Body Politic Needs Sider How We Might Reach More People

I FEBRUARY 1979 NUMBER 50/$1~.00

Immorality? Indecency! Panic in '53 The charges were pure harassment, says Retreat to defence counsel as the trial of The Body "respectability." Politic concludes. But will the judge agree? Part Three of A look at the "obscenity" trial that wasn't. "Dreams Deferred."

A MAGAZINE J I FOR GAY LIBERATION

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Toronto police hit the Barracks — the gay community hits back.

And how not to. TBP investigates Toronto's 14 "homosexual slayings'.j» And..

Everywoman: Breaking out of the kitchens of language

Out in the City: Supermarket extra- vaganza — and the alternatives

EIGHTH YEAR No sense beating around the bush. The Body Politic needs sider how we might reach more people. No time to find cash fast. ways of pushing our advertising revenue up to the modest

We've just come through the most difficult period in quota we've set for it. this magazine's seven-year history. We've had to cope with No time, finally, to make sure that when we got through a police raid that took away vital records, a long and com- this crisis The Body Politic would still be solvent. plicated defence effort that has absorbed huge amounts So far, it still is — but not by much. And there are some of money and energy, and a trial that has tied us up almost major hurdles coming up. At the end of March, our lease completely over the past few weeks. runs out. Whatever quarters we find are bound to be more

A lot of people have helped, to be sure. They have con- expensive. On April 1, postage costs will increase by more tributed the funds to keep our lawyer working, have given than 20%. Printing and production expenses, office sup- freely of their time to help publicize the case, and have put plies, telephone bills all keep steadily going up. in the countless hours of volunteer labour that it has al- We need the kind of support we have always needed to ways taken to get TBP out every month. keep TBP going — support from the community we do our Without that kind of commitment, The Body Politic best to serve. wouldn't exist. We need support from people like you. But right now we need even more than that. The emer- So we're asking, straight out. Not very subtle, we admit, gency demands of the past year have all but swamped but then neither is the need. efforts to keep TBP itself healthy. There has been no time Our address is below. to work on broadening our distribution. No time to con- Please give generously.

TBP, BOX 7289, STATION A,TORONTO, ONTARIO M5WIX9 D

Thislssue

Number 50 February 1 979

"The liberation of homosexuals can only be the work of homosexuals themselves." — Kurt Hiller, 1921 —

The Collective Christine Bearchell, Rick Bebout, Gerald Harmon, And now — the baths: p 12 Robin Hardy, Edward Jackson, Bill Lewis, Tim McCaskell, Paul Trollope, Mariana Valverde, Toronto cops make their first raid on a steambath — 28 are charged, Alexander Wilson none plead guilty. Community reaction: a huge rally, an angry march, Designer Kirk Kelly and preparations for a court battle (yes, The News another one) to test whether baths are or Gerald Hannon, BUI Lewis Toronto, this issue: Paul Aboud, Clarence Barnes, are not criminal "bawdy houses." Chris Bearchell, Robin Hardy, Ross Irwin, Edward Jackson, Michael Lynch, Allan Maclean, Gordon Montador, Paul Trollope, Mariana Valverde, Eugene Zimmerebmer The mayor, the media, but no verdict yet: p8 Jeremy Bass (Winnipeg), Maurice Beaulieu (Quebec), Elgin Blair (Mississauga), Michael Calcott (St John's), The Shah was being thrown out in Iran, the great snows came to the North Atlantic, Russ (Calgary), (Montreal), Congdon Ron Dayman and The Body Politic endured its trial — all in a day's reportage. One year after the David Garmaise (Ottawa), Education Collective, Gay Community Centre (Saskatoon), porn squad visits Pink Triangle Press, scores of pink triangles crowd the courtroom Elizabeth Bolton (Montreal), Barry Eriksen (Guelph), to witness an "obscenity" case where, legally, obscenity wasn't the issue. Jim Mendenhall (Brandon), Jim Monk (Windsor), Robin Metcalfe (Halifax), Terry Nelson (Regina), Oh, well. There was John Sewell.... Bob Radke (Edmonton), Rosemary Ray (Edmonton), Stuart Russell (Montreal), Joe Szalia (Kitchener), James Thatcher (London), Merv Walker (Vancouver) Getting dead in Hogtown: p 19 • Tim McCaskell (International) The headlines scream "Homosexual Murder." You'd think gay people were Michael Merrill (San Francisco) OVER doing the killing, but the truth is that we're the victims in at least 13 Toronto Our Image homicides in the past four years. What do these cases have in common? Why Mariana Valverde, Alexander Wilson Burke Campbell, Douglas Chambers, Robin Hardy, aren't they being solved? And how can you keep yourself out of the statistics? Edward Jackson, Graham Jackson, TBP's Robin Hardy investigates and advises. Tennyson, KILL Robin Metcalfe, Paul Pearce, James Lorna Weir, George Whitmore Features Cold chills, Robin Hardy, Edward Jackson war paranoid reactions: p 22 And... Jolui D'Emilio, Gerald Hannon, Robin Metcalfe The red scare came and the radicals were swept aside in the nervous search Columns for Eisenhower-era "respectability." In this final installment of "Dreams Our new column, Everywoman, Mariana Valverde, Alexander Wilson, Ian Young Deferred," John D'Emilio recounts the first steps in a sad retreat. debuts with thoughts on the brave Letters/Community Page new world of woman words, p 18. Robin Hardy, Paul Trollope Not by the hairs... 31 p Out in the City, which spent last Nakeds in review Harriet Heustis Jackson survived in Layout and Production month out in the streets, returns with Rick Bebout rural New Bruoajofk despite her rich the grocery hunting in stain- Massimo Agostinelli, Ralph Buchalter, Continental philosopher Michel goods on facial foliage. Burke Campbell, Bill Chesney, Terry Farley, Foucault says that repression isn 't the less wonderland and beyond, p 43. Amy Gottlieb, Alcime Robitaille, Jim Tennyson, Today, she in In the Classifieds, miss the and members of the collective dominant force our sexual history, don't new Typesetting: has an Pinktype, Toronto and what's more, that it really doesn't section where even piggies converse Printing: Delta Web Graphics, Scarborough admirer. repress. Lorna Weir explains. Male with bunnies. Take a look, beginning Advertising and Promotion nudes in books, dirty music on discs on p 39. Rick Bebout, Robin Hardy and anti-faggotry in the Massimo Agostinelli, David Maclean, Ross Irwin mass ad biz also make news in this month's Our Other features Subscriptions and Distribution Image, TBP's review section. Letters, Editorial, Keith Sly, Robert Trow p 4; p 6, Bill Chesney, Dan Schneider Monitor, p 37; Ivory Tunnel, p 38, members of the collective The cover: On location with a rented uni- and many others Community Page, p 42. Between the form and a borrowed towel, collective mem- Lines, The New Age and Tribal Rites, Office bers Alex WHson and Keith Sly dramatize the Rick Bebout, Gerald Hannon Barracks raidfor photographer Gerald absent for a variety of reasons, Denis Fontaine, Eugene Zimmerebmer Hannon. Photo ofJohn Sewell by Frank will return. Fear not. and members of the collective Rooney of Socialist Voice.

Tht Body Politic is published ten limes a year by Pink is at Triangle Press, a non profit corporation, as a contribu not yet concluded. Their caution uon to the building of ihegay movement and the growth best a mixed blessing. of gay consciousness. Responsibility for the content of Showing Politic, for contempt In the case of The Body Tht Body Politic rests with the Body Politic Collective, an autonomous body operating within Pink Triangle example, the laying of charges last Press The collective it a group of people who regularly A note on the legal limits to freedom of the press January served to stop the flood of give their time and labour to the production of this magazine. The opinions of the collective are represented only We go to press this month before Pro- They exist, first and foremost, to protect media misinformation about the article in editorials and clearly marked editorial essays Offices vincial Court Judge Sydney Harris the right of the accused to a fair trial. "Men Loving Boys Loving Men," but it of 7V Body Politic are located at 24 Duncan Street (fifth other floor) in Toronto. brings down his verdict on the criminal They arc supposed to prevent the kind of also led to a virtual blackout on The publication of an advertisement in Tht Body Politic charges facing The Body Politic. That publicity that might prejudice a jury or news related to TBP or its case. The does not mean that the collective endorses the advertiser delay has created some interesting judge either before or during a trial. The magazine was relegated to a strange Muilirtgaddrest The Body Politic. Bos 72J9, Station A. problems for us. laws are also there, we read, to protect semi-outlaw status; the straight press Toronto. Ontario. Canada M5 W I X9 Phone (416)163-6320 Readers will note in our coverage of the dignity of the judicial system. They was thus freed from the obligation to the case (see page 8) that we report the are meant to control public or press deal with it at all. Politicians have Available on microfilm from: court a con- MacLaren Micropublishing. Box 972, Station F, facts of the trial and the media reaction comments which "question the integrity always found contempt of Toronto. Ontario. Canada M4Y 2N9 to it, but we do not analyze or interpret. of the court," or "impute improper venient excuse for refusing to say anything about an issue. The matter is, Copyright fc Pink Triangle Press We can't — our public opinions at this motives to those who administer 2nd Class Mail Registration No 3243 point must necessarily be circumspect. justice." they say with barely concealed relief,

ISSN 03 1 5- 3606 The reason for this reticence is summed The application of these laws is often "before the courts." The Collective acknowledges an operating grant up in three words that have hung unpredictable, since they are based in But as for ourselves, rest assured that from the Ontario Arts ( ouncil spectre-like over TBP since charges were common law traditions and are there- we have no intention of simply mum- Tht Body /'otitic k* a member of first laid. fore only partially set out in the Criminal bling "contempt" and then scurrying the Canadian Ij-sbian and (.as Rights (nsvHUon, the Coalition for (.as Rights In Ontario. The words? Contempt of court. Code. The corporate media almost away. Once the verdict is in we'll have a and the ( arutdnn Periodical PuhUshrtV Asrsotiation In Canada, contempt of court laws always steer clear of this problem by lot to say. Pick up the next issue and see. Printed and published in Canada are ostensibly meant to do two things. saying as little as possible about cases you'll FEBRUARY 1979 THE BODY POLITIC/3 .

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posters Lynched for their crimes u

I have just seen Crimes Against Nature or need? for the second time, and enjoyed parts Michael Lynch

of it fully as much as I did on first seeing Toronto fit it last summer. But there are questions which I would Robin Hardy replies: like to raise about the play, since Robin The Gay Men's Theatre Collective does posters and printed ephemera, vintage and new Hardy's article ("Collective Crimes," not shy away from positive images. It is TBP, 265 queen street east, toronto Canada M5A 1S6 Dec-Jan) did not raise them. a positive image. These men have hours: tues-sat 10-6, call daniel stroud at 861-1851 1 Crimes presents nine case "struck their angry pose" by going on histories about individual, lonely gay stage. Their "tenacity to work through men. All edge towards ways of coping the many problems that face collective with being gay, of "surviving." With action" is evidenced in the fact that the Subscribe today to Counterpoint. flexible staging and periodic wit, the Collective has been together for more nine episodes show a lot that is miserable than three years. Collective members about being gay. The few positive were seen marching in the demon- Reviews for the discerning images are, as a Boston gay reviewer stration against the Barracks raid collector. wrote, "not enough to balance a while in Toronto. They arranged for the fearsome description of fucking Damien Committee (of which Michael is • Bi-monthly magazine! ('vaseline, shit, cum and blood'), a chairperson) and the Free the Press • Entertaining, informative presentation of 'perverted' want ads, Fund to collect money in the theatre reading! and a rape scene. Who would want to be after their performances. The Collective • Lively, perceptive critics! gay, and why?" Why does the Collective wanted to do a benefit in Toronto; their shy away from positive images? contract, as they found out, prevented • In-depth features! 2. Implicitly, of course, each of those them. As for the profits made by gay • Dozens of classical reviews! nine men went through a process that capitalists who backed Crimes, there • Indispensable! ended with his joining the Collective weren't any. They lost money. But the and working out this play. But that capitalists served their purpose well. 1 Year (6 issues) — only $6.95 2 Years (12 issues) — only $12.00 process is excluded from the stage. They paid for Crimes to come here for And stop guessing! Consult Counterpoint's Basic Classical Record Library Crimes never shows an individual the rest of us to see.

Guide! This invaluable guide covers 250 famous works and recommends at linking up with other gay men, or even It frightens me that Michael Lynch is least three excellent recordings of each — including a budget price bargain! another gay man, for common action so negative about individual self- Save money and heartaches — use our guide! Just $3.50 postage paid. against oppression. discovery. It is not only the sine qua non Order from Counterpoint Publishing Company. Dept BP. PO Box 186. Station Z. Toronto, Ontario, The final stylized dance and militant of ideological political aspirations, but Canada MSN 224 DEALER INQUIRIES INVITED posturing are the only evidence for this. must go hand in hand with it. Lynch's But, as Robin usefully indicated, the strident politics are reminiscent of the dance is stylized beyond the realism of "left-wing communism" which Lenin the case histories, and the militant termed "an infantile disorder."

posturing is tacked on. Convincing? Does anyone believe that Voices the any one of the men in the case histories from past would strike an angry pose Uke that? We are indebted to John D'Emilio Would have the tenacity to work ("Radical Beginnings," TBP, through the many problems that face November 1978) for providing new facts any collective action? about the origins of the current gay Crimes leaves the impression that movement. But this welcome somehow individual self-discovery will information is regrettably embedded in a lead automatically to the dance and conceptual framework that is one-sided posturing. It doesn't. Isn't this the and misleading. For example, the individualist, get-your-act-together secrecy and cellular structure of the early mystique of the Sixties that makes gays Los Angeles group is presented as being susceptible to individual isolations? modeled exclusively on the Communist 3. One line in the play asks "Who Party. Yet "Preliminary Concepts," a profits from the masculine myth?" I document of 1950, shows that the wish Robin would tell us about the Masonic heirarchy of orders was at least

Toronto production of Crimes. I am as influential. Hay had lectured on told that one of the financial backers is Freemasonry at the Labor School. The the Barracks, the bath that profits most Hay document refers repeatedly to the

from the masculine myth. If this is so, Androgynous Minority, a concept that

are part of the profits from our $8.50 (!) did not stem from Marxism. Moreover, theatre tickets going towards a new coat Communist Party membership and gay of paint (cream, no doubt) on the activism did not go hand in hand in Barracks' walls? Hay's life, since he recognized that he

If this is true, and Robin should must break with the Party to begin the

confirm or deny it, then the Collective new work, just as he broke with the doesn't seem to have carried through on pseudo-heterosexuality the Party had the commitment against masculinism forced him to adopt. and for collectivity. That would explain, D'Emilio's historical reconstruction is perhaps, how they can (despite their marred by a pervasive anachronism. The apparent commitment) use such butch concept of "homosexuals as an posters in their advertising. It might oppressed cultural minority" was

also explain why they long refused to do altogether foreign to that period. I know a benefit for the Body Politic Free the because I came out in those days in Los Press Fund or the Damien Defence Angeles. And it is hard to reconcile the Fund, both of which (unlike the claim that Mattachine pursued a Barracks) depend on contributions and "strategy of mass action" with the collective efforts. Fortunately, they were secrecy that characterized the group's finally persuaded to invite contributions origins. to these funds. Sadly the umbrella title "Dreams Did the profits from Crimes go to Deferred" is an apt one. For D'Emilio's those with capital to invest rather than implicit vision of a radical world that to those with commitments to gay rights, might have been, but for the

4/THE BODY POLITIC FEBRUARY 1979 Patriarchal society blatantly forbids us to y^r\ LUNCH BRUNCH: r rn Daily Sot Elegant Eggs express ourselves naturally...Poetry may very Fresh Baked Bread Salac well be women's natural language.

mischievous connivance of the anti- lesbians is linked to the necessity of

communists, is simply an indulgence in freeing language from its traditional UES FRI12 2 30 counterfactual historiography. shackles. Patriarchal society blatantly 12 4 Although the series is not complete, it is forbids us to be fully and to express DINNER- already clear that he is laying the ourselves naturally. We claim, with the TUES SAT 6 10 foundations for a scenario of the right to be, the right to write naturally BRUNCH: Revolution Betrayed. The facts that he and poetically. Poetry may very well be SUNDAY 12 4PM proffers are useful, but they must be women's natural language. We should ESPRESSO BAR disentangled from a Utopian ideological not have rules, immutable models, JAZZ myth that has more to do with the criteria that serve as impediments to TORONTO. 366-4147 Seventies than the Fifties. creativity. Some of us are aware that it is 325 QUEEN*WEST AT BEVERLEY Wayne Dynes time to redefine again the concepts of New York "reality," "femaleness," and "being," QCappuccino-30 teas-fresh apple cider-trappe-perrier m as it is time to free ourselves from the o John D'Emilio replies: limitations of fixed literary genres: prose CD Dynes' letter testifies to the persistence versus poetry, novel versus drama, o' of an anti-communism so deep that it etcetera. blinds him to the obvious. With regard We should be free to write our own 03 to his specific objections: way, and we should be free to seek new 1. About the Masonic orders: yes, the ways of expressiorrwithout the fear of 3' document does make reference to them, being misunderstood by our brothers CD tJ just as it lays out a political analysis and sisters who "lay down the law." c° CO straight out of the Communist Party Mara O'Ryan (CP). Ask yourself which would be the Victoria, BC 406 Dupont St Co greater influence: the secrecy and cellular structure of the Masons which "Toronto 9618341 a Hay read about, or the secrecy and Sewell supporter 2. cellular structure of the CP, which Hay Lunch 12.230 o o lived for 17 years. If people cannot understand simple 2. About Hay and the CP: Hay did justified concerns and a plea for human Dinner 6J0 pm rights, then our assumed concern for Q not "break" with the party because of CD CO its anti- homosexualism. asked to be others in hypocrisy indeed. Mondays He Closed CO relieved of party membership because he If people do not want gays to speak out CD ^Curry-ratatouille 5* felt that his gayness would be a weapon for themselves; if they will not tolerate -hummus-seafood cr&pes-spanakopitta that McCarthyites would use against the non-gays (John Sewell) speaking out in party. He left out of love and concern their stead, who then is left to speak the for the CP. The CP's anti-homosex- truth? Or have we perhaps come to the ualism was deplorable. But the whole very point when we do not want to know society was anti-gay. Should Hay have the truth. Indeed the truth shall make become a Republican? you free — but when, when? DrGLista 3. On "mass action": it's a shame ATTENTION Dynes couldn't wait for Parts Two and Toronto Three before writing his letter. 4. On Marxism and the Androgynous Minority: Dynes' point is irrelevent. Gay Youth talk back Hay, Rowland and the others used Marxism as it should be used — not as a Gay Youth Toronto was approached by Bible for what's true and false, but as a Wages Due Lesbians with a request to be THE method, an analytic tool for examining a co-signer of a letter demanding equal and understanding social phenomena space in TBP. This letter was a response SIDE creatively and intelligently. That they to Ken Popert's article, "Bryantism and succeeded is evidenced by their ability to Wages Due," {TBP, Sept 1978). perceive and describe homosexuals as an At the same time GYT understood the ACTION "oppressed cultural minority." That situation to be that Wages Due wanted was their formulation, not mine, so I to clarify their position to TBP's can hardly be accused of anachronism. readership. Thus we signed the letter. LOUNGE While Dynes was traveling in circles As a group we feel it is important to (literally?) where the concept was lend support to keep an open dialogue "altogether foreign," gay Marxists in within the movement. It is important NOW OPEN the same city were analyzing the that TBP, as the national spokespaper situation of homosexuals and organizing for the gay movement, publish articles POOL TABLE DISCO FULLY LICENSED them. encouraging communication between Had Dynes been less rabidly anti- organizations and thereby build a communist, he might have made contact stronger movement. $1 cover charge with them. Pity! There should be no need for any John D'Emilio group to fight or petition to be heard. New York GYT does not condone Wages Due All lesbians and for not approaching TBP before coming to other gay organizations for support. gay men welcome of Voice women Nor does GYT wholly support Wages Regarding the Great Canadian Lesbian Due politics or tactics used in their Fiction Contest: your words "no poetry response to Ken Popert's analysis. 212 DUN DAS ST. E. please" are very ambiguous and seem to We are satisfied that TBP has not betray a misunderstanding of the nature been discriminatory in granting space to ST. feminist writing. is AT of lesbian and Poetry various groups. Our hopes are (hat your GEORGE at the very root of Natural Imagination. paper will continue to be the voice of all Every literary work of worth contains gay people. poetry. Every time you are looking for GYT stands solidly behind TBP BRING THIS COUPON more than just a journalistic reportage during its continuing court case. FOR FREE ADMISSION of events... there will be "poetry." (>a> Youth Toronto Our freedom as women and as Toronto

FEBRUARY 1979 THE BODY POLITIC/5 COME SKI WITH US THIS WINTER! Downhill and Cross-country Weekend and day trips in Ontario or take a whole week Platitude and come out West, or to Vermont Toronto Police Chief Harold Adamson claims that "homosexuals, like any other And go gayly down the slopes! citizen, receive fair and equal treatment under the law." Frankly, we don't believe him. For information on these trips, call 364-6117, or visit us at Adamson' s assertion has a particularly hollow ring after the recent actions of Mercury Tours & Travel two police officers under his command. In one instance, an officer phoned a senior official of the Toronto Board of Education to report the conviction of a newly- 404 King St. E. J^^ elected board trustee on an "indecent act" charge following entrapment in a Toronto, Ont. shoppng centre washroom. In another instance, Staff Sergeant Gary Donovan 1L4 notified officials of three boards of education that six of their teachers had been MSA arrested as "found-ins" in a gay steambath. So much for oaths of secrecy! In neither case did the officers have the right or the authority to divulge this

information to an employer. They appear to have taken it upon themselves to rewrite

the dictum that a person is innocent until proven guilty and, further, that it is up to

the court to carry out sentence. Putting someone's job in jeopardy is not the role of

police officers; it is harassment, pure and simple. If a citizen's involvement with the law — alleged or proven — has no effect on job performance, there is absolutely no

reason for an employer to be informed of it. One officer has since received an official reprimand for being "indiscreet" and "erring in judgment." Otherwise, we are told, he is an "excellent officer." The other man did not receive even that flick on the wrist.

If there is a policy of fair and equal treatment for homosexuals, the police have a

peculiar way of demonstrating it. At a time when the Police Commission receives "a lot of flak from the public" for merely reprimanding the informer, when the letters pages of the dailies are filled with anti-homosexual sentiments, and when gays have zoiA-fa&fyioneb quality not even minimal employment protection in human rights codes, the police must do ^antique Xmcferti furniture -brwuHoem of excellence more than mouth platitudes. Both officers should be suspended immediately until a *J6cfc/ian wci? full public investigation has been conducted. If the facts are borne out, both should be dismissed. Only then might we give some credence to Adamson 's statement. Otherwise, we are forced to conclude that the actions have the tacit approval of the Free estimates Pickup & delivtv ry police hierarchy. Fair and equal treatment for homosexuals, Chief Adamson? Prove it. D

Gratitude

The mayor of Toronto came to a rally in support of The Body Politic, gave a short, very supportive speech and left. But when John Sewell strode out of that auditorium, he was tailed by a swarm of reporters and cameramen who, ignoring the rest Controversial News. By the What do you of the rally, flew off to fill the airways and presses with next morning, the entire country knew that Sewell had appeared at a homosexual rally and had supported the gay community in general and TBP in particular. But the public was also told that the speech would have a disastrous effect on do with a Sewell's political career, that it was "bad timing," and that it was possibly in contempt of court. All of which nicely served to obscure what he had really done and said.

First of all, it is very unlikely that Sewell's speech will hurt his political career. He thousand has never tried to obscure his stand on controversial municipal issues; he has been one of the most consistently progressive influences on city council for years. Voting patterns after the recent election indicated that his support came from clearly defined residential areas of the city that would expect him to take a stand on such issues. Few of the present critics appear to have voted for him anyway. Secondly, in our view his timing was perfect. He chose to speak out when it was — in his words, "calm the political atmosphere so that issues can Gather them in Toronto needed in order to, be clarified." The time to defend freedoms is when they are being attacked. It is a — proposition which most politicians choose to ignore in order to save their political for a long weekend hides. We could well ask, for example, where the Liberal MPP for the downtown Toronto riding of St George has been lately. Margaret Campbell rode to victory in May 1 9-21 — to share the last election at least partially on the coattails of the homosexual vote. The deaf- ening silence emanating from the Campbell office is eloquent. our ideas, search for a Thirdly, Sewell's speech was carefully worded to avoid the problems of contempt of court. It said nothing about the article or the issue before the courts. It spoke only about the "broader issues of principle." common direction, protect Mayor Sewell's attempt to dispel the false impression "that all gays are on trial and that it is illegal to be gay" is refreshing and courageous and an absolutely un- ourselves against repres- precedented stand in the political history of this country. But the fact that his speech appears so extraordinary should not obscure the larger fact: he said nothing which could be disputed by reasonable and intelligent Canadians (see news story, page 9). sion, explore our cuture, Gay people, after all, have been saying these things for years. Why should we be so excited when a Personality says it? dance, sing and play. John D'Emilio's account, which concludes in this issue, of the origins of the early homophile movement in the US shows us the dangers of relying upon straight professionals and public figures to carry our case to the world. We must always speak The Lesbian Organization of Toronto is planning such a for ourselves, and we must be able to rely upon our own community to act together gathering — for lesbians from different clause at the a conference when it is necessary. The analysis of the dropping of the job protection Children's Aid Society (see page 15) shows how our demands are weakened when communities, doing diverse things. This is your confer- there is no support from upfront gay people directly involved. ence. Please write us with your ideas and inspiring We commend Mayor John Sewell for his stand, but we are not filled with thoughts. Pass the word along. The Lesbian Conference gratitude. Nor will we be "grateful" when other political figures find the nerve to follow his lead. The logic of justice will make it their responsibility to so act. Committee, 342 Jarvis Street Toronto. From what we know of John Sewell, we think he would agree.

