Overnight, Church St. changed.
After nine years on the main strip of Toronto's gay village, Zelda's restaurant shut its doors last month without a word of warning. From 2 a.m. until dawn, owner Michael Swann and his staff filled a moving van with kitchen appliances, dishes and bottles of alcohol.
Swann says the quick move was because a bigger, cheaper place became available on Yonge St. With the lease on his Church location up for renewal, he says his landlord wanted to raise the rent from $27,000 to $35,000 a month.
Gentrification is a flashpoint in any city, but in the Church-Wellesley village, the exodus of old inhabitants in recent years has political undertones.
Historically, the neighbourhood has been a place of comfort for those whose sexuality once made them social outcasts, but in 2009, the very concept of a gay village is in transition.
Rapidly rising housing prices mean Church-Wellesley is hardly the "ghetto" it was in the years before same-sex marriage and other such victories.
And for the young people who could be the neighbourhood's future, the labels "gay" and "lesbian" are just a starting point for self-discovery.
"I prefer no identification, but the easiest way is to say pansexual and trans," says Teal Jaques, 20, who is considering making a physical transition from being a biological male.
Church St. evokes mixed feelings for Jaques. First drawn there expecting an embrace of non-mainstream expressions of gender and sexuality, Jaques says the village imposes its own boxes.
"Not being rejected was as good a welcome as you were going to get," Jaques says of being a young trans person in the village. She has had ample opportunity to size up the neighbourhood – she lives at the Turning Point youth centre on Wellesley after being kicked out of her father's house two years ago.
Jaques has also attended the Wednesday night trans youth group at the 519 Church Street Community Centre for two years.
Preferring Dungeons and Dragons to bar-hopping, Jaques is tired of people who seem exasperated when she responds "a writer" to the constant question of "what are you?"
"You need some kind of personality beyond being queer," says Jaques, who prefers to spend free time at Sketch, an arts centre for youth at Queen and Spadina. "Honestly, on Church, there isn't a whole lot to do."
Complaints of homogeneity have dogged the village for years. Multi-ethnic events are infrequent, and everything from Xtra to street advertising seems male-dominated, especially since the closing of long-running women's bar Crews & Tango.
Finding an affordable, gay-positive hangout space is hard for 20-something women, especially those who don't want to drink.
Many say while Church was a beacon during their sensitive coming-out period, the area's flaws became apparent as they became more secure with their sexuality.
Aqeela Nanji, 21, labels herself queer and says she is a less frequent visitor to the area than when she was first coming out. She sometimes attends events put on by Queer Asian Youth, but says those don't happen often enough. "I feel it's easy to get caught up in partying in the village," says Nanji, who is now comfortable hanging out in other neighbourhoods.
"I don't need my appearance to scream `dyke,'" 26-year-old nanny Caitlin Thompson wrote in an email. She, too, says Church St. is less of a draw now. "I'm not interested in going to boy bars that pound loud house music." She and her girlfriend live in the Beach and tend to hang out in Leslieville.
The expense and sameness of Church St. is "a problem my youth talk about all the time," says Suhail AbualSameed, a program organizer with Supporting Our Youth, a GLBT program at the Sherbourne Health Centre.
He is sympathetic toward entrepreneurs faced with exorbitant rents, but says focusing on customers with money keeps the village largely the haunt of middle-aged, middle-class white men.
AbualSameed also puts together programs for gay, lesbian and transgendered immigrants and refugees, another group that doesn't have a lot of disposable cash. They, too, want to be part of the village, but don't know how without buying food or drinks.
"These are businesses that need a certain amount of money to survive," says David Wooten, managing director for the Church-Wellesley Business Improvement Area. He says many area landlords don't live in the village – or in Toronto – and sometimes charge high rents because "this is the only gay village, so they know people will come here."
Wooten scoffs at the rumour McDonald's is moving in, but high rents have certainly caused veteran businesses, like This Ain't the Rosedale Library bookstore, to move to more affordable parts of the city.
The notion of supporting gay-owned businesses now seems almost quaint.
Wooten doesn't have any power over what landlords charge, and neither does Kyle Rae, the area's longtime city councillor, who has complained for years that revenue on Church St. is too dependent on alcohol sales.
Students trying to organize events agree. Corey Scott and David Ivey are organizers of Homohop, a long-running all-ages dance party held by U of T group LGBTOUT. Until a few years ago, the party was held at now-closed Church St. nightclub 5ive. Searching for a new venue, the two found most bars balked at the cost of slapping wristbands on hundreds of underage non-drinkers.
"Kids don't have a lot of money," says Ivey, 22, about planning the party in 2006.
"And every venue that does any kind of gay event has an incredibly, incredibly high profit margin."
Luckily for LGBTOUT, 5ive's past general manager, Russell Palloo, now oversees iconic Church St. club The Barn and agreed to let the students use the venue.
Palloo, who lets the U of T group pocket the cover charge, says hosting a Homohop costs him at least $3,000 in profits. "I only do it if I can afford it and I have the time slot," he says.
"It's difficult, but we're a gay bar in a gay community, we need to give something back."
