Gay and Lesbian
"Queer Nation?"


Introduction:
The gay and lesbian seminar had a lot of controversy. Everyone have his or her own beliefs regarding this topic. The articles that we read gave us inside information about the gay activities that occur in our country. The seminar gave us an opportunity to argue our points.

Notes:

-Queer Nation was founded at an ACT UP New York meeting in April 1990.

-It rapidly became a part of the gay and lesbian zeitgeist, in many directions, but it is worth nothing that it began as a product of AIDS activism.

-It was he recognition of AIDS as a central and omnipresent problem that led to the greatest development of organization in the gay community.

-AIDS is but one element of contemporary gay and lesbian life.

-AIDS action was limited in two ways: first, it is an attack on a symptom, the disease, rather than the cause, homophobia; secondly, it is an emphasis on the negative rather than the positive, the power of difference shared by homosexuals.

-Many gays and lesbians find the oppositional energy of the term off-putting.

-For most, however, "queer" remains just a collective term for gays and lesbians.

-"Nation" of Queer Nation is a belief in a community that supersedes the traditional view of the nation-state.

-Canada in general is a strange nation, or "queer" in what at one time was the more common usage, and this in some ways enables the queers of Canada to function in a quite different way from that envisioned by Queer Nation in the United States.

-In Canada, sexuality is a physical fact that is organized in social terms.

-Canada same-sex laws began with British statutes against sodomy.

-Native homosexuals are seen to be two-spirited and their community has become a refuge much like Toronto’s Church and Wellesley district for the rest of the gays and lesbians population.

-The tradition for gays and lesbians throughout the western world has been to gravitate to the metropolis, partly to escape pressures of conservative homes and partly to seek others like themselves who have made the journey before.

-Canadians, the gay Canadians has treated Toronto as a Mecca opportunity

-Gay men have recognized the various versions of guise needed to survive in a homophobic world.

Reflection:

Gays and lesbians should be accepted in out society although they will be those who dislike gays and lesbians. A person could live their lives however they please. What a person chooses to do is his or her own personal business. Toronto has accepted gays and lesbians but Canada as a whole has not overcome that concept and they have yet to accept the fact that people are gay and they will find some sort of way to be with each other. Everyone should be treated equally and respected the same no matter their sexual preference