6/THE BODY POLITIC FEBRUARY 1979 • C" may set precedent, decision expected Feb 14

Six days of testimony end with calf for TBP acquittal "This has been a long, grueling and confined to Toronto — gay rallies were expensive trialfor (he most innocuous, held throughout Canada and in Boston, fair-minded discussion ofpedophilia New York and San Francisco to protest ever to appear in any Canadian the trial. newspaper. There is not the slightest On the second day of the proceedings, shred of evidence of criminality. Toronto Mayor John Sewell spoke at a " Charging the magazine is itself a crime. Body Politic support rally, and the — concluding statement ofdefense uproar which followed (see story page 9) lawyer Clayton Ruby. was the first political crisis of his term. In reaction to Sewell's speech, religious TORONTO — After six days of fundamentalists rallied at City Hall for testimony and legal arguments, the "Faith, Freedom and the Family." publication. It was left, therefore, to the reminding counsel that the trial "was defence and prosecution have concluded In the media and the public conscious- court, and to Judge Harris in particular, concerned with the illegal use of the their cases before Judge Sydney Harris ness, it was seen as an "obscenity trial," to interpret such vague and undefined mails," Harris paused before adding in the trial of The Body Politic. even though obscenity was not part of terms as "scurrilous," and to determine "that's spelt m-a-i-1-s." Referring to the case as difficult and the charge and Judge Harris emphasized if they applied to the article "Men At the outset, defence lawyer Clayton without precedent, Harris has throughout that obscenity was not at Loving Boys Loving Men." Ruby claimed that the real issues at stake postponed his judgment until February issue. That the police chose to lay the According to persons familiar with the were: "the right to publish, freedom of 14. the press and the fact that this particular The trial began January 2 in a small issue of The Body Politic was not courtroom in Toronto's old City Hall. immoral, indecent or scurrilous." For Each day a crowd of gay men and crown prosecutor Jerome Wiley, women wearing pink triangles lined up however, the issues seemed to be the outside, jostling for space with bible- "pathology" of homosexuality in bearing "Born-Agains" intent on general, and pedophilia in particular, praying for the defendants' souls. On and that this article appearing in The the third day the judge found it Body Politic counselled people to necessary to move the proceedings to a commit criminal offences and immoral larger courtroom to accommodate the acts. increasing numbers of reporters and During the first three and a half days, spectators. Wiley presented seven witnesses to build Proceedings began almost exactly one the Crown's case against The Body year after the police charged Pink Politic. They included: a police sergeant Triangle Press, Gerald Harmon, Ed involved in the original Morality Squad Jackson and Ken Popert with "using the investigation of the paper, Claire Hoy, a mails for the purpose of transmitting or notorious newspaper columnist known delivering anything that is indecent, for his intemperate attacks not only on immoral or scurrilous." The charge was gays but on any variety of "ten-speed laid in response to an article discussing liberal," an evangelical minister, a adult-child relationships which had Roman Catholic priest, and three appeared in the Dec 1977-Jan 1978 issue "psychological experts." The strategy, of The Body Politic. if any, of Crown prosecutor Wiley was Leaving the courthouse: Ed Jackson (left), Gerald Hannon and Ken Popert Not surprisingly, the trial itself unclear. The testimony he elicited from became a spectacle. For a two week peculiar charge of "using the mails..." Ontario judiciary, the assignment of witnesses was often rambling and period the Toronto and cross-Canada guaranteed that, whatever the verdict, Sydney Harris to The Body Politic case unfocused. Despite frequent media were saturated with coverage of the case would set a legal precedent. was a good omen. Large, white-haired admonitions from the Judge that the case and other gay-related news. One Found in the Canadian Criminal Code and benevolent in appearance, Harris, homosexuality itself was not on trial, newspaper editorial called it the section headed "Offences Tending to 61 , has a reputation as a civil libertarian. none of the prosecution witnesses were Canadian equivalent of a Soviet Union Corrupt Morals," this particular law has Genial and attentive throughout the directed by Wiley to address the specific "show trial." been used only twice before — both trial, he conducted the proceedings with charge of "using the mails...". Claire Support for The Body Politic was not times against individuals and not a a sense of humour. At one point, while Hoy, for example, declared that not only was he "disgusted by homosexuals." but that he was even "more disgusted by pedophiles." During cross-examination by Rub\. Hoy was shown to be "hope If ml) biased against gays." Quoting cxtensneh from Hoy's Toronto Sun columns, Ruby accused the columnist ol "exhorting the public U) hatred and higotrx against ga\ people, writing in language suitable to " the gutter. Perhaps the least credible Crown Witness was Ken Campbell, toundct ot Renaissance International, who informed the court that he was "sickened on

bchalt ol all parents m Canada" bv the article During cross examination, Rub\

pointed OUt that ( ampbell and Renais- sance UK had successlulK campaigned lor the banning ol such well known

books as I he Diviners and ( atchcr in THE BODY POLITIC/7 and child-adult sexual relationships. Dr pleasant." He went on to draw attention that since pedophilia was not only Alan Long said that sexual relations to one classified ad in the issue which immoral but also a criminal offence, any with an adult "could seriously disturb a referred to FF, and gave a clinical article which advocated child-adult child's heterosexual development, description of fist-fucking, speculating sexual relations must itself be immoral. resulting in psychotic and homosexual on the possible harmful effects of such Based largely on the last paragraph of behaviour." Psychiatrist Jerry Cooper activity on a seven-year-old boy. Rowsell the article which stated that boy lovers the Rye from high schools in Halton warned that the TBP article "advocated concluded his testimony by asserting "deserve our praise, our admiration and County, Ontario. Entered as evidence aberrant criminal behaviour which that every homosexual has a medical our support," all prosecution witnesses was Tempest in a Teapot, a book written preyed upon innocent, vulnerable problem, for "from a biological had testified that the article advocated by Cambell which called for a return children." viewpoint, there's only one place for a or encouraged adult men to go out and to the three Rs in education and the Perhaps the most tedious and penis to go and that's in a vagina." This "seduce innocent seven-year-old boys." readoption of the "Socratic question- offensive testimony came from Dr Peter expert testimony was met with open In contrast to the prosecution, Clay and-answer method of learning." When Rowsell, a psychiatrist and member of laughter in both spectator and press Ruby's defence focused directly on the asked under cross-examination if he The Association for Clinical Hypnosis, galleries. charge against the paper. Whether knew that Socrates was a well-known who launched into hypnotically boring Judge Harris frequently interrupted expert in journalism, psychology or gay pedophile, Campbell replied that if testimony for almost a full day. He during the Crown Attorney's question- activism, the witnesses called were Socrates were to apply today for a recounted the history of homosexuality ing of witnesses. Wiley's continual use prominent and respected figures in their teaching job in Halton County he should from Biblical times to the present, while of the phrase "bum-fucking a seven- fields. certainly be refused. Newspaper Judge Harris frequently interrupted him year-old" prompted Harris to scold him The first and most prominent defence headlines that day read "Socrates to question the relevance of such about "proper reading of the English witness was John Money, perhaps the invoked in trial of Body Politic." testimony. At one point Harris stated language," for "a seven-year-old was world's leading researcher in the field of At least two of the prosecution's three impatiently that, as with most of the mentioned only once in the article, and human sexuality. His testimony was seen

psychological experts have appeared evidence so far, he failed to "see the then not in connection with anal inter- as an important factor in the case as it frequently as witnesses in other trials, connection between this introductory course." At another point, Wiley mis- directly countered what would and probably receive a significant course in psychology and the charge of interpreted a sentence in the article, otherwise have been damaging proportion of their income from using the mail to distribute an issue of quoting it out of context. Harris object- prosecution testimony. Money was able providing the prosecution — or defence The Body Politic:' ed and forced the Crown Attorney to to dispel many of the myths about

— with whatever "scientific validity" is Rowsell also spoke luridly of anal continue reading the entire passage — pedophilia upon which the Crown's case required. They represented the tradition intercourse. According to him, "The eleven paragraphs of the most convin- relied. He testified, for example, that a of medical oppression of person being fucked is in a passive cing and moving argument in the article. sexual /emotional relationship with an homosexuality position and in no way is the experience Wiley rested his case on the premise adult male could be beneficial to a boy,

norance at the root of prejudice, and Media: getting (some of) the picture reasonable people astonished at their vitriol. The courtroom was almost as crowded plified by gay-positive (well, sort of) edi- The Free the Press Fund sent out daily with reporters as with gays. Television torials at the same time that Gary Oakes' reports from the trial to all local media, crews waited daily on the steps of Old trial reports were being chopped to bits supplying gay-positive quotations and City Hall. Courtroom artists sketched and buried on the back pages. The Sun interpretations, and trying to counter the performances for the evening news, favoured prosecution witnesses but gave the general homophobia in the Crown's and radio reporters couldn't find seats in otherwise rather fair news coverage, des- case. 923-GAYS recorded them ver-

, a court crowded with pink triangles. pite headlines like "What A Queer batim, along with extra information, This time the media weren't ignoring gay Thing For A Mayor To Do" and an edi- and logged over 600 calls a day. liberation, and The Body Politic trial got torial cartoon of John Sewell lisping. Visual coverage was mostly uninter- almost as much coverage as the fall of The Globe and Mail reports by esting, except for the one great photo- Lthe Shah of Iran. Vianney Carriere were mostly intelligent graph of Sewell, standing under the rally For two weeks it was the hottest story and straightforward, with reasonable backdrop, The Body Politic logo- in Toronto, and it spread from the edi- emphasis placed on important defence in-handcuffs, and Metro Cable's torial pages to the lifestyle sections, testimony. Generally, coverage didn't hour-long documentary directed by from radio hot-lines to evangelical TV end with the prosecution witnesses as Richard Fung. (The show cut between broadcasts. A story in the Toronto Star, had been feared, although key defence portions of the rally and monologues by about pop-stars Elton John and Rod witnesses like June Callwood and Dr Ed Jackson and Lorna Weir, described Stewart, was headlined "Elton Loving John Money were given much less space later as looking "dangerous, like a Rod Loving Elton," and the University than their reputations would seem to woman who flies overnight to LA with- of Toronto's Varsity was full of similar have warranted. out luggage.") Serious and not un- jokes. The CBC (Canada's Biggest Closet) sophisticated, the programme did have After the January 3rd rally, the story news coverage was abysmal, ignoring the problems, but the scope was enor- really blew wide open: everybody found trial in favour of Ken Campbell's rally at mous relief after countless two-minute

I something to say. But the cautious con- City Hall. Television news never news stories. tents of the mayor's speech helped many amounts to much, but the other sta- Making use of existing systems such as in the media to identify the issues as tions had at least perfunctory reports community cable television (the way "gay rights" and "freedom of the every day. 923-GAYS uses Bell Canada) to tell the press" — the issues as we defined them. At the end of the fortnight, anyone whole story is of vital importance. While Gay news was suddenly featured reading the Globe and Mail every day Sewell's speech (or the act of his speak-

everywhere — not all of it related direct- could have learned quite a lot about ing) helped broaden media coverage, it ly to the trial, but that almost seemed the boy-love. But how many people read wasn't able to deepen it. The media res- point. Every news story about gay im- only headlines, and watched one day's ponse to The Body Politic trial was plies our oppression, and "Men Loving "Manual for Molestors" become the essentially shallow because the media are Boys Loving Men" was the excuse, not next day's "Valuable Scientific Docu- essentially shallow. Following this or the reason, for the attack on TBP. ment"? No wonder the public is con- any complex social issue through '^ $av$tHja*mai$«' The daily press was diligent, often fused on the issue. The letters to the the mass media is difficult, because so with as many as four pieces (one editor- editor reflected the same split that di- little information is packaged into such ial, one column, two news stories was vided City Council: evangelists and sensational, superficial and repetitive the pattern) per day per paper. The homophobes clearly revealing the ig- chunks. Star's liberal schizophrenia was exem- Watching the media watch us is often instructive; trying to manipu- late their reports can be useful, even fun. But in their hands, the real story never

• gets told. Gordon MontadorD

Claire Hoy and Ken Campbell for the prosecution

J/THE BODY POLITIC '

and that such an experience would not surrounding pedophilia. was clearly defending "freedom to dis- Publishers' Association added that " determine a boy's sexual orientation. To counter the prosecution's "religious cuss controversial issues" and not child- The Body Politic was a highly res- Money pointed out that pedophiles were testimony," Ruby presented four theo- adult sexual relations. pected, responsible Canadian twelve times more likely to be hetero- logians: James Reed, an Anglican minis- In a small relief from the overwhelm- periodical," and that the article itself sexual, and stressed that homosexuals ter; University of Toronto chaplain ing male presence in the courtroom, two was a "well-written piece of journal- were not in any way psychologically Eilert Frerichs; United Church minister women testified for The Body Politic. ism." impaired or inferior to the rest of the Clifford Elliot and Leslie Dewart, a pro- Sociology professor Thelma The final defence witness, and the population. In what was to become a fessor at the Toronto Graduate School McCormack of York University spoke first to wear a pink triangle, was well- familiar refrain from defence witnesses, of Theology. of the value of the article for the general known Ottawa gay activist David Gar- he praised the article as an "informative Dewart stated that the article started public, and suggested it should be read maise. Long involved with co-ordinating document of social value." The article," from the thesis that at least some sexual and discussed at all home and school national gay rights organizations, Gar- he continued, "presented pedophilia in a relationships between adults and meetings. maise testified to the role that TBP has non-judgmental and impartial manner." children are "benevolent, and are based In an attempt to fluster the conven- played in raising controversial issues Psychologist Leonard Goldsmith and on friendship and real love." He main- tional looking McCormack, Wiley within the gay community. He explained psychiatrist Frank Sommers largely tained that the article suggested two asked her what she thought of the that a discussion of adult-child sexual reinforced Money's testimony. Both conclusions: "that the law concerning article's use of such language as "bum- relations was important in the context of said that the article demystified pedo- these kinds of relations should be fucking." With no hesitation McCor- homosexuals being branded as "child

philia for both the gay and non-gay changed, and that social attitudes should mack answered that, "When I was molestors."

communities. Sommers noted that change to make the distinction between younger it took me years to figure out Throughout the defence's case, and

"people who make and enforce laws are benign and exploitative pedophilic what the term buggery meant. I find the during the final summation which themselves victims of the mythology" relations." Unfortunately — and this term bum-fucking admirably clear." occured January 16, Ruby's strategy was was to be the case June Call wood, prominent liberal clear. All defence witnesses had testified with almost all the journalist and vice-president of the to the value of the article. None had defence witnesses Canadian Civil Liberties Association, found it salacious, immoral or advocat- — Dewart went on was one of three witnesses who testified ing, and all agreed that it was within the i to say that he per- to the journalistic integrity of the paper tolerance of general Canadian com- sonally disagreed and of the right of any publication to munity standards. with the conclu- print the article. Journalists Bill Judge Harris' decision in the case will sions of the article. Dampier, representing the Periodical be rendered February 14 at 10 AM in He, like most de- Writers' Association of Canada, and Courtroom 34 at old City Hall. cJ« fence witnesses, Paul Ogden of the Canadian Periodical Bill Lewis

Sewell speaks at TBP rally (left) Stillness at the centre of the storm

Amid the hullabaloo, a moment of George Hislop introduced a phalanx calm: the three Body Politic defendants of speakers and entertainers with his took the stage. Isolated in the docket usual wit, as if forgetting his own charge '(W'/ during the trial, here they were warmly resulting from the Barracks raid. in the center, and Gerald Hannon's ("Almost every gay friend I've got," tenderly personal words included all 500 said one activist, "is now charged with MAYOR persons present: "Though the arm of some offence or another.") authority has very often reached out to Feminist journalist Joanne Kates stifle the voice of dissent — and has spoke about the use of gays as "scape- SEWAGE/ often shamefully succeeded — it has goats" in a time of economic depres- never stopped its heart." Stillness at the sion, stating that TBP is being attacked center of the storm. "All of us are that "because it's well-written, because it's heart tonight, and we won't be the voice of a national gay liberation stopped." movement, and because it's political." It was the gay movement's rally and gets repri- Kates, wearing a pink triangle, de- around The Body Politic on the second manded (above). nounced the nuclear family as "a night of its trial, the first such rally in training ground for loyal workers and Canadian history to become a major dutiful consumers." She then added Sewell: Unleashing the whirlwind media event. TV lights blinded the hall, that the real reason for the attacks on frantic reporters blocked the view, TBP is that "it says you can love who When lanky Toronto Mayor John was flashed regularly across the screen. personalities greeted each other effu- you want. It even implies that self-ex- Sewell sprang onto the stage at The The speech the callers were attacking sively. Most of the audience had come to pression might be more important than Body Politic rally January 3, everybody — one which most of them would not rally around the newspaper in its hour of profit." Kates received enthusiastic

knew it was An Event. have heard — sprang very much from trial; the media had come only for John applause as she finished by asking:

What no one would have guessed was Sewell's long-established concern for the Sewell. "Whose fight is this? It is the fight of that his carefully worded, five-minute integrity of city neighbourhoods and the By the time Hannon spoke, and the feminists and working people and

speech would plunge the mayor's office importance of Toronto's varied com- solid array of gay-supportive culture community organizations, and I want to

. ' — and the city — into one of the hottest munities. As a long-time social activist workers were performing, the cameras know where they are tonight controversies in years, and that two and alderman for the city's under- and John Sewell had dashed out into the Gordon Montador, of the Body weeks later the Mayor of Toronto would privileged Ward 7, he had gained a repu- cold January 3 night. The audience was Politic Free the Press Fund, then intro- be unable to leave his office except tation as an outspoken advocate of sane, somewhat perplexed: wildly glad for the duced the three defendants, as well as under police guard — the result of people-oriented city development — a mayor's support and for his revival of the other members of the TBP col- "believable and detailed" threats on his position which brought him into pressure to amend the Ontario Human lective. Gerald Hannon's speech on life. frequent conflict with Toronto's high- Rights Code, but a touch let down when behalf of the defendants explained the i The irony of the situation was that rise-complex developers. the media showed their lack of interest limitations imposed on the accused by Sewell had agreed to appear at the rally Now, Toronto's mayor for just over a in the community that amendment contempt of court laws and thanked all partly "to try to help calm the political month, he sparked the biggest contro- would protect. The media coverage those involved in the defence of the atmosphere so that issues can be versy to engulf the mayor's office in became the event, and the gay people new spapcr clarified." decades by, in effect, declaring that the who had come to do something were Whatever calm his defence of freedom gay community was one of the many in relegated to the role of passive |

of the press and support for gay rights Toronto that, in his words, "contribute pants. But, if we might have engendered was shattered the significantly to the vitality and versatility were left alone, following morning when the city hall of the city." we were at least switchboard was swamped by hundreds Sewell dealt as well with the role of the alone with our of irate callers — most of whom alternative press: "As you all know, The surest continuing delivered their hate message and hung Body Politic plays a very useful role in

up without leaving their names. It be- helping to clarify issues for members came clear later in the day, however, of the gay com- that the response was scarcely spon- munity — in help- taneous — most calls came after right- ing Id discuss wing Evangelist Ken Campbell had controversial appeared on the religious programme matters within "100 Huntley Street" and broken down that community. in tears as he related his experience as a As in the case witness for the Crown in The Body with other Politic trial. During the programme, the continued telephone number of the mayor's office pane 10 FEBRUARY 1979 .

Earlier on, when most of the feedback was strongly negative and often vitriolic, Sewell was quoted as saying "I never knew there was so much hate in Toronto." To some extent, Sewell had simply oGWGll Continuedfmm page 9 made himself the lightening rod for the kind of frightening and irrational hatred members of the alternative press, people that any gay person opens him /herself who are not interested in these issues do to when the decision is made to go not have to read these papers... public. That he is becoming sensitive to "I believe it is important to continue the individual human dimension of the to stress the usefulness of the alternative situation is clear from the remarks he Law commission calls for repeal press and to ensure its freedom. The trial made at the rally after the close of his now going on in regard to The Body prepared speech. of most "sexual offence" laws Politic is seen by many as an attack on In a statement that went largely un-

the freedom of the press. I wrote to the reported in media coverage of the event, OTTAWA — In its final report on ment which does not seem to see law attorney-general some months ago, he expressed sympathy for the men who sexual offences, submitted in late reform, especially in the criminal field, following the seizure of documents from had been swept up in the police raid on November 1978, the Law Reform Com- as a vote-getting priority. The Body Politic, stressing that very the Barracks bath, offered them mission of Canada has called for the Paul TrollopeD concern. ... encouragement and support. It is not repeal of the Criminal Code sections "I hope that my attendance here to- generally known that he been making gross indecency, indecent had Nudity trial delayed night can help ensure that an attack on informed earlier by Brent Hawkes, assault, rape, buggery and bestiality in- the alternative press in Toronto must not pastor of the Metropolitan Community dictable criminal offences under present TORONTO — There has been a delay be countenanced and that we all must Church, that one of the individuals law. in the trials of about ten men, some gay act strongly when any kind of attack is charged in the raid had been suicidal In place of these offences, which, with and some apparently heterosexual, on suggested." until he heard of Sewell's decision to the exception of rape, are used by police nudity charges arising out of arrests What brought the audience to its feet address the rally. almost exclusively to harass gay men, the made at Hanlan's Point beach last in a roar of tumultuous applause, That the Mayor of Toronto would use Commission recommends the enactment summer. however, was the mayor's unequivocal a public platform to reassure a group of of only two new offences: sexual inter- On November 29, 1978, Provincial demand for the legitimization of the men enduring a very private agony is ference and sexual aggression. The Court Judge Charles Scullion, who was city's gay community. "We know it's eloquent testimony to the fact that we Commission clearly recognizes the prin- to have tried the cases, disqualified him-

not illegal to be gay," he said, "we have, as one letter writer put it, "at last, ciple that consensual sex should not be a self from hearing the charges. All but should take the next step and make it a mayor of ALL the people." Criminal Code matter, and that what one of the defendants were remanded to

should be penalized is , clearly legitimate to be gay." Preceded Gerald Hannon any form of non- March 1 1979 for trial before a different by an appeal to the Ontario government consensual sexual interference of one judge. One accused man, whose lawyer to amend the Human Rights Code to person by another. said outside the court that he did not protect gay people, the statement stands Rdlly Continuedfrom page 9 The Commission says social attitudes want his client tried at the same time as a as the strongest support yet from an in matters of sexual behaviour have "bunch of homosexuals," was remand- elected official in this province. While numerous telegrams of support "obviously drastically changed" since ed to February 28. Strong stuff. All three Toronto dailies were being read, a collection for the the enactment of the Criminal Code. Scullion worked in the office of the responded editorially — the Sun said he legal costs of the trial raised over The Commission points to the 1969 Attorney-General until September, gave "an authority to the radical homo- $1,200. Several groups of local artists, amendment decriminalizing homosexual 1978. In this capacity he received infor- sexual movement which, in our view, is all volunteering their talents, then acts under certain circumstances and the mation from the police about the nudity wrong," while both the Star and the performed (see review in Our Image). 1975 rape amendments, but says they do charges, and was involved in the Globe and Mail applauded the man's The Clichettes, a group of women not go far enough. "Further changes are approach to Attorney-General Roy courage and, generally, the sentiments, impersonating female impersonators, ...necessary." A more "egalitarian McMurtry to seek his consent to the pro- but deplored the "bad timing." received what was probably the biggest application and exposition of the law" secutions. Public nudity is one of the As of this writing, the issue is still ovation of an ovation-filled evening. as between the sexes is essential, the few offences for which the Attorney- being hotly debated in the letters The rally concluded with speeches by Commission says, noting that the General's personal consent is a pre- columns of the daily papers — particul- two gay activists. David McLean present criminal law "enshrines a stereo- requisite for each prosecution. arly in the Star, which has devoted the stressed the problems faced by gay typed image of masculine and feminine Because of his prior knowledge of the

greater part of its "Letters" page to the people under 21 , while Christine roles," and contains "a measure of circumstances surrounding the charges, issue for weeks. And as one Toronto Bearchell gave a thoughtful analysis of paternalism." Scullion told counsel for the accused

university professor put it, "If I go to the context in which the trial is The Commission recognizes three men that he would have to disqualify one more cocktail party where they're occurring, outlining the victories principles which it believes the revised himself.

discussing Sewell's speech, I am going to achieved by the Canadian gay movement "sexual offence" sections of the Code Other men also arrested at Hanlan's stop going to cocktail parties." A and the problems that still remain. should reflect: "protecting the integrity last summer have already pleaded guilty spokesperson from the mayor's office Following the rally, about 150 people of the person, protecting children and before other judges. Most have received told TBP that, as of January 19, the marched along Bloor Street to the special groups, and safeguarding public absolute discharges, a disposition where- balance of phone calls was in the Hudson's Bay center at Yonge, chanting decency." by the person technically does not mayor's favour, and of the 1500 to 2000 and jumping up and down to keep warm According to the Commission's pro- receive a criminal conviction, although pieces of mail received on the issue, "the in the sub-zero midnight. posals, anyone who, for a sexual records are kept of the finding of guilt. majority were positive and supported Mariana Valverde and purpose, directly or indirectly touched A number of the guilty pleas have John's stand." Michael Lynch another person without that person's been accompanied by wisecracks from bona fide consent, would be guilty of the Crown attorney prosecuting the The love-in that wasn't: Although sexual interference. case, such as "What this man thought he billed as a festival of "Faith, Free- Anyone who used violence, or threat- had to show off to the public I don't ened to use violence in the course of similar ("he dom and the Family' ' by right-wing know," and rejoinders evangelicals Ken Campbell (below, left) sexual interference would be guilty of an probably doesn't have much to show and David Mainse (centre), many of the indictable offence and liable to impris- anyway") from the sentencing judge. faithful who turned up to pray also car- onment for ten years. Paul TrollopeD ried signs linking gay people to child It would not be a defence that the murderers. Left: "Mr Sewell, Hislop, parties were married. A husband could Gacy, Betesh, Woods and Kribs — thus be found guilty of sexual inter- how do you say you're sorry?" ference with his wife if she did not consent to sexual activity on a given Know something occasion. As to age of consent, the Commis- we don't?

sion's position is not so clear. For heterosexual sex, the age would continue to vary between 14 and 18. Any sex with If you have a lead on a news story a person under 14 would be punishable you think we (and the community) by five years' imprisonment. For homo- should know about sexual and lesbian sex, although the — give us a call. Commission does not expressly say so, the effect of their legislative recom- Confidentiality guaranteed. mendations in this area is that the age of consent would be lowered to 18. TBP NEWSLINE: (416)863-6320 In the past, the Law Reform Com- mission's recommendations have largely been ignored by the Trudeau govern-

10/THE BODY POLITIC FEBRUARY 1979 .

