Key takeaways:
- ‘Come Home Queer’ capitalizes on N.L.’s tourism strategy.
- Organizer Gerry Rogers has prepared performance by Kellie Loder.
An occasion planned this summer in a small Newfoundland town seeks to unite the region’s LGTBQ diaspora and celebrate the lesbian past of the aptly called community of Broad Cove.
“Come Home Queer” is a play on the region’s Come Home Year tourism theme, asking Newfoundland and Labrador ex-pats to return to the area for a visit this summer. The occasion, running July 15-17, is set to occur in Broad Cove, where nearly 30 lesbians — most of them friends from St. John’s — have been settling or summering for the prior three decades.
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Organizer Gerry Rogers has scheduled performances by Kellie Loder, lessons by authors, including Eva Crocker, and storytelling events about the region’s LGTBQ history, including the story of Broad Cove, located approximately 100 kilometers west of St. John’s.
“It’s busting myths, you know? Rural Newfoundland and Labrador are not backward,” said Rogers, who, after 30 years of seeing the town, is now constructing a home there to retire in. “There are many people here now who have kids or grandchildren or families or friends, people in their community who are queer. And there is acceptance.”
Source – cbc.ca
