Consuming Queerness: Homonormativity, Urban Design, and Queer Space in Montreal

Located in the heart of downtown Montreal, the Village stands as one of North America’s most recognizable queer neighbourhoods. Yet beneath this image lies a deeper story about urban design, inequality, and exclusion. Early LGBT-friendly bars and gathering spaces initially centred around Sainte Catherine West and Crescent Street, were systematically displaced during “clean up” campaigns in anticipation of Expo 67 and the 1976 Summer Olympics. These efforts to “modernize and sanitize” city’s image forced Montreal’s queer community to relocate toward Sainte Catherine East, where the current Village eventually grew. However, the demographics of the Village have shifted dramatically since those early years. As of the early 2000s, 60% of residents identified as men, compared to 48% in the city at large while between 1991 and 2001, the median income of residents rose by 70%. These changes represent a deeper transformation of who the village is for: what began as a marginalized and alternative space has become a polished, male-dominated district reflecting broader patterns of gentrification, consumption, and symbolic boundary-making. 

The Village is more than a neighbourhood, it is a product of zoning, redevelopment and planning decisions that have shaped who feels at home in the city. The Village therefore serves as a unique site for exploring the intersection of identity, dominant social structures, and cultural norms within queer communities and space. Through its construction as a space of consumption and its growing appeal to heterosexual visitors, the Village reproduces norms of homonormativity that privilege white, upper-class masculinity and marginalize others in the process, revealing how failures in urban planning (rooted in neoliberal priorities rather than community needs) can transform spaces of resistance into spaces of exclusion. 

What does equitable urban space mean, and where have we failed in building it? In the case of the village, exclusion doesn’t come from open acts of discrimination but from the hidden ways the area is designed: from zoning that favours businesses over community space to planning choices that promote visibility while depending on inequality. 

The Village therefore serves as a unique site for exploring the intersection of identity, dominant social structures, and cultural norms within queer communities and space. 

Status, Space, and Symbolic Boundaries 

In contemporary North American cities, dominant status groups are defined by the values of white, upper-class, cisgender masculinity. These values shape not only who has access to wealth or power, but whose ways of living are seen as legitimate within urban life. Such hierarchies extend into queer spaces as well, where they are internalized and reproduced through “homonormativity”; defined by Eric Knee as an assimilative trend within LGBTQ+ communities that aligns with the norms of dominant society. It is characterized by “wealthy white men dominat[ing] the LGBTQ community, creating a hierarchy of inclusion based on race, class, gender, and age”. In this way, homonormativity mirrors heteronormativity: it privileges certain identities while marginalizing others, especially racialized, lower-income, trans, and gender-nonconforming individuals. This internalization of dominant values operates through what Knee calls symbolic boundaries: “conceptual distinctions made by social actors to categorize people, practices, and even space”. These boundaries determine who belongs, who is visible, and whose experiences define the community’s image. In Montreal’s Village, symbolic boundaries are felt not only in social life but in the physical layout of the neighbourhood itself. 

The Village as a Homonormative Urban Space 

The physical and symbolic design of the Village reveals how urban planning can reinforce exclusion under the guise of inclusivity. The neighbourhood’s main strip, Sainte Catherine Street East, is lined with establishments that project a very specific vision of queer life; one dominated by whiteness, masculinity, and consumerism. Consider the corner of Sainte Catherine East and Montcalm, where three iconic venues (G.I. Joe, Stock Bar, and Club Unity) stand within a single block. G.I. Joe, a gay male sauna, displays images of muscular white men in provocative poses along its darkened windows. Across the street, Stock Bar showcases the traditional six-color pride flag but has not adopted the Intersex-Inclusive Progress Pride Flag, which explicitly represents racialized, trans, and intersex individuals.

The Rebranding of the Village: From Queer Space to Consumer Destination 

The Village’s transformation into a site of consumption is not unique; it reflects broader neoliberal trends in urban redevelopment. As cities compete for investment and tourism, neighbourhoods once defined by resistance are reimagined as marketable diversity zones. Knee observes that gayborhoods often become “gay (male) spaces that promote assimilation to hegemonic norms and neoliberal ideology while simultaneously depoliticizing their populous”. 

This process is particularly visible in the Village’s growing popularity among heterosexual visitors. Mark Casey describes how the “trendy” urban scene has led to the “re-heterosexualization” of gay venues, where straight patrons consume the aesthetics of queerness without engaging with its politics. As he notes, “the desire to consume the next ‘trendy’ place within the city may increasingly override the assumed sexual identity of a venue and its target clientele”. Bars historically intended for gay men are now frequented by straight visitors who seek the “safe” thrill of queer nightlife. Casey cautions that such developments create “damaging exclusions,” as new forms of inclusion often come at the expense of marginalized members of the original community.

As cities compete for investment and tourism, neighbourhoods once defined by resistance are reimagined as marketable diversity zones.

This mainstreaming process is captured in one subtle yet telling shift: the neighbourhood’s renaming from “the Gay Village” to simply “the Village.” On the surface, the change might seem progressive; like an attempt to move beyond labels. Yet symbolically, it represents a broader erasure of queer identity from the urban landscape. By removing “gay”, the Village becomes disconnected from its historical roots as a site of marginalized struggle, activism, and resistance. As a result, the very community that built this neighbourhood finds itself distanced from the space it once created. As the Village becomes increasingly commercial, its role as a site of activism and community-building is diminished. 

Planning, Power, & Community 

What the Village illustrates is that exclusion in the city often begins long before construction. It begins in planning, in decisions about zoning, redevelopment, and land use that prioritize profit and visibility over belonging. If equitable urban space means creating environments where all members of a community can thrive, then the Village shows us how easily that goal can be lost. Yet the story of the Village also points toward the possibility of reclaiming queer urban space through community-centred planning. This could take many forms: supporting small, queer-owned and BIPOC-owned businesses, prioritizing affordable housing, implementing designated spaces for underrepresented queer groups, and embedding anti-racist, feminist, and trans-inclusive frameworks into municipal planning. Such measures can reaffirm the Village’s role as a space of resistance and activism. 

The neighbourhood’s evolution from a marginalized space to a commodified district reveals how planning decisions rooted in consumption reproduce exclusion, even in spaces ostensibly built around inclusion. Through the internalization of dominant status values, the Village has come to reflect broader social hierarchies of race, class, gender, and sexuality. Despite this challenge, by beginning to acknowledge how planning and design shape community life, we can open the door to a more inclusive future. In the end, the question is not only about how we plan our cities, but for whom we plan them. The Village reminds us that building a truly inclusive space requires more than rainbow crosswalks or pride flags. It means rethinking how our cities are built and making sure every community has a real place in them. 

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