By: Andrew Mrozowski
I come from a small town outside of the greater Toronto area where I couldn’t be open about who I truly am. There were no spaces that were created by people like me, no rainbow flags, no queer party nights – nothing. When I decided to move to Hamilton for school, I knew that with coming to a large city, I would be exposed to a different aspect of the LGBTQ2S+ community and be amongst people with whom I could be my true self.
Fast forward to two years later, I have found spaces in Hamilton where I could be myself and thrive in my own self-discovery, social life and the committed relationship I’m in. I have realized that although Hamilton might not have a designated “gay village”, there are spots that have made me feel welcomed.
At first glance, these spaces may appear “ordinary”, but through my interactions and experiences I’ve found that these spaces greet you with a sense of community, set the scene for fond memories and ultimately aid personal growth. I want to share these spaces with people who might feel like they are out of their element in this city. I know it has helped me a lot during this past year and hopefully it will help you find what you are looking for.
A popular locally-sourced restaurant in Hamilton, HAMBRGR boasts a wide-selection of burgers and craft beers in an industrialized atmosphere. This was not my first time at HAMBRGR, and although my date and I had to wait thirty minutes to be seated, we knew the food was well worth it. Our waiter was really friendly, giving us his enthusiastic recommendations on the extensive menu. Through his charismatic attitude, he made us feel very welcome and even tried his best to charm us.
This experience is one of my first and favourite memories with my boyfriend. I felt like the space allowed me to be my true self without having to worry about how others would perceive me and my sexuality. There was no shade thrown my way that night. If I’m not comfortable in my own skin, then I can’t enjoy my time because my mind is so preoccupied worrying about everything and everyone around me. I can confidently say that I enjoyed my night at HAMBRGR because I was able to leave all the worry behind. In this queer-friendly space, I was able to focus on what was most important to me; starting a new relationship.
Through writing for the Silhouette, I’ve been able to meet a lot of interesting people in Hamilton and I’ve made quite a few friends. I recently befriended Dom Pugliese, who is the the owner of Crumbled. At Crumbled, Pugliese creates deconstructed cake in a cup with unconventional flavours such as lemon meringue, cookie dough and snickers. I have found myself going to Crumbled at least once every two weeks and spending at least an hour talking to Dom and indulging on his decadent cake.
When I first approached Crumbled, I had no idea that it would be queer-friendly. When I went inside and starting talking to Pugliese, he filled the space with inclusivity. Pugliese and I have lost track of time talking about everything from his business, to our personal lives and swapping little anecdotes. At Crumbled and with Pugliese, I was able to destress by getting lost in our conversations and forgetting the responsibilities that constantly dominate my life for a little while.
Pugliese and other owners in the heart of Barton Village are working towards making Hamilton a more queer-friendly city and inclusive for all. Through Crumbled, Pugliese is making an effort to add to the city’s overall queerness, and he has realized that you do not need to open up a designated space to still be welcoming to all. I always look forward to my visits to the Barton Village because I know that I have a good friend there waiting to chat over a unique bowl of cake.
As a student and part-time barista, I will be the first to say that I am addicted to caffeine. I am constantly on the hunt for great lattes in environments that are both aesthetically pleasing and welcoming. During this last year, I have found myself constantly going to two cafes that fit my criteria.
Redchurch Cafe not only serves coffee but also baked goods, food and alcohol. I was first introduced to this space on the night of Halloween, when the space was transformed to host live music and cocktails. I attended the party with my boyfriend and felt that I didn’t need to hide the fact that we were dating because everyone, from the staff to other attendees, had such a care-free and welcoming attitude. I was able enjoy the party without stressing about our safety. These warm and inviting feelings carried over to when I would go to the cafe during the day to study.
Typically flying a pride flag outside, I would probably say that Emerald Coffee Co. is the only definitive queer coffee shop in the city, most likely thanks to the owner, Phil Green. Much like the other business owners on Barton Street East, Green is dedicated to ensuring that the queer community has a place to feel welcomed and supported. He feels that Barton Village will most likely be Hamilton’s next gay village. Emerald Coffee Co. is the perfect place to get some work done in a welcoming environment with great all-natural lattes, drip coffee, and cold-brew on tap. I love coming here because I really enjoy the quality you can get and I’m all for supporting queer business owners.
This party planning duo is ensuring that Hamilton’s queer community always has a safe and fun space to party the night away. Adam George and Steve Hilliard have thrown massive queer parties to reunite a community that has been disconnected in recent years. They’ve also hosted former RuPaul’s Drag Race contestants and local drag queens. Adam and Steve’s parties are one of the closest thing the queer community can get to a designated queer space in Hamilton. Since meeting the duo, they have shown me that Hamilton’s gay culture does exist. I used to think that the only way I could express myself and find acceptable is by going to Toronto’s gay village, but thanks to people like Adam and Steve, queer-culture is being normalized again in Hamilton. Thank you Adam and Steve for giving me a space where I can be truly myself, unapologetically.
