Roger-Luc Chayer
A very surprising gesture was made on August 22, less than 3 days after the 2018 Montreal Pride Festival celebrations, as employees of the City of Montreal erased all traces of the gay flags painted at certain intersections of the Gay Village, without warning. The gesture is all the more surprising as the flags painted on the pavement were painted with quality paint and their erasure required the use of powerful sand jets. And (re) all the more surprising that in other cities that use the same concept, the flags are painted permanently, so as to honor not only a neighborhood generally recognized as « gay », but to decorate these same neighborhoods. In the case of the Village, the flags were painted on Ste-Catherine Street East, this is a very touristy neighborhood that is mainly for LGBT people around the world. Why erase important and meaningful colors for many people? Why do it while pedestrianization is not over? Many traders located between the Papineau and Plessis streets had big on their heart: « If it’s not a tragedy what is it? » a long-time gay activist exclaims as he sees the result of these astounding works. « It’s like we want to erase all traces of our existence and our celebrations. We are gay year-round, why put so much effort into making ourselves invisible when these flags were beautiful and despite the passage of thousands of visitors in two weeks, they were not even damaged? « , Say the trader one with tears in his eyes!
During the visit of Gay Globe, obviously as the work had just been done, we clearly saw the sanding marks left by the sand jets required to annihilate the colored traces of our pride but worse, we had let slip this a kind of whitish cream resulting from the sand-water paint mixture in the middle of the street, causing sticky puddles of this residual product, as can be seen in the picture, just above the right flower box. There were everywhere, on the terraces of the tradesmen, the sidewalks and the street. A job pigs as a passerby said when taking our photos. Gay Globe tried to find out the reasons for these actions by asking the Mayor of Montreal and Borough Ville-Marie, Valérie Plante, Area Councilor Mr. Robert Beaudry, officials of the Village Commercial Development Corporation, but at the time of publication, no one wanted to comment, which raises other issues that we will come back to in a future edition and which concern the actions of the mayor and the counselor against the gay media.
It is important to remember, in the face of what appears to be a firm desire to erase our symbols, that the colors of the gay flag have an important meaning, depending on whether one is homosexual, bisexual or trans. It is an image that brings together differences and allows LGBT people to have a visual existence, to mark their territory in other words. The gay flag is also a way to show people from the rest of society that LGBT people can be a community that sets the example, that gay doing is not an end in itself for young people and others who ask questions. Why not repaint them?