It’s just a few days before Toronto Pride in late June 2024, and the hamlet I visited – along with two other queer journalists and our guide – was pristinely curated for Pride. Toronto hosts one of the largest Pride parades in the world with Trans and Dyke Marches in the lead-up to Sunday’s big queer denouement; the city’s LGBTQ+ community center, the 519, anchored the festivities. From the idyll of PEC with its overall embracing of queer culture to the distinctly political, freeing sensibility of Toronto Pride, I returned home with a renewed commitment to being as outwardly queer as possible.