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By: Andrew Mrozowski
“In the beginning God created Adam and Eve (allegedly), but she soon realized how boring their parties were and created Adam and Steve to be their neighbours and show them how it’s done,” read the official Adam and Steve manifesto.
Since 2016, Adam George and Steve Hilliard have been throwing the queerest parties that Hamilton has seen for decades under their event planning name Adam and Steve. These two community event organizers have a single mission, to create community and carve out LGBTQ friendly events within the Hammer.
“[Our events] are unlike anything you’ve ever seen. It’s like your gayest wildest wet dream,” said George.
George moved to Hamilton in the late 2000s to attend McMaster’s science program. Shortly after meeting Hilliard on campus, the two students clicked. Hilliard went on to graduate from the nursing program and became a full-time nurse while George became a full-time realtor.
The “semi-engaged” duo — they have an ongoing competition over proposals — loved making a life together in Hamilton, but they felt something was missing in their community.
Being inspired by the fact that there weren’t any queer spaces currently in Hamilton, George and Hilliard had an idea. What if they planned and hosted parties in Hamilton that they would want to attend?
“We were tired of having to go to Toronto to have fun,” explained George.
“We were both inspired by being queer, inspired by fun, beauty and I have an intense love of drag. I really wanted to give a stage to queer artists,” added Hilliard.
Historically, Hamilton has had a rough history with queer spaces amounting to raids and police brutality.
“At any given moment, there was at least four or five [gay bars and clubs]. Hamilton was almost too gay and this history is tragic. If you look up the lists of the top ten worst police raids, one of them was in Hamilton at a bathhouse downtown,” said Hilliard.
“But now, we’re moving towards a queer scene about being whoever the fuck you wanna be,” added George.
Attracting the likes of popular Toronto queens, such as Priyanka, and RuPaul’s Drag Race season 8 contestant, Thorgy Thor, the dynamic duo is always on the lookout for who can throw the greatest party.
“We wanted to throw parties that we wanted to go to. Right before we started doing events, we always thought ‘Why hasn’t a RuPaul queen come to Hamilton?’ Then once we started throwing events, it was one of those things where you didn’t think was possible and then one day, I just googled … what would it take to get a RuPaul queen to come,” said Hilliard.
“We did a survey on our Instagram to see if there was interest… in four days the first show sold out and then we added a second date, and that one sold out,” added George.
Community is a large reason why George and Hilliard throw their parties. The duo’s goal is not only create community and a space that fosters inclusivity through their events, but they also wanted to become part of the community.
“It’s about creating a family in this city,” said Hilliard. “Queerness was never something that was handed to us.”
George and Hilliard are consistently looking towards the future and are hoping to open up their own space. The goal is to have a party every night, so there will always be a safe space for the community to celebrate and have fun.
Always busy planning parties, the duo has big plans for this coming romantic weekend. Adam and Steve will be hosting Heart On: Queer Galentine’s Day Party featuring House of Filth on Feb. 16 at Absinthe Hamilton on 38 King William Street.
“Queer and gay bars left [Hamilton], but the gay and queer people didn’t. We need to give those people and ourselves a safe space where they can meet new friends, be safe, and won’t ever need to leave the city at all,” explained Hilliard.
The future for Hamilton’s LGBTQ+ looks as bright as the pride flag thanks to event organizers like George and Hilliard. Adam and Steve events are where you can put glitter on your face, wear your cutest shirts and dance the night away in a safe and inclusive space for all.
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In recent years, Hamilton’s downtown core has changed rapidly, with many businesses closing down and new ones popping up, just as fast. While some may welcome these changes, many others point to a loss for the LGBTQA2S+ community, with many popular gay bars closing down as the city evolved.
In the early 2000s, there were five major gay bars people could go to: The Werx, the Rainbow Lounge, The Embassy, M Bar and The Windsor, all of which were located in Hamilton’s downtown core. Since then, all of these bars have shut their doors.
For James Dee, a McMaster alum and Hamilton resident since 2004, bars such as the Embassy were an important aspect of their experience with Hamilton’s queer community as a place where they could go without threat of violence.
“We maybe have a little bit of drama and be kind of mean to each other….But when the lights came on at the end of the night you know everyone was checking in with each other like 'text when you get home and so I know you're safe,'” Dee said.
While Hamilton’s queer scene thrived in 2004, it was not without violence. In that same year, Hamilton Police Services, among other municipal agencies, raided the Warehouse Spa and Bath and arrested two men for indecent acts. That raid was followed by protests from Hamilton’s LGBTQA2S+ community.
“It felt a lot more dangerous to be visibly queer in 2004,” Dee said. “I think it's easy to kind of romanticize the time when we had brick and mortar spaces but it's also easy to forget why we needed those spaces so much.”
Dee believes that, to some degree, places closed down due to a decline in need, but also points to the gentrification of Hamilton as another key reason these spaces disappeared.
“It's not just the story of queer Hamilton, it's the story of Hamilton in general… a lot of the places I used to enjoy hanging out [at] are now bougie coffee shops,” Dee said.
For example, following the shuttering of the Werx’s door, the building was converted into the Spice Factory, a popular wedding venue.
“All across the board, [the gay bars] catered to people with less money,” Dee said. “They don't survive downtown anymore.”
For Sophie Geffros, another long-time Hamilton resident and McMaster graduate student, the loss of brick-and-mortar spaces has meant a segregation within the community.
Geffros, who spent their teen years in Hamilton, had many of their formative experiences at bars such as the Embassy, where they met older members of the LGBTA2S+ community in addition to those their own age.
“There is still an isolation that I think that can only be combated by in-person interaction,” Geffros said.
“We're a little more fragmented. Like if I'm going out… I'm going to be going out with people I already know who are members of the community,” they added.
For Geffros, the loss of Hamilton’s queer spaces is especially harmful, as these spaces were often the most accessible hangouts for queer people living in rural communities that lack direct bus service to Toronto.
“Those are people who are particularly isolated, who are often closeted throughout the week and would come to Hamilton on the weekend to blow off steam and be amongst themselves. That's a real loss,” Geffros said.
While there are no longer any physical LGBTQA2S+ spaces, there are opportunities for Hamilton’s queer community to converge. Dee is one of the founders of Queer Outta Hamilton, a collective that runs monthly queer pub nights, typically at Gallagher’s Pub.
In addition, there are other organizations that offer workshops and events, such as Speqtrum Hamilton, the NGen Youth Centre, Pride Hamilton, the McMaster Students Union Pride Centre and others.
There are also many LGBTQA2S+-friendly bars and clubs, such as Sous Bas, which offers queer events, typically in partnership with Queer Outta Hamilton.
While Hamilton may have lost its major physical queer spaces, the community continues to support each other the best they can.
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If you grew up in the 1980s and were gay, there weren’t really any TV shows you could relate to. All in the Family featured the first gay character on a sitcom in 1971, but it took awhile before gay characters had major roles or storylines. Liss Platt wanted to do something about that.
“When I was in school, you didn’t have Will and Grace, you didn’t have the L Word,” said Platt, an artist and a professor in the multimedia program here at Mac. “Not that these representations do us any favours, but there was just so little - especially representations of lesbians. I really wanted to make work that provided something else to identify with.”
One of Platt’s films, You Can’t Get There From Here, was recently featured in an exhibit at Brock University and describes what it was like for her to be 16, gay, and trying to figure out what that meant. “We see a lot of coming-of-age stories and I love them, but they’re tidy, and I don’t think coming of age is very tidy,” said Platt. Her story is anything but tidy – her sister was dying, the girl she loved liked guys, and everything just felt so intense. What describes being 16 better than the feeling of not knowing what’s important but still thinking everything is.
“A lot of my work is about trying to engage with the everyday and assumptions that we make that we don’t think about,” said Platt. Consider the purse, for example, which is the focus of a surreal film by Platt. At one point in the piece a tuft of hair appears in a purse that a lady is carrying, only to be franticly shoved into the bag’s depths. Purses appear totally harmless, but it’s kind of weird how much we associate them with being feminine without thinking about it. “Purses can emasculate butches; they’re like a threat to female masculinity,” said Platt, half joking and half serious.
Another one of her films, Long Time Coming, subverts the everyday (although, given the strike, it’s not really anymore) pillar of masculinity that hockey appears to be. One of the scenes replays a guy wiping down the Stanley cup, over and over. “That’s just rude, on purpose,” laughed Platt. “I love hockey, but it is so physical, and the men are on top of each other, writhing around. It was ripe for the picking, as they say.”
Sure, mocking hockey is funny, but there is a point – to ask why we think it’s okay for straight guys to be all over each other on ice, but in real life, not so much. “We have gendered notions of appropriate behaviour, and they’re limiting for everyone,” said Platt. “Queer culture has always been about not trying to just bring queer people into what’s normal, but to loosen up what normal means.”
In honour of Mac’s pride week, we present an ANDY that’s (mostly) full of articles about gender and sexuality. Hopefully we’ve managed to loosen up normal at least a little.
By: Nolan Matthews
