Original subtitles

(Reel rattles)

Male Narrator: It took me a whole year

after reaching the legal drinking age

to finally have the guts to go to The Roost.

Wearing a black dress shirt, grey cargo pants,

a bronze Indian necklace

and light blue glitter around my eyes,

I nervously walked into Edmonton's

most popular gay bar.

I wasn't sure what to expect,

but I knew I was searching for sanctuary.

(Dance music plays)

I hoped to be greeted by a circle of gays

holding hands under strobe lights

and swaying to heavenly R&B,

that would open to embrace me.

Together they would say,

"You are home."

Instead, through the smell of stale beer,

and the sound of a Celine Dion techno remix,

I heard someone yell, "Fucking drag queens,

they need to get their own bar!"

I always credit The Roost as the place

where I learned that being oppressed

doesn't prevent you from oppressing others.

I learned this over and over again in mutated ways.

Like when my best friend was told by the lesbian clique

that she wasn't a real dyke,

unless she shaved her head.

And even after she did, she wasn't embraced.

Or when I learned that exotic was code for, "not white"

which was code for, "not like us" which code for,

"here comes 5 years of hating my brownness."

Or when I ran into one of my high school bullies

and panicked assuming that he must've tracked me down;

never imagining that he might be queer.

And yet, despite the ways that our communal self hatred

was aimed at each other, I kept returning.

♪♪♪

Maybe because we were all forced to be low-key

in our everyday lives,

the unpredictability of The Roost was kind of addictive.

What was gonna happen?

The only way to find out was to go.

I went looking for teenage love to feel desirable.

Or perhaps I was actually seeking confirmation

of my undesirability.

I would often mentally select the hottest guy in the room

and spend the rest of the night obsessing about

whether or not he would notice me,

approach me, dance with me.

If he did, I was shocked.

If he didn't, I felt validated.

Why did I keep playing this game?

Why did I keep going back?

Sometimes it was as simple and as thrilling

as hoping the DJ would play that George Michael song,

so I can take over the dance floor

and for 4 minutes and 30 seconds, feel invincible.

♪♪♪

I might not have been the most attractive boy in the bar,

but I knew I had moves.

♪♪♪

After relocating to Toronto,

I found myself missing The Roost.

In the big city there was a bar for every kind of gay man:

twinks, leather daddies, hipsters...

There were few bars for queer women;

often pop-up women only spaces.

Somehow, being in a city with hundreds more queer people

meant that we chose to spend less time with queers

who didn't look or desire like us.

The privilege of numbers had resulted in a new kind

of segregation... between us.

♪♪♪

The wish that had been shouted at The Roost,

that drag queens needed to get their own bar,

turned out to be a prophecy that had come true.

♪♪♪

While The Roost was far from idyllic,

being forced to share a space meant just that.

We we're forced to share,

forced to engage with each other

and that force of different kinds of queers

dancing collectively,

felt as close to a definition of queer

as I've yet to encounter.

We were wounded,

we were cruel,

we were innocent,

we were searching,

we were lustful,

we were ecstatic...

we were together.

The Roost closed in 2007,

two years after gay marriage became legal,

30 years after it had opened

and almost 40 years after homosexuality

was partially decriminalized in Canada.

Today, the building houses a Canada Border Police Office.

(Car rumbles by)