Toronto

Toronto has the most settled LGBTQI+ scene in Canada. Church-Wellesley, which everyone calls The Village, holds more than forty LGBT venues in a few blocks around Church Street, among them long-standing bars like Woody's, Crews & Tangos and Sailor, plus restaurants and gyms.

The scene runs seven days a week: at the weekend the Village is a compulsory stop, and midweek there are options throughout. The secondary poles have characters of their own, with Queen West at the alternative, arty end, Parkdale on the DIY side and with a strong trans presence, Cabbagetown as residential LGBT and Leslieville as the one with the families. Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, open since 1978, describes itself as the largest and oldest queer theatre still operating in the world.

Pride Toronto is held in the last week of June. The first march was in June 1981, a few months after the police raids in February. The organisers put Pride Week 2009 at a million people, and WorldPride 2014, the fourth international edition of the only travelling global event, came close to two million visitors.

The programme stretches across the whole of June, with daily events: the Trans March, the Dyke March and the big parade on the final Sunday. The epicentre is Church Street, closed to traffic during the festival. Alongside it, the calendar holds the Inside Out Film Festival of LGBT cinema, in May, and Buddies in Bad Times' queer programming all year round.

Church and Wellesley is Toronto's historic LGBT enclave, right downtown, and its axis is Church Street between Carlton and Bloor. The centre of the city's gay life moved here after the 1981 police raids, the local equivalent of Stonewall.

The neighbourhood's landmarks are The 519, the Church Street community centre where the LGBT organisations are based, the AIDS memorial and the trans memorial in Barbara Hall Park, and the rainbow crossing painted in 2014. Among the long-standing venues are Woody's, the drag bar Crews & Tangos, Sailor and the Boutique Bar. Glad Day Bookshop, open since 1970 and billed as the oldest LGBTQI+ bookshop still trading in the world, left Church Street in 2025 over rent and now sits at 32 Lisgar Street, in Queen West. The metro stop is Wellesley, on line 1, five minutes' walk from Bloor-Yonge.

The 519, the Church Street community centre, has been the city's LGBT reference since the seventies and houses social, legal and health programmes. Egale Canada, which does national advocacy, and Rainbow Health Ontario both have offices here.

On health, the Hassle Free Clinic, on Church Street, does free STI testing, and the Sherbourne Health Centre runs specialised trans and queer services on a sliding scale. The AIDS Committee of Toronto offers counselling, testing and PrEP navigation. And Casey House, on Isabella Street, has been a specialised HIV hospital since 1988. Ontario's public health cover, OHIP, only applies to residents, so visitors need private insurance.