Canadian Queer History in the Making - Kathleen Wynne

Ontario's Liberal party - struggling on so many fronts these days - nevertheless made history yesterday in selecting Kathleen Wynne as their new leader, and by extension, the new Premier of the province.  The second woman to head the Ontario Liberals, Wynne will become the first woman to be Ontario's Premier.  And more excitingly for me, she will be the first openly gay Premier in Canadian history.  Now, whether the Ontario Liberals, who are in a fairly precarious minority situation right now, will be able to hold on to power for much longer, is an open question.  But in the short term at least, history has been made, and there will certainly be a new line in Canadian history textbooks marking this Canadian first.

Of course, many have asked in the past 14 hours why the adjective "openly" is always added into the newspaper headlines and mentions by media commentators.  This speaks to the rather interesting media culture in this country.  From all accounts, Wynne is not in fact the first gay premier in the country (for the highest-profile instance, do a quick search on New Brunswick's long-serving Progressive Conservative premier Richard Hatfield, who passed away in the early 1990s, or follow this link to a story in the Globe.).  But the media culture in Canada is loathe to out a politician who has not come out.  And so we've probably had other instances of gay premiers, and likely gay party leaders, cabinet ministers, etc. who were not openly gay.  In many of these cases, their sexual orientation was an open secret to the media, their friends, their close acquaintances.  But there is still quite the culture of privacy in Canadian reporting on this issue.

So, congratulations to Kathleen Wynne on being selected as Ontario's new premier, and to Ontario's Liberal convention delegates for selecting her as your leader.  It is a marker of how much has changed in this province over such a short period of time.

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Adventures in Copyright - A Plea for Assistance

Over the past few years, a number of publishing projects have made me keenly aware of how complicated Canadian (and international) copyright law can be. Right now, I'm working on a textbook module on gay and lesbian activism in 1970s Canada for Nelson publishing. I'm proposing to include three book chapters and scholarly articles, plus a selection of material that was originally published in Toronto's The Body Politic periodical. Sounds simple, right? Alas, when it comes to securing copyright, it is anything but, and this seems to be the case for much material published in periodicals prior to the 1990s. While Pink Triangle Press, who published TBP, is keen to allow us permission to use this material, they aren't certain who legally holds the copyright, and so we have to track down the original authors/photographers/cartoonists. But what does one do if they don't know who the photographer was, or if the author is deceased. That, my gentle readers, calls for careful detective work.

So, on the off chance that this post is seen by some friendly readers familiar with gay and lesbian activists of the 1970s, I'd greatly appreciate any leads that can help me track down someone who might know about the estates of Chris Bearchell or Michael Lynch, or who knows who was leading Toronto Gay Action in 1971 and could authorize the reprinting of the "We Demand" manifesto. My email contact information is listed in my profile.

Many thanks!

ETA: Thanks to the various people who have provided me with helpfor this query! I think I now have all the information I could hope to have found.

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It Gets Better Project - Visibility and Affirmation

By now, you have probably heard of the It Gets Better Project, a YouTube campaign of videos launched by Dan Savage in September 2010 to raise awareness of gay bullying and to provide support and hope for young people facing harassment. If you haven't already heard about it, Savage and his partner Terry launched the campaign in response to a wake of gay teen suicides, in the hopes that he, and those who would make similar videos, could provide the message that if teenagers held on, their lives would eventually get better. It's a very simple, direct message, and one that has inspired thousands of people to record and post their own messages.

The campaign is not without its detractors. A columnist in Toronto's Xtra! accused the campaign of vastly oversimplifying the issues facing the queer community, and perhaps facilitating complacency or sidestepping the real social challenges facing gay and lesbian youth that require new policies and programs. Musician Owen Pallett observed that for him there were other issues, most notably clinical depression, that would not simply get better on their own. Many have been openly critical of senior US administration figures, such as Barack Obama and Joe Biden, who participated in the campaign, but have done little to take advantage of their political power to make meaningful changes.

For what it's worth, I tend to come down on the side of those who praise the campaign as just one piece in a larger campaign of social activism, and one that can work alongside and in conjunction with campaigns for political, legal and social change.

Which brings me (finally) to the main point of this post. Many of my gay and lesbian friends, and I am not an exception to this rule, have observed that when they watch these videos, they tend to get really emotional and teary-eyed. And that's not a sentiment which is limited to those who felt suicidal or attempted suicide as teenagers - it's a much broader phenomenon. For me, it's not unlike the feelings that I had at my first few Pride parades as a young man just coming out of the closet. It invokes a sense of community, of shared experience, of support, and also of joy at having been able to make it through the difficult coming out process and accept one's sexuality. And to my view, that speaks to a much broader and more subtle impact of the It Gets Better project. Because while the immediate message is targeted at those facing harassment, in many ways this is an echo of 1970s (and later) gay liberation messaging about the need for visibility, for having large numbers of open gay men and lesbians to create a sense of community, and to raise awareness of their existence among the greater population.

