INSIGHT
How COVID-19 Hurt QUEER PEOPLE Much More Than STRAIGHT PEOPLE A snapshot of how COVID-19 impacted the LGBTQ community By Paul Gallant
For her birthday last February – her last big night out before the COVID-19 lockdown hit – Tanja-Tiziana and her posse descended upon karaoke night at The Beaver, the beloved queer bar on Toronto’s West Queen West. “It was so rammed, I remember thinking, ‘I’ve never been sweat on by so many people.’ It was such a great feeling,” she tells me. A few weeks later, the COVID-19 lockdown temporarily closed The Beaver, and then, on July 11, it announced it was closed for good. Established in 2006 by queer legend Will Munro, the place was, for artsy homos, an essential service. But, like so many businesses built on our urges to socialize, it couldn’t survive months without revenue when the coronavirus hit. “Even if we get through this, we don’t even have those meeting spaces to look forward to. We didn’t even get to say goodbye to them,” says Tanja-Tiziana.
Work aside – which is a hard thing to set aside if you’re a tip-dependent bartender or a drag queen struggling to pay the rent – our personal lives have also been dramatically disrupted by self-isolation, quarantines and social bubbles. And let’s not even talk about the Pride that never was. Not to stereotype too much, but while straight people are in their comfort zone bunkered down with their nuclear family, many queer people draw their strength from a community they interact with at nightclubs, bars, arts events and parties. “It’s not so much a social life thing as a connective thing with the city, with the community,” says Tanja-Tiziana. “There are people you don’t even know well, you may not even talk, you might just make eye contact across the room, but you feel a part of things together in a safe space.”
SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2020
DJ and event manager Craig Dominic had been doing at least two or three gigs a week in Toronto’s gay village when the lockdown closed the clubs. Since the closures, he’s been spinning The COVID-19 crisis has slapped the entire world upside the at online parties, doing digital dance nights, but the money is head, and here in Canada took its most deadly toll on seniors and not in the same league and the experience is not as satisfying. temporary foreign workers. But economically and emotionally, “There’s something to be said for the collective energy in the it’s hard to deny that LGBT people were the hardest hit by “the room you get from DJing,” says Dominic. “Everything’s less gaydemic.” The industries where queers are highly represented human than it used to be.” – hospitality, nightlife, travel, arts and entertainment, health and beauty – were the industries hardest hit by lockdowns and Rolyn Chambers usually goes out at least three nights a week, shaken consumer confidence. A photographer specializing in plus hosting his Dahnce Kahmp party at Toronto’s Buddies artsy queer stuff, Tanja-Tiziana’s gigs dried up completely. in Bad Times theatre, plus, plus, plus. Then, nothing. Artist, “You have the entire arts and culture sector just taken out at the graphic designer and author of the book The Boy Who Brought knees. Nobody’s working, nobody is creating anything except Down a Bathhouse, Chambers started doing an online version web-based stuff.” For her part, Tanja-Tiziana reinvented her of Dahnce Kahmp, not for money – he had no mechanism one-woman business to focus on archival work, which she for accepting donations – but literally to keep his spirit alive. could do at a distance. “Going out and socializing is in my blood. It’s something that
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