Toronto’s grassroots Pride Picnic brings ‘queer joy’ to a downtown park | Canada Voices

Two people embrace, forehead to forehead, eyes closed. “This is my twin flame,” says Alex Zalozyk about Brodi-Tyler Dawson.

It’s a sunny Saturday in Toronto’s Christie Pits Park. From a speaker, Chappell Roan’s pop hit “Pink Pony Club” plays, acting as the unofficial soundtrack for the fifth annual Pride Picnic.

A patchwork of blankets, beach towels, and pride flags has begun to form at 11 a.m. Attendees slowly continue to fill the space. Some stumble down the grassy hill, tote bags in hand, eager to greet friends.

“This is my favourite event of the year,” Mr. Dawson explains. He attended the first picnic after hearing about it through friends and fell in love with it immediately.

The Pride Picnic was created with the intention of helping the LGBTQ+ community to reconnect after the isolation they faced during the pandemic.

In fact, this is where Mr. Dawson, a transgender man who proudly shows off his top surgery scars, and Ms. Zalozyk, a lesbian who wears a shirt that reads “girl kisser,” met last year.

Ms. Zalozyk recounts her own version of how they met, a somewhat convoluted story of near misses and chance encounters, but she stops to point out, “I see two girls kissing.”

And indeed they are, tucked under the shade of a nearby tree and now smiling at each other.

“That is queer joy, right there. I love it,” she says, smiling widely.

In the middle of this growing crowd of jean shorts and carabiners, the organizers of the Pride Picnic wear smiley face patches. Meg Moon wears one; hers is made from yellow felt, a Sharpie and a safety pin.

She never imagined that a seven-second video on TikTok she posted in May, 2022, would lead to hundreds of people gathering together at the park. In the video, Ms. Moon drinks a glass of juice and the overlaid text announces a queer picnic offering a chance to make new friends.

That initial video gained almost 400,000 views. In the comments, people excitedly asked for details and made plans to attend.

“I’m not an event organizer,” says Ms. Moon, but after reaching out to others to help plan and after posting a couple more TikToks, the Pride Picnic was born.

The crowd is a mix of young adults and teenagers, people with young kids of their own, and one older couple, with greying hair, holding hands and walking their dog.

It’s no surprise that the LGBTQ+ community would be eager to participate, given that Pride in Toronto first began as the Gay Day Picnic at Hanlan’s Point Beach in 1971.

“It is so cool to know that our queer elders were doing the same thing back then,” says Ms. Moon.

Now, in the present, attendees of the Pride Picnic enjoy the sunshine and the breeze in any way they wish.

One young woman sits by herself peacefully knitting with multi-coloured yarn and listening to music. Off by the trees, someone has set up a clothing swap, and accessories and outfits are laid out across tarps for people to peruse.

Towards the middle of the park pit, a group engages in an impromptu handstand contest. There are shrieks of laughter as one women unsuccessfully tries to keep her balance.

Further up on the hill, Kayla Culham sits with her two children and Charlotte Nurse, her friend of 25 years. Ms. Culham notes that she and Ms. Nurse are “not not a couple.”

Often, Pride events are tied to drinking and nightlife culture. The Pride Picnic offers a family-friendly space to celebrate.

“It’s nice for the kids to be able to come and meet other people in the community,” says Ms. Culham. “It’s really low-key, it’s not a big, crazy event where you feel like you have to dress a certain way.”

Ms. Culham explains they travelled from Cambridge, Ont., to be here; her youngest child runs gleefully through the grass, expertly weaving around other attendees.

By 2 p.m., the patchwork has grown to fill in the sides and top of the hill. As Mr. Dawson describes it, “You can kind of just literally turn in a circle and enjoy the beautiful view of happy queer people.”

One picnic-goer has baked a rainbow-coloured cake; its vibrant colour can be seen even from a few picnic blankets away. They walk around with cake in hand, their friends with plates and forks, offering pieces to whoever might want a bite.

The world-famous Pride Parade in Toronto has drawn heat from some corners of the LGBTQ+ community for being too corporate. Here, the grassroots nature of the picnic has become one of the its biggest draws.

One group of friends lounges in the sun around a pile of black and white hexagon tiles. Coloured bugs decorate the tiles (the game is explained as chess, but with bugs, sort of).

“There’s something about the informality of the picnic and not feeling like it’s some brand promotional opportunity,” says Amanda Smith while playing with a green butterfly earring. “Especially for Pride, where it always feels like they’re either trying to make money off of you by using your image or directly through your wallet.”

Since its start, the Pride Picnic has remained a grassroots event. Its organizers have turned down offers from companies for sponsorship and have refused to make it ticketed.

Ms. Smith’s friend Janet Marandola nods in agreement. “This kind of space is the antidote to feeling like Pride has been taken over by corporations.”

Indeed, the only signage that can be seen at the event is a transgender flag planted by attendees and a banner for AQUA, the Asian Queer Alliance, a community-run group.

Another attendee approaches the group, complimenting Ms. Smith’s bright green dress. They ask to take a photo of the group. The women readily agree and joke about now being famous. Ms. Smith thanks the attendee for the photography and gushes that she would love to have a photo of the event – she always seems to forget to take her own photos. What looks like a new friendship begins to blossom.

For Ms. Marandola, the very public nature of the event is incredibly important. Especially for queer youth who might not have other queer people in their lives, it may help encourage them to live their lives authentically.

“And also just being visible in itself is a reclamation of power,” she says thoughtfully.

It’s nearing 4 p.m., when the Pride Picnic ends, but the park remains wonderfully full and alive with the buzz of its queer patrons. Some stay on as the day begins to turn into evening.