Toronto's Queer West Fest: A Fringe-y Alternative to the Usual Gay Pride Festivals

Looking for a little edge to your Gay Pride celebrations? Traditional, official Pride events come in all shapes and sizes, and hundreds of them are held all over the world these days. In major international cities with sizable GLBT communities - New York City, London, Montreal, Los Angeles - events related to Gay Pride draw tens of thousands of spectators and last for several days. As popular as they've become, traditional Pride festivals and parades aren't everybody's cup of tea, and in Toronto, the still relatively young but increasingly acclaimed Queer West Fest has sprung up as a provocative, edgy, "Queer with a capital Q" alternative to the city's highly successful but undeniably commercial Pride Toronto Festival.

Whereas the official Toronto Gay Pride takes place the last 10 days of June, Queer West Fest begins about a week earlier, lasting from June 13 through June 22. The largely grassroots, community-driven event takes place in the decidedly idiosyncratic Queer West Village, on the city's West Side, a diverse and artsy slice of bohemia whose population is variously gay, straight, bi, transgender, and pansexual. Events during the 10-day neighborhood celebration range from avant-garde arts exhibitions to gender-bending parties to progressive educational workshops. Here's my brief preview of Queer West Fest, along with my preview of Gay Pride Toronto.