Eulogy for a Village: Gentrification and the Disappearance of Queer Sexual Geographies (BMCC stop 3)

Eulogy for a Village: Gentrification and the Dis/appearance of Queer Sexual Geographies Presented by C.G. Smith (aka Christopher Smith) [the third stop on The Bank, The Mine, The Colony, The Crime walking tour to explore extraction, colonialism and financialization in Toronto's financial district, organized by WalkingLab and the ReImagining Value Action Lab] This talk considers the rise of gentrification in the Church/Wellesley village in Toronto. Once understood as a necessary site to ensure an autonomous LGBT+ community, rising rental costs have facilitated the displacement of persons and historic establishments. With the homonormative turn in queer politics one guiding assumption was that an alliance with corporate institutions would benefit queer communities through the redistribution of finance through corporate sponsorship. This however is far from the truth as seen in the gradual disappearance of venues that enabled a vibrant sexual culture. Whether speaking of bathhouses, night-clubs, or one’s favorite watering hole, these sites of pleasure are increasingly lost amidst a rising condo boom. Thus, this talk is framed as a eulogy for those cherished spaces gone but not forgotten. *This recorded talk on October 5th 2019 occurred on a cold windy day, which prompted written notes to flap, flip, and return to my sight. Listen with kindness. [Dr. Christopher Smith](https://utoronto.academia.edu/ChristopherSmith) received his Ph.D. from the Dept. of Social Justice Education - Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) / University of Toronto in 2020. Their research interests reside in the productive interstices of Black Diaspora Cultural Studies, Queer and Feminist Theory, including Post-Colonial and Decolonial studies. They are currently teaching as a Sessional Lecturer in the Dept. of Historical & Cultural Studies (University of Toronto, Scarborough). On 5 October 2019 WalkingLab and the ReImagining Value Action Lab (RiVAL) assembled a temporary community of activists, artists, scholars and other peripatetic counter-speculators in Toronto’s financial district to share our knowledge, ideas and forms of resistance through a series of presentations at various locations.