Enza Anderson | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 1964 (age 59–60) [1] |
| Nationality | Canadian |
| Occupation(s) | Journalist, media personality, politician, activist |
Enza Anderson (born 1964) is a Canadian journalist, media personality, Ontario politician, and transgender rights activist.
Anderson was born in Toronto, Ontario. Assigned male at birth, [2] she grew up in Toronto, living near Jane and Finch [3] with an Italian-Catholic father.
She initially attended York University to study geography but left due to a combination of lack of interest in the subject and her mother becoming sick. After a one-year hiatus, she attended Seneca College where she studied civil engineering and technologies.
After graduation she worked as the quality control supervisor of a concrete pipe-manufacturing plant, but was laid off after five years. She then worked part-time as a bartender at Woody's. [4]
In 1995 she got a job at a hair salon on Yonge Street, which called for her to hand out flyers for the salon to pedestrians in drag. It was during that job that a photo of her kissing then-mayor Mel Lastman ended up on the front cover of the Toronto Sun , [5] marking the start of her career in the public eye.
Anderson wrote a social column, "The Hot Ticket", for Canada's highest circulated free daily newspaper, Metro Toronto . [6] She also divides her work schedule at the Bank of Montreal assisting clients as a financial services manager.
In 2000, Anderson ran for mayor of Toronto. Although the eventual winner of that campaign, Mel Lastman, won over 80% of the vote, Anderson garnered 13,585 votes, placing third behind Lastman and Tooker Gomberg. [7] She was one of the few candidates besides Lastman, Gomberg and Ben Kerr to gain widespread name recognition in the race, even though her campaign largely consisted of standing on downtown street corners with a handmade placard bearing the slogan "A Super City Deserves a Super Model!". [5]
In 2002, Anderson ran for the leadership of the Canadian Alliance. She was unable to raise the $25,000 required by the party to register as a candidate, and dropped out of the race before the convention which ultimately chose Stephen Harper. [8]
In the 2003 municipal election in Toronto, Anderson ran for a city council seat against incumbent Kyle Rae and placed second, though she was not considered to be a serious threat against him. [9]
She ran and lost in the same ward in the 2010 municipal election. [10]
Anderson has a column in the Toronto newspaper Metro , covering local entertainment and party gossip since 2004, [11] after she pitched the idea of her doing a column to the editor-in-chief, bringing a mocked-up version of one of her articles complete with Metro banner. [11] She was also a fully clothed guest interviewer in the male version of Naked News .
She was the subject of a 2003 documentary by Carlos Valencia named A Man in a Dress, [12] and was also interviewed speaking about her spirituality on Vision TV's Credo. [13] In 2015 Enza was the feature of her second documentary "...When The Bullying Ends" which was selected to screen at the 2016 Kolkata Shorts International Film Festival in India. Directed by queer filmmaker Raymond Helkio tells the story her work as an anti-bullying and queer rights activist.
Anderson was chosen as grand marshal of Toronto's 2008 Pride Parade. [14]
Anderson served as a board member of the Church and Wellesley Neighbourhood Police Liaison Committee. [15] Her two years as Pride Committee Co-chair of Fundraising helped raise record amounts needed to cover festival costs. [16] She put in many fundraising hours for the AIDS Committee of Toronto and its signature fundraising event Fashion Cares. [17] Anderson helped bring awareness of support groups like the People With AIDS Foundation and the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered Youth Support Line. [18] She also served on the Federation of Metro Tenants' Associations. [17] She also serves on the LGBT Consultative Committee-Toronto Police Service. [19]
Melvin Douglas Lastman was a Canadian businessman and politician, who served as the third mayor of North York from 1973 to 1997 and the 62nd Mayor of Toronto from 1998 to 2003. He was the first person to serve as the mayor of Toronto following the amalgamation of Metro Toronto in 1998 and its six constituent municipalities. Lastman is also known for having founded the Bad Boy Furniture chain.
Church and Wellesley is an LGBT-oriented enclave in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is roughly bounded by Gerrard Street to the south, Yonge Street to the west, Charles Street to the north, and Jarvis Street to the east, with the core commercial strip located along Church Street from Wellesley south to Alexander. Though some LGBT-oriented establishments can be found outside this area, the general boundaries of this village have been defined by the Gay Toronto Tourism Guild.
Pride Toronto is an annual event held in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, in June each year. A celebration of the diversity of the 2SLGBTQI+ community in the Greater Toronto Area, it is one of the largest organized Pride festivals in the world, featuring several stages with live performers, drag artists and DJs, several licensed venues, a large Dyke March, a Trans March and the Pride Parade. The centre of the festival is the city's Church and Wellesley village, while the parade and marches are primarily routed along the nearby Yonge Street, Bloor Street and Dundas Street.
