"I Have A Sense That Gay Is Diluting Significantly." Gay Nostalgia In A Post-Gay World And The Intergenerational Transitions Of Toronto's Church-Wellesley Village (1973-2023)

Abstract

Understandings and/or experiences of being gay in Toronto have changed over the past 50 years and are now at risk of being revised or forgotten. There is a diminishment of gay villages, spaces, and organizations across North America, Western Europe and Australia. A post-gay period has emerged in these spaces with a recognition of greater fluidity in sexual and gendered identities. This includes Toronto’s Church-Wellesley Village (TCWV). The social, cultural, and political experiences of an older generation of gay men differ from a younger queer generation who no longer align themselves to gay identity, gay culture, or gay villages and see little need to sustain them. Changes in the built and demographic environments are also contributing to these concerns. Fears about such changes and the risk that the histories of older gay men will be lost are prompting some gay men to express nostalgia during a transitional period. This dissertation explores perspectives about the past, present and future of Toronto’s Church-Wellesley Village (TCWV) through oral histories of 27 self-identified gay men and written narratives on Vintage Gay Toronto (VGT) Facebook website to map the changing social, political, cultural, and spatial environment of the neighbourhood and gay Toronto. This work presents their experiences before and after the area was reconceptualized from a ghetto of segregated and predominantly gay residential space in the 1970s, a flourishing gay commercial, entertainment, and residential village by the late 1980s and 1990s, to a transitional period in which many gay men feel a lost sense of community and identity. This research is also informed by a knowledge mobilization strategy of community engagement. It provides a step-by-step process of a Community Engagement Workshop. The workshop generated feedback and research themes to prioritize questions for the project’s oral history interviews.