How Toronto’s Glad Day is Curating Queer Community in a Pandemic

Even in normal times, Glad Day bookshop is an intensely creative and inclusive space. Part cafe, part bar, part event space, part oldest-queer-bookshop-in-the-world, the Church and Wellesley establishment is an important feature of Toronto’s LGBT+ community. On an average Sunday, it’s not uncommon to be stopped on Church Street by a towering Drag Queen bursting out the Glad Day doors, straight into traffic and mid-Adele. Hello, indeed. When the COVID-19 pandemic forced Glad Day to close its doors in mid-March, all the events that usually take place (<a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-pitching-in-emergency-survival-fund-for-lgbtq2s-artists-performers/" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">75 a month on average</a>) were cancelled. This stripped the venue of a desperately needed source of cash revenue for performers, bartenders, DJs and artists. To further complicate matters, Glad Day itself is a small business with a large rent, making its operational viability as uncertain as any other Toronto establishment in the time of COVID-19. <a href="https://medium.com/diverse-innovations/how-torontos-glad-day-is-curating-queer-community-in-a-pandemic-be2403ef6ff2">Read More</a>