Better watch out! When Santa Claus comes to town he just might head for the nearest gay bar.

for gay Metis and native people. In addition to upholding the boycott, groups withdraw Native people were reluctant to come the delegates passed a motion of support to the old Centre out of fear of exposure for The Body Politic. The motion since the building was shared with the emerged from a workshop on gay rights from nation-wide coalition Metis Association. which dealt with TBP's case, the CBC Plans for the new group, the first of boycott, the commercial press' OTTAWA — Two Saskatchewan town gays across Canada and the mid- its kind in the country, began last month treatment of homosexual and gay rights organizations have announced their western states. It is not an alternative after a number of native people issues and the responsibility of the resignations from the Canadian Lesbian strategy but a social fabric we are approached the Saskatchewan Gay student press to cover gay news and and Gay Rights Coalition (CLGRC) creating." Coalition's rural outreach programme. viewpoints. because of major policy differences on At the same time Wilson reiterated Organizers are planning to hold a pro- Elizabeth Bolton gay rights strategy and lesbian partici- that the Gay Community Centre was vincial conference of native gays in the

pation within the movement. The Gay committed to supporting the CLGRC in spring, and the word is being spread Community Centre of Saskatoon demanding rights at the federal level. throughout the Metis and Indian Claus laws prompt (GCCS) and the Saskatchewan Gay "We may send observers to the national communities by contacts in different Coalition announced their withdrawal in conference in Ottawa this summer," he native cultural organizations. appeal to gay clause December in letters to the CLGRC said, "but we just don't have the energy MONTREAL — Ottawa coordinating office. Winnipeg's to work within the CLGRC and pursue Question: What's red and white and After Stonewall magazine has also our own goals. So we see this withdrawal CUP vote: continue straight as an arrow? announced it will leave the Coalition by as a positive and constructive step for CBC ad boycott Answer: Santa Claus, at least according February 1 us." to the Association of Santa Clauses of

The departures represent the cul- After Stonewall also emphasized it EDMONTON — Canadian University Quebec (L'Association des peres Noel mination of political differences which wasn't out to dismantle the CLGRC. Press voted to continue boycotting CBC du Quebec). have arisen between some western Said Walter Davis, "We feel it's radio advertising as a result of its dis- The Association pour les droits des groups and the CLGRC over the past counterproductive to be in the CLGRC criminatory public service announce- gai(e)s du Quebec (ADGQ) laid an few years. At the national conference in at this time. The CLGRC may be ments (PSA) policy. official complaint December 7 with the Halifax in 1978 some western delegates stronger without us, because it will be Meeting at the Edmonton Plaza Hotel province's Human Rights Commission walked out in anger from a plenary free to pursue its own course of action over the Christmas break for their 41st against the agency which provides Santa session to underline their resentment of without the internal debate which has annual conference, delegates from over Clauses for local department stores. The CLGRC policy. characterized past conferences." 50 Canadian college and university charge came following the appearance "We don't want to be acrimonious, or Gays of Ottawa, the CLGRC co- newspapers upheld the boycott for the of an article December 2 in the Montreal have a continuing controversy over this ordinating organization, released a state- third consecutive year because of CBC's daily, LaPresse in which Mr Henri withdrawal," said Doug Wilson of the ment calling the withdrawals "unfor- refusal to accept PSAs from gay groups. Paquet, president of the Santa Claus Saskatoon Gay Community Centre. tunate." Said John Duggan, "The The boycott was initiated in association, defined the necessary cri- "We haven't felt comfortable with the Coalition is made up of a variety of September 1976 by the Dalhousie teria for the hiring of candidates by limited perspective of the CLGRC for groups with differing priorities, Gazette of Halifax. The local CBC AM saying, "He must be sober, honest, and some time, and there seems to be an in- activities and strategies, but the federal radio outlet, CBH, had on several have no homosexual tendencies." tolerance of dissent in that coalition area gives us common ground to change occasions refused to run a PSA from the In its letter to the Human Rights too." Wilson said the major reason for laws which affect us all. That's why the Gay Alliance for Equality, announcing a Commission, ADGQ claimed the the withdrawal involved attitudes on les- CLGRC was founded as a civil rights meeting and its phoneline service. criteria were contrary to Bill 88 which bian participation. At the Halifax con- organization. We don't have the human After a series of CRTC license inter- had incorporated sexual orientation in ference delegates voted against a plan to or financial resources to expand our vention hearings across the country at the province's Human Rights Charter. prorate votes to ensure women had 50% objectives." which gay groups presented briefs pro- The association asked that the voting power, and opted instead for Duggan also pointed out that the de- testing CBC's discrimination, the CBC commission intervene to stop the dis- affirmative action programmes such as feat of the motion to give lesbians 50% was ordered to review its PSA policy. In criminatory practice. travel equalization grants to bring voting rights within the CLGRC August 1978 the CBC announced it Mr. Paquet made no mention of the women to national conferences. Said occurred in Halifax when more than would maintain a nation-wide policy of jolly gentleman's well known propensity Wilson, "We know that some groups 50% of the women present rejected the refusing gay groups access to PSAs on to openly cohabit in a remote area of the within the CLGRC are just beginning scheme as both "unrealistic," and the grounds that homosexuality is world with a rather large group of elves. the debate on lesbian participation. But "token." "Anyone who knows the "controversial." D Saskatoon has established a relationship work of the CLGRC knows that it is not between men and women based on anti-lesbian," said Duggan. "And the mutual respect and support. Women GCCS contradicts itself. It expresses a have 50% participation in decision desire for a grassroots movement on the making. The action of the CLGRC in one hand, while at the same time pro- Halifax means Saskatchewan women are posing the coalition involve itself in disenfranchised at a national level. To every aspect of lesbian and gay libera- stay in the CLGRC would jeopardize tion throughout Canada. But support

relationships within the Saskatchewan for the coalition is still very strong across community." the country, and we're working hard on Walter Davis of After Stonewall cited planning for a great conference in the CLGRC decision on the role of les- Ottawa in June." bians as the main reason for that group's Robin March withdrawal. "The action in Halifax was opposed to some of our own principles and we are not satisfied the matter has New Gay Centre been properly resolved." boosts native The western groups have also gays criticized the CLGRC for a narrow per- SASKATOON — Deputy Mayor spective on gay liberation. "We have to George Taylor officially opened the feel we're doing something city's new Gay Community Centre worthwhile," said Wilson. "A civil January 12. rights and legislative strategy is not The Centre, at 245 Third Avenue enough for the gay movement. There South, will offer a wide range of social, Splash slash: Jack Ha/an's film documentary of the British painter David HocklWJ

must be a national programme to co- political, cultural and educational activi- has been clipped for its commercial run b\ the Ontario Board ol CenSOfS, I Biggtf ordinate cultural development and out- ties, as well as counselling services and a Splash was prcvioush shown uncut in British Columbia, Alheria. and in Ontario II reach efforts. The Saskatoon large lending library. It replaces a similar the Ottawa Film Festival and loronio's Festival ol Festival! More than a minute i

FEBRUARY 1979 THE BODY POLITIC/11 Barracks hits as "prostitution front" — angry community protests harassment Toronto cops raid gay bath, charge 28 men

TORONTO — An early morning raid Politic organized a meeting held Satur- leather" found by police. The Globe and And why didn't the law give equal treat- December 9 by Metro police on a gay day afternoon, the same day as the raid. Mail, however, ran a major story ment to homosexuals and heterosexuals? steambath has resulted in charges The meeting, attended by baths owners December 13 describing the baths as "a Heap noted that found-ins in a hetero- against 28 gay men. and managers as well as found-ins and safer place for casual sex," and on sexual brothel are rarely charged, and The raid was probably the first organ- gay activists, decided to issue a leaflet December 20 published a full-page asked why this should be any different in ized police assault on a gay bath in the for immediate distribution announcing a feature ridiculing the bawdy house laws the case of a gay brothel. city's history, and drew immediate reac- mass meeting for the following Monday as "Victorian and out of date." Heap's analysis of the situation, while tion from a frightened, confused but to organize response to the raid. On Saturday, December 16, about well-meant, was very confused, and his angry gay community. The combination of gay businessmen 400 people marched from the Church characterization of gay steambaths as Acting on what they claimed were and gay activists represented an uneasy Street Community Centre to Nathan brothels did little to clarify the issue. complaints from residents of the largely alliance, and a few bath owners Phillips Square in front of Toronto City Mayor John Sewell met with repre- industrial area in which The Barracks is quarrelled at first with the proposal that Hall. The angry but jubilant crowd sentatives of the gay community

located, about 20 Metro police officers the case be given a high profile as an heard speeches from Toronto Alder- December 21 , and heard complaints

raided the bath at 1 :38 AM, charging 23 attack on the gay community. However, person Dan Heap, TBP spokesperson about what spokesperson Michael men as found-ins in a common bawdy that tactic was finally accepted by all Tim McCaskell, Brent Hawkes of MCC, Lynch called "a pattern of police harass- house and three others with "keeping" those present. and others. ment of gays, focussed in the recent raid a bawdy house, an indictable offence About 400 people crowded into the McCaskell told the crowd that the on The Barracks." It was also pointed carrying a possible penalty of two years auditorium of the Church Street Com- media, the politicians and the police had out that police often did not take steps imprisonment. Two more men were munity Centre to discuss organized been trying to drive a wedge between to stop "queer-bashing" of gays by charged with the serious "keeping" action against the police raid and "radical" homosexuals and "decent" homophobic straights in the downtown offence December 13. charges. Although some people claimed homosexuals. By raiding The Barracks area. Lynch also raised the question of Eyewitnesses reported that although that gays were not under attack and that and orchestrating a campaign against whether the raid on The Barracks was staff offered to open any of the rooms in "over-reacting" would only provoke George Hislop and the found-ins, he connected with The Body Politic trial. the bath, police used hammers and further police hostility, an overwhelming said, it was clear that the same elements Sewell agreed to meet senior police crowbars to smash in doors and pry majority of those present voted to hold a were trying to divide the "dirty" homo- officials to discuss the problems gays open lockers. At least one man alleges he press conference the following day, just sexuals (the ones who go to the baths) had mentioned. However, Metro Police was roughed up by the police. Another after the first court appearance of the from the "decent" homosexuals. "Well, Chief Harold Adamson said he had no individual who was arrested claims he accused, and to hold a march and rally when you take the radical gays and the evidence that the police were harassing was simply getting out of his car on his the following Saturday. dirty gays, pretty soon you don't have anyone, and denied that there was any way to the baths and was not even on the The press conference December 12 many of us left," he said. link between The Barracks and TBP's premises. One Barracks employee says had Hislop, Michael Lynch, Tom Alderperson Heap said indignantly case. the police threatened him with a gun, Warner, Michael Laking, John Lee and that he had at least four questions about The men arrested in the raid were ex- and placed a knife to his throat. Mariana Valverde facing a generally the police action. What did the law mean tensively questioned by police as to their sympathetic press corps. by indecent acts, which are nowhere employment, religious background, Hislop, referring to the arrests as defined in the Criminal Codel Was there salary, education and so on, and were "one more battle in a war," charged unnecessary violence to people and pro- asked what "really" went on at The that police had "brutalized and humil- perty done by police, and if so, why? Barracks, and what they were doing iated" a number of those arrested. Some Why was the membership list seized? there. Although none of the accused of the "found-ins," he claimed, had been forced to parade nude in front of female police officers. Mariana Valverde stated that "an attack on any gay establishment is an attack on the whole gay community, and that includes lesbians," and promised there would be many lesbians at the up- coming demonstration. In provincial court December 12, the arrested men appeared before His Honour Judge Jack Climans, who remanded them to January 24 to set a date for trial. None of the men pleaded guilty, an encouraging show of strength Tim McCaskell addresses Dec 16 rally — in similar cases men will sometimes An examination of the premises the panic and plead guilty even when there is following day showed that at least six no reason to do so. doors had been kicked in, ashtrays had Police have alleged that The Barracks been torn from the walls and holes had is a front for male prostitution, and been kicked in the drywall. made much of the fact that such things Sergeant Dennis Robinson of 52 as whips, vibrators, chains and leather Division, the officer in charge of the G-strings were seized on the premises. raid, was quoted later as saying that only "There were rooms done up like jail necessary force was used. cells and things like a corkscrew and

Police also seized the full membership sponge balls ... I really had to use my list of The Barracks, consisting of some imagination to figure out how they were 800 names, as well as a number of mem- used," one police officer told the Toron- bership cards. According to the Toronto to Sun. Star, many gay men are "living in fear" George Hislop, however, has denied as a result of the seizure, and at least a any knowledge of prostitution at The

few of the names on the list are those of Barracks, and said that he would not closeted and frightened Metro police countenance any such activity. Other officers. gay spokespersons pointed out that the George Hislop, for years a leader in baths are places where consenting gay Toronto's gay community, was arrested men go for sex which does not involve later the same morning and charged as a financial transactions. "keeper," although he is only a 10% The Sun has taken advantage of the shareholder in the business. charges to refer frequently in its edit- Word of the raid spread quickly orials and news coverage to "homo- through Toronto's gay community, and sexual diddling," a "homosexual fro- representatives of the Gay Alliance To- licking centre," "the paraphernalia of ward Equality (GATE) and The Body perversion" and the "whips, chains and

12/THE BODY POLITIC were given compulsory VD tests at the not appear. prevent further police raids. The legal police station, all those appearing in There is considerable speculation in status of gay baths in Canada remains court were presented with notices from a the gay community as to why The extremely doubtful, although an Ottawa woman who refused to identify herself Barracks was raided as opposed to Provincial Court Judge has hinted that but who said she worked with "the numerous other gay baths in the city. as long as there are no common rooms health department at city hall." The consensus seems to be that the or orgy rooms, there may be a legal placi The woman refused to give any infor- police felt they could get more mileage for gay baths to exist without running mation about the notices she was dis- from the media and more public sympa- afoul of the Criminal Code. The up- tributing, but revealed that her depart- thy by raiding a place they felt was coming Barracks court case may well ment served notices on people charged "kinky," a place where sex toys and test this further. with "certain offences" to attend for paraphernalia could be seized and des- In the meantime, prominent gay VD tests. Asked if the men were cribed for the benefit of the media. people in Toronto, including George continue to receive threatening and required by law to take the tests, the Other gay baths in the city closed their Hislop and Michael Laking, president of harassing telephone calls. Some of woman replied that "persuasive tech- common rooms immediately after the the Toronto Lambda Business Council the calls have been death threats. niques" would be used if the men did raid, apparently hoping that this would (the council of gay business owners), Paul TrollopeD

George Hislop after the meeting. taking place on school property, would The forty men attending did vote Funding the defence be a different matter — probably to give 1 the 1 $ 000 of $ 200 collected Abuse of power warranting dismissal. so far to Barracks with A public meeting held January 22 The directors, Though the North York Board of elected an executive committee for the stipulation that the next disburse- TORONTO — Six teachers arrested Education itself was divided in its ment go to the found-ins. the December 9th Defence Fund, the during the police raid on The Barracks reactions, Chairperson Lawrence Crack- Rev Hawkes felt that ques- ad hoc support organization formed many December 9 found their jobs and reputa- ower criticized Donovan's actions as at tions will have to be considered by the first angry rally after The tions threatened long before they were having been done "in a vindictive vein." Barracks raid. chairperson is the committee. Decisions about The scheduled to go on trial. Staff Sergeant In a similar case, an official of the whether funds can be earmarked for Michael Laking (president of the Gary Donovan of the Metropolitan Toronto Board of Education told the fledgling particular defendants, and how funds Toronto Lambda Business Toronto Police called three school Globe and Mail January 12 that police will be appropriated for the political Council); Brent Hawkes, pastor of boards in the Toronto region December had informed the Board of the con- is treasurer. Five struggle, are yet to be made. said MCC, other mem- He 18, and informed them of the names of viction of Barry Tulip, trustee for Ward bers he hopes the committee "will under- include representatives from those teachers in their employ who had 7. stand the importance of raising gay both the "keepers" and the "found- been charged in the raid. Although Tulip denies being gay and ins." rights issues around this case." One teacher who was called into the told the press he had been set up by the The is The committee will be demanding committee unusually con- office of his Director of Education later that all charges be dropped, and it is stituted in that it is empowered to contacted Rev Brent Hawkes of MCC. preparing a strongly worded give funds to two groups charged According to Hawkes, the man was told with pamphlet : "The impending trial two separate crimes, whose legal that his job was not in jeopardy, but that fortunes must be used to make clear to all and may not always coincide. So if his name became public as a result of for all that our bodies are our own to far little has been done to organize court proceedings, he might have to be use, consensually, as we see fit." The the found-ins and their counsel. transferred to a non-teaching position. group will also demand that the police Tom Warner, former co-ordinator Hawkes released this information to fire Gary Donovan, the officer in- of the Coalition for Gay Rights in who the media and charged that such police HMIDRE8S formed school boards that certain of Ontario, and Brian Mossop of actions amounted to a conviction with- their teachers were among those GATE, are also on the committee. out trial. He wrote the Toronto Police 0«E NOT arrested. Trial date for the Barracks accused Commission asking that the officer res- The directors The was set during of Barracks have a brief court session Jan- ponsible be disciplined. MARCH TODAY retained Morris Manning, the lawyer uary 24. The trial of the "keepers" will Deputy Police Chief Jack Ackroyd who "cleaned up Yonge Street" of begin November 13, 1979 and may last confirmed the boards had been in- body-rub parlours. The Crown as long as two weeks. The "found-ins" formed about the pending charges by FOR FEAR usually proceeds against "keepers" will stand trial November 28. Sgt Donovan. Ackroyd said that Dono- OF first, and the meeting was urged to Legal costs may go as high as $75,000 van "erred in judgement" in supplying vote funds to help retain Manning. Donations can be made to the the boards with the teachers' names, and THEIR JOBS "It's important for the 'found-ins' December 9th Defense Fund, 59 explained that such an action is usually case that the case against the Austin Ave, Toronto, ON, taken only when pending charges 'keepers' be well-handled," said M4M 1V7.D involve an employer directly, as in a case police, he pleaded guilty to committing of embezzlement. an "indecent act" with another man in Donovan, a 16-year veteran of the an Eaton's store washroom November police force, said in his report that he 28, 1978. He said the guilty plea would made the calls because he found the idea save him further trouble and expense, of homosexual teachers "disturbing." and suggested that police had a grudge The department decided to reprimand against him for appearing in family Donovan rather than charge him under court on behalf of juveniles whom he the Police Act. frequently got released on probation. He In a statement to the press, represen- had been aquitted of a similar charge in tatives of the Toronto gay movement 1977. called upon the police to suspend, inves- Police Chief Harold Adamson would tigate and, if the allegations were borne not confirm or deny that police had out, dismiss Sergeant Donovan. They approached the Board, but said that if

characterized his actions as an "immedi- such a call had been placed it would be ate and clear example of unwarranted "an error." interference in the private lives of citi- Fiona Nelson of the Toronto Board zens." told the press January 12 that the police Fiona Nelson, chairperson of the displayed "dreadful impropriety" in Toronto Board of Education, said that calling school board officials in the Tulip

"a teacher's sexual orientation and per- case. She termed it "an outrageous

- sonal life arc none of the school board's abuse of police power' and said that business unless they interfere with that "such police actiOM amount to a poticj person's job." Gerald Phillips, chair- of harassment of homosexuals person of the Metro Board, and Bill Adamson denied her charges, and Phillips of the East York Board agreed, claimed that "homosexuals, hkeanx but said that sexual offense, hs teachers, other citizens, reodvc lair and equal Mpedally those involving children or treatment under the law FEBRUARY 1979 THE BODY POLITIC/13 m IBH SECURITY

But Canadians have been outraged by an office from a company called Cro- Committee seeks link to Board criticism of the RCMP for illegally Mex. After the company had at first opening mail here!" refused to rent to AGOQ because it is a to express community concerns Kathleen Ruff, Director of the British gay group, an AGOQ member Columbia Human Rights Commission, approached Cro-Mex "incognito" and told delegates that the Canadian judi- managed to sign a lease. TORONTO Representatives organizers of the committee, "The — from at ciary does not have a tradition of Cro-Mex owner Andre Richard called least five gay organizations are pre- group would be able to express the con- supporting human rights causes. She AGOQ and said he was opposed to hav- paring a proposal for the Toronto Board cerns of the gay community with respect cited the Vancouver Sun/Gay Tide case ing queers in his building. He said he was of Education which asks to inadequacies in the school the Board to curri- as an example. "The highest court in BC changing the lock and hiring some recognize a Liaison culum. And in the event incident Gay Committee as a of an ruled that if a bias is honestly enter- heavies to keep them out. When the link between it and the gay community. like the Barracks' raid, the Board would tained, then it is reasonable and accep- group arrived for their meeting, they The Board has encouraged be able to solicit advice groups from the com- table as far as the law is concerned," found a new lock had been installed. who feel their concerns are not ade- mittee as to what sort of response would Ruff said. "In the whole of my life, I The Quebec Human Rights quately met by the educational system to be most appropriate." have never met a dishonest bias." Commission is investigating. establish such liaison committees as a Bob Spencer, trustee for Ward 6, told Gay rights were mentioned frequently means of gaining direct access to the TBP that "The proposal will be contro- during the conference. Many delegates Board. Both women and the Black versial in the context of Sewell's speech referred to the absence of sexual orien- Union paper community have already formed such and the Barracks' raid. However, I think tation from all human rights codes committees. it's a positive example of gay people (except Quebec's) as one of the major says yes to ad The proposal is doing something is being drafted by constructive. It par- weaknesses of existing legislation. VANCOUVER — A newspaper pub- representatives from the ticularly good at time Ontario Gay a when gays are The conference passed a number of lished by striking workers of the Teachers' Caucus, the being harassed by police." Gay Academic resolutions which will be forwarded to Vancouver Sun and Province has accept- Union, Gay Youth Toronto, the Anyone interested in the Liaison Gay Gay Parliament by the Canadian Human ed a subscription ad from Gay Tide. Alliance Toward Equality and the Committee should contact John Argue Rights Commission, including one to Gay Tide, published by the Gay Metropolitan Community Church. at 964-1049 (home) or 461-3577 have sexual orientation among the cate- Alliance Toward Equality, is currently According to John Argue, of the (work).D one gories of prohibited discrimination in all waiting for a decision from the Supreme federal and provincial human rights Court of Canada on a lawsuit against the laws. Sun for its refusal to publish a similar ad Both the ruling New Democratic David GarmaiseD in 1974. Damien's supporters Party and the provincial Human Rights The Express began operating with the Commission have endorsed the change Computer help of striking workers soon after the and there is check strike go to horse races broad popular support at a was called October 31 . The Sun grass roots level. Opposition in Cabinet, to stop gay at border and the Province are morning and even- ONTARIO — John Damien's especially from Attorney General Roy ing dailies jointly owned by two cor- supporters in Ottawa and Toronto took Romanov, has blocked the amendment PORT HURON — American border porate publishing chains in Canada, FP his case to the races late in November. to this point. It is not known if pro- authorities prevented a gay man from and Southam. Damien's supporters handed out tection for gays will be included in the entering the United States January 6 Gay activists in Vancouver see the 7,000 flyers to fans entering the race draft legislation presently being because they said he "is a known sexual acceptance by The Express as evidence

tracks in the two cities to remind them of prepared. deviant." that the Sun 's refusal to publish gay his case, which is still in the pre-trial SGC is planning to meet with American immigration regulations material was a corporate management stages after almost four years. In 1975 Romanov in February and with the prohibit "sexual deviants" from enter- policy and had little support among Damien launched wrongful dismissal a provincial cabinet in May to argue its ing the country. employees. suit against the Ontario Racing Com- case.D The man, who did not want to be The strike continues. mission, which allegedly fired him identified, said his car was stopped by "because he's a homosexual." authorities in a spot check when he tried Up and coming These initiatives represent the first Delegates critical to cross the border. They took down his time that the race tracks have been an of rights record license number to check it in a Harbinger Community Services, York arena for John Damien's defense. computer, he said. University's peer counselling centre, is "Track fans haven't contributed OTTAWA — Canada needs tougher When the authorities returned they co-ordinating a conference of peer coun- much money but they've expressed a lot human rights laws, less conservative asked the man to come into their office selling services for lesbians and gay men of moral support," explained one courts, less powerful governments and a for questioning. In front of other people at Hart House, University of Toronto supporter. public which doesn't turn the other the officials loudly asked, "Are you a on the weekend of February 23. The Last December Damien was ques- cheek. These were the conclusions of a homosexual?" conference is sponsored by the Bi- tioned for the third time by lawyers conference on human rights held here in "I answered yes," said the man. "I National Conference of Lesbian and representing Dr Thoreau Willard December to mark the 30th anniversary was embarrassed because they already Gay Youth. For more information O'Mulvenny. O'Mulvenny was the of the Universal Declaration of Human knew I was convicted of a "sexual about the conference and how you can medical practitioner who is alleged to Rights. offense" 12 years ago when they participate, contact Harbinger have revealed Damien's homosexuality Sponsored by the Canadian Human checked in the computer." Community Services at York University: to his employers. Rights Commission, the conference was "They give you the feeling you are on Ph: (416)667-3509. attended by representatives of federal the ten most wanted list," said the man. A rally to amend the code: The Com- Gays, Renaissance and provincial human rights bodies and "They refused to let me in because they mittee to Defend John Damien invites by volunteers from associations all said I am a sexual deviant." Ontario gays who wish to push for the spar over rights brief across Canada. Included were such He said he was also refused entrance "sexual orientation" amendment to the groups as: Federation of Pakistani- two years ago for the same reason and Ontario Human Rights Code to attend a

REGINA — The steering committee of Canadians, Manitoba Association for added it was quite common to be turned rally, Trinity College, University of the Saskatchewan Gay Coalition Rights and Liberties, Federation des away at the Port Huron crossing. Toronto, on Friday, February 9, the released its brief Lesbians and Gay Femmes du Quebec, Indian Rights for Worried that the border officials fourth anniversary of the firing of John Men — A Minority Without Rights in Indian Women, Coalition of Provincial would give his car description to the Damien. Following the 8:00 PM rally, a early January. Organizations for the Handicapped, and border officials at the Windsor crossing, dance will be held at the 519 Church The brief, which has been delivered to the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Rights he got a friend to drive him across. Street Community Centre. For more in- all members of the Saskatchewan legis- Coalition. by Eugene ZimmerebmerD formation phone 923-GAYS the week lature, including the Cabinet, calls for the Conference delegates repeatedly be- before Valentine's Day. amendment to the province's Human moaned the lack of a tradition of rights Gay group locked out Toronto Integrity, the gay Anglicans, Rights Code to include sexual orien- and liberties in Canada. They felt that are holding a service at the Holy Trinity tation. Opposing the change is Renais- Canadians let the government get away GATINEAU — A local landlord has Church in Toronto on February 13 at sance Saskatchewan, a right wing evan- with too much. June Callwood, con- refused to allow a gay group to use 8:00 PM. The guest preacher at the gelical group that sponsored Anita ference co-chairperson, said: premises the group had already rented. Eucharist will be Sister Judith of Bryant's visit to Moose Jaw last July. "Americans were so outraged at illegal As reported in the last issue of TBP, Dignity, followed by Father Robbins The group has begun a vicious letter mail openings that they have won $1 ,000 l'Association gaie de l'Ouest qu^becois speaking on the topic of "The Church campaign to the press and government. compensation payments for each case. (AGOQ) had resorted to trickery to rent and Sexuality. "D 14/THE BODY POLITIC FEBRUARY 1979 D

NewsAnalysis

by Ross Irwin fRflflK HUTCH ID05 eiecTRonics Media clips CAS clause

Right now, the people most vulnerable from the union, the workers involved, or in the current wave of anti-gay crusading the gay rights movement. Entertainment Electronics are lesbians and gay men working with The failure of human rights advocates children. In most cases, however, they to counter the reactionary hype is Service remain without legal job protection at symptomatic of the defensive posture the time when it is most needed. It's in- the gay rights movement has been forced structive to look at how a recent defeat to take in the last two years. Every of an anti-discrimination clause came major struggle undertaken in that period about. has been forced on the movement by the 134 DUVERNET AVENUE TORONTO ONTARIO M4E 1V4 691 9269 At the Metropolitan Toronto Child- opposition; attempts to advance the ren's Aid Society (CAS), homosexual cause of gay rights have been aban- employees won't be protected against doned because of the need to defend job discrimination for another year. existing rights and institutions under Under pressure, the employees' union attack. withdrew the clause from their con- The weakness of the union in this VILLAGE WEAVER tract demands in the collective agree- situation also resulted from the weak- ment now being negotiated with the ness of its members, particularly of the YARNS CAS. Since the entire clause was many lesbian and gay childcare workers LARGEST COLLECTION OF dropped, this means that CAS workers employed by the Society. The union's will also not be protected from dis- negotiating committee, not the rank and WEAVING MATERIALS crimination on the basis of race, file, first proposed the clause. Only FANCY KNITTING AND religion, colour, creed, sex or marital minor opposition to the withdrawal of status. the contract demand came from rank CROCHET YARNS The inability of the union to achieve and file union members. Why? First, the IBs VK. J i WOOLS COTTONS SILKS even the modest protection of a general CAS publicly and privately indicated ALPACA ANGORA MOHAIR anti-discrimination provision highlights that there was already a "policy" of the strength of the media-reinforced non-discrimination. Second, there was HANDWEAVING CLASSES anti-homosexual campaign. It also real fear in the union leadership, and LECLERC LOOMS demonstrates the relative weakness of perhaps among the workers most the forces fighting to combat it. Al- affected, that if the controversy was MAIL ORDER SAMPLE CARDS $2.00 though insiders to the negotiations be- allowed to continue, the jobs of lesbian i lieve that the clause would have been and gay workers might be seriously 551 CHURCH STREET (AT WELLESLEY) accepted by the Society had there been jeopardized. • no public exposure during bargaining, That contradiction clarifies and rein- ! TORONTO 964-0436 the savage distortion of the issue by the forces the compelling need for the very press forced the union to abandon the job protection lost in this round of nego-

proposal almost as soon as it was tiations. Nobody really believes that a announced. management "policy" would protect The media distortion was accomp- homosexual workers in a crisis; the fear Acapulco lished by describing the anti-discrimina- such workers still have of exposure on tion clause as an inducement to, and a the job gives the lie to its effectiveness. an Francisco Key West legal protection for, child-molesting. It The CAS is presently struggling for its Ft. Lauderdale London failed to reveal that the clause would life with the ministry responsible for its Paris have prevented discrimination on a supervision. Because of that, the CAS is Rio number of grounds in addition to sexual susceptible, as never before, to the LIFESTYLE VACATIONS orientation, and it refused to explain homophobic opportunism of both the that the proposed clause is standard in ministry and the minister. When considering a Fiesta, Skylark, Wardairor Sunflight package holiday, many public service collective agree- The ease with which the bogus issue of

, let book it tor . have the right or a regular airline reservation us you We ments. Toronto Sun columnist Claire child molestation was used indicates the intormation and suggestions to make your trip a big success! Hoy was able to mobilize some public pressing need to expand the discussion support for his opposition to the human and demystification of child and youth

rights provision. Keith Norton, minister sexuality, not abandon it. Only by responsible for the CAS, was able to openly confronting the issue that is the publicly censure the union and invite current focus of anti-homosexual propa- Marlin Beach one week from $349, adverse public reaction to the union's ganda can the gay and lesbian move- demand. ments expect to achieve significant gains double occupancy, hotel and airfare And all without significant opposition in human rights protection. San JUan departures, one week from $439 including airfare, transfers and hotel

Rio! For 9 nights at $9.94 Cdn, leaving March 7

and April 1 1.

