Two days after raising the rainbow flag at city hall to officially kick off WorldPride festivities in Toronto, Coun. Kristyn Wong-Tam sat down with CP24.com to talk about life as Toronto’s first openly lesbian member of council, being out in public life and the “money shot” she’s still looking for in politics.

Coun. Kristyn Wong-Tam isn’t the first openly gay person to be elected to Toronto City Council, but she may the first to accomplish the feat without much of a commotion.

“Certainly in 2010 when I was elected as the first out lesbian city councillor in the history of this city, it was without much fanfare,” Wong-Tam says.

That wasn’t the case for her predecessor, former councillor Kyle Rae.

“When he was first elected I think there were a lot of comments about his sexuality,” Wong-Tam recalls. “I do believe that at every given time there was a reference to him being a gay councillor, but that hasn’t been the same for myself.”

However the fact remains that the Ward 27 Toronto Centre-Rosedale councillor is the only openly gay member of council and while she’s comfortable wearing that distinction, Wong-Tam rakes care to clarify that her sexuality is not the totality of her being.

“I’m a very complex person as we all are and I actually have several intersecting identities such as an Asian woman, an immigrant and a proud Canadian,” she says.

Challenges on council

At 42, the soft-spoken Wong-Tam generally projects a sense of pride and confidence, however that’s not to say she hasn’t faced challenges during her first term on council.

While Wong-Tam says she hasn’t encountered any overt homophobia on council, she says working on council has been difficult at times.

“Working under a Rob Ford administration as an LGBT person has been somewhat challenging. He’s just not engaging,” Wong-Tam says. “But I also learned very quickly and nimbly to adapt – I said well if he’s not going to work with me I recognized there were many other people who were going to work with me.”

Wong-Tam cites numerous incidents that have made the city’s LGBT community feel they have a chief magistrate who views them with hostility, including an alleged homophobic slur directed at Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau and an effort to stop the rainbow flag from flying at city hall in solidarity with gay athletes in Russia during the Sochi Olympics.

For his part, Ford has denied allegations that he is homophobic and has said he doesn’t attend the pride parade because it usually conflict with a traditional trip to his family cottage on the Canada Day long weekend.

“The community would not embrace him at this point if he came out to the pride parade,” she says. “I honestly believe that he’s crossed the line so far.”

Ultimately she says city council and the Toronto public service have been very welcoming and cooperative when she’s worked to get things done. She also says Ford is not representative of Toronto, likening the city’s spirit more to the tone set by former mayor Barbara Hall, the first mayor of Toronto to march in the city’s pride parade back in 1995.

Still, Wong-Tam says she’s felt the need to work hard over the past term to reassure the city’s LGBT population that council does represent them.

“I wanted to make sure that the LGBT community knew that city hall was going to work for them. I never wanted the community to feel the doors were shut for them,” Wong-Tam says.

Looking for the “money shot”

On that same note, she says it’s important for LGBT people in public life to be visible.

“I personally believe that if you are in a position of any type of public profile, it’s important to live your life honestly,” Wong-Tam says. “I also recognize that coming out is a very personal, personal process.”

While she sees “the closet doors opening,” she lists the federal government and professional sports as places where she’d like to see more public figures coming out.

She also has some tough talk for those who are already out.

While she says the recent election of Premier Kathleen Wynne as the first openly gay premier in all of Canada is a reason for the LGBT community to celebrate, there’s one thing more she’d like from the premier:

“The number of times that she and her wife Jane have taken the stage, I keep thinking ‘it’s time for you to embrace and kiss’ because that’s the money shot and that tells everybody that this is real,” Wong-Tam says. “Otherwise you have a premier who says I’m an out lesbian and this is my partner, but when it comes to smashing that foggy haze, you really do need to make it, I think, somewhat physical.

“We see politicians get elected on election night and up comes their spouse onto the stage and there’s generally a kiss. So I’m cheering for Kathleen -- I’m encouraging her and Jane to actually seal the deal with a kiss next time because I think that sends a very different message to Ontario.”

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