On Monday, the city of Victoria raised 5 flags in anticipation of Pride (including the transgender, two-spirit, genderqueer, and non-binary flags, alongside rainbow). With just a few days left until Victoria’s 2018 Pride Week kick-off, there’s a LOT to look forward to in the next couple of weeks! Here are some events to consider!
1. Drag Ball (July 1st)
The annual Canada Day kick-off to Pride Week and can’t-miss event: Kings vs Queens in a softball game where, in the wise words of WLIIA, “the rules are made up and the points don’t matter!” An awesome day to get dressed up in rainbow and day drink… or join in the game! More info about Drag Ball.
Continue reading “11 Things to Look Forward to at Victoria Pride 2018”
Jenna Wimshurst is a comedy and travel writer who also happens to be a lesbian. Humorous travel writing and being a lesbian happen to be two of my favourite things, so when she wanted to write a guest post for my blog, I was ecstatic! She even spells ‘travelling’ the right way the same way we do in Canada! Clearly, Jenna is fabulous. Once you’ve enjoyed her insightful and hilarious essay about what it’s like to travel as a lesbian couple, head over to her blog to read more things that will have you guffawing in seconds!
The Trouble with Travelling as a Lesbian Couple
The couple in room 12 are lesbians
In April 2016, the UK Foreign Office updated its travel advice warning gay and transgender travellers visiting the American states of North Carolina and Mississippi to be careful. It really got me thinking that a) America can be a dangerous place for LGBTQ community, and b) thank God there’s a government body here to tell me to tone down my gayness when on my holibobs otherwise I would’ve been throwing my lesbian self about all over the joint.
Other lesbians and gays will be familiar with those nervous few moments you get when you first approach the hotel reception with your partner and check into your double room that only has one bed.
A few things go through my mind when I first give my booking details to the receptionist:
– Are they going to say anything about us being massive lesbians?
– Will they say that we can’t stay at their hotel because of our sexuality?
– Will they press the homosexual button where rainbow flags drop down, Wham bursts out of the radio and suddenly two sparkling pink cocktails appear in our hands. Sounds fabulous.
But even if they don’t say anything, I know that they’re going to be telling their colleagues that there’s two lesbians staying in room 12 straight after they’ve served us. Ok, I don’t KNOW this, but I HIGHLY suspect it.
Continue reading “Guest Post: The Trouble with Travelling as a Lesbian Couple”
It’s been a while since I’ve had a chance to really put my heart into my writing, but it was such a joy to immerse myself in this piece for Travel with Mei and Kerstin.
Mei and Kerstin have been featuring lesbian travellers on their blog, and they asked me to share a story. The topic was open-ended; it could be about how I started to travel, a specific travel story, lesbian travel, or something else. As I started reflecting, I realized how interconnected travel and coming out were for me, and how difficult it would be to disentangle travel and my sexuality from my current identity. What followed was a sort of summary of 10 years of travel, where I focus on coming out, and the important connection between being a lesbian and being a traveller.
Take a look at the article here: Lesbian Traveler: Leslie from Les Talk, More Travel.
Read more on my blog about: my coming out story, queer and lesbian Victoria, BC (this could use an update!), one of my favourite trips with my girlfriend, and some highlights from Vancouver and Victoria’s Pride festivals.
Updated July 2020. This post started out as lesbian-specific and has since evolved, but you may find some of the info to be a little lesbionic.
The thing about Victoria is that regardless of whether you hit up any gay events while you’re in town, it’s a beautiful, safe city* to explore with your same-sex partner, or to meet up with a group of queer locals. It’s also a great jumping off point for exploring this magical island, and a short ferry ride to both Seattle and Vancouver. There’s a lot to be proud of in Victoria! Victoria’s public school board recently passed a thorough new gender identity policy, the city explodes with rainbows during Pride, and hey – our mayor is an openly gay woman! Tourism Victoria even created an awesome map of all-gender/gender neutral washrooms in the city and surrounding area, with accessibility information.
Hold on, you might be thinking, I heard that Victoria is a small city with a disproportionately high retiree population?!? You heard right! But there are way more people living here who are below retirement age! It might seem quiet at first, but have no fear if you’re young and queer: there’s lots to do in this city, if you know where to look!
Lez Go to Victoria:
I turned 30 last month; a lot has changed in the past 10 years! Here’s the TL; DR of the longer intro I’m not going to write: I turned 30; here are some ways that I’ve changed and some things that I’ve learned along the way about travel, sexuality, introversion, and wisdom teeth.
Since moving out west, my life just seems to be getting gayer and gayer! That has a lot to do with the ways I’ve changed since coming out, having some great queer friends and social outlets, and having a partner who has no qualms about wearing rainbow in public, which makes me feel comfortable doing the same. With my newfound queer confidence, I’ve been integrating that part of my identity into everyday life – not just socially but also through volunteer experience and research projects at school.
However, one of the most fun aspects of my increasingly supergay identity has been West Coast Pride festivals! I was lucky enough to attend a bunch of events this summer in both Victoria and Vancouver. It was exciting to do more than just watch the parades, which, although enjoyable, is all I’ve really done at the handful of Pride festivals I’ve been to in the past. This year, I got to coordinate multiple rainbow and unicorn outfits.
These were some of the highlights: Continue reading “Rainbow Summer: West Coast Pride”
Les Talk, More Travel 