A follower of mine on X recently commented that it has never been a better time to be gay in Canada.
That is so on point considering I am openly gay – married for 15 years this month – and able to move through our circles here in Toronto and Florida feeling perfectly comfortable calling my partner, “my wife.”
I lived in the closet until age 48.
The word that made me so afraid in my 30s and 40s — lesbian — is just one of the many ways I now identify myself, without a second thought.
But it is not the only way.
It has never been and is not now my cause celebre.
In fact, I have spent far more time since the atrocities of Oct. 7 standing up for my Jewish heritage and exposing the horrific rise in antisemitism in Toronto and throughout Canada.
Not so for the radical left, who have turned what were hard-fought wins of 20 and 30 years ago into an absolute farce.
The activists and what we have come to call the alphabet mafia have taken over what was once a beautiful celebration of same-sex rights.
This post expresses very aptly how I and many others feel.
When I came out at 48, there were no Pride crossings or boardwalks on Toronto Island painted in the Pride flag colours.
There were no schools holding Pride forums or teachers dressing up in class like they’re ready to march in some drag queen event.
There were no teachers or unions ramming their sexuality down the throats of innocent young students.
I didn’t refer to myself as she/her, they/them, or zie/zah.
I don’t remember banks, shops and businesses having Pride displays in their front windows, on their websites and in their front entrances — as if they’ll be included in the Homophobic Hall of Shame if they don’t do it.
This weekend, after I finished the Run for Women, I headed past three huge Pride displays in the lobby of Women’s College Hospital — telling me how much they love me.
Near the start of Pride month, I got emails from beauty companies and large clothing stores letting me know they have the ultimate in gay fashion and makeup. I kid you not.
Initially I found it cute but now I want to tell these people, “Enough already!” We get it.
As usual, it is not those of us who simply want to live their lives that have driven this change.
It’s the loud, over-the-top activists who feel they have to constantly remind us how gay they are as if that’s the only way they identify themselves.
They now refer to themselves as “queer” — once a pejorative term to describe those who were not heterosexual. It is now used like a badge of honour by the radical left.
I hate that term.
The acronym to describe someone who is not straight or homosexual — LGBTQQIP2SAA+ — has become so convoluted, it’s laughable.
We can’t just be gay, straight, bisexual or trans. We must also include those who are two-spirited, queer, questioning, intersex, pansexual, two-spirited, asexual and androgynous.
We now have three different Pride flags — the traditional rainbow flag, the Progress Pride flag and now the intersex-inclusive progress flag with a purple circle on a yellow background to signify intersex types.
Throughout the year, schools in Ontario’s woke boards foist same-sex and gender identity indoctrination down their students’ throats.
But it’s on steroids during Pride month.
We see elementary teachers proudly posting on social media how they’re “teaching” kids as young as kindergarten about gender identity and same-sex relationships.
It is not appropriate in the slightest.
I personally started to see the switch in 2016 when I was informed I didn’t deserve a seat at the Pride table for fighting back against the Toronto Pride parade’s efforts to deny the shooter in the Orlando nightclub mass killing was a self-loathing Muslim extremist. (Funny how things come full circle.)
But that was just the start.
Desperate to find a cause to replace the fight for gay rights, the radical activists turned to gender identity and trans rights.
Suddenly all those who fancied themselves woke started using preferred pronouns in their correspondence. It was absurd.
We’ve seen the rise of what I and others consider a terrible time in our history.
Radical activists are indoctrinating young children — who aren’t old enough to vote, to drive or drink — to change their sex.
Those of us who have fought the idea of giving children puberty blockers or pushing them to transition at puberty have been labelled by the radical activists (some of them who dress like women but are still biologically men) TERFs — which basically means we’re transphobic.
Never mind that this kind of indoctrination borders on child abuse.
Needless to say this has created a terrible divide in the gay community.
There are those who take for granted the hard-fought battles to gain acceptance and are indoctrinated to believe they’re all in the wrong bodies and need to find the right pronouns.
I however fall in the other camp.
I eschew pronouns, finding them absolutely inane.
And I’m simply proud that I am able to be myself after so many years in the closet.
While we’re at it, perhaps banks, hospitals and shops might stop trying so hard to be gay.