I've been really enjoying some of the new "second wave" videos that are being created by workers in organizations like Pixar because of how it puts a human face on co-workers at an organization. I also liked this Canadian group video of celebrities, politicians and artists for the impact it had of a whole group of reasonably high-profile gay and lesbians all telling their stories at once. That latter video probably had its greatest impact because of Rick Mercer's openness about his experiences. Mercer is a household name in Canada, but few outside the gay community really were aware that he's gay, despite how candid he has been. And that's one of the impacts that the homemade videos are having as well by putting a very diverse human face on gay and lesbian life - young, old, married, single, from a host of different religious and ethnic backgrounds. It's almost like the story-telling complement to a Pride March, where all the diversity that you see briefly in the parade gets a chance to tell their human stories, so that you can hear from the gay father, the dyke on a bike, the leatherboy, the drag queen, and the politician in their own words about what growing up gay or lesbian was like, and how their lives are now. They are everyday role models from all walks of life, which is really important not only for youth, but for adults who continue to struggle with homophobia (both internalized and in the world around them) in their daily lives.

The fact that, like Pride Parades, the It Gets Better Project is attracting such high-profile support from politicians, celebrities and straight allies is indicative of the impact that it is having in raising visibility of these issues. I think it's a good thing that high profile British, American and Canadian politicians think they need to participate in this movement. But moreoever, to me it suggests that, although the legal and political campaigns are far from over, there is a real need to spend more time on the social side of raising the visibility of the human face of gay and lesbian life in order foster more grassroots support in our broader communities for the political, social and legal changes that are also needed.

Kudos to Dan Savage for launching this initiative. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go get a box of Kleenex and watch a few more videos.

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Adventures in homophobia - Japanese Edition

Yes, my blogging has been light recently - chalk it up to marking season. And this post isn't even about Canadian politics. It's about my upcoming trip to Japan, and how I sometimes forget how good we gays have it in Canada. I recently had a rather shocking experience involving a hotel booking in Tokyo, which demonstrates that homophobia is alive and well, and running hotel management in some Japanese companies.

Based on the recommendations of Lonely Planet, back on March 8, we booked a 5 night stay at the Sutton Place Hotel Ueno, a business hotel in downtown Tokyo. We booked a room with a double bed, described on the hotel website as suitable for 1-2 people. On the online form, we indicated that 2 males would be sharing the room. So far, so good. We thought we were set for accommodations during one of the busiest travel seasons in Japan (Golden Week, which features 4 national holidays in the span of 7 days).

Two days ago, I received a reconfirmation email from the hotel. In this email, they indicated that the room I had booked was:"not for 2 male guests. Suitable for couples or 2 females only. We recommend you to change it to a twin bed room or 2 single bed rooms. Your cooperation and understanding is sincerely appreciated." By this point, all of the hotel's twin rooms were booked, so we were being asked to book a second room - and to sleep apart while on vacation!

Thinking perhaps that this was the hotel's way of trying to avoid our discomfort, I replied that we were, in fact, a married couple, and used to sharing a bed. The hotel replied with the exact same reply. Apparently married couples, or two "lady travelers" (or two lesbians, as my sister chortled with glee) can share a bed in this hotel, but not two gay men (or two straight men trying to save on accommodations in a rather expensive city).

We booked another hotel room, at a place which explicitly replied to my query that they had no trouble with us sharing a bed. I sent an angry cancellation message to the Sutton Place, indicating my anger both at their no-room-sharing policy and at their appalling customer service, which left us high and dry less than a week before we were scheduled to arrive. The epilogue to this story is that 24 hours after sending the cancellation message, the hotel sent me an email indicating that they would make an exception to their rule because of the poor customer service (although standing by their basic policy). We have decided to stick with the other hotel, which treated us well, rather than spend an awkward 5 nights at a hotel that didn't want us.

The irony of all of this is that Lonely Planet touted the fact that, apart from Thailand, Japan is one of the best places to visit for gay travelers, since there are no laws against homosexuality. Meanwhile, on a trip to Malaysia four years ago, where homosexuality is actually illegal, we had no trouble staying in rooms with only one bed in two separate hotels. Cultural norms, it would seem, are just as powerful as formal laws, at least at some hotel chains.

I would encourage all of my lesbian readers to visit the Sutton Place Ueno, since they seem to have no trouble with two females sharing a bed. I recognize that this is because the hotel managers likely have no conception of independent female sexuality - but I like the idea of this homophobic hotel being made into a covert lesbian love den. Not that I'm feeling vindictive or anything...

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The power of language

I'm currently teaching a graduate seminar on the history of social movements in North America. This week, one of the issues we discussed was the power of language, and the ways that members of social movements and those who oppose their objectives have learned how to use key phrases to mobilize public support.

With that in mind, this report from CBS news is highly illustrative of this point. Fully 14% more of Americans surveyed are willing to allow "gays and lesbians" to serve openly in the military than would support "homosexuals" being allowed to do so. It's a difference between a solid majority opinion in support (58% support) and a bare plurality (44% support vs 42% opposed).

Mind you, it's also disappointing that fully such a large percentage of the American population is opposed to gay men and lesbians serving in the military, no matter what they are called. But it does speak strongly to the powerful issue of messaging and the careful use of language. As John Aravosis points out, "homosexual" evokes cold, clinical connotations of disease, while "gays and lesbians" brings to mind living, feeling human beings - which is what we are!

[ETA: Hmmm... that got a bit earnest and treacly at the end. Don't worry - the hard-edged cynicism will return shortly!]

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