May 27, 2024
Glad Day is under threat of eviction, if you can donate or shop online, please do. Here's the link
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Glad Day is under threat of eviction, if you can donate or shop online, please do. Here's the link
Trump Weird News - Trump Got It Wrong Again!
D-DAY GLAD DAY FOR DEMOCRACY EVERYWHERE!
Child of the Morning, ink and bleach on inkjet print, 30 x 21, 2022
source: bishopsbox
Glad day (The dance of Albion) (circa 1795), by William Blake
Transgender Rite of Elevation- Seventh Night
The seventh book I placed for the altar was Gender Outlaws. I kissed the offering jar of water to charge it with my words of intent, “Forgive me my forgetfulness, may you never thirst.” I read the passage for November 18th in Glad Day. I prayed silently and after saying Amen I rang the chime.
As of now I’m “caught up” and will continue the Rite to it’s last night on November 20th.
Glad Day Bookshop
I mentioned it on another post about Queer/LGBTQ+ spaces that are more cafe like in setting than club. These are super important spaces and, at least here in Toronto, we do need more of them. We did have Holy Oak but that closed and The Steady has issues (but I feel some of it is inter-community-eating-each-other-alive issues) and the Beaver is leaving us (it was always more bar than cafe but you could get food and non-alcoholic drinks and chill there during the day). So yeah, these spaces need protecting and proliferation.
However, I want to say some friendly words about Glad Day Bookshop. It is, I believe, the oldest surviving LGBTQ+ bookstore in the world. Or, at the very least, North America (after Oscar Wilde closed in NYC in 2009. RIP.).
It was opened in 1970 and was Toronto’s first bookstore dedicated to queer issues and topics. (This is ten years before the 1981 Bathhouse Raids, for those who want the history timeline.) Their books cover all sorts of issues from religion and sexuality to history to fiction to poetry to sex advice to transitioning advice and so on and so forth. They have sections for gay, lesbian, bi, queer, trans, youth etc. and the selection is always changing.
The guy who opened it, Jearld Moldenhauer, initially ran it out of his house which also served as the offices for The Body Politic (one of the first Canadian lgbtq+ magazines) and grew out of Guerilla, another underground radical publication. I know Toronto has always been known as “Toronto the Good,” especially in the 70′s and 80′s, but really interesting queer shit was going down in the city.
Body Politic even tried to publish advertisements with the Toronto Star, who refused to run them. There was drama. It got intense. That is a story for another post.
Anyway, Moldenhauer was running Glad Day out of his house for about ten years before finding it more permanent location. He also opened a second one in Boston, Mass. and I thiiiiink there was one in LA for a time. I know the Boston one is no longer with us, not sure about the LA endeavour. The Boston one became condos. To the great surprise of absolutely no one.
Glad Day moved from its cramped, inaccessible space on Yonge St. to Church in 2016 and now is accessible and has more space. It serves as a cafe, bookshop, meeting space, bar, and dance floor on the weekends (and some week nights). The space is beautiful too, and again, back patio is A+. Sometimes raccoons watch you from neighbouring roofs envying your coffee and baked mac and cheese.
Anyway, just wanted to give a small shout-out to Glad Day as a great community hub for queer folk of all ages in Toronto.
@gladdaybookshop1970 (the Tumblr for the world’s oldest LGBTQ+ bookstore) has some ace positivity posts, which is great!
Last time I was at the store, they also had a few books on asexuality, which is also great!
Actually, a very cool thing about Glad Day is that it’s now part bookshop, part coffee shop! It’s super awesome to have an LGBTQ+ space that isn’t strictly a bar (they are also a bar, but only after 9 PM) which is great for younger LGBTQ+ people to be able to go to, and for people like me who aren’t really into the bar scene.
The Gaymers also have a board game night there once a month, it’s pretty great.
(I also get like, all my pins from them to, Glad Day is really great, please support them).
Transgender Rite of Elevation- Fifth Night
The fifth book I placed for the altar was My New Gender Workbook. I read the passage for November 16th in Glad Day. I rang the chime to signal that the night ritual was done.