I rv -He ["ravel I mm. r I Triton Si lon.nto. M >A2K7 [el.922 \& Item: Police astounded to find cell and handcuffs in raid

FEBRUARY 1979 THE BODY POLITIC/15 TheWorM

New city supervisor chosen to replace slain Harvey Milk

SAN FRANCISCO — After six weeks he wished to be cremated. His ashes deliberation, San Francisco interim were scattered over San Francisco Bay. mayor Dianne Feinstein has appointed In a statement taped in 1977 for

Henry Britt to fill the post of slain city release in case of his assassination, the supervisor and gay activist Harvey Milk. slain supervisor called on gay people to Britt, a former Methodist minister come out and turn their anger into and president of the San Francisco Gay "something positive." The recording Democratic Club, was one of four possi- also indicated several acceptable choices ble replacements acceptable to Milk. for his successor. Another, Anne Kroneberg, a lesbian Milk's assassination prompted the activist and Milk's former administra- establishment December 15 of the Har- tive assistant, had the backing of a vey Milk United Fund. The non-profit number of the city's gay leaders. corporation will channel money to a Britt is described as a "low-key figure wide range of projects such as Senior in the city's gay community, working Nutrition Programs, the Gay Com- Protest over Soviet laws diligently without fanfare." munity Center, state and national legis- Milk was assassinated November 27 lation supporting lesbian and gay rights, The treatment of homosexual citizens in the USSR, and that country's anti-gay laws, by former city supervisor and gay rights and the passage of the ERA. sparked protests around the world last month. Demonstrations called by the opponent, Dan White. White is also Gwenn Craig, a Fund Board Member International Gay Association (IGA) took place in the USA, Scandinavia and in accused of murdering San Francisco and former co-ordinator of San Francis- European capitals including London, Paris, Amsterdam and Rome. Pictured here mayor George Moscone. On December cans Against Proposition 6, stated, are members of the Campaign for Homosexual Equality and the Gay Activists

1 3 the ex-policeman pleaded not guilty "Harvey clearly saw the necessity of Alliance picketing the Soviet Embassy in London. by reason of insanity. He is presently building alliances between the different being held on one million dollars bail. minority communities. It was his top The news of the assassination shocked priority and will be the Fund's priority Court may drop Fund for gay fight the gay movement around the world. as well." charges against gays goes over the top Vigils were held in dozens of American It was also announced December 4 cities. In San Francisco 40,000 people that a large, modern gay community SYDNEY, AUST — Most of the charges BELFAST — The Northern Ireland marched in a candlelight demonstration centre approved by the city's Commun- against participants in the Sydney Gay Gay Rights Association (NIGRA) has through the city's gay ghetto. ity Development Office will be named Solidarity march August 27 could be reached its goal of collecting £4,000 for Milk was an atheist and had indicated the Harvey Milk Memorial Center. D dropped following the dismissal of the its Strasbourg Appeal Fund. first of the cases to come before the courts. A Belfast man sponsored by NIGRA A charge against Laurie Steel was dis- is applying to the European Human missed in the Central Court of Petty Rights Commission in Strasbourg for a Groups seek end he felt the move would be non-produc- Sessions after the judge decided that the ruling on Northern Ireland laws forbid- tive for a small police department. prosecution had failed to prove its case. ding male homosexual sex. He claims the to FBI witch hunt The women — a dispatch supervisor, Police had alleged that Steel had laws discriminate on the grounds of two dispatchers, two regular patrol failed to cease taking part in an region, gender, and sexual orientation. NEW YORK — Radical feminist and animal control unauthorized procession at their instruc- complaint, lodged in April 1976, gay community groups along the US officers and an The are sueing the city of Boise tion. The judge, however, said that evi- is expected to before either the East Coast are protesting a new wave of officer — come in damages. dence indicated that the marchers did Council of Ministers or the FBI harassment. for ten million dollars European desist when the police order was given, near The National Lawyers' Guild and Boise was the scene of a famous gay Human Rights Commission in the but had been unable to disperse because finally declared dozens of other organizations have pe- witchhunt in the 1950s.D future. The Commission the police had blocked the way. the case admissable in May 1978 after titioned FBI Director William Webster On the basis of the decision, the two years of hearing submissions and to call off a witch hunt in the lesbian and defense is seeking withdrawal of the counter-submissions. gay communities. Last summer the FBI charges against all persons arrested for In Scotland, where male homosexual began to subpoena the telephone toll 2 gays win appeal, the same offence. More than 100 men sex is also illegal, the Scottish Homo- records of people who were active in the and women were detained after police sexual Rights Group is initiating its own 1975 defence of Susan Saxe, an antiwar cases to be reopened charged into the peaceful case. Scottish gays hope they can force activist and radical lesbian presently im- WASHINGTON, DC — Leonard demonstrators. the governments to amend both Scottish prisoned on bank robbery charges. Matlovich and Vernon Berg have won a and Irish laws together if the Strasbourg The phone records are allegedly being significant battle in their struggles for Michigan passes act court rules in favour of gays. used by the FBI to fish for more people gay rights in the United States armed to interrogate and to gather information forces. gay seniors protected on anyone who has been critical of the A three-person panel of the US Court If the plates fit... establishment. of Appeals ruled December 6 that the LANSING — The Michigan Legislature military may not discharge an individual has passed an act which prohibits dis- DAVENPORT, IOWA — About 100 people have turned in their automobile Fired lesbian cops solely on the grounds of homosexuality crimination on the basis of sexual pref- without specifying why the discharge is erence in State nursing homes. license plates to the Scott County Court- get full back pay appropriate. Berg's case against the Bill 659, passed November 16, assures house in the last month because they BOISE, IDAHO — A Federal Judge has Navy and Matlovich's against the Air that appropriate care will not be denied don't like the three-letter prefix GAY. awarded a year's back pay and an allow- Force were heard separately by the same on the basis of sexual preference or The State's license plates traditionally ance for lawyers' fees to six women fired court on the same day. other factors. The Bill also guarantees include a combination of three letters in March, 1977 from the Boise Police The decision forces both the Air Force senior citizens in such homes the right to and three numerals, and this year the Department for alleged lesbianism. and the Navy to reopen the cases of the medical confidentiality, privacy, the state's Department of Transportation

The women, who have refused to deny two gay men who claim they were un- right to receive mail unopened and the issued nearly 1 ,000 licenses with the they are lesbians, were fired after an in- fairly discharged. right to associate with person's of one's letter combination GAY. vestigation resulting from complaints Reacting to the decision, a Pentagon choice. Among the people returning their that they "made no secret of their sex- spokesperson stated, "Our people are Don Mager, project facilitator of the plates was a man who said the sides of uality." In an earlier decision Novem- meeting now to present reasons for the Michigan Organization for Human his car were kicked in in Chicago ber 27, Judge Ray McNichols de- discharge of Mr Matlovich." It is unr Rights, pointed out that little has been because of his GAY plates. clared that the firings were "abysmal" clear what additional reasons other than done to ensure the rights of gay seniors, "Out in California I'm sure there is a and said the case "cries out to be tried." homosexuality will be offered, since especially those on fixed incomes. waiting line for GAY plates, but not in The Judge declined to order that the both Berg and Matlovich have impec- "Michigan has set a model for other Iowa," commented Scott County women be reinstated, however, because cable service records. states. " Treasurer William Cusack. D

16/THE BODY POLITIC FEBRUARY 1979 D

Will the Tasmanian devil of homosexual love be allowed room to roam? Australian parliamentarians ponder.

Groups claim police cover-up Gay switchboard Tasmania may shut for lack of $ legalize in stabbing death of gay activist SAN FRANCISCO — The American homosexual acts SALT LAKE CITY — Over forty in- Gay National Educational Switchboard dividuals and organizations have (GNES) has been forced to close down TASMANIA — The Parliament of this demanded a full investigation into the after two months of operation. Australian island state will consider death here of Tony Adams, a 25-year- The Switchboard, which had received legislation to legalize homosexual acts old black gay militant murdered $33,000 from the Human Rights Foun- between consenting adult males. November 3. dation for start-up costs, was unable to The parliamentary caucus of the Adams, a local leader of the Socialist generate enough additional funds to Labour Party decided to allow a free Workers Party, had defeated a police meet expenses. Organizers attributed the vote on the issue to be introduced in the frame-up attempt on a sexual solici- fund raising problem to the huge next session of Parliament. The decision

tation charge just three days before he amount of money it took to defeat follows a report by the Select Committee was repeatedly stabbed. The Socialist Senator John Briggs' anti-gay initiative. into Victimless Crime which recommen- Workers' Party newspaper, The Mili- "The victory has caused our ded the decriminalization of homosexual tant, has alleged that the facts about the problem... Defeating Proposition 6 acts between consenting males in Tony Adams: slain militant murder "point to a police cover-up if drained, for a very good reason, the September, 1978. Homosexual acts be- not direct police involvement in the money we needed to operate." tween consenting female adults were not brutal stabbing." apparatus, including the police force. The GNES toll-free number had re- previously illegal. Salt Lake City is the centre of the anti- Adams, who worked as a bus driver, ceived more than 5,000 calls from across Although the legislation is considered gay Mormon Church. A recent letter was active in union work. He was a the United States and was running to have a good chance of passing the from the church president warned prominent organizer in the campaign monthly telephone bills of approximate- House of Assembly, the predominantly several "excommunicated" gay church against Anita Bryant's appearance in the ly $5,000. Many of the calls were from conservative Legislative Council could members that "The death penalty was city in 1977. He was also a member of rural areas "where people are isolated prove a stumbling block. exacted in the days of Israel for such the National Association for the Ad- — geographically and socially" accor- In a surprise move which angered gay wrongdoing." The church hierarchy vancement of Colored People, and was ding to David Palmer, GNES project activists, the State of Victoria has intro- dominates much of the local state active in anti-racist work in the city.D director. A professionally trained staff duced legislation enacting new and har- answered questions of sexuality and pro- sher penalties for homosexual street sentence is an attempt to convince the Leftist gays meet vided counselling to callers. offences including loitering and solicit- sixteen men still awaiting trial to plead Palmer was optimistic in spite of the ing. The amendments to the Summary LONDON — More than 150 gay men guilty. setback. "We have clearly documented Offences Act were brought in through and women attended Great Britain's the need for such services and will use the back door as part of a crackdown on second gay socialist conference on Workers confront the documentation to develop proposals prostitution. "Sexuality and Power" on November 25. for grants both from foundations and The amendments violate government Delegates included gays from anti-lesbian bigots the government so that the Switchboard promises to reform state laws which still Britain's Labour Party, Communists, can re-open next year."D regard homosexual acts between consen- Trotskyists and unaligned leftists. The LONDON — Two lesbian sanitation ting males as illegal. conference was organized by the Gay workers for the Borough of Lambeth in Left and Lesbian Left collectives. South London have succeeded in Gov't sues gay liberation paper Delegates agreed to establish a gay turning the tide against anti-gay socialist bulletin to help socialists within prejudice in their work-place. the gay movement exchange ideas and The women outraged a male overseer for "outrages against morality" experiences. last month when he saw them leaving the The conference was criticized by some Borough's Clapham depot holding participants for "being too academic" hands. The supervisor threatened them and "separating theory from practice." with "dire consequences." Conference organizers replied that the The "consequences" failed to conference was intended to deal with materialize, however. After news of the theoretical ideas. threat became known, all 32 women working at the depot, straight and gay alike, on Against Nazis" "Sex-ring" trial finds pinned "Gays badges and marched out of the first man guilty workplace holding hands. The demonstration of solidarity BOSTON — Dr Donald Allen, a impressed the male workers at the Boston psychiatrist, was convicted neighbouring depot in Brixton. A street December 22 on four counts of the cleaner and gay activist in that depot, statutory rape of a 1 5-year-old boy and Terry Stewart, told London's Gay News

sentenced to five years' probation. The that he "hadn't been finding it easy to case was the first of the so-called Revere come out at work," but after the sex-ring trials. demonstration "the other guys are quite In early December 1977, twenty-four sympathetic. They've even said they in the Boston suburb editorial collective men were arrested would back me if ever I needed it."D Su bpoenaed by police: Lampiao of Revere in what the straight press Police prom- — Lampiao, Since its first issue in April 1978, labeled a "boy sex-ring." Teachers back gays RIO DE JANEIRO ised more than a hundred further Brazil's major gay liberation newspaper, Lampiao has built up a monthly cir-

arrests but none were forthcoming. The AUSTRALIA — The New South Wales is under attack from that country's mili- culation of 15,000 copies and is sold at sex-ring turned out to be little more than Teachers' Federation has declared that tary dictatorship. newsstands in 18 principal Brazilian

a media invention. homosexual teachers have a necessary The paper's board of editors is being cities. It is considered to be the first Allen continued to plead his inno- role to play in sex education in the sued by the Brazilian government for serious Brazilian gay liberation paper, cence throughout the trial, claiming he schools. "outrages against public morality and and has avoided using pornography to was at the apartment where the alleged The Federation's annual conference in good mores." Five members of the increase its circulation, a tactic w hich

blow jobs took place only for the pur- Sydney also adopted a policy opposing editorial staff have been subpoenaed by distinguishes it from other Brazilian gay pose of doing research on male prostitu- discrimination on the grounds of sex, the police. There are fears that the paper publications tion. The trial was marked with homosexuality or marital status. The Federa- may soon be seized from the The paper's name means "lantern,"

phobic remarks on the part of both the tion called for the removal of sexist, anti- newsstands. but it is also the name of Brazil's most prosecution and the defence. homosexual and other biases from the Under the present dictatorship the famous bandit, a national hero in macho The doctor could have received a life curricula, courses and counselling government may at any time sci/e pub- folklore.

term, and it was felt that the "light" practices. D lications thai it considers dangerous

FEBRUARY 1979 THE BODY POLITIC/17 Everywoman come by Mariana Valverde

any way you like Taking over the house of language

"Oppression" is a familiar word and, was rather convenient; we were encour- like so many familiar words, it can easily aged to be emotional, so sentimental become meaningless if used as a short- poetry was just right. We were allowed circuit to avoid thinking. To know what to be perceptive, so we could describe it really means is to know the concrete our cute children, our home-sweet- ways in which we — as gays, as women, home, and even our inner anguish, but as ethnic minorities, — are but as youth we were excluded from knowledge. come visible oppressed. One of the least but While women were expected to be most insidious forms of oppression is the silent, gays were expected to be invisible. way in which groups outside the main- We existed only as objects, to be named, stream are prevented from using described, examined and laughed at. language to say what we want to say, to From the "decent homosexual" to the name ourselves and name our world. hated faggot or the despised dyke, we Words are not ours, but theirs. They, are all defined as outcasts and hence under the guise of scientific classifica- expected to act accordingly. Even the tion, define us as "perverts," as seemingly "value-free" terms used by "witches," as "deviants"...you name it. the medical professions are weapons Words are not neutral vehicles in which used to hurt us — the category of

anyone can ride; they are weapons in a "homosexuality" is the scientific equi- G cold war in which the "in" groups, no- valent of the eggs thrown at drag tably the white /straight /middle class queens on Hallowe'en, being designed to male group, use language to define confirm the otherwise dubious virility of everyone else as "outsiders" and to the advocates of normality. raOHOJRS "keep us in our place," as they say. And when we choose words for our- Women (or rather "ladies," or maybe selves ("gay") and for certain others "girls") do not write operas or TV ("homophobic"), the same people who detective shows, advertising copy or want to save "our" children jump to the newspaper editorials; ladies do not defence of "our" language. The letters E A write scientific books, girls do not give column of the Toronto Globe and Mail famous speeches or make police reports. has published a series of complaints by Even that which makes us female, our well-meaning citizens protesting the kid- sexual organs, were christened by men, napping of the nice, clean word "gay" so that the names of our bodily func- by us horrid homosexuals. We are tions sound vaguely foreign when (male) accused of abducting a young, tender, experts say them; even when we say fun-loving word for use in our witches' them we have to assume an air of profes- cauldron. Do we have to rape plunder sional superiority male doctors are so the sacred mother tongue? ask English fond of using. Try to say "radical professors. Don't we have enough with mastectomy" without wincing, and "faggot," "dyke," "queer," and all

you'll see what I mean. those labels that have been lavished on Women always speak softly, and any us by "normal" speakers of Standard word which does not lend itself to that English? "feminine" tone of voice (high-pitched, This attack does not come only from a question mark soaring above every the save-the-children bigots, however. statement) might as well not exist. Harsh Even well-wishers of the other sexual words are banned, and assertive phrases orientation wonder why we insist on ("I can categorically state") are replaced being called "gays," not homosexuals. by the meek, "Don't you think that..." The answer is very simple: we are trying Words implying that the speaker has a to break the ancient custom by which we special knowledge or skill are also unfem- are classified as defective goods because inine, and nothing more exotic than a of our sexual preference, and we will no

wrench is allowed to enrich our vocab- longer tolerate being shunted off into a ulary. After all, can you think of any- corner of the psychiatrist's showcase of thing more butch than "foreclosure," deviants, along with necrophiliacs, "spectrometer," or "ontological"? nymphomaniacs, and other victims of Like children confined to the the medical profession's mania for playroom, we do not have the run of the classifying sexuality. house of language. We excel in kitchen We have to destroy the scientific words, baby talk, and Reader 's-Digest jargon of normality by showing that, cliches, but if we attempt to phrase far from being neutral and "value-free," something in an original way the nearest it is distorted from the very start by the man will make us feel as though we've prejudices of the name-givers and just blown our noses in the tablecloth. classifiers. We have to stop mimicking What is "brilliant" in a man is their language, stop living on borrowed "bitchy" in a woman. Even when men words, and refuse to become homo- are not present we cannot use their sexual experts on homosexuality. languages, any more than a maid can We have to recognize that, in the war a fully licensed restaurant comfortably use the parlour when the of words, there are no experts, but only master is not at home. We are torn fighters. We have to talk with those who, between outdoing men's professional like ourselves, have been kicked out of at 562 church street, toronto seriousness (the career-woman the house of language — minorities syndrome) and ridiculing it, between whose cultures are being eroded, chil- open Sunday through thursday, noon to ten p.m. childishly exaggerating "correct" forms dren who are told to be seen and not heard, mental patients whose lives are friday and Saturday until one am. and breaking out in giggles. So what words do we use? Well, we've controlled by those who control the always been good at keeping diaries, language. closed mondays because, as Virginia Woolf noticed, that We, as women and as gay people, could be done in snatches on the kitchen have to take over the house of language, 924-1972 table. We certainly couldn't write long sit down in the best chairs, and decide books — the baby had to be changed, whether we want to stay — or move the soup was boiling over — so poetry out.n

18/THE BODY POLITIC FEBRUARY 1979 BodyPoliiic

Since February 18, 1975, fourteen gay men have been murdered in Toronto. Eight of these killings remain unsolved. Could they have been committed by one man? The police aren't saying. But the crimes do show a certain similarity...

\ Murder in Torontc-the-Good

by Robin Hardy

_ illiam Duncan Robinson has been described as a quiet, shy man who lived alone. Robinson was last seen at 2:30 am Sunday, November 26, 1978. He was leaving the St Charles Tavern, a downtown Toronto gay bar, accompanied by a tall, lanky man with dark brown greasy hair, sloping shoulders, large dirty hands and feet, and an offensive body odour. Robinson's companion walked clumsily and was scruffy in appearance. It's hard to imagine why anyone would take him home. Late Saturday night, a neighbour of Robinson heard a "peculiar loud hollow noise." When another neighbour passed ,

Robinson's sistently door around 9 PM Sunday duty as a night porter at the Toronto through all fourteen deaths been solved. "We have difficulties with night he heard nothing. An hour later he Lawn Tennis Club. Police suspect a is "overkill." "Overkill" means that the this kind of case," Hobson said. "First,

passed the door again, and heard the "homosexual connection" in this death. victim is repeatedly stabbed, bludgeoned it seems that the pick-up is made just stereo blasting away. or beaten even after Sandy Leblanc, a well-known club death. before closing hours. The victim is seen 28," "On Tuesday November the owner on the Toronto gay scene, was Inspector Hobson of Homocide with his pick-up only for a very short police bulletin reports, "the lifeless body found dead in his apartment September Division, Metropolitan Toronto time, and by witnesses who have been of William Duncan Robinson was found 21, 1978. He had been stabbed more Police, appears helpful, but has an drinking and who are going home. They in his apartment situated at 205 Vaughan abrupt than 100 times from head to foot. As manner. He refuses to connect have hazy memories. I just wish people, Road, Apt No 32. The cause of death police walked around the body, the the unsolved gay murders. "In several of not only gays, were more observant." was determined to be as a result of stab carpet squished from the sound of the murders there is a common de- A Toronto newspaper, using the wounds to the chest." absorbed blood, and bloody footprints nominator: the victim was last seen at murders as yet another indictment of the The murder of Duncan Robinson led to an open window. It takes a lot of the St Charles Tavern, and met his gay lifestyle, reported the problems the achieved notoriety as the fourteenth time to stab 100 times through flesh and murderer there. Beyond that we cannot police had in the "murky, secretive "homosexual slaying" in Toronto since bone. say if there is a connection. We don't world of gay bars and discos." 1975. Eight of those murders are With eight of the fourteen murders even know if there was robbery in all the Apparently two policemen, "disguised" unsolved. as lovers, haunted gay bars for a month It has made great copy for local to find the murderer of Neil Wilkinson, papers: "Homosexuals fear mass who was beaten to death in his killer," "Slow hustling on homosexual apartment in December, 1977. But row," "Murders put homosexuals on Inspector Hobson said the gay guard," and "14th murder chills city's community has been most helpful in homosexuals." coming forward with information. The The rumour factory ran overtime: the composite drawing of the suspect killer is the father of a 14-year-old boy wanted for Robinson's murder was who became involved with homosexuals compiled from descriptions given by and has vowed "the revenge killings will witnesses at the St Charles Tavern. continue"; the murderer is a sickie on Yet even as police encourage gays to the loose; the murderer is someone quite come forward with information on the involved with the Toronto gay eight unsolved murders, they spend energy community. criminalizing gays by raiding the baths, Shortly after Robinson's murder a one of the safest places to have sex. message was scrawled on the wall in the John Allan Lee, gay sociologist and washroom of the St Charles Tavern: author of Getting Sex, disagrees with "I'll kill again Saturday night." During any police analysis which says there is no the same week, on the graffiti board at pattern to the murders, although he Buddy's Backroom Bar, someone wrote doesn't suggest there is necessarily one "Billy is next." Billy, a waiter, was murderer. He believes the victims fall understandably worried. A University of into one of two categories. "In the first Toronto professor active in the Damien category are young men who are Committee and the Gay Academic incapable of safe cruising. They are shy, Union received by mail a clipping about don't know how to talk to people. The the unsolved murders torn from the second category is made up of desper- Toronto Star. Typewritten across it were ate.unattractive and usually older men." the words "You're next." It was Probably the two categories overlap. postmarked Malton, a Toronto suburb. Lee was a friend of the first victim in the The series of unsolved murders begins series of fourteen murders, Harold in 1975. On February 18, the body of Walkley. Walkley's murderer has not Harold Walkley, a 51 -year-old history been found. teacher and community activist, is "Harold fell into the second discovered by his roommate in category," said Lee. "For some time Walkley's bloodied bedroom. He is before his murder he would take anyone nude, and has been stabbed several times home. He was getting older, losing his in the back and chest. No knife is found looks and was lonely. He had difficulty and credit cards have been stolen. finding lovers he could be compatible with. By the time closing hour came around at a bar he would settle for

anything. I was at a party he attended just before his death. Someone put on a

year later, on February 1 1 record with the words 'You're nobody

1976, James Taylor, a 41 -year-old 'til somebody loves you /So find painter and decorator, is found in his somebody to love.' Harold stood up and home, beaten to death with a baseball yelled, 'Yeah, and how do you find bat. Another six months, and on someone to love?'" September 20, 1976, the caretaker finds These are old and weary stereotypes 49-year-old James Kennedy dead in his of gay men, but they still have some apartment, nude, with a towel knotted unsolved, belief in the existence of a cases. Often the victim lived alone. basis in reality. There are older men who around his neck. He has been beaten single psychokiller is widespread. But Sometimes a relative could say some- grew up long before the renaissance of about his face. Again, credit cards are police are encouraging the theory that thing was missing." gay liberation, men who internalized the missing. Kennedy's neighbours describe the murders are unconnected random But Inspector Hobson admitted there vicious myths of the aging, unhappy, him as "a recluse." Kennedy was last killings. This means there could be eight was much information he was not friendless gay man. And there are seen at the St Charles Tavern the night killers "out there" somewhere. revealing. It was more a case of "we're younger men who, unsure of their before he was killed. Until the murderers of the eight men not telling you," than "We don't gayness, cautiously begin to leave their Six months pass. On January 25, are found, little will be known of the know." If someone is brought in for the isolation in the straight world. As more 1977, the nude body of Brian Latocki, circumstances which led to their deaths. crime and a confession is extracted, the gays come out, Lee believes that the

a 24-year-old bank analyst, is found in Of the six murders which have resulted police need evidence to corroborate that number of victims in this category will

his blood spattered bedroom, he is tied in arrests or convictions, six different confession in court. Corroborating increase. "There is more homophobic to the bed, his head badly beaten. He people have been proved or alleged to be evidence must be material not known to violence to come. It's almost like the has been strangled and stabbed. Again, killers. the general public. Hobson refused to second law of thermodynamics: for no knife is found. An autopsy The "solved" murders have involved say how many murderers the police were every action there is an equal and determines that his death occurred robbery, fights over payment for sex, looking for in the eight unsolved cases. opposite reaction. A reaction is forming January 22. The night before he had and violent assault resulting, uninten- He also refused to say whether or not to the social movements of gays and been seen hitch-hiking home from the St tionally, in death. They prove one police knew if the men had been killed women. These movements are ones

