogtown these days, impolite questions are verboten and shall not be uttered within earshot of any LGGBDTTTIQQAAPP folk; so it was that Nathan Phillips Square was essentially “sanitized for your protection” when it came to free speech last Tuesday.

So, hey folks, how are you all digging that whiz-bang “inclusivity” thingy these days?

Spread the Word!