We could be ourselves here, we thought, and what better place to do it than Le Drague? It felt a little taboo, but we were in a new city, safe from the leering eyes of familiar faces in Ottawa. We were fascinated by the idea of it, imagining the debauchery we might get into and the fellow queer people we might meet. Both of us are queer, but prior to that weekend, we had spent most of our time awkwardly fumbling around straight-dominated spaces in Ottawa, trying to figure out who we were and whom we liked.Īfter we arrived in Quebec, we learned that one of the city’s few gay bars, aptly named Le Drague, was located a few minutes’ walk from our Airbnb. It was in 2017, during a pivotal summer between the first and second years of university, when my friend Sarah and I-still navigating the transition between adolescence and adulthood-decided to take a trip to Quebec City.
T he first time I went to a gay bar, I was eighteen years old.