Charles Tavern. Latocki is described as thing: death by murder is unpredict- before or after sex. In the case of which seek concessions. It hurts people

"shy and new on the gay scene." able, and the reasons for it are usually Duncan Robinson, he did divulge one to concede things. It is, for example, no These murders have not been solved. quite banal. piece of information in his possession coincidence that rape statistics increased Nor do police know who murdered Fred There are enough similarities between when he let drop the comment: "I guess dramatically when women entered Fontaine, Donald Rochester, and Sandy the "solved" murders and the unsolved the killer can't change his bloodtype." the economic system. As more gays Leblanc. Fontaine was severely beaten in ones to indicate that just as there were Police found blood samples to indicate make their presence known through the washroom of the St Charles Tavern six killers in the "solved" cases, there the killer had been injured. Robinson marches or protests or what have you, on December 20,1975, and died in could well be eight killers for the un- fought back. more people are going to react and act hospital six months later. Rochester was solved murders. The question the police should out against gays." shot dead February 13, 1978, while on The element which runs most con- answer is why these murders have not Lee thinks the murderers are more

20/THE BODY POLITIC FEBRUARY 1979 likely to be repressed homosexuals Sharkey, who claimed he was straight, decadent lifestyle. Of 51 murders in tances. Someone in the closet is likely to rather than homophobic and violent outside the Manatee, a gay afterhours Metro Toronto in 1978 only five — pick his sexual partners only after he's straight men. "The killers of these gay disco in Toronto. After hitting 10% — of the victims were identified drunk enough to face up to it, and fear men may themselves have a Nicholson over the head with an iron as gay in media coverage. It appears, of discovery may drive him to select the predisposition to homosexuality. skillet, Sharkey stole liquor, clothes, then, that the number of murders kinds of men he's not likely to meet However, they have been trained to hate money and silver from the apartment. of gays is not out of proportion to again. If a gay man is open, on the other homosexuality. In destroying someone The judge rejected Sharkey's claims of the number of gays in the population hand, he ends up meeting many of his

they've gone home with, they kill that provocation, saying it was hard to generally. Furthermore, while gay sexual partners through mutual friends. part of themselves. They are filled with believe the young man did not know murders seem strongly connected with Not that most of us won't be tantalized self-hatred." what he was getting into. In that trial, the bar and cruising scenes, most by strangers and hustlers from time to the prosecutor made a speech asserting heterosexual murders are domestic, and time — but if there are any doubts, it's that the two hundred thousand take place in the home between members good to remember that sex at the baths is homosexuals in Toronto had a right to of the same nuclear family. Gay people safer than sex at home. a.r Dan Paitich, senior be protected in their homes. Sharkey are no more victims of their lifestyle It's important, even in bars, to psychologist in Forensic Sciences at was sentenced to seven years for than straight people. develop friendships with other patrons. Toronto's Clarke Institute of Psy- Part of being out of the closet is the chiatry, also doubts the unsolved mur- ability to feel comfortable with a gay ders were the work of one psychokiller. EE35B lifestyle. There should be no shame But Paitich disagrees with Lee that the ^yVeJcautioiK' involved in saying good-night to friends murderers are repressed or latent When while you make it discreetly obvious that homosexuals. Murders you're heading home with the hot new "This is an aggressive homophobic put friend panting beside you. After that, a situation. These killers, as far as any is a murder psychopath is likely to flee immediately. profile can be made, are homophobic, homosexuals There are techniques for screening derelict, from a low social class or the a "homosexual" people which should be a part of every criminal subculture; they are poorly on guard man's cruising. "I can find out what educated and likely alcoholic. Overkill is kind of person I've met by talking to 8 Tfce T..onW SUP. ilicwliy, September If, 1*71 • a sign of drunkeness and of the murder? him," says John Lee. "For instance, tremendous rage released. But there has Whenever the media think Police suspect I'm very wary of people who have no been no real research on this kind of opinions on anything. I met a man once it's grabby copy to link gay thing in relation to the murders of at a bar and we went to have coffee. He people with violence and a link homosexuals." homosexual began asking me questions about my "murky, secretive under- "If these murders are done by work, my politics, and my life. Finally I

different men it may be a case of the world." Headlines often give death said to him, 'Are you aware of what homosexual being attracted to an the impression of the gay you're doing?' He said 'I'm just trying aggressively masculine drunk and to find out what kind of person you are.' community cringing in fear, thereby putting himself in a potentially But unconciously he was screening me and almost never indicate dangerous situation. But the motive may for danger." In other words, it boils simply robbery — hatred the whether it was the victim, down to humanizing in be and of ,fl0 communication victim after the robbery has taken the killer or both (or, as in the bar scene. place." the murder of Earl Cross, "**-!* There are other precautions which can George Hislop, a leading spokes- •Parle £j be taken. Those who live alone can possibly neither) who were person for the Toronto gay com- pretend they have a roommate, saying to homosexual. munity, has followed some of the a new friend as he comes in the door, solved murder cases as they went ««ml*< ! "Shhh, we have to be quiet so we don't 8TW . through court. Said Hislop, "One wake up Joe. . " But it had better be at

thread I see running through most of """""UVoL^'y, least a two-room apartment!

these cases is that they originate in If a person likes a lot of one-night

Yonge Street bars, and that the stands, it's probably a smart idea not murderer is a person with a background city'«5?^HomosiS^^ to live alone. But those who do should as a hustler, and a history of robbery, invest in some common sense safety drugs, and alcohol. There are some men is 14th precautions such as alarm bells, an out there who simply want to rob and in 3Vz years escape route, locks which cannot be commit violence against people. They picked or pried, and an understanding ' the V»u«l>»°,, -»'*«ro i, beto '""Slyem , recorded j.«w use a sexual advance — or one they neighbour to escape to. Again, it's best fabricate later — to justify the violence to be out of the closet.

they are already planning." l Wwli***1** Fourteen murders in four years is Three of the solved murder cases seem frightening. Homosexuality may simply to support that theory. The killing of homosexual^ be used as an excuse by murderers for Earl Cross by Bradley Benoy in jewf robbery and gain. There could be 14 December 1977, may not have been a "•** p****** L murderers, a terrifying indication of »»ld t>« I nmrtter b.. i**" FUlDOeW ... ,.u». homosexual murder at all. There was no homophobia. Or there may be a evidence in court that either was gay, psychokiller, coldly anticipating a victim and Benoy spun several strange yarns to every six months. explain who killed Cross. That Cross Whatever the reasons for the deaths, had made sexual advances may simply manslaughter. How not to get yourself killed? and whoever the murderers are, gays can have been one such yarn — newspaper A few years ago the courts might not There is no guaranteed way to avoid protect themselves, and they can help reports have never made this clear. have agreed with the prosecutor of John murder. It's as much a function of solve the murders as well. Individuals When James Walker murdered Neil Sharkey. In the early Sixties, in Guelph, chance as crossing the street or taking an who may be afraid to take information Wilkinson, also in December of 1977, he Ontario, a young man was acquitted on airplane. Basic self-defence training to the police for fear of exposure should told police he was provoked by Wilkin- a murder charge when he said the victim seems one obvious solution, but in give their information to someone more son's sexual advances and his fantasies had made sexual advances. The youth, Toronto, at least, there are no self- open in the gay community who can pass

of having intercourse with young acting in self-defence according to the defence courses available for men, it on. boys. This occurred at a time when the court's ruling, had stabbed the victim 17 except judo and karate lessons. Handy James Kennedy, 49, was "a recluse." murder of Emmanuel Jaques, the 12- times. little items like aerosol mace, available in Brian Latocki, 24, was "shy and new on year-old Toronto shoeshine boy, was The sexual liberation movements of American cities, are illegal in Canada. the gay scene." Duncan Robinson, 24,

fresh in everyone's mind. When it was the last 10 years may have made the But there are ways of avoiding was "a quiet shy man who lived alone." shown in court that Walker had been courts somewhat more careful in their dangerous situations and preparing for These men, and eleven others, did not

naked in Wilkinson's apartment. handling of cases of violence against gay emergencies. If John Lee is right in have to die. They were caught in a Walker was driven to the absurdity of people. But gay men and women will be grouping the victims into two categories, familiar contradiction: uncomfortable in

saying he had taken off his clothes to targets for violence and murder until it's obvious that there is one lifestyle the gay world because they were not "avoid Wilkinson's sexual advances." more fundamental changes have which is safer: the lifestyle of the "out "out"; not "out" because they were The prosecutor established that Walker occurred in our society. of the closet" gay. uncomfortable with the gay world. had gone to Wilkinson's apartment with At the same lime, queerbashers whose Tragedy cannot be measured, but an intent to rob. The stories of sexual activities lead to murder, and psycho- somehow the deaths of those "shy" and fantasies were merely desperate attempts killers with enormous reserves of "new on the gay scene" HMHI on Walker's part to mitigate the gravity hatred for homosexuals, are pyschologi- particular significance. The straight of murder, and lessen his culpability. cal terrorists, keeping gays discreet and gay man alone and world isolated these men because they When 19-year-old John Sharkey killed in the closet. closeted is more likely to be a victim of were gay It made them outsiders. Just Colin Nicholson in August 1978, he The media, especially newspapers, violence than an individual who accepts as they reached for their freedom in a of iheir claimed he had been provoked by sexual capitalize on this with lurid headlines his gayncss and has developed a circle of community people , thev became advances. Nicholson had picked up suggesting homosexuals are victims of a sell accepting gay friends and acquain- victims of their isolation

FEBRUARY 1979 THE BODY POLITIC/21 "

PART THREE OF DREAMS

" "This is an election year, wrote Paul V Coates in his Los Angeles Mirror column early in 1953. "Any- charged and emotional atmosphere per- thing can happen. And yesterday, something did. The already harassed and weary candidates for office meated the opening of the April con- were whacked with a broadside from a strange new pressure group. An organization that claims to rep- stitutional convention, held at the Rev- erend Maxey's Universalist Church in resent the homosexual voters of Los Angeles is vigorously shopping for campaign promises. Question- A Los Angeles. The delegates, numbering Foundation, Inc., a group which pointedly hints it has the naires have been sent to all candidates by the Mattachine over one hundred women and men, were potential support of 150,000 to 200,000 homosexuals in this area. ...But it's an odd thing. I checked the State Di- well aware of the historic importance of vision of Corporations and the County Clerk 's offices. There is no record of a Mattachine Corporation. the event. To the best of their knowledge, they were "IfI belonged to that club, I'd worry. attending the first public gathering of homosexuals and lesbians "I learned that the articles of incorporation were drawn up by an attorney named Fred M. Snider, who was an un- in the United States. It was a gathering friendly witness at the Un-American Activities hearings. Snider is the legal advisor Mattachine, Inc. Homosexuals for faced with an immensely significant task have been found to be bad security risks in our State Department. They're a scorned part of the community. It's not in- — to create an open membership conceivable that they might band togetherfor their own protection. Eventually they might swing tremendous power. organization pledged to achieve equality for gay "A well-trained subversive could move in andforge that power into a dangerous political weapon. men and women. But an undercurrent of tension also "To damn this organization before its aims and directions are more clearly established would be vicious and irres- ran through the hall. Besides the reason- ponsible. Maybe the people whofounded it are sincere. It will be interesting to see. able fear at daring to meet publicly, Despite his coy claim of detached interest, Coates had provided all the evidence that was necessary in the paranoid there was also the unease of knowing atmosphere of the McCarthy era to "damn this organization. " The Mattachine Society, which in less than a year and that the convention had been scheduled hastily in response to a crisis. Many of a half of existence had come to involve more than 2000 homosexual men and women throughout California, was now the participants waited nervously for to be torn by suspicion, accusations and vicious in-fighting over the issue of "subversives" within its ranks. their first view of the mysterious fifth order members who had founded the Mattachine Society. In "Part One: Radical Beginnings" (TBP, Nov 78), historian John D'Emilio described how a homosexual emancipa- Chuck Rowland began the session tion movement had taken root in the hostile America of the 50s. In November 1950, radical activist Harry Hay invited with a rousing keynote speech that argued some gay friends to a secret meeting to discuss the formation of an organization for the liberation of the homosexual for a recognition of homosexuals as an minority. All of the men were either members of the Communist Party or what were then called "fellow-travellers." oppressed cultural minority. "We must Several months later Hay, Chuck Rowland, Bob Hull, Dale Jennings and three othersfounded the Mattachine Society. disenthrall ourselves of the idea," he said, "that In order to protect members from exposure, the founders drew upon their experience in the Communist Party to we differ only in our sexual directions and that all we want or need create an elaborate secret structure offive "orders, " with themselves at the top. The hallmark of the Society during its in life is to be free to seek the expression first year was the discussion group. In these informal meetings, gay women and broke down their isolation and men of our sexual desires as we see fit." slowly developed a sense of common identification growing from their perception of themselves as members of an The heterosexual mores of the dominant oppressed minority. Through this process, they came to recognize the need for collective, militant mass action as the culture have excluded us, he continued, and "as a result of this exclusion, we means by which they would challenge their inferior status. have developed differently than have In "Part Two: Public Actions, Private Fears" (TBP, Dec 78/Jan 79), D'Emilio described the group's first oppor- other cultural groups." Homosexuals tunity for such action. Early in 1952 one of Mattachine 's founders, Dale Jennings, became a victim of police entrap- faced the challenge of developing "a new ment. The group resolved to fight the charges. Mattachine members rallied support by distributing flyers throughout pride — a pride in belonging, a pride in participating in the cultural growth and the Los Angeles area. When Jennings came to trial the jury voted 11 to 1 for acquittal. The charges were later dropped. social achievements of the homosexual The successful defence led to a period of phenomenal growth for the Mattachine Society. By the Spring of 1953, minority." Once this challenge was ac- more than 100 discussion groups had been formed. Members one Los Angeles group took on the project publish- of of cepted, Rowland declared, "the prospect ing a gay magazine and in January 1953 thefirst issue of one was distributed. is not at all bleak, for with this pride The Mattachine Foundation was established as an educational organization will come a new confidence that we can make our own, significant cultural con- to reach out to the public at large. One of its first actions was to send candi- REACTION, tribution to the world in the interests datesfor local office a questionnaire about police harassment of homosexuals of humanity." and the availability nonprejudicial information on homosexuality in the of With scarcely a pause, Harry Hay school system. followed with a spirited defence of With publication of the Paul Coates column in March 1953, the fifth order Mattachine attorney Fred Snider's refusal to testify before the House Un-Amer- wasforced to turn from this work. Their time was now to be taken up with ac- ican Activities Committee. He reminded cusations ofsubversion, demandsfor loyalty oaths and calls for an end to the the audience that witnesses could invoke secrecy which they had seen as necessary the protection Society for of mem- Fifth Amendment privileges regarding bers. Finally, in response to the self-incrimination only challenge, the leadership called a if they refused to an- convention for April 1953. swer all questions. Had Snider responded It was to be the first step back to questions about his from the radical hopes Nov- of own political beliefs ember 1950. The first step in a and affiliations, he retreat that would last more than would also have had to fifteen years. divulge information

22/THE BODY POLITIC about individuals and organizations with brought together the separate orders and tant one to the heterosexual society, ' which he was associated, including the allowed dissatisfied members scattered unless we make it important. ' Rieger Mattachine Society and its members. among several guilds to meet for the first argued that the emphasis on a homo- "How would you feel," Hay asked, time. At the convention, and in the in- sexual culture would only accentuate the "about placing your trust in a lawyer tervening weeks before the May session, hostility of society, and she pleaded with who had spilled his guts concerning him- the opposition to the Mattachine leader- the delegates to reject it. Equality for self, his friends and his clients?" Hay ship began to coalesce. gay women and men would come, she emphasized that everyone in the hall had Kenneth Burns, a Los Angeles guild said, "by declaring ourselves, by inte- compelling reasons to worry about their member, emerged as the defacto leader grating not as homosexuals, but as names being divulged to government in- of the conservative minority. Burns people, as men and women whose vestigators: gay women and men had presided over a guild whose members, homosexuality is irrelevant to our ideals, been judged ' 'basic security risks and according to one of them, were "poli- our principles, our hopes and aspira- therefore unemployable by the Govern- tically conservative and closety" and tions." Only then, she concluded, will ment," and in fact were being purged which had reacted vehemently to the we "rid the world of its misconceptions from federal jobs. Clearly, he argued, Paul Coates column in the LA Mirror. of homosexuality and homosexuals." it was in their interests to defend the They had been as upset, one member re- Rieger's argument had obvious flaws. Fifth Amendment rights of everyone, called, by the Mattachine's question- To claim that homosexuality was an un- regardless of political belief. naire to local political candidates as they important difference — in the face of Provocative as the speeches were, had been by the innuendos of com- laws, government policy, religious little overt conflict erupted in response munist subversion, and felt that any di- beliefs, medical opinion, and popular to them. The fifth order effectively cir- rect political action was likely to destroy prejudice that said otherwise — clearly cumvented open dissent by dividing the the organization. Nor did they look with missed the mark. Whatever persuasive- participants into small working groups favour on Rowland and Hay's opening ness her position carried came not from to draft a constitution and bylaws. The speeches which "shocked, angered, and its logic or its grounding in fact, but plan produced nothing but chaos, how- infuriated" them. Burns, who was a from its emotional appeal. Gay men and ever, since few committees completed safety engineer for the Carnation women in mid-twentieth century their work and those that did found their Company, looked the part of a "Brooks America lived with an everpresent various proposals lacking in consistency. Brothers executive type." He was young awareness of their "difference," At the final session, the delegates voted and sexually attractive, with a soft- of being set apart from society. When to elect a committee to fashion the spoken manner that commanded atten- Rieger said to the audience that "we are partial drafts into a coherent document tion. Burns had an ability, one participant first and foremost people," she tapped a and to present the results at a second recalled, "to get people to quiet down deeply felt need on the part of many convention scheduled for late May. and let their emotions cool." His adept- delegates to have their humanity ness with the labyrinthine rules of affirmed. first convention's outcome parliamentary procedure quickly distin- Although the gay minority thesis more Theproduced a mixed reaction from guished him from the mass of delegates, accurately described the situation of the Mattachine's leadership. who selected Burns to chair the interim his arrest record better." As a result of lesbians and homosexuals, the emphasis Perhaps because the fifth order committee charged with drafting a his arrest he lost his job and migrated to which its proponents placed on being had approached the event with such constitution. San Francisco where he joined the first different aroused the antagonism of

apprehension, it mistakenly interpreted Burns was joined on the committee by Mattachine discussion group in the city. individuals who yearned for nothing the relative calm of the proceedings as a Marilyn Rieger, another guild member Gruff and aggressive in manner, the more than simple acceptance of who victory. Chuck Rowland optimistically from Los Angeles. Unlike Burns, whose outspoken Call came to the convention they were. It mattered little that advo- wrote Gerry Brissette, Mattachine's guild was virtually unanimous in its already suspicious of the fifth order. cates of a minority groups analysis saw leader in Northern California, that the opposition to the fifth order's control, The keynote speeches did nothing to their position as tactical, as a means for opposition had been effectively isolated. Rieger found herself isolated. Although allay his fears, and the whispered homosexual men and women eventually

Though he expected "some rumbles she had mobilized her discussion group rumours emanating from Burns' guild to achieve equality. For the present it from them at the next session," Row- to challenge the Mattachine leadership, that Rowland was a Communist youth raised the spectre of a more pronounced land confidently predicted that they her guild was led by Martin Block, organizer aroused Call's ire. After separation from an already hostile would not succeed. a member of the fifth order who re- meeting Burns and Rieger, he returned culture. Brissette, however, held a less tained the allegiance of the rest of the to San Francisco bent on purging the The opposition's issue-oriented sanguine view. He had noticed with guild. At the convention, Rieger and Mattachine of its allegedly subversive debate was merely a prelude, however, alarm the quiet manoevring of "a real Burns quickly made contact and elements. to an unrestrained redbaiting. The San evil minority at the Convention." The together quietly canvassed other dele- It was the May convention which wit- Francisco delegation in particular, led by opposition had hopes, he wrote, "of gates to garner their support. nessed the first concerted challenge to Hal Call and a newly recruited friend of winning our whole delegation over to They found a receptive listener in Hal the fifth order. The opposition had his, David Finn, attacked the fifth order their side and even proposed delights of Call, a San Franciscan delegate. Call had come prepared to do battle with the for their political affiliations. Playing the bed to win us over. "Brissette warned a degree in journalism from the Univer- founders for control of the Mattachine upon the anti-communist fears of the that, "smarting under their rejection, sity of Missouri and had worked for a Society. They intended, according to early 1950s, Call introduced a motion they might return even better organ- number of midwestern newspapers. Call, to "read out of the roll-call most approved by the entire San Francisco ized," and he implored Rowland to Arrested in Chicago in 1952 on a homo- of the founding members." membership that "a very strong state- "come to the next session well pre- sexual morals charge, Call was subjected The opposition staked out its position ment concerning our stand on subversive pared" to counter them. to what he described as "the completely early when Reiger delivered an ex- elements" be inserted into the new Brissette's assessment proved and utterly corrupt" workings of the tended critique of the minority group constitution. We are already being at- accurate. The deceptive calm of the Chicago police and judicial system concept. "We know we are the same," tacked as Communistic," he reminded April meeting masked a significant de- where male homosexuals were "fair she began, "no different than anyone his audience, and the proposed article

velopment. The convention had game for every cop who wanted to make else. Our only difference is an unimpor- "guarantees us that we will not be infil-

by John DEmilio THE BODY POLITIC/23 REACTION, REDBAITING & "RESPECTABILITY"

trated by Communists." Should anyone from one group to another. Over the withered and died. The reason was more The full scale retreat from indepen- make such charges again, he argued, next several months the new officers than structural. Under Burns, the dis- dent action stemmed, in part, from the "we can insist that it be printed and our Firmly imprinted their mark on the cussion groups became a "means of acceptance by the leadership of society's stand would then be clear." organization. Methodically erasing every therapy" for homosexuals so that they evaluation of themselves. "We didn't Not restricting himself to parliamen- trace of the founders' influence, they could learn to lead "well-adjusted" have much confidence at that time," tary manoeuvring, Call used every avail- charted a direction that was distinctively lives. By reinforcing rather than contra- Burns later acknowledged. "We felt we able opportunity to abuse Chuck Row- their own. Cautious, fearful, and con- dicting the ideology of sickness and had to work through people who could land, whom he especially disliked. Finn, servative, they brought the Mattachine moral turpitude, the discussion groups better present what homosexuality was too, joined the fray with a blanket ac- Society almost to the point of collapse. ceased to inspire and hold on to their all about — better than ourselves. We cusation of Communist Party Despite their claim that the Matta- participants. The San Diego group, for made a definite decision that by working membership against the Mattachine chine Society was "non-political," that example, collapsed within weeks after through research projects and people in Foundation directors. Though their it espoused "no isms," Burns, Rieger, the May convention. In the Los Angeles education and religion that we would get attacks antagonized more delegates than Call and the rest of the newly elected area, the far-flung network of discussion acceptance." And, as Call conceded, they persuaded, they added an element leadership proceeded from a set of inter- groups shriveled into a mere handful. "we felt we had to work through profes- of personal bitterness and factionalism locking, mutually reinforcing assump- A few of the discussion groups with sionals to give ourselves credibility. To that soured the proceedings. tions that gave their actions coherence, some of the early Mattachine Society's be just an organization of upstart gays, After the First day's sessions, the fifth and that formed as definite a world most active members reconstituted we would have been shattered and order members met to assess the situa- view as that held by Hay and the other themselves as task-oriented chapters. ridiculed and put down." tion and to plan a response. Vehement leftist founders. Decisively rejecting the Rowland and Stevens, for instance, as the opposition was, the leadership notion of a homosexual minority, they remained active in a Los Angeles chap- had nonetheless emerged victorious on took the contrary view that "the sex ter that voted to take on entrapment This eagerness, as Call put it, "to every vote. The convention had defeated variant is no different from anyone cases. Under their leadership the group ride on the shirtails of a psychia- Call's motion for an anti-communist else except in the object of his sexual ex- agreed to search out cases "of signi- trist, a psychologist, a clergy- declaration and approved a preamble to pression." Where Hay had attributed ficance to the whole minority, and to man, a lawyer" reinforced the the organization's constitution that the oppression of homosexuals to fight the charges aggressively." But conservative, self-deprecating spirit of affirmed the need for a homosexual structural causes — to their exclusion Burns and the Coordinating Council the leadership. Alfred Kinsey, for in- minority to develop "a highly ethical from the heterosexual nuclear family — vetoed the chapter's decision. stance, with whom the Society was in homosexual culture." Yet their victory the Mattachine leadership believed that The Mattachine Society's new contact, advised the Mattachine's was a hollow one. The founders had "discrimination, derision, prejudice, attorney, David Ravin, advised the offices to avoid the "special pleas for a every reason to believe that the red- and the denial of civil rights" arose in- leadership that "the very existence of a minority group," and to restrict them- baiting would continue and they recog- stead from "false ideas about the Legal Chapter, if publicized to society at selves to aiding "qualified research ex- nized its capacity to destroy the still variant." large, would intimidate and anger perts." Evelyn Hooker, too, cautioned fragile movement. heterosexual society. It would be detri- that reference to homosexuals as a "We were aware," James Gruber re- claiming as they did that the per- mental to the Mattachine Society to let minority was "a misnomer," and dis- called, "that communism had become a Invasive sanctions against homo- the public know of the existence and ac- missed the question of gay identity and burning issue. We all felt, especially sexuality resulted from misinforma- tivities of the Legal Chapter; and it consciousness since "only the mode of Harry, that the organization and its tion and a lack of objective scienti- would probably bring more pressures on sexual behavior would differentiate and growth was more important than any of fic fact, Burns and the others were led to the Society if the heterosexual felt that distinguish a homosexual." Burns used the founding fathers. The Mattachine conclude that the Mattachine's "greatest the homosexual, whom he hates, was such counsel to underline the judicious- had grown beyond our control and it and most meaningful contribution" to trying to change the laws to suit ness of his conservative leadership. had reached the point where we had to the liberation of homosexuals "will con- himself." "Responsible persons in public life tell turn it over to other people. There was sist of aiding established and recognized Burns accepted Ravin's estimation us," he wrote, that if the Mattachine no guarantee that they would continue scientists, clinics, research organizations and argued that the Mattachine Society Society does not "grow up with good with what the organization started, but and institutions by furnishing material had to "consider what the outside manners and an attitude of responsibili- we couldn't help it." for their work in studying sex variation society feels toward us at this time." ty, we can only expect to fail." The next afternoon, Rowland problems." Afraid to challenge the law and its en- As a connecting thread through each addressed the convention. The The reliance on professionals as the forcement, the Coordinating Council of these separate decisions ran a Mattachine Foundation's directors had agents of social change pushed them to cautioned the membership to be "realis- vehement anti-communism. The new decided to dissolve, he informed them, abandon collective, militant action by tic" and to recognize that the organiza- leadership of the Mattachine Society had and to allow the new organization to homosexuals themselves. tion was "not yet strong enough to em- originally coalesced around their shared retain the name. The fifth order Terrified of provoking a hate-inspired bark upon an aggressive program." fear of "subversive" influences, a

