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Join us @DailyXtra.com PREVIEW OF DAILY XTRA MOBILE (LAUNCHING SOON) (LAUNCHING MOBILE XTRA PREVIEW OF DAILY 2 FEB 12–MARCH 11, 2015 XTRA! 21 YEARS OF HEADLINES Strange customs Refining the art of censorship Issue 1, Sept 24, 1993 XTRA OTTAWA’S Published by Pink Triangle Press GAY & LESBIAN NEWS PUBLISHER & EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Brandon Matheson Roundup #276 FEB 12–MARCH 11, 2015 EDITORIAL MANAGING EDITOR Matthew DiMera ASSOCIATE EDITOR Andrew Jacome COPY EDITOR Lesley Fraser EVENT LISTINGS ADAM COISH ADAM [email protected] CONTRIBUTE OR INQUIRE about Xtra’s editorial content: [email protected] EDITORIAL CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS ISSUE Zara Ansar, Adrienne Ascah, Natasha Barsotti, Niko Bell, Adam Coish, Paul Dotey, Chris Dupuis, Pat Johnson, JP Larocque, Ian Phillips, Pega Ren, Marco Vigliotti, HG Watson, Ben Welland, Jeremy Willard Paul Lafleur BSc RMT ART & PRODUCTION REGISTERED MASSAGE THERAPIST CREATIVE DIRECTOR Lucinda Wallace GRAPHIC DESIGNERS MASSOTHÉRAPEUTE Darryl Mabey, Landon Whittaker ADVERTISING Excellence in health care ADVERTISING & SALES DIRECTOR Ken Hickling Pain, injury and stress management SALES ADMINISTRATION MANAGER Lexi Chuba Covered by extended health plans SALES TEAM LEAD Lorilynn Barker DISPLAY ADVERTISING Matt O’Leary 613-231-2296 www.PaulLafleurRMT.com CLIENT SERVICES & ADVERTISING ADMINISTRATOR Eugene Coon ADVERTISING COORDINATOR Gary Major SPONSORSHIP & BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT: Kero Saleib, [email protected] TO ADVERTISE: [email protected] 613-301-9910 The publication of an ad in Xtra does not mean that Xtra endorses the advertiser. Storefront features are paid advertising content. Xtra is published every month by Pink Triangle COVER STORY Press. Printed and published in Canada. ©2014 Pink Triangle Press. ISSN 1195-6127 Address: PO Box 70063, 160 Elgin St-Place Bell RPO, Ottawa, ON, K2P 2M3 21 years of Xtra in Ottawa Phone: 1-800-268-9872 Fax: 416-925-6674 Website: dailyxtra.com General email: [email protected] 3 Looking back at the people and • Non-Surgical Face Tightening • Reflexology & Reiki ultrasonic E PINK TRIANGLE PRESS lipo places that shaped the paper 11 Founded 1971 • Ultrasonic Liposuction • Botox, Fillers & Latisse • Alpha Wellness Spa Capsule • Teeth Whitening treatments DIRECTORS Jim Bartley, Gerald Hannon, for Glenn Kauth, Didier Pomerleau, Ken Popert, • Microdermabrasion • Ottawa's ONLY Editorial History Boys Gillian Rodgerson • Chemical Peels Full Spectrum Light Xtra’s digital universe NYC politician Murray Hall HONORARY DIRECTOR Colin Brownlee $189 PRESIDENT & EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Ken Popert • Non Surgical Skin Tightening Therapy Spa is expanding was a man with no whiskers CEO, DIGITAL MEDIA David Walberg E E CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER Andrew Chang By David Walberg 4 By Jeremy Willard 22 2602 Innes Road, Ottawa | (613) 317-7572 | WWW.OXYGEN-MEDISPA.CA Xcetera E5 Ask the Expert By Pega Ren E24 Upfront Out in the City Yasir Naqvi, MPP Why Xtra is moving entirely online E7 Evalyn Perry’s Spin, Ottawa Centre Questions remain about Tone Cluster and Midori’s E Capital Pride Committee sex workshops 27 closed off to new membersE 8 Xposed By Zara Ansar E28 Thank You John Baird’s complicated LGBT legacy E9 Thinking outside the box COVER PHOTO BY ADAM COISH Capital Xtra! What Xtra’s future means for queer visibility E10 Refreshing the page Daily Xtra ondailyxtra.com Community Office 109 Catherine Street, Ottawa ON K2P 0P4 gets a makeover, launches new E How to speed through mobile site E15 T: 613-722-6414 | F: 613-722-6703 10 dates [email protected] Sponsored E Berlinale preview 2015 www.yasirnaqvimpp.ca An Xtra Special Feature Jer’s facebook.com/yasirnaqvimpp | @yasir_naqvi E Garlic Garden serves Vision celebrates 10 years with it fresh new directions E17 E Video: Funny gay women take over YouTube Defiant voices CRTC to rule on accusations of spreading hatred Issue 5, Jan 28, 1994 XTRA! FEB 12–MARCH 11, 2015 3 email [email protected] comment dailyxtra.com & facebook.com/dailyxtra Comment tweet @dailyxtra Xtra’s digital universe is expanding EDITORIAL ous countries, as our past video productions have DAVID been. And then you’ll see it on our own channels WALBERG on Daily Xtra, YouTube and Vimeo. Our multichannel approach to video provides a model for expansion that we will extend to our journalism in other media — text stories, photos, David Walberg: Just a brief note to audio, graphics — as we seek to broaden our reach. let you know how much I appreciated Pink Triangle Press has a unique mission and you printing my letter. I was so thrilled editorial voice. For more than four decades, we I wanted to rush over and do your hair. have solidly championed