It’s definitely the slow news season: the Ottawa Sun summarizes an article in Outlooks magazine entitled “The Gayest Small Town in Canada”:
Travel editor Randall Shirley came to see a show or two and met with some of Stratford’s prominent gay and lesbian residents and business owners, some of whom were featured in the article.
The piece — “The Gayest Small Town in Canada” — appears in the July/August edition in print and online. The national magazine is geared toward the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered (GLBT) population.
Shirley wasn’t surprised to find a relatively large gay and lesbian community in the southwestern Ontario city of 30,000, but what did surprise him was the openness he found there.
“Growing up in a small town myself, I know how difficult it could be. I was just really surprised at how open they are about it,” he said from his Vancouver home.
He noted the artistic community connected to the theatre is a draw for GBLT visitors but Stratford is unique because it’s in the middle of a rural area.
Okay, perhaps Ottawa is far enough removed from Stratford that this might come as a surprise to Sun readers, but really? Stratford has two industries: pig farming and the Festival. Historically, the theatre has been one of the few areas where being gay was not an automatic career-destroyer. Stratford’s theatre industry is huge for the town … it literally put the place on the map. Put these facts together, and you’re surprised that the town is gay friendly (or, at the very least, nowhere near as gay-hostile as a typical small town in a rural area)?