members, moreover, did not wish to campaign against gays, they shifted re- Instead, it offered to refer entrapment concern that continued to bind them seek office in the restructured Matta- sponsibility for mounting political victims to sympathetic and reputable together and to motivate their actions. chine Society. Rowland's announcement action away from the Mattachine lawyers. Despite the firm control that they had

received a wide round of applause. Society and instead placed it upon the Fear also inhibited them from seeking over the organization, Burns, Call, The rest was anticlimactic. The con- individual. Their desire for social accep- penal code reform. Despite the fact that Rieger and others remained preoccupied vention abandoned the secret structure tance made them hostile to the idea of a the Mattachine Convention had author- with demonstrating the Mattachine's of orders and guilds and approved a homosexual culture and to the effort to ized the creation of a legislative commit- loyalty and projecting an image of un- simple membership organization, with a fashion an "ethic" for gay life. Rather, tee to pursue sodomy law repeal, the alloyed Americanism. Coordinating Council elected by the the leadership urged homosexuals to leadership sidestepped the issue. Dave Just two weeks after the May 1953

membership and a series of organiza- adjust to a "pattern of behavior that is Finn, the chairman of the committee, convention, Finn wrote to Burns that the tion-wide committees focused on parti- acceptable to society in general and along with Call, a committee member, FBI had contacted him in San Francisco. cular areas of work — legal, legislative, compatible with the recognized institu- effectively forestalled action. In August Finn reportedly gave the government publications, public relations, and tions of home, church, and state." 1953 they published a pamphlet outlining investigators copies of the Mattachine research. Semi-autonomous regional In sum, accommodation replaced mili- the organization's policies that declared: constitution and detailed the efforts of branches of the Mattachine Society, tance, collective effort gave way to indi- "Any organized pressure on lawmakers himself and others to purge the Society called "Area Councils," would elect vidual action, the affirmation of one's by members of the Mattachine Society of any communist elements. Though their own officers and be represented on own integrity yielded to the wisdom of as a group would only serve to prejudice Burns later announced that the organ- the Coordinating Council. The unit for experts. Under its new officers, the the position of the Society. It would pro- ization had "expressed itself satisfac- membership participation was the task- Mattachine Society pursued respecta- vide an abundant source of hysterical torily to the FBI," an inordinate amount oriented chapter, similar in focus to the bility and abandoned the quest for self- propaganda with which to foment an of the Coordinating Council's attention committees but working on a local level. respect. ignorant, fear-inspired anti-homosexual continued to revolve around the The impact of the new leadership's campaign." communist issue rather than around mong the officers elected by perspectives hit the discussion groups Instead, they proposed for the Matta- building a homosexual rights organiza- delegates were the leaders of first. Conceived by Hay as a place in chine a policy of "merely acquainting tion. Stemming as much from their fear the opposition — Ken Burns, which to forge homosexuals into a co- itself with legislation. -Insensitive to the of exposure as from a genuine anti- A Marilyn Rieger, and David hesive, self-respecting, and self- real risks which individual action communism, their hysteria boom- Finn. conscious minority, they no longer had without organizational support entailed eranged and heightened the member- The May convention initiated changes an integral place in the Mattachine for homosexuals, they informed ship's concern for its own safety. In in the Mattachine Society reaching far Society and the overwhelming majority members that the "burden of activity ordering local chapter leaders to tell beyond the simple transfer of leadership of the one hundred or so groups must rest upon the individual." their members not to speak to 24/THE BODY POLITIC FEBRUARY 1979 investigators, the officers awakened our most rabid enemies. For McCarthy its activities to contacting, enlisting and worries that might otherwise have lain and his ilk, who hate Communists and working with and through established tell dormant. Worse, it led them to take homosexuals so equally they can't persons, institutions, and organizations arbitrary actions that made a mockery of them apart, it would be worse than which command the highest possible the democratic procedures which useless for us to deny being one while public respect and influence." supposedly justified their concerns. admitting being the other." Though the changes proposed by Despite the clearly expressed rejection Kepner failed to get the offending Burns were accepted, the debate sur- by the membership at the May pamphlets withdrawn, but his letter did rounding them provoked an uproar. convention of any declaration of anti- serve to hint at the invisible and some- When Rowland attempted to speak communism, the Mattachine leadership what pathetic motivation for the anti- against revising the preamble, Dave unilaterally published such statements. communist hysteria — the unarticulated Finn, who was acting as parliamentarian Both the Los Angeles and San Francisco belief that, by affirming their loyalty, and who was perhaps the most vituper- Area Councils released pamphlets under homosexuals could mitigate the hatred ative of the redbaiting leadership, ruled the Society's name which announced and persecution which the crusade him out of order. Finn then erupted that the Society was "unalterably against internal subversion had angrily that he would turn over to the opposed to Communists and intensified. FBI the names of everyone in attendence Communist activity." Determined to The conflict between the remnants of if the convention failed to reject the give substance to their words, the pam- the old Mattachine and the emerging "communistic" principles imposed by phlets made further statements which direction of the new leadership peaked the old leadership. His announcement in the effort to prove the Mattachine's in November 1953 at an organization- created havoc. Kepner recalled jumping anti-communism, tied its hands as a wide convention. Burns and the other to his feet and demanding that Finn be homosexual rights organization. officers came prepared to jettison what- thrown out. Many others were outraged "Homosexuals," the Los Angeles group ever survived of the founders' influence that anyone would dare violate the wrote, "are not seeking to overthrow or and to complete the transition begun in almost sacred guarantee of anonymity. destroy any of society's existing institu- the spring. The balance of power in the Burns deftly called for a recess and, after tions, laws or mores, but to be assimi- organization had now shifted. When tempers had time to cool, sidestepped lated as constructive, valuable, and Burns spoke, he did so as head of the the issue which Finn's threat raised by responsible citizens." Mattachine Society. simply attributing the outburst to the The implications of the position were The leadership successfully disposed emotional heat engendered by the debate. devastating. How were homosexuals to of what was left of the founders' per- Finn's behavior, however, did upset be assimilated as valuable citizens when spective. Still chafing over the preamble, the scenario planned by Burns and some the institutions, laws, and mores of adopted in May, which committed the of the other officers. They had prepared society precluded that possibility? Society to developing "a highly ethical a number of resolutions to deal with the The leadership's action did not pass homosexual culture," Burns urged the question of "subversive" elements without criticism. James Kepner, a Los convention to eliminate "that very within the Mattachine Society. One Angeles member who had joined peculiar language which the influence simply declared that "this Society un- Burns' guild just before the April con- of the old leadership at the last conven- conditionally subscribes to the American vention, wrote an angry letter to the Los tion forced upon us." In its place he creed." Another, a loyalty oath, Angeles officers with the full support of offered, and the membership accepted, a required each member to sign a state-

his chapter. Kepner had briefly been a statement which not only dropped the ment that "I believe it is my duty to my

Communist party member after World reference to a homosexual culture, but country to love it; to support its consti- War II until his expulsion for homo- also avoided any mention of homo- tution; to obey its laws; to respect its

sexuality. sexuals! flag; and to defend it against all Though he retained neither affection Burns also proposed, again success- enemies." A third resolution mandated nor loyalty toward the Communist fully, a resolution declaring that the creation of a "Committee for Inves- party, he found the pamphlets in "the basic limitations of an organization tigating Communist Infiltration" with

question "degrading." They constituted such as the Mattachine Society are of a • the power to summon any member

"the same sort of limitation of thought nature which would preclude its effectu- before it and to suspend anyone who and action which already plagues us as ally pursuing any direct, aggressive failed to answer "satisfactorily" homosexuals, and additionally would action." Instead, the organization questions concerning Communist party

constitute a cheap genuflection toward accepted as policy that it would "limit membership. It remains unclear whether

Emphatically no: The

later Mattachine (left) II «• ii H»ik ii a erased any mention of its .11 u i i Ul III III leftist origins and even

Qui^ denied it was an organiza

\ NSWERS to question* tion of homosexuals. you may be asking

WHAT IS THE MATTACHINE SOCIETY, INC.?

It is .in incorporaterf nr gamin t ton of persona who are m-

twfwStvtt ifi the problem of the ifx var tant - -empec is 1 ty thr

- - homosexu.. I m t it* snlut ton.

.3 IT AN ORGANIZATION OF HOMOSEXUALS?

Kmph.it i. .i I ly NO. All peraonm-men and women a I tke-who mre

OVtl 21 year s of age and mteremted in thr problem and ita

snlut inn wtw invito, I tn give C nnperat ion anrt support. Thta ia NOT an organization attempting to create * 'homosexual

iix iety9 bttl t ither an or ganttat ton seeking the integra-

1 tion "f the homnnexuat an a rewponn thle and acceptable c 1 ( iter, i r, t he 'ttewmm 1 1 y . The Society w i 1 1 not t olermte tine of

itself or it* name for any subversive po I 1 1 ica I act |v 1 1 y nr

r rprehens ihte c»

WHERE 010 IT BEGIN?

in Lorn <~v"il fmmn '.'". • imfl grnup nf people Angmlrm ftttmd the miclmtm of tht pmrnt 9aeJ*tp< It *«a formally Keep hoping: With no clear or^njnd in April,1933, nth * cotmtituUan ororMInt tor analysis of the roots of gay oppres- ind /../•/ Irvrlt of thr Orlrnitrt ion. Thr rpormfd inCrlilornim on lUrih}}. 19S4. sion, the new leaders hoped to change the world by simply plug- ging away at prejudice

FEBRUARY 1979 THE BODY POLITIC/25 REACTION, REDBAITING & "RESPECTABILITY"

the majority of the delegates opposed signalled that the membership had "no political persuasion. One cannot help but draw an analogy the resolutions out of conviction, or out sense of responsibility," and he too The predictability of the outcome, with the American labour movement of of anger at the attempt at intimidation resigned. Marilyn Rieger, one of the however, should not obscure its disas- the 1930s, whose enormous achieve- or, perhaps, because Finn's threat put leaders of the opposition in the spring, trous impact upon the Mattachine ments owed much to the commitment, into bold relief the menace of such rabid relinquished her position on the Society and upon the movement which daring and sustained efforts of thou- sentiments. But they did defeat all of Coordinating Council a few days later, the Mattachine initiated. sands of Communist Party members. the resolutions aimed at extirpating merely citing "personal reasons." In abandoning the perspectives of Not only were they, too, ruthlessly "subversive" influences. Over the next year and one half, the Hay, Rowland, and the other founders, purged during the Cold War era, but The convention, however, closed a Mattachine Society continued to decline the organization's new leadership their contributions have also been ig- chapter in the history of the Mattachine in size. At its first annual convention in discarded several elements that would nored and denied. Society. Despite the rejection of loyalty May 1954, only 42 members were in at- prove crucial for a successful gay oaths and other paraphernalia of the tendance. Burns attempted to put a movement: the recognition that the op- McCarthy era, the membership had happy face on the situation by telling his pression of homosexuals had structural gays, we have shared a fate decisively abandoned the radical, mili- audience that "what the Society re- roots that ran deeper than simple preju- Aswith others whose radical his- tant impulse which had characterized the quires of members is quality — not dice; the bold rejection of the complex tory of struggle, organization

first years of the organization. quantity," but it was hard to mask the of theories and attitudes that labeled and visionary outlook lay The context in which they did so — startling change from a year earlier when homosexual behavior as sin, sickness, buried for years under the homogenized amid redbaiting attacks on the integrity the organization had been expanding or crime; the espousal of a self-affirming "consensus" history written by academ- of some of the members — cost them rapidly and thriving. The turnout for pride in one's gay identity; the deter- ics and journalists in the 1950s and 60s. dearly. Since the early summer, the or- the annual meeting the following year mined assertion that gay life could be movement, as the gay activists of the 50s ganization's work had been "immeasur- was even smaller. ethical and dignified, and that a gay cul- and 60s called it, were not so bleak as the ably hampered," as Burns himself ad- In its pursuit of a respectable image ture had something of value to contri- outcome of the Mattachine's internal mitted, by a series of resignations coming for itself and for the homosexual, the bute to the society as a whole, and the fighting might suggest. Change, growth from officers and members who shared Mattachine offered little to attract its conviction that only mass collective and development did take place. In 1955 the politics and the vision of the foun- gay constituency. In place of conscious- action by homosexuals themselves could the Daughters of Bilitis (dob) was ders. "Too many committees," the ness-raising, challenges to police initiate significant changes in the status founded in San Francisco, adding a dis- chairman of the Los Angeles Area Coun- practices, political action, and efforts to of the gay population. tinctive, autonomous lesbian voice to cil, John Loy, glumly reported in 1953, achieve penal code reform, the organiza- By contrast, the conservative, essen- the movement. In 1958, one magazine, are "at present trying to function with a tion sponsored activities — blood tially accommodationist course pursued which retained some of the militancy of minimum of personnel." In September, drives, the collection of clothes, books, by Burns, Call and the other successors the early Mattachine Society, had its Gerry Brissette and almost all of the East and magazines for hospitals, and the to the founders, left the Mattachine right to publish affirmed by the US Bay membership in Northern California like — to demonstrate that homosexuals without a dynamic strategy for achieving Supreme Court. The Mattachine and left the organization, distressed by the were solid citizens. The leadership its goal of equality for gays, and with dob grew beyond their California ori-

widening gulf between, as he put it, expended its energy denouncing indecent little appeal among its natural con- gins and set up chapters in several Amer- ' 'those of us who had more of a move- public behavior and dissociating itself stituency. D ican cities. ment idea and the group who wanted to from those who contributed to the During the 1960s, East Coast activists be respectable." "delinquency" of minors. The Society Franklin Kameny and Barbara Gittings The November convention accelerated witnessed the sorry spectacle of took positions far in advance of their time. Both had only self-confi- the process. Kepner recalled that for members investigating and exposing Certain questions remain: why do not the many in attendance, the bitter fighting each other's private lives under the guise most gay people of the 1970s, dence to denounce the proclamations of was "a devastating experience. Probably of preserving the Mattachine's good including gay liberationists, re- the medical establishment as charlatan- a majority of those who attended the reputation, as if any homosexual in the main so ignorant of an impor- ism and quackery, but also the determin- Convention never came back." Konrad 1950s had a reputation to protect. tant piece of our hjstory? What hap- ation to tackle the discriminatory pol- Stevens, who finally left the organiza- The Mattachine Society had opted for pened in the intervening years before icies of the federal bureaucracy, and the tion after the convention, described his a strategy of interminable waiting for out the 1950s and 1960s pursue the courage to demonstrate in public for gay reasons: "It was dull and wasting time. public enlightenment. It was an lifeless, stagnant course set for it by rights. In San Francisco, the Society for The fighting, the beginnings, the approach that depended upon members Burns, Call and the like? What about Individual Rights (sir), founded in 1964, with revolution was over. I felt we were drag- of the very professions that had helped the personal histories of the founders, became a mass organization more ging our feet. Everything was so watered create and maintain destructive attitudes the seven men who provided the energy, than 1 ,000 members. down that nothing courageous would toward homosexuals. It urged homo- insight and inspiration that sustained the By the time of Stonewall, nearly 50 ever be done. They wanted to do nice sexuals themselves not to work to early Mattachine Society? American gay organizations existed, in things to make society accept them." change the community mores that Our ignorance of the radical roots of every part of the country except the restrict their lives, but instead to adapt the early gay movement in the United South. Others agreed. Ben Tabor, an to them. States is a compelling example of our The movement had adopted the officer in southern California, How one could do this, and still re- oppression. The failure of those efforts slogan "gay is good": the Advocate (far submitted his resignation to main a homosexual, the new leader- meant, in effect, that twenty years later different from what it has become) had Burns shortly after the con- ship never answered. the system of gay oppression survived started publishing in Los Angeles and vention. There were, he wrote, "two The outcome of the Mattachine intact. The silence and invisibility which, was relentlessly exposing the everyday premises which compromise the essence Society's internal struggle was almost until recently, surrounded our lives, ex- oppression of gay men; The Ladder, the of our organization. We are inevitable and cannot be understood in tended to our history, including its most monthly magazine of the Daughters of predominantly an organization of isolation from larger currents in postwar precious parts — the organized attempts Bilitis, had moved decisively in the direc- homosexuals and we are interested American society and politics. By 1953, not only to survive but to fight back and tion of feminism; Troy Perry had primarily in demanding our civil rights. the Cold War anti-Communist crusade to use our gayness, as Chuck Rowland founded what would become in the

But from where I sit, it looks like the had succeeded in driving leftists from once said, "in the interests of human- 1970s the biggest gay organization in the

Coordinating Council is devoting all its hard-won positions of influence in the ity." United States, the Metropolitan Com- time to denying both of these pre- labour movement, in blacklisting them But it is also important for us to re- munity Church. mises." from the motion picture industry, alize that the history of the early Matta- The Stonewall Riot did not create a Ironically, the convention's outcome silencing them in the schools, and crip- chine Society has remained hidden not gay liberation movement out of nothing; also failed to satisfy many of the Matta- pling most of the organizations in which solely because of external forces. The the seeds had already started to sprout chine's most conservative members. communists played an important role. individuals who took hold of the Matta- by the time the police raided the Chris- After the defeat of the loyalty oath, Guy As a result, not only had communists be- chine in 1953 systematically buried every topher Street bar. Stonewall was the Van Alstyne, who headed the Matta- come an insignificant force in the United trace of its left-wing origins. Accounts catalyst that allowed gay women and chine's research committee and had been States, but for a time the country as a of the early history that were printed in men to appropriate to themselves the responsible for its developing contacts whole appeared to have reached a the Mattachine Review and passed on to example, insight and inspiration of the with professionals, announced his consensus which left little room for mili- newer members later in the 1950s told radical movements of the 1960s — black resignation. "It can be regarded as the tant movements for social change. merely of a semi-secret organization that power, the new left, the counterculture sheerest madness," he said, "for me to Under these conditions, one could had grown so rapidly that it outlived its and, above all, feminism — and take a act officially in a movement which seeks hardly expect that a small band of initial structure. The changes of 1953 are huge leap forward toward liberation. to encourage respect for those who have leftists would retain leadership in a painted as the triumph of the democratic Though the movement as a whole con- been linked with subversion." To John movement that by its nature was offen- strivings of the membership and as a sign tinued to grow during the 50s and 60s, Loy, the rejection of the resolutions sive to most Americans of whatever of the maturing of the movement. for many of the leaders of the early

26/THE BODY POLITIC FEBRUARY 1979 , '

Mattachine it all but ended with the declaring, at decorously-conducted old when they wrote the Mattachine events of 1953. According to James Homophile conferences, that Gays were initiation ceremony: "No boy or girl,

Gruber, the impact was that of a ' 'per- different from everybody else except in approaching the maelstrom of deviation, sonal calamity." Some of them — bed. " To a movement that remained re- need make that crossing alone, afraid, Gruber, Stevens, Hull and RG — formist, he tried to communicate a radi- and in the dark ever again." They were dropped out of the movement alto- cal sense of gay identity, of how the talking about me. gether, disillusioned by the experience. "gay window" on the world held some- We have a special need for history. Bob Hull later committed suicide. For a thing of enormous significance for Raised as we were in heterosexual fam- time, Dale Jennings and Chuck Rowland humanity as a whole. ilies, we grew up and discovered our transferred their energy to one maga- With the birth of radical gay libera- gayness deprived of gay ancestors, with- zine. But Jennings, who had risked tion in the last decade, Hay feels that his out a sense of our roots. We need to

much for a cause that had now repu- own work has been vindicated and that create and carry with us a living aware- • diated him, grew increasingly bitter, the message of the early Mattachine ness of gay generations, to incorporate withdrew into private life and disavowed Society has been reborn. He warns, in our consciousness not only the organ- the movement. Rowland, impatient with however, of the danger of the gay ized struggle of our predecessors, but the the task of publishing a monthly maga- movement losing its most revolutionary everyday struggle to survive that our zine, attempted to organize homosexuals visions in the quest for what he calls ancestors engaged in. We need to affirm once again, this time by starting a "gay "the chimera of Gay civil rights." "I and appreciate our past, not in some

church," only to have himself subjected would like to feel," he says, "that Gay abstract way, but as it is embodied in to ridicule by many of his friends. When Lib isn't dead, that it's only de-railed living human beings.

his effort collapsed, he sank into alco- since it allowed itself to become a Just as a knowledge of our history can holism for many years before success- Thunder-Mug planted to geraniums in strengthen us today, the way we carry on fully rehabilitating himself and resuming the middle-class parlours of Gay Demo- that tradition validates those who came a long-interrupted teaching career. cratic Clubs. It's time for the Gay before us. Harry Hay, too, was profoundly Visionaries and Poets and Dreamers to Maybe Chuck Rowland, in a letter he affected by the turn of events. In the create a new chemistry, to fan up a new wrote to me during my research, should

autumn of 1951, when it appeared that incandescence, to lift the veil on a new have the final word: the Mattachine Society would become dream." "You say, John, that you are grateful an all-consuming effort, he had gone to Hay himself has become something of andfilled with lovefor me. You won 7 his wife, Anita, and to his party super- a folk hero to a younger generation of feel the need to apologizefor these feel- iors to tell them of his work. The revela- gay male radicals. An interview in ings when I say: What the hell, man, tion led to the breakup of a thirteen-year Jonathan Katz's Gay American History, you 're my son, blood ofmy blood, flesh marriage and to the severance of his an appearance in the film Word Is Out, of myflesh, in a deeper, truer sense than Communist Party ties. Deprived of what and a stream of visiting activists from any literal blood orflesh could possibly had been the main props of his life. Hay around the country are slowly giving be! You represent ourfuture and our had plunged into his new commitment, Hay the recognition he deserves. fulfillment. You are the greatest and

fully expecting that it would become the When I began my research three years finest progeny we could ever have focus of his life. With that also taken ago into the early history of the gay aspired to conceive when we met in our

from him, the once energetic, enthusias- movement, I had little idea of what I little, fear-struck roomsfilled with brave

tic Hay suffered a paralyzing nervous would uncover. I also had little idea of words and great dreams back in breakdown and came close to commit- what "gay history" could mean to me 1950. " ting suicide. personally, a gay socialist of the 1970s. Hay never again engaged in sustained These explorations into our past have © John D'Emilio 1979 organizational work in the gay move- been an intensely emotional journey. Of

ment, but the liberation of homosexuals Hay, whom I visited for several days at remained his overriding concern. During L his home in rural New Mexico, and of the 1950s and 1960s he surfaced from Rowland, with whom I have had an ex-

time to time, pleased at the opportunity tensive correspondence, I could say that

(as he recently put it in a letter to TBP) I fell in love, though that phrase barely "to begin rocking the boat toward touched the depth and variety of feeling

Christopher Street by scandalously that I have for them. I was three years

Before Stonewall: The yearning for res- Requirements ofspace prevent the pectability did not prevent the homophile printing of the author's extensive movement from making some advances. By 1 f$ footnotes. However, those wishing to obtain completefootnotesfor the

. 1 1 i » i i three parts of the series should write 7WK, MirnlmSTT" **T, ,h& the author, c/o The Body Politic, V\ WMmF^ Box 7289, Station A, Toronto, Ontario MS W 1X9. ^STOWitf JMi »

John D 'Emilio was one of the founders of the Gay Academic Union in &«& i»iy New York City in 1973. He has taught a gay studies course, did a gay newscastfor WBAl-Radio, and was a member of the Gay Socialist Action Project. A Danforth fellowship

the early 60s. Barbara Gittings (left, seen on holder, he is writing a book-length the David Susskind Show) was already history of the pre-Stonewall ' ' attacking the quacks of the medical pro- 'Homophile fession Franklin Kameny (right) has been a movement He long-time opponent of the federal govern- would appreci- ment's discriminatory policies in Washing- ate response to ton, DC In 1955, Phyllis Lyon and Del this series since

Martin (bottom) founded the first autono- he considers 1969, there were more than 50 organiza- this to mous lesbian organization in the US — the be tions in existence New leaders appeared to Daughters of Bihtis "work in pro- speak publicly for gay men and lesbians By gress.

FEBRUARY 1979 THE BODY POLITIC/27 Our Future.

jS^JW^S*!?

That's right. We're fighting for our future. Because we want a future where gay people can live and work without fear of discrimination. Where lesbian mothers and gay fathers can retain custody of their children. Where the Criminal Code can't be used to oppress and intimidate us. A future where we can live our own lives — freely and openly.

What can you do to help? If you belong to a member group of the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Rights

Coalition, you can work through your group to raise CLGRC issues in your community. If your group isn't

already a member, urge it to join the coalition. As an individual, you can become a CLGRC Supporter — your contribution will help the cause and you'll be kept informed of the Coalition's activities. And you can send us an additional donation — running an organization with more than 50 groups from one end of Canada to the other requires a lot of funds. Remember, it's your future too! Demands HUMAN RIGHTS 6. WE DEMAND measures which would prohibit the CHILD CUSTODY 1. WE DEMAND the inclusion of "sexual orientation" in possibility of discrimination against any person or per- 12. WE DEMAND that homosexual parents not be denied the Canadian Bill of Rights, in the Canadian Human sons by reason of sexual orientation or marital status in custody of their children on grounds of their sexual Rights Act and in any new constitutional bill of rights. WE public housing, and in the financing of such housing, by orientation; and furthermore that parents not be denied DEMAND the strengthening of the Bill of Rights to effect- the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation. custody on the grounds of homosexual unions. WE DE- ively protect individual and minority rights. MAND that the federal government amend the Divorce 2. WE DEMAND: a) the inclusion of "sexual orientation" Act to forbid specifically consideration of sexual orienta- in the Public Service Employment Act and the Public tion in child custody cases. Service Staff Relations Act to protect all homosexuals from discrimination in all departments of the federal SEXUAL OFFENCES DIVORCE public service; b) an end to discrimination against homo- 7. WE DEMAND the repeal of all sections of the Criminal 13. WE DEMAND that all existing references to homosexuals in the Armed Forces, the RCMP and in crown Code on sex offences and the enactment of new legisla- sexuality as a grounds of divorce be removed from the agencies and corporations; c) that sexual orientation not tion which makes it clear the sanction of criminal law in Divorce Act. be a criterion in determining the security clearances for sexual matters is to be invoked only against a) people employees in all branches of the public service. who violently sexually assault other people, and b) people 3. WE DEMAND the amendment of the Canada Labour who, through abuse of positions of authority, threats, CENSORSHIP Code to prohibit discrimination on the grounds of sex or fraudulent representations, onerous psychological 14. Considering that the suppression of erotic expres- sexual orientation, and to include meaningful penalties pressure or otherwise, coerce others into sexual acts. sion does nothing to attack the roots of the oppression of for violators. 8. WE DEMAND the repeal of the Criminal Code sections women, WE DEMAND the repeal of all sections of the 4. WE DEMAND that the Unemployment Insurance Act on: Indecent Act in a Public Place; Loitering or Wandering Criminal Code and the Customs Tariff used to censor be amended to include "sexual orientation" as a pro- by a person previously convicted of a sexual offence; erotic expression, to seize pornographic material, to hibited ground of discrimination in employment referral, Common Bawdy Houses; Soliciting; and the Spread of prevent its importation into Canada, or to prosecute those and that this subsection be strengthened to provide a Venereal Diseases. who receive it or deal in it. clear limitation on the interpretation of a "bona fide occu- 9. WE DEMAND that the Criminal Code section which pational qualification" and to provide meaningful penal- provides for the indefinite confinement of so-called ties for violation of this subsection. dangerous sexual offenders be repealed, and that all PRISONERS 5. WE DEMAND the inclusion of "sex" and "sexual orien- cases of individuals presently incarcerated under this 15. WE DEMAND an end to the use of aversion therapy on tation" in the list of ways a section of the public may be legislation be immediately reviewed. We are opposed in homosexual prisoners in federal penitentiaries, and that distinguished as an identifiable group for protection in principle to indefinite confinement for sexual offences. the Solicitor-General repudiate the principle of "no aver- the hate literature sections of the Criminal Code; that the 10. WE DEMAND that the Juvenile Delinquents Act be sion therapy — no parole." restriction that the Attorney General must consent to amended so that a person cannot be declared a juvenile prosecutions under these sections be removed; and that delinquent on the grounds of being "guilty of sexual ABORTION these sections be strengthened to more effectively pro- immorality or any similar form of vice." 16. WE DEMAND the repeal of the Criminal Code section tect minority groups. 11. WE DEMAND the abolition of age-of-consent laws. on abortion. Member Groups

Community Homophile Association of Newfoundland • Gay Alliance lor Equality (Halifax) • Atlantic Provinces (Toronto) • Lesbian and Gay Committee of the International Socialists (Toronto) • Revolutionary Workers Political Lesbians for Equality • Centre humanitaire d'Aide et de liberation (Quebec City) • Service d'Entraide League Lesbians and Gays (Toronto) • Unitarian Univeralist Gay Caucus (Toronto) • Gay Equality homophile de Quebec • Association pour les Droits des Gai(e)s du Quebec • Gay Info (Montreal) • Gay Mississauga • McMaster Homophile Association (Hamilton) • Guelph Gay Equality • Gay Rights Organization Friends of Concordia (Montreal) • Gay Social Services Project (Montreal) • Montreal Community Church • of Waterloo • Waterloo Universities' Gay Liberation Movement • Homophile Association of London Ontario • • Gays of Ottawa • Lesbians of Ottawa Now • Metropolitan Community Church (Ottawa) • Queen's University Windsor Gay Unity • Dignity (Winnipeg) • Gays for Equality (Winnipeg) • Wages Due Lesbians (Winnipeg)

Homophile Association (Kingston) • Trent Homophile Association (Peterborough) • Coalition for Gay Rights in Gay Friends of Brandon • Atropos Fellowship Society/ Odyssey Club (Regina) • Gay Academic Union Ontario • Community Homophile Association of Toronto »Gay Academic Union (Toronto) • Gay Alliance at (Saskatoon) • Lesbian Causus of Saskatoon Women's Liberation • Gay Information and Resources (Calgary) York (Toronto) • Gay Alliance toward Equality (Toronto) • GATE Toronto Lesbian Caucus • Gay Youth Toronto • Edmonton Lesbian and Gay Rights Organization • Gay Alliance Toward Equality (Edmonton) • Gay Alliance • Lesbian Organization of Toronto • Metropolian Community Church (Toronto) • The Body Politic • Lesbian Toward Equality (Vancouver) • Society for Education. Action. Research and Counselling on Homosexuality and Gay Trade Union Group (Toronto) • Wages Due Lesbians (Toronto) • Lesbian Mothers' Defence Fund (Vancouver)

28/THE BODY POLITIC Group Membership

Yes! Our group supports the Statement of Principles of the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Rights Coalition.

Please send us more information about becom- Statement ing a member. of Principles NAME OF GROUP ADDRESS

Historically, gay people have remained politically isolated, and therefore powerless, as a minority seeking redress of grievances. Given that anti-gay biases pervade the political, religious, medical and social institutions of Canadian society, and given the

vast resources at the disposal of such institutions, it is imperative that all gay women and Send to: Coordinating Office, CLGRC, PO Box men join together in a united struggle to eliminate their oppression. 2919, Stn D, Ottawa, ON, K1P5W9. Ph: (613) To this end, lesbian/gay organizations in Canada have united to form the Canadian 233-0152. Lesbian and Gay Rights Coalition (CLGRC). CLGRC is a civil rights organization whose primary objectives are: 1) the removal of all federal legislation which permits, condones or encourages discrimination against homosexuals, and 2) the implementation of legis- latively guaranteed civil rights for gay people. r Winning gay rights is the first step on the road to the full liberation of lesbians and Supporter and Donation

gay men. It will not put an end to stereotypes, homophobia or bigotry, which have I DYes! I wish to become a CLGRC Supporter.

manifested themselves in a wide-ranging and overtly repressive attack on homosexuality understand I will receive: itself and on homosexuals, all under the banner of opposition to gay rights legislation. •a subscription to the Forum (published four The CLGRC recognizes the need to combat such anti-gay activities in all their forms as a times yearly) part of working for gay rights. •CLGRC's Annual Report •brochures and other movement literature (as It is acknowledged that public action forms an integral part of the CLGRC strategy published) and programme since it is primarily through the effective use of public action that mean- • notification of conferences and other move- ingful changes will occur. It is understood, therefore, that public action cannot be ment activities separated from, or viewed as less important than, other activities of a strictly lobbying •reduced registration fees at CLGRC confer- nature. ences •a membership card

I have enclosed $ as my membership fee for one year. (Membership categories are shown below; all fees quoted are annual.) D $10 Basic $25 Sponsor ^ejgtfjm D $15 Household $5 Limited Income D Please keep my name and mailings con- fidential. Member groups of the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Rights Coalition will hold their annual meeting at the CLGRC-sponsored NAME 7th Annual Conference for Lesbians and Gay Men in Ottawa from 27 June to 2 July, ADDRESS 1979. It is here that the CLGRC will work out The theme of the conference, "Celebrat- its programme and direction for the ing 10 Years of Lesbian/Gay Liberation", Please find enclosed an additional donation coming years. Everyone is welcome. salutes the first decade of gay liberation in of $ to assist the CLGRC. For more information, write to: Celebra- Canada. Send to address in Group Membership box. tion 79, PO Box 2919, Stn D, Ottawa, K Ontario K1P 5W9, or call (613) 233-0152 or 238-1717.

Canadian Coalition Lesbian and canadienne pour Gay Rights les droits des E3 Coalition lesbiennes et des gais

THE BODY POLITIC/29 -

/ A. 1000 Lesbians

HOURS: % 1

MONDAY B SATUBCKtt- 11:30am to Midnight *J$

SUNDAYS 4 am » Midnigh' *?< Questions and answers

TBP has provided, until May, this space spring's conference. for the discussion of issues dealing with Lesbians need to continue to develop LAUNDRY ISN'T THE ONLY THING the Lesbian Conference. The column a sense of ourselves. But each of us below was written by the committee cannot do so on her own: we need to TO DO ON SUNDAYS organizing the conference. For more in- share our skills and knowledge, to parti- formation, write to them c/o LOOT, 342 cipate in our culture, and to gain Regis Film Programme has great classic films Jarvis St, Toronto, Ontario. strength and inspiration from one another. We need a sense or our col- at InnisTown Hall on Sundays. May 19-21, Victoria Day weekend, has lective power and our diversity. The call 960-1442. For information, been set for the bi-national (Canada and conference should be a step in this direc- REGIS FILM PROGRAMME, BOX 102, STATION P, TORONTO, ON M5S 2J0 Quebec) lesbian conference to be held in tion. Toronto. The Lesbian Conference Even as our communities are growing, Committee of LOOT, the Lesbian we are faced with the need to make them Organization of Toronto, has been busy more inclusive, creative and even more for the past few months organizing this powerful. We know there are thousands conference to be both enjoyable and of women we haven't reached — WSivIV 2481 Yonge useful. Mailings of a letter explaining the trapped in marriages, lacking in self- conference and a questionnaire which worth, isolated and struggling to Street (at MA Jr seeks feedback from prospective partici- survive. How can we reach out to these Castlefield) ilflilM pants have been sent out to lesbian, gay women? How can we support those of in Toronto IlVVIt and feminist organizations, centres and us who are mothers — to fight for publications across the country. A custody of our children and for the In Touch $2.25 poster contest is under way and a raffle means to support those already in our Mandate $2.00 is planned to keep the money rolling. care? How can we fight for Blueboy $2.25 The planning committee is made up of jobs — meaningful ones? Or improve Advocate $ .75 three subcommittees: Publicity, the ones we've got? How can we fight Numbers $3.00 Finance and Agenda. Questionnaires (as to be out in all aspects of our lives? J3uf>erbia Press over cover price We don't charge printed in the last issue of TBP) are These are some of the "basics" that the Open8AM-6PM coming in from across the country, but conference might deal with. E)esign Illustration Exayout (416)486-8739 slowly. There is still time to send them Many other questions are posed in Mail orders are now being accepted. Add in. There are still many areas yet to be relation to the movements in which some and a Full Printing ftem/ice. 50« per magazine for postage and hand- heard from. of us are currently active. What are our ling. Prompt delivery assured. The conference is envisioned as a connections to the feminist and gay We buy and sell pocket books and old cultural, political and social event — a movements? And what should they be? copies of Blueboy, Mandate and In Touch. 964-8196 sea of lesbians united in sisterhood.The How do we ensure that these movements

organizers hope it will be a good oppor- take up and fight for our concerns as tunity to find out what has been lesbians and women? What should be happening across the country, to share our role in the Canadian Lesbian and questions and search for common Gay Rights Coalition? Do we want to answers. concentrate on legislative reforms? Is an Over the past year our communities autonomous lesbian movement House have been growing at an amazing rate. necessary? These are also questions that New groups, papers, women-only spaces are important to discuss. have been formed and are flourishing One conference can only begin to from BC to the Atlantic provinces. develop an understanding of these issues Women's culture is thriving and more and a common direction. One lesbian voices are being heard — in conference is not enough. The music, books, drama, poetry. Yet, even organizers have believed from the outset as all this is happening, attacks on that there is a need to continue the pro- lesbians have become more powerful in cess of sharing and growing together their force. Many more lesbians have that will begin at the conference. We come out and are resisting these attacks. hope that we will be ready to try to build The gay and women's movements are a network, a means to stay in touch, faced with our greater strength — our to ensure a continuing expression and determination to air our concerns and exchange of ideas. We need not stay meet our needs as woman-identified- isolated and alone; we can fofge women in a male-identified world. These together our woman-energy. experiences are the inspiration for this

•Rooms and apartments •2 large enclosed sundecks •New pool •Complimentary morning coffee •Close to shops, restaurants, beaches and discos

For more information, call in Toronto ENCORE TRAVEL 193 Carlton St, Toronto, M5A 2K7 922-1693 or phone direct ISLAND HOUSE 1129 Fleming St, Key West, 33040 1-305-294-6284 1977 Saskatoon Gay Conference: lesbians came out, but not in droves

30/THE BODY POLITIC FEBRUARY 1979 The Bearded Lady's Return

For Jim MacSwain, becoming The Bearded Lady meant "letting out the woman inside me." And gaining the strength she had. A look at a magnificent survivor by Robin Metcalfe.

went all my lovely women with their rich figure stands, gazing at the foliage, kicked off the stage of history. Theaudience through an empty Unclean. Witches and their hairy chins mirror frame. The figure of a metamorphosed into circus freaks who woman, graceful in a silk ki- made little boys and girls — and the mono, with a lucid feminine strength. little boys and girls buried in adults — She gazes at her reflection, at the beard shrink back and wonder and maybe

which grows in rich dark curls from dream again of. . .what? Of flying above her chin. dark trees into a golden sun? And now?

"The world is crammed with oddities. What history awaits the bearded lady The centuries have belched up the and her sisters? In our genes we carry the muddled genes, the mutants, the freaks precious heritage of mystery.

of nature: I am supposedly one of the "Come, bearded ladies, out of your many tales that have lurched across the caves. Let's have a look at you. Let this tidy fields of normality, of banality, of century have a good long stare."

complacency. I am one of the many Called "The Bearded Lady's Reflec-

bearded ladies of the past who were tion," it is a remarkable one-person worshipped or burned or drummed into show that includes singing, dancing, the circus because we have hair attached poetry, mime and multiple imperson- to our chins or upper lips. Did they all ations. It was presented in Halifax feel as beautiful, as lovely as myself? during the Sixth Annual Conference of Glory, glory, glory to these soft hairs; Lesbians and Gay Men, held in that city soft, sweet-smelling like grass, fodder this past summer.

for the creatures of air and earth. Jim MacSwain is the man behind the "Poetic. Yes, they are poetic. And Bearded Lady. He fits no easy categories. lures, for even they partake of the rosy His dress and some of his speech reflects glow of love. History. The brute reality the 60s counterculture in which he came of history. In ancient lands, women with to maturity, yet he displays none of the beards were worshipped, partaking of hip pretentiousness often associated

that prophetic mystery that blurs the with that era. He is small, child-like, distinction between the sexes. However, as delightful as a magician, always the passion of the Christians wiped out charmingly, eccentrically, irrepressibly the hermaphrodites, who became ser- gay. A person without inhibitions, vants of hell. bursting often into high soprano giggles. "My sisters, those ripe women with How did he ever survive Amherst, Nova their halos of hair were broken by the Scotia, where his father taught classics mobs of crazed priests who worshipped at the regional high school? sexless abstractions of purity. There

"rr-^/.i;-, "Amherst is one of the more conser- who were watching would not feel that vative spots in Canada," Jim laughs. they were being exploited. "It has quite a large Baptist community "I wanted to bring in a lot of gay and all those small-town horror shows: themes and to make lesbianism part of people getting bored and gossiping be- her life. When the Bearded Lady talks hind other people's creating scan- the backs, about her lover I wanted to be very pos- dals, sexual scandals usually, because itive but not sugary: nothing else ever happens. And turning over, sometimes "I sang in the Baptist church choir you are there and I taught Sunday School and I did all The lover, the other hot the Nice Things that Nice Boys who With blood and bile grew up in Amherst did. I knew I was Snores and secrets queer when I was fifteen; I slept with an Lying there older man when I was fourteen, with Breathing in the innocent light quite a lot of guilt, but at least it took me About to reveal the street tub out of the mould. I was different and I That cement garbage had to go through a lot of pain to hide You wake, you wake that difference. I was always in terror Stunned as usual that someone was going to discover this A kiss. God-damn whiskers secret. I always had to be aware of my The first kiss always hurts. club body, how I moved, how I spoke to

people. But by the time I was in grade When I was writing the Bearded Lady I Enjoy the luxury of the Roman Baths; The sen- eleven I had a few close friends, one of gained strength because I let out the sual pleasures of the Medieval Baths; The whom was gay, and we began very tenta- woman that was inside me, and I'm tively to discuss our sexuality with each hoping that as I enjoy doing it the enjoy- communal socializing of the Japanese Baths other. ment will reach out into the audience." and the curative value of natural Hot Springs "I got away from home by going to Is The Bearded Lady's Reflection gay bathing. Yes, they're here — Natural Redwood Mount Allison University, ten miles art? Jim thinks about that question Hot Tubs! across the border in New Brunswick. quite a while. "I would say that it is a I was lifted from a small-town church gay cultural event. But heterosexual

and high school environment and people can enjoy it as well. I suppose Discover the soft, sensual appeal of natural dropped into this small, intellectual that if you're trying to reach a specific- redwood next to your the body and experience university. I took Fine Arts and im- ally gay audience the label 'gay art' rewards of a hot bath among a company of mediately established myself in a gay would be valid. But if you're an artist friendly bathers, C'mon in, the water's fine! clique. In our first year we just admitted you're really trying to say something it, but by the time second or third year Sauna, Massage and Body Shampoo available. universal. I believe there are gay images rolled around we were sleeping with which are universal. It's so hard to each other." separate being gay from being an artist $2.00 DISCOUNT WITH THIS AD Fine Art led to painting, drawing, because they are so intimately involved. printing and sculpture, but Jim's inex- You take your images from the world, 9 Isabella Street, Toronto perience caused him to fail his second and part of that world, for me, is being year and to transfer to English. He gay, so I take gay images, especially ones 922-2144 became involved in drama, music and that I think cry for freedom. photography. "If the movement progresses and "My mother died while I was at univ- more people reach some kind of gay ersity, which was a great emotional consciousness, as opposed to, say, men

watershed for me. I went through all simply wanting to fuck other men, a cul- that existential despair that you were ture can be created. The more gay people supposed to go through in your twenties. see art work done by gay men and

I was reading Sartre, Camus, Genet women, the more that cultural identity when all those people were big names." emerges and the more strength we gain Not happy with your In the early 70s, Jim moved to to attack the system that oppresses us." Edmonton, where he studied theatre at Like other gay people in all the nooks the University of Alberta. It was there and crannies of the Atlantic Provinces, living arrangements? that he finally fully accepted his gayness Jim MacSwain has survived — magnifi- and fell in love with another man. He cently. He has had the strength to Looking for a self-contained room? returned to Halifax in 1973 and became change, even though it hurts. He sets Find that apartment lonely? involved in RH Positive, a theatrical his life in opposition to the forces of group organized by local mime artist normality, of banality, of complacency. Robert Zeigler, and helped found the Let this century have a good long Gargoyle Puppet Theatre. stare. Today Jim lives in a nest of his col- Parliament Street lected foibles and art works in a big ram- Fully self-contained bachelorettes shackle house in the poor North End of Robin Metcalfe, shown below with Jim Private bathroom Halifax. The house is co-operatively MacSwain as Jim MacSwain, is an active Fridge, stove and sink in each unit by a collective, several of whose the Alliance Nine units fully renovated owned member of Halifax Gay for with modern furnishings members are artists who work together Equality. He writes with diligent regular- At Wellesley, minutes from Yonge and survive from Canada Council grant ity for The Body Politic. Start at $43 per week to CBC commission to unemployment insurance cheque. "I have more of a comic sense now," Victor Avenue Jim says. "Life doesn't seem as serious

it accepted as Stove, fridge and sink in each room as once did. I've myself Free use of washer and dryer being gay, and I've accepted myself as Steps from Broadview, two blocks being selfish. It seems to me that the north of Gerrard more changes you go through, the more

1 1 units — start at $32 per week you get a feeling that the world can change, that you can effect some change Tourist accomodation in society itself, if you're strong enough. by the night or weekly On a political front in the gay movement

or on the artistic front I can show people some of my feelings. These are the main

things that I work for." How did The Bearded Lady's Reflec- tion come about? "I wanted to do some-

thing in drag and I decided that I

wouldn't wear any make-up, but that I would wear my beard. I'd try to portray a woman who was very strong in keeping Call Don (465-3287), Bob (465-8919) her beard in spite of the pain and strug- or Ron (928-9009) gles of growing up in a repressive society.

I tried to make her real so that women

32/THE BODY POLITIC FEBRUARY 1979 " Onrlmage

"What is peculiar to modern societies, in fact, is not that they consign sex to a shadow existence, but that they dedicate themselves to speaking of it

ad infinitum, while exploiting it as the secret.

ciplines comprise technologies of power ichel Foucault's books are an for the manufacturing of useful acquired taste — rather like es- individuals. Modern power relations cargots. Unfamiliar with the de- involve the active surveillance of entire batesln which the Paris-based Foucault populations, down to the inner core of participates, English readers find him the individual. Disciplines such as psy- intellectually and stylistically painful. chiatry, psychology, pedagogy and crim- A master dialectician and the most so- FOUCAULT inology enable the decentralized super- phisticated and creative contemporary vision and control of vast bodies of s^^is s^ ^rafllj^jif exponent of historical materialism, *la& jfrv people. Knowledge describes, classifies, Foucault is a constant embarass- specializes, distributes around a norm, ft ^^L| ment to his fellow leftists, insistently f|| disqualifies and invalidates. Foucault questioning our cliches and catching us analyzes the internal rules which hold to- H3ro v3kkgHm Hw '\ ^mHHP in gether types social unwitting complicity with our own : of power that are in-

§£ '?vi& ; -r-^f^ oppression. dependent of, though related to, the

Volume 1 of The History of Sexuality, economic laws of capitalism. He is the subtitled An Introduction in English and pIt'ilBB first theoretician of everyday life to go

Volonti Savoir l significantly La de in the original, is 1 beyond Engels' classic, HT^S^V ft- J^l -M&$3j3&&M guaranteed to make the theoreticians Origin of the Family, Private Property of gay liberation and feminism blush at and the State. "^kÎ^H jlj^Bm our own naivete\ The book is a reinter- HPâl^^l I^^KuKpîlS 8H£ Jfig The discourses on sexuality have four

pretation of the past which will change 'T 1P^ r main strategies of power: the "hysteri- Jr Wi'^'^Jjjk M 4i' our perceptions of the present. 9 zation" of women, the sexualization of Those who pick up The History of children, the regulation of populations Sexuality hoping for an easy read will and the classification of the "perverted." become unhappy very quickly. Despite Women's bodies came to be seen as the fact that Foucault has chosen to write dominated by sexuality, and were given

in a plainer style than is his wont, the HE!j«|pl3^^H over to be studied as a special pathology. llssSJfflfi £ text has a density of argument that r " 1 From the beginning the eighteenth f i of makes it read more like philosophy than century, children were subjected to history. Attacking contemporary theo- increasing supervision of their sexual

ries of the history of sex, Volume 1 pre- habits. Not mentioned in the text, but

pares the way for the more concrete ; illustrative of this point, is the fact that t&mI 'g%^; discussions to follow in the next five vol- I' j in early eighteenth-century England, co- umes. Given the problem people have in education schools were segregated by understanding Foucault, the difficulty of sex, separate girls' and boys' rooms were saying anything definitive about an in- 1 « created in family homes, and children of troductory essay, the importance the same sex began to given separate and of Hag 3HB be Foucault's arguments to feminist and » :>vH8l beds in boarding schools because of the

gay liberation theory, I think it better to new-found danger of homosexuality. A Wk fm outline the highlights of Foucault's dis- ill HBJP&> <• ?

describe sexual behaviour at any time or this is not a simple matter of sexual re- gSSr place, nor does he recount changing at- wHSSi pression. Even if adults and children have titudes toward sex. The series will analyse changed their ways of talking to each sexuality as an object created in and other about sex, new ways of speaking through different forms of discourse. about the sexuality of children have

When Foucault writes a history of mad- '''" '- emerged: medicine, psychiatry, criminal ' mmmmm . ness, prisons or sexuality, he tries to -•.-.--•'. . justice and a host of para-legal regula- define the rules which internally organ- tory mechanisms. ize connected bodies of statements. Prior to about 1600, discussion of sex Statements, oral and written, are social centred around marriage — other forms practices which connect and exclude each EXPOSING THE SECRET of sexual bonds being situated in a vague other according to patterned orderliness. fog beyond this discourse. An example Whether someone approved or disap- and inaugurate a new social order where of the general will to know the truth of this is the ambiguous use of the word proved of sex is of little significance to sex will no longer cower beneath dark about sexuality. Both have been contin- "sodomy" which could be used to discourse analysis, but the way sex was comforters. Lulled by these familiar uing features of Western culture since denote a sex act between people of the in the first place made an object of dis- ideas, the reader is caught off guard the seventeenth century. Foucault's same sex, masturbation or nameless cussion, who spoke, the status and view- when it becomes clear that the chief po- critique of the concept of repression as abominations. The accent of discourse is points of the speakers and the institu- lemical point of Foucault's book is the used in leftist political theory in and of reversed after the seventeenth century to tional organization and distribution of refutation of this "repressive hypothe- itself makes the book invaluable. fall on the peripheral scxualities. Classi- statements are of great import. sis." How can we think that the truth of Foucault sows two other deadly fication of this periphery into zoophiles The prison, madness and sexuality sex has not been told, that sexuality has doubts concerning the "repressive hypo- and zooerasts, auto-monosexualists and were formed over the course of centuries- been silenced, when a profusion of dis- thesis": does power in modern societies mixoscopophiles, gynecomasts, pres- long exchanges. In Foucault's words, courses on sexuality have flowered since operate through techniques of repres- byophiles and inverts (that's you) was an discourses are "practices that system- the seventeenth century in demography, sion such as prohibition, censorship and act of power that produced these cate- atically form the objects of which they biology, medicine, psychiatry, psycho- denial; and did the beginning of the gories of people. speak" — a good Hegelian thought. logy, ethics, pedagogy and political crit- analysis of repression mark the end of The last hundred years have witnessed The first few pages of The History of icism? We arc confronted with the para- the age of repression? the isolation and consolidation of Sexuality consist of a soothing reiteration dox: "What is peculiar to modern so- At first reading, Foucault's use of the groups with specialized sexual of a familiar theme: the sexual repression cieties, in fact, is not that they consigned word "power" leaves the reader be- preferences. Medicine and psychiatry, of Victorian times. Sex was muzzled be- sex to a shadowed existence, but that fuddled. By power Foucault means pornography and prostitution have, to- cause gratification was incompatible they dedicated themselves to speaking of neither the coercive function of the gether with economic interests, effected

with a capitalist-cum-Protestant work it ad infinitum, while exploiting it as the state, nor the control of one class by the rise of the specialized scxualities — ethic: we must struggle to liberate our secret." another. These are to him hopelessly professionalizing them, so to speak. own sexuality from its Victorian shackles If we are to speak about repression we anachronistic views of the modalities of Homosexuality is no longer thought of must understand it as a prohibition modern power relations, an indication as an act. but as an entire sensibility, just

The History of Sexuality. Vol I An Introduc- which occurs within a field of intensified that we arc still trying to cut off the head as the criminal is no longer a person who tion by Michel Foucault Pantheon Books, interest in sex. Repression is a rule of of the king. Knowledge and power have commits an act against the sovereign, 1978 $11.75. exclusion applying only to a small part grown up together, and the modern dis- but rather a person with a diseased life.

