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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It’s well known that McMaster’s enrolment is high and the campus is short on space, but this month, off-campus and commuter students at McMaster will be given a new place to hang out.
A new lounge is opening on campus, dedicated to off-campus and commuter students. The lounge, named “The Lodge,” will occupy the space in Wentworth House that was formerly taken by The Phoenix.
The aim of the space is to help commuter students of all years connect to Mac by giving them a place to relax and study.
Jennifer Kleven, Director of the Off-Campus Resource Centre, thinks the lounge will make a noticeable difference to off-campus and commuter students, who may not feel the sense of community that residence students do.
“Sometimes they feel this disconnect,” she explained. “And it’s been shown that the more connected they feel to the school, the higher their grades will often be. And we think that’s really important.”
The project of establishing the lounge was started early in 2012, and it has been a joint effort between the Off-Campus Resource Centre and McMaster’s Office of Student Affairs, with input from the Society of Off-Campus Students (SOCS).
Gina Robinson, Assistant Dean of Student Affairs and a major advocate for the lounge, had a hard time hiding her excitement about the project.
As a Mac grad and a former commuter student, Robinson appreciates the needs of students today.
“I’m really passionate about the commuters,” she said. “I can remember being a commuter student—it was difficult at that time.
She described how students once used Hamilton Hall as a communal space, before the student centre was built. With straightforward amenities—tables and chairs, a couple TV’s, and a microwave—it felt to her like a home away from home. She hopes current commuter students can have that same feeling.
Robinson and Kleven looked at research on commuter students from American schools such as the University of Ohio and University of Miami, as such research hasn’t been produced by Canadian universities, despite the trend of “refocusing on off-campus and commuter students.”
Although the idea has been widely praised, questions have been raised about the choice of location for the lounge. The old Phoenix, while it can accommodate a large number of students, is in Wentworth House, which is set to be torn down this spring to make way for the university’s new Wilson Building for Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences.
Kleven explained that they saw the space as a good opportunity to launch the initiative as a pilot project.
“We all know space is tight on the campus,” she said. ”So why not take advantage of it while we can? It was going to sit vacant, nobody was going to be using it, so why not use it?”
“We wanted to create a space now,” explained Robinson, emphasizing that there is a pressing need for a lounge.
With a temporary space, however, they needed to be careful with money.
“When we were spending money we were trying to do it very carefully,” said Robinson.
The project received $25,000 from the Student Life Enhancement Fund for the project, which will be spent on furniture for the space. The remaining $20,000-$25,000 that have been budgeted will come from the Office of Student Affairs.
Although some of the costs are one-time—for example, the wireless will cost about $5000—Robinson and Kleven believe it’s worth it.
“It’ll be good money spent if this is a successful initiative, and then we can find more permanent space,” said Robinson.
Finding permanent space for The Lodge is something the team can only hope for at this point. Although Kleven and Robinson have appealed to the university administration for a permanent space, it’s not easy to find on such a packed campus.
Explained Kleven, “we’re hoping that we’re going to get hordes of students…[so] this will be an obvious example to the administration that we need this type of space on a permanent basis.”