Tooker Gomberg was a Canadian politician and environmental activist. A native of Montreal, Quebec, a graduate of Herzliah High School and a liberal-arts graduate of Hampshire College (1980), Gomberg founded one of Canada's first curbside recycling programs in Montreal, and later moved to Edmonton, Alberta, where he created educational materials for Alberta's energy ministry and headed the EcoCity Society, an environmental agency.
Glad Day Bookshop is an independent bookstore and restaurant located in Toronto, Ontario, specializing in LGBT literature. Previously located above a storefront at 598A Yonge Street for much of its history, the store moved to its current location at 499 Church Street, in the heart of the city's Church and Wellesley neighbourhood, in 2016. The store's name and logo are based on a painting by William Blake.
Ottawa Capital Pride is an annual LGBTQ pride event, festival, and parade held in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, and Gatineau, Quebec, from mid to late August. Established in 1986, it has evolved into a 7 to 9-day celebration of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community, advocating for equality, diversity, and inclusion in the National Capital Region. The festival offers bilingual events in English and French, known as 'Capital Pride / Fierté dans la capitale', seamlessly blending local pride with national importance.
El-Farouk Khaki is a Tanzanian-born Muslim Canadian of Indian origin who is a refugee and immigration lawyer, and human rights activist on issues including gender equality, sexual orientation, and progressive Islam. He was the New Democratic Party's candidate for the House of Commons in the riding of Toronto Centre in a March 17, 2008 by-election. Khaki came in second with 13.8% of the vote.
Moose in the City was a public art display in the year 2000 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada organized by the municipal government, which throughout the city placed 326 life-sized moose sculptures that had been decorated by local artists.
This is a timeline of notable events in the history of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community in Canada. For a broad overview of LGBT history in Canada see LGBT history in Canada.
Tri-Pride, stylized tri-Pride, is an annual non-profit lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer Pride festival in the Waterloo Region of Ontario, encompassing the cities of Cambridge, Kitchener and Waterloo. Prior to the launch of Guelph Pride in 2003, the event also included the city of Guelph.
Fierté Montréal, also called Montreal Pride, is an annual LGBT pride festival in Montreal, Quebec. The event was founded in 2007 at the initiative of Montreal’s LGBTQ+ communities after the city's prior Pride festival, Divers/Cité, repositioned itself as a general arts and music festival.
Although same-sex sexual activity was illegal in Canada up to 1969, gay and lesbian themes appear in Canadian literature throughout the 20th century. Canada is now regarded as one of the most advanced countries in legal recognition of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) rights.
Christin Scarlett Milloy is a Canadian politician and LGBT activist. She was the first political candidate at the Canadian provincial level to publicly identify as transgender and ran for the Ontario Libertarian Party. In 2014, she helped lead the Trans Pride march. She is a member of the Trans Lobby Group, which lobbied at Queen's Park to pass Toby's Law, and has campaigned for transgender rights and gay-straight alliances for LGBT youth.
Vancouver's LGBT community is centered on Davie Village. Commercial Drive has historically acted as a gayborhood for the Vancouver lesbian community. Historically, LGBT people have also gathered in the Chinatown and Gastown neighborhoods. Former establishments include Dino's Turkish Baths, a gay bathhouse on Hastings, and the city's first drag bar, BJ's, on Pender Street.
The 2018 Toronto mayoral election was held on Monday, October 22, 2018, to elect the Mayor of the city of Toronto. Incumbent Mayor John Tory was re-elected for a second term, defeating former Chief City Planner Jennifer Keesmaat with 63.49% of the vote. Tory won all of Toronto’s 25 wards.
Love, Scott is a 2018 Canadian documentary film, directed by Laura Marie Wayne. The film profiles Scott Jones, a gay man who was left paraplegic in an anti-gay attack in 2013.
The Pussy Palace Raid occurred on September 14, 2000, when Toronto police raided a lesbian bathhouse known as the "Pussy Palace" during the "2000 Pussies" event. Two undercover female police officers attended and investigated the event prior to the raid. Five plainclothes male police officers then entered and searched the club, including private rooms. There were around 350 women in attendance at the time, many of whom were nude or semi-clad.
Melissa Lantsman is a Canadian politician and public relations executive who serves as the member of Parliament (MP) for Thornhill since 2021. A member of the Conservative Party, she is the party's co-deputy leader and the co-deputy leader of the Official Opposition, serving with Tim Uppal. Lantsman is the first openly gay and first Jewish woman ever elected as a Conservative MP. Upon Pierre Poilievre's election as Conservative Leader, he named Lantsman one of two deputy leaders along with Uppal.
The 38-year-old... with Pride Week 2002 now in full swing