FEBRUARY 1979 THE BODY POLITIC/33 Foucault phrases the change in his from conceptual co-optation is entirely oracular fashion: "The sodomite had unclear. The greatest single strategic been a temporary aberration; the homo- lesson to be learned from Foucault 's sexual was now a species." Homo- book by feminists and gay liberationists Marketing the "gay new world" sexuality cannot be understood as is that our freedom will not be won by Faggots by Larry Kramer. Random House, simply repressed because it has been naively shouting the truth of our could be accused of either having no 1978, $14.50. constituted through its exclusion. Three "repressed" sexuality to the world a la sense of humor (the book is, after all, of the largest bars for gay men in Erica Jong or John Rechy. That we In the September issue of TBP, I written by an "insider") or proving Toronto are on Yonge Street, the main define our lives by having sex with a reviewed eight new gay novels, including Kramer's alleged point — that we are to drag, but they still are not part of that member of the same sex is at present Larry Kramer's Faggots, which has since self-involved, our lives too neurotic and street; gay bars are made socially inevitable. been released by Random House. narrow for us to appreciate what the invisible, their existence and negation How we choose to resist our classi- Readers might remember that I gave the straight world (in the person of Random expressed simultaneously. Speculating, fication as homosexuals is up to us, and novel an exceedingly negative notice. House) is telling us. To wit: we have we could say that lesbians, beneath even we choose our ground carefully. We The advertising campaign for Faggots ghettoized ourselves without any the contempt shown towards gay men, must, paradoxically, accept and resist has begun and I felt you might be inter- prompting from society at large, a were never professionalized or psychi- the historical acts of exclusion which ested in the tack Random House is society which is so liberated in matters of atrized in a coherent discourse and thus gave rise to us. To act on the basis of this taking to sell the book. I'll quote the sexuality as to have spawned a new kind never specified and constituted as an exclusion in order to fight the tech- three-quarter page ad in full: of minority — one that defines itself excluded group. nologies of sex and their unremitting "Faggots sends up New York's self- purely by its own lack of guts. Sex, Foucault states, is to the emphasis on sex is the radical position. imposed gay ghetto, doing for its gyms, A novel can be argued with. bourgeoisie what blood was to the aris- Our resistance to being "psychiatrized," discos, orgy rooms, army fatigues, mus- Reviewers can give their opinions — can

tocracy: a technique of power. Insisting and alternately condemned and taches, and advertising agencies what even recommend, as I did, that the book that the discourses on sex were not de- defended by professional classifiers of Portnoy's Complaint did for Mom and not be bought. And a review can be signed to subjugate the poor or eradicate sexuality — such as Dr John Money — masturbation," the advertisement says, argued with. Anyone is free to disagree sex from human life, Foucault suggests is a legitimate attempt to abolish classi- quoting the Library Journal's review of with a reviewer's opinion in print, even that the bourgeoisie has been concerned fication by sexuality, to resist the the book. "Faggots is the Uncle Tom's the reviewers for Library Journal, who with its own sex as a way of extending its intrusion of the technologies of sexuality Cabin for homosexual men whose worst are primarily responsible for the patently

power. The discourses on sexuality were into our lives. I am suggesting also that a oppression is their lack of courage to bigoted copy in the ad. founded on an ethic of expansion, not celebration of gay and lesbian sex, while change the way they live." But a large-scale, mass market ad one of prohibition, and they are con- it may eventually lead to our acceptance Under that quote, the copy reads, campaign mounted by one of the largest cerned to produce a healthy, long-lived, as a "minority group," will ultimately "Faggots is a brilliantly authentic publishing houses in North America vigorous race. The repressive hypothesis serve the expansionary needs of a version of the gay new world." Beneath cannot be argued with. It can't be held which matured at the end of the last cramped bourgeoisie. The real struggle those, Fred Exley is quoted as saying, accountable as an author or a reviewer century was an attempt by the for us is not to further "sexualize" the "Larry Kramer has all the audacity, can be through the reviewing process. It

bourgeoisie to set itself off from other world — that has been tried for 350 zaniness and yes, even the wisdom of a can't be rebutted because it is literally

groups and refuel its expansionary quest years — but to abolish classification by Vonnegut... I laughed from the opening everywhere and its reach extends beyond

by defining its sexuality in contrast to sexuality, to abolish the political page... I wish I could have written the the boundaries of the very press that

others. Thus the repressive hypothesis, manipulation of sex and to make sex just damn thing." And Edward Albee is fosters it. It's irrelevant that Faggots which constitutes the major weapon in another pleasurable event in human life. quoted as saying, "I hope the Gay is or is not offensive to gay people. the leftist critique of bourgeois sexuality, The second volume of Foucault's community won't lose its sense of I happen to think that if you write

serves only to expand bourgeois power. work has not yet appeared, and it may humor about this book. Faggots, for all a book called Faggots you'd better There is no break between our critique be many years before the subsequent its excesses, is frequently right on target bloody well know what you're doing,

of repression and the mythical Victorian volumes are published. In the absence of and, when it is on target, is appallingly and that Kramer did not. I know for age of repression. We've been duped. the remainder of the series, the intro- funny." sure that if you publish a book called The first volume of The History of duction can be no more than immensely I said that I was sure Larry Kramer Faggots that goes double. Sexuality explicitly suggests that suggestive. It is a text to be ruminated meant to write a big book, a sprawling How interesting that this book resistance to the technologies of sex upon in discussion groups. During your satire on the order of Terry Southern's could not, whatever its literary merit, should not be organized on the basis of anguish in following Foucault's Candy. So I'm not surprised to see the have been published five years ago, sex, but instead should be shifted over to argument, be assured of one point: no book being sold according to that for- much less have received any ad a different ground, that of "bodies of one has gone further than he toward mula. What moves me to write now is campaign at all. Now, given the ad copy,

pleasures." How this would save us understanding modern sexuality. not that I think the book is being par- should we be grateful that it can be Lorna WeirD ticularly misrepresented as to its type. today? I'm sure some people, particularly George Whit more G straights, will read it and find it as amusing as Exley and Albee seem to have — though Albee has wisely Bell, book & scandal qualified his remarks. John Knight No, what disturbs me most is the Kings Don't Mean a Thing: The quote from Library Journal (Kirkus and Murder Case by Arthur Bell. William Morrow Publishers' Weekly were not so kind), (Gage in Canada), 1978, $1 1 .50. the tag "gay new world," and the im- Philip Marlowe, the private detective plication throughout (bolstered by from Raymond Chandler's novels, is es- Albee) that we gay people are somehow sentially a camp character. Humphrey oppressing ourselves in a new and ludi- Bogart later modeled his acting style on crous way for which the straight world Philip Marlowe in movies based on has to take no responsibility. This is an Chandler's books. Both Marlowe and especially insidious and effective allega- Bogart as Marlowe operate in the paren- tion to aim against a minority group. theses of detachment, cynicism, and For if we were to protest that the book irony which are the essence of the camp (or the ad copy, for that matter) is an sensibility. unwarranted distortion of gay life, we A detective and an investigative journalist do the same kind of work, and camp is to a large degree a function of homosexual sensibility. It is appropriate then for Arthur Bell, gay reporter for The Village Voice, to assume the voice of Philip Marlowe in telling the story of life and death of John Knight III. John Knight, heir to a multi-million dollar newspaper chain, was stabbed to death in his luxurious Philadelphia apartment in December 1975. As details Photographs from (top) To Be a Woman in of the murder were released to the public America, (1850-1930 (Times Books), an Knight's double life as a closet interesting but not terribly thoughtful homosexual became known. To his collection that says as much about Ameri- friends John Knight was the amiable can photojournalism as it does about bachelor who collected art. To the hust- women; and (right) Friends and Friends of lers of several American cities he was Friends (Dutton), a shallow paean to male just another john. Knight was murdered friendship, in United Nations rhetoric. during a robbery foray which was insti- Overtly gay subjects get dipped in the same gated by his lover, an ex-hustler. saccharine as everyone else. Neither camp cynicism nor Arthur

34/THE BODY POLITIC FEBRUARY 1979 Bell are devoid of compassion. Bell clivity of the woman artist. Stepping has long possessed the notoriety of being train by Mrs Beddoes. The car is re- unwinds a tale of his double life, in down from her former ruminations on Callaghan 's suppressed work, existing turned by one of the villagers who bears

which the closet is really a labyrinth and the universal truth of Art, she touches only in private printing done in 1931 . It a note stating that Mrs Beddoes and the world on both sides of the door ground in the modesty of the present, is in addition Callaghan's only piece of Jean have decided to go away together. becomes a nightmare. and leaves us with a dream of women gay fiction, and represents, mercifully, Surprise twist number two. It's a good book, well-written and loving women. This hope, although one of his few dabblings into Freudian Callaghan's treatment of the motives fast paced. It reads like a mystery novel. unfulfilled, is still a promise, and imagery. The plot concerns the sudden behind this episode is almost as cursory Bell shares his personal odyssey as he Sarton's A Reckoning is her clearest, disintegration of the marriage of two as the outline given here. The story exposes Knight's life and peers into the least equivocating pro-lesbian book. middle-aged intellectuals, the Beddoes, becomes a reverse of the standard love

lives of his murderers. He travels from Lorna WeirD during an interlude at "the cottage." triangle; readers are left to make of it the bed of a florist who knew Knight's The homewrecker is in the person of what they will. interior decorator, to a gay lib discussion Jean Allen, a mutual friend who has The suggestion has been made by group on Manhattan's West Side. In Incongruent triangle recently left her husband. critic Victor Hoar that the story is a par- Bell's own words, "Behind each The story is constructed to lead the ody of D H Lawrence. There may in fact doorway, a drama." No Man's Meat and the Enchanted Pimp by reader to believe that Beddoes and Jean be some justification for this standpoint, When Bell leaves the bed of the florist Morley Callaghan. MacMillan of Canada, will enter into an illicit sexual alliance: especially in view of the fact that the

his reflections are profound. But when 1978, $9.95. the Beddoes sleep in separate rooms, dominant image in the story is a lake he goes to the gay lib meeting his re- Mrs Beddoes is thin and effete, Beddoes from which rises a huge monolithic marks are gratuitous. The Philip Morley Callaghan has the distressing anticipates Jean's visit and so forth. The rock, haunting the imaginations of the Marlowe style begins to grate. habit, in his short fiction, of presenting matter jells when, in a game of friendly Beddoes.

John Knight's story is a part of the a complex issue which he attempts to re- gambling, Beddoes facetiously wagers I hope, however, that this is not the

history of degradation in the closet. Bell solve not by means of an artistic presen- fifty dollars against Jean's "virtue." case, for it would demote Callaghan's places this murder in a context which tation of his own conclusions on the sub- Jean loses and the flippant remark treatment of a gay theme from being

makes it meaningful. But if he has criti- ject, but rather by the introduction of an congeals into a "ghastly business." merely inept and facile to being in cisms to make of gay discussion groups O Henry-ish twist at the conclusion of Neither party will back down, and with hideously bad taste. Callaghan's works he should back them up with substance the narrative. He (as well as Somerset Mrs Beddoes' broadminded blessing, the in general have a strong vein of interest instead of style. Otherwise, Arthur Bell Maugham) continually open thematic couple proceeds to have a sexual in relationships which standard morality risks not having the audience he cans of worms only to end by saying to encounter which leaves Jean verging disdains. It would be sad if parody were deserves. the reader, "Well, what do you think of upon hysterics. Mrs Beddoes comforts the intention in this story, which Robin Hardy that? Tacky business wasn't it?" This of her, and returns to tell Beddoes that Edmund Wilson has called a "minor course cheapens many of Callaghan 's Jean left her husband not for a man, but masterpiece."

short stories, and nowhere is this more rather a woman; for her, the touch of a Still, I would suggest that Mr Wilson Making the point apparent than in "No Man's Meat." man is physically repugnant. Here we might have added one word to the begin- The story has recently made its first have surprise twist number one. ning of his assessment: "very."

it The next day is A Reckoning by May Sarton. Norton (George appearance for the general reader, but Jean driven to her James Tennyson J McLeod in Canada), 1978, $12.95 May Sarton's latest novel, A Reckoning, I^MMwMM is constructed upon the theme already familiar to her readers: a woman, whose Eclectic assistance life is drawing to a close, meditates on the Meaning of Life. True to form, the Raid! TBP Benefit Party. The Dream Factory, comfortably well-off but not rich 30 December. Free the Gay Press Rally. woman seeks solace in baroque music Faculty of Education Auditorium, 3 January. (for the serenity, you know, dears) and Toronto snippets of George Herbert. Sarton's The new year started off with fireworks references to Classical mythology con- as incredible talent mustered to support tinue to be so infuriatingly heavy- the gay press. For the first time, artists handed that one expects to find showed up in force to herald the gay explanatory footnotes at the base of the offensive. page. At TBP's December 30 fund raising In A Reckoning, the precipitating party, called "Raid!" in celebration of cause of the soul-searching is in the the first anniversary of the police sweep information that the woman, Laura, is of the magazine's office, a cluster of dying of lung cancer. Leaving her job as performing artists held the on-lookers' a book editor, Laura determines to do attention. LaMonte Del Monte, unfor- only what will aid the art of dying, an art tunately hampered by technical prob- which for her consists in the project of lems, portrayed a young man in search understanding her past life. Laura's self- of identity and career, dressed in bizarre understanding is given through the lives costumes and miming tunes from the of those who have touched her most 60s. A group of hardly-normal singers, closely: her sisters, daughter, and most Massimo Agostinelli, Tim Guest, Glenn especially, her mother and her closest Schellenberg and Billy Sutherland, New Wave zaps movement: The Clichettes at TBP Rally friend, Ella. Trying to solve the riddle of dressed in shirts made from pink J-cloths Sybille, her mother, Laura ponders the and billing themselves as the "antinormal chanted to rhythm, finding poetry in clip- party and the rally, was staggering and importance of love between women and Singers," gave an impassioned rendition pings from The Body Politic. Lisa Steele, historic: both straight and gay artists the relation between mothers and of "My Boyfriend's Back in Town." chain-smoking in yellow pyjamas, deliv- came together to celebrate a cause, bring- daughters. Regretting that she and her Best-dressed David Roche suavely intro- ered an eerie, comic monologue as a ing life and humour to serious times. friend Ella had never become lovers duced the rousing, sly, and occasionally mother re-examining the circumstances Burke Campbell' ] forty years previously, Laura concludes sinister music of The Beds, which was that lead up to her welfare daughter's that her mother, petrified of feeling love well received (Glenn Schellenberg and tragedy. And Marione Lewis alarmed for women, had cut short any such Tony Malone measuring a perfect twin). everyone as she stood, in a concoction feelings in all her daughters. In an act of The celebrations continued on the of red and black (Martian drag?), rant- Good and raunchy atonement, Laura gives a young lesbian stage at TBP's "Free the Gay Press" ing about overcoming conformity by the courage to publish a quasi-auto- rally on January 3. Introduced by following instructions (to the letter!). "He's Okay' 7" Hot Magazine" by Buena biographical novel. All is reconciled on emcee George Hislop, seven performers But the Clichettes won the wildest Vista, 45 rpm, Wet Records. 1978. $1 .50. Laura's deathbed when Ella makes a entertained the troops, several hundred applause: four women as dipsy early-60s deus ex machina appearance. In a teary strong. Lorraine Segatto sparked the dolls in white slicker miniskirts and shell I often envy lesbians for the strength and finale, Laura confesses her love for Ella evening off with her own driving folk tops — their stoic, defiant gestures grace of their musical culture. There are and dies holding Ella's hand. compositions. Warmed up, the crowd forging a battle cry out of Leslie Gore's few good gay male singers to compare Should anyone have missed the point, then beheld some of the most startling non-political tune, "You Don't Own with such a community of artists as the

the moral of the story can be found on chemistry appearing anywhere. Felix Me!", making it the anthem of the rally. women of Olivia Records. Must we the penultimate page where Laura, Partz and AA Bronson of General Idea The performance artists all seemed to always settle for the pretentious closetry asked by Ella whether tenderness is showed slides isolating parts of naked agree that the many different elements of that disco-humping machine, Village "what women can give each other, but bodies, offering comments throughout. of media — video, mime, movement, People? have held back, and are learning," Randy and Bemeche saluted yellow jour- voice — could be woven into their indi- This little 45 from San Francisco replies that women will come to "share nalism with Berneche expressing her out- vidual routines. The acts on both eveninjc; makes me think that I've been looking in the experience of being a woman." rage in coarse slang, countcrpointed by shared this eclectic quality, giving the the wrong direction. The melodic folksy Sarton, more forthright than usual in Randy re-expressing her feelings in more overall impression of an organized yet sound of lesbian artists like t 'tis this latest book, presents lesbianism as a proper English, Randy getting a pie in outrageous idiom communicating spon- Williamson does not adapt itself well to positive good and as a hope for the the face for his efforts. taneity and joy. the urban life of most modern faggots. future rather than as the individual pro- Centerfold magazine's Clivc Robertson The total effect of these events, the That life is characterized bv a certain

FEBRUARY 1979 THE BODY POLITIC/35 rough-and-ready vulgarity, a gutter very danceable celebration of skin about ideal male beauty conforming to eroticism that we try too often to magazines. When was the last time you laws of proportion and partaking of the 14^:1.1 to gain the approval of heard pop music that dealt honestly with beauty of mathematics. H^: whitewash Most of us do heterosexuals. sexuality? Not cinematic romanticized not think first of mathematics, and New in Paperback Buena Vista, as their name may imply, sexuality, but our sexuality: crude, Clark avoids treating the other side of takes a good view of gay male life. Their pleasurable and human. Nudie pictures the tradition, Apollo's counterpart, Word Is Out, the script of the documen- slick, bubbly little songs celebrate our are a part of almost every faggot's life, Dionysius or Bacchus. He comes in tary film, is now published in paper. The faggot hood in all of its lewd splendour. and play an important role in our self- many tempting forms, not only as interviews are all in one piece, and there You may have seen them in the film discovery and self-definition, but they Bacchus in his proper person, beautiful- are pictures as well as short pieces on the Word Is Out, shimmying up a storm in are rarely referred to and even more ly captured by Simeon Solomon, the gay film makers. Two standard biographies their white glitter jumpsuits. rarely celebrated in art. late Pre-Raphaelite, but also are out in paper: Robert Liddell's The first side of this single, "He's A liberated gay men's culture is going transformed into John the Baptist. Solo- Cavafy (Pocket Books) and Linda Okay," is a cut from that film. It is an to have to start from where we are mon used the same model in the same Simon's The Biography ofAlice B upbeat, upfront account of adolescent today. Buena Vista is good medicine in a guise for his John the Baptist. Similarly, Toklas (Avon). The Joy of Gay Sex and romance. "Can't you see, he's good for world that denies and condemns our Leonardo's Bacchus in the Louvre is a The Joy ofLesbian Sex are also in paper me, he's okay, okay." Emphasizing the sexuality. Buy this record and feel good. John the Baptist "which did not par- now. The lesbian novel Loving Her is in joys of love and sex, the song describes Robin Metcalfe ticularly inspire religious feeling" Avon. oppression without self-pity. It has a secularised. Something for Mom and Dad: A tendency to cuteness, however, and it is Buena Vista can be hadfor $1.50 plus The figure who most represents spiri- Family Matter: Parents' Guide to musically inferior to the second side, $.25 postage and handlingfrom PO Box tualised flesh is Saint Sebastian, another Homosexuality, by Dr Charles Silver- "Hot Magazine." This is a raunchy, 14731, San Francisco. CA 94114. figure interestingly not dealt with by stein (McGraw-Hill). Delta has publish- Clark. "The fleshier Saint Sebastians," ed several Susan Son tag works: the says Cecile Beurdeley in L 'Amour Bleu, novels The Benefactor and Death Kit mm "Make one think of sensual pleasures, and her recent study On Photography; of delicious pain, rather than of the Farrar Strauss has published, in hard- Strangely came the naked rigours of torture." Perhaps the most back, /, etcetera, a collection of her sensuous treatment of him in her book, short stories. Jonathan Katz's landmark

L'amour Bleu by Cecile Beurdeley. Rizzoli body" that Clark finds in the ancient though, is the symbolist painting by Gay American History is again in paper, (Oxford University Press in Canada), 1978. Greeks but also from the male nude. Jean-Jacques Henner in which, like so this time in a cheap mass market Avon $86.50. Margaret Walters usefully reminds us of many of the late Romantics, he seems edition. Arnie Kantrowitz's own story The Nude Male by Margaret Walters. how recent a phenomenon this is. more in love with "easeful death" than about coming out, Under the Rainbow: Paddington Press (Random House in "There are," she observes, "a great with heaven. Growing Up Gay is in paper. Donald Canada), 1978, $16.25. many classical and Renaissance nude The most irritating feature of Wyndham's novel Two People, out of males which are openly erotic, existing L 'Amour Bleu is its scant identification print for ages, has recently been issued In his classic study, The Nude, Kenneth simply because they are sensually beauti- of the works of art used. Not only are in paperback by Popular Library. Clarke attributes to the 18th-century ful." Michelangelo's nudes come most we never given the date of the works but, New Directions has published German aesthete, Winckelmann, the to mind, especially his "Awakening as in the case of lesser-known artists like Tennessee Williams' Where I Live: Sel- notion that while "the male nude might Slave," but we might also think of Henner or the mysterious turn-of-the- ected Essays. Fag Rag has published a Kupfer, achieve character, the female nude alone Signorelli's nude young men in such century (?) German, Elisar von study it serialized a number of years ago: have could aspire to beauty." It seems an odd works as the "Bichi Altarpiece" in of whom she makes great use, we Witchcraft and the Gay Counterculture, observation for a gay writer like Winc- Toledo, Spain. virtually no other information either. by Arthur Evans. The Glory of the Per- kelmann to have made and at variance Signorelli's paintings represent the Inevitably in books like this, the fumed Garden, the hitherto unpublished with his statement elsewhere that "those sense we have lost of the continuity of choice both of passages anthologised parts of Sir Richard Burton's translation who are only aware of beauty in the body and spirit, flesh and idea. This idea and of works illustrated seems somewhat of The Perfumed Garden, has been female sex and are hardly or not at all was central to Renaissance humanism eccentric. Why when we have Thomas issued by Panther. Mouth of the affected by beauty in our sex, have little and is reflected in Milton's conception Eakins do we not have (in either book) Dragon, the quarterly of gay male innate feeling for beauty in art in a gen- of Eden. There Adam and Eve walked one of the great paintings of Henry Scott poetry, has just resumed publication. In eral and vital sense." naked together "nor those mysterious Tuke? And although Margaret Walters Toronto, back copies are available at his fine Whatever the source of the change in parts were then concealed. . .with shows mentions Etty we have none of Glad Day Books.

Winckelmann 's attitude that Clark re- instead, mere shows of seeming pure." nudes. It is gratifying to find Pon- •Poet Ian Young has just made a poetry- fers to, certainly a shift happened in the This side of spirituality is dangerous tormo's wonderful self-portrait drawing reading tour of Western Canada spon- 18th century, not only away from that of course, especially to the life-deniers. in the British Museum, and annoying to sored by the Canada Council. On "passionate pleasure in the human It is safe enough to talk, as Clark does, find omissions like the beautiful nude December 4 he read at Simon Fraser Satan by Sir Thomas Lawrence, and the University, hosted by Gays at SFU. David Hoekney's equally lovely pair of male nudes by Manitoba was next on the tour: Decem- The Rake 's Progress Rubens (both in The Nude Male) that ber 7 at the University of Winnipeg, (right), and detail seem to qualify Clark's remark that hosted by the Department of English from Signorelli's Rubens did for the female nude what and Religion, and December 8 at Bran- Orvieto frescoes Michelangelo did for the male. don University, hosted by Gay Friends (below). There is no doubt that of the two of Brandon. The final stop was the Sas- books, Margaret Walters' is the more katoon Gay Community Center, on significant. For all her unsupported gen- December 10. eralisations, there is a refreshing direct- •Human Sexuality Update is a new bi- ness and a willingness to take on prob- monthly pubUcation providing over 100 lems that is absent in L 'Amour Bleu. abstracts of recently published academic Her four last chapters are her best journal articles dealing with sexuality, because there she comes to terms with including homosexuality. Subs cost $24 the generalised homophobia of the 19th for individuals and $36 for libraries and and 20th centuries and the alternatives institutions (Canadian orders add $5). to it. Her chapter, "Newsstand Nudes," Order from the Haworth Press, 149 in spite of its treatment of the very fine Fifth Avenue, New York, NY, 10010. work of Jim French, is less interesting •Articles needed for a forthcoming an- than the last (and best) which treats thology of "Socialist Perspectives on women artists' attitudes to the male Gay Liberation." For details, write to body. Carrier Pigeon, 88 Fisher Ave, Boston, "There is still a rigid division," she MA 02120. says in her introduction, "between the

sex that looks and the sex that is looked

at. The dichotomy is bound to breed perversion in both sexes." The perver- Our Image Contributors sion of which she speaks is the perversion of leering possession in which Burke Campbell doesn't want to have a public English the body is debased to object. It comes personality... Douglas Chambers teaches

as much from the churches as from the at the University of Toronto. . Robin Hardy lives in a cold but romantic loft in Toronto... Robin porno shops; the one feeds the other.

Metcalfe wears hats and lives in Halifax. . Jim What we can learn from women artists, Tennyson finishes furniture when not at and from women like Margaret Walte'rs, TBP . . . Lorna Weir is not quite as mysterious as is to again the look at ourselves and deny she looks George Whitmore lives in New York blasphemy of claiming the male body to and has recently finished a novel. be obscene. This in our time, as she says, constitutes a new way of seeing. Douglas ChambersD 36/THEBODY FEBRUARY 1979 by Richard Labonte

Had we but style enough...and Time

'carezza'?" The answer: "Sure. With a ries of unfireablc citizens." ticle provided a brief and sympathetic little element of