sexual freedom and — letter from playwright and author freedom of expression. We hunger not for an equal Tomson Highway, Aug 31, 1997 slice of a stale heterosexual pie, but for a heaping portion of sexual liberation, made to order from scratch. Who doesn’t love receiving a letter? Or the prom- Along the way, we have challenged conventional ise of a new hairdo, for that matter? wisdom. I once received a letter from a Catholic priest When queer activists fought for hate speech in Saskatchewan. There was no local café or bar legislation, author and journalist Irshad Manji where he could collect his Xtra, so he had taken the questioned in Xtra whether such laws were a form bold step of purchasing a subscription. In those of thought policing. days, Xtra was mailed in plain brown envelopes, When gay couples started taking their vows, our discreet as the kinkiest porn, because in some former board member Brenda Cossman advocated musty corners of Canada, a mere interest in gay for revolutionary relationship recognition not Xtra news might destroy one’s life. celebrates its 200th issue back in 1992, with David Walberg standing on the right. JAKE PETERS exclusive to couples who fuck. The priest expressed gratitude for the lifeline Whether practical or provocative, these posi- Xtra presented. A few weeks later, I received an- tions have sparked debate and expanded our other letter, this one from a bishop ordering me to thinking around key issues of the day. These cancel the priest’s subscription. We continued to We hunger not for an equal slice of a stale unique perspectives have saved us from aspiring mail the brown envelopes and were saddened when heterosexual pie, but for a heaping portion of to mediocrity in favour of creating communities they came back to us marked return-to-sender, hav- that best suit our fabulous realities. ing being intercepted by the Catholic Stasi. sexual liberation, made to order from scratch. Over the years, we’ve also distinguished our- Gay news was hard to come by in those days. selves by tackling our not-so-fabulous realities, Connecting to a community was even harder. already publish signifi cantly more local journalism queer people around the world, and we are inspired including drug abuse, HIV transmission and com- Writing letters to the editor was a way even those on Daily Xtra than we did in the Xtra print editions. to support these struggles. munity infi ghting, or as Sharon Tate says in the in the closet or the boondocks could make contact At the same time, we look to the wider world. It’s noteworthy many of these stories are break- fi lm Valley of the Dolls, why “fags can be so bitchy.” and participate. Last fall, during the Toronto International Film ing on video. We are one of the only consistent For our communities to be strong, we believe we Missives took the form of angry screeds (these Festival, the producers of a queer fi lm from Kenya producers of queer video journalism in the world. need to speak candidly about hard issues, especial- have proliferated, sadly, as trolls highjack the visited our offices. Fearing reprisals, they had Our videos are gaining in popularity across numer- ly as some media prefer to present a whitewashed comments sections of websites everywhere) but submitted the fi lm to TIFF anonymously, and we ous platforms. façade in exchange for mainstream acceptance. also poetry, cartoons, homemade stickers, even were honoured to interview them as they chose Last year, we released a video documentary We’ve delved into seemingly intractable dis- lovingly crafted chapbooks. to publicly come out to the world. called Wham, Bam, mr Pam. It’s the story of the agreements between some radical feminists and For many scribes, the thrill of publication was “I am not afraid to go home,” producer George lone major female producer of gay male porn. The trans communities. More recently, in 2013, we greater than the rush of a hailstorm of Facebook Gachara told Daily Xtra in a video interview. “Shit doc provides a behind-the-scenes look at how one produced a video series about PrEP, the contro- likes. Tomson Highway, a Cree from northernmost can happen, but I want to go back home.” Gachara woman forms her own community in a subculture versial HIV prevention treatment that critics Manitoba, captures it in the quote above. was arrested when he returned to Kenya and is generally sensationalized for exploitation, drug warned would promote new sexually transmit- Today, priests in Saskatchewan have a world now out on bail. More recently, a video interview addiction and suicide. ted epidemics among gay men. That story was so of online gay connections at their fi ngertips. Gay we shot with a lesbian Kenyan judge threatened The fi lm has screened at queer fi lm festivals in underreported at the time that we garnered a Best news, porn, chat and hookups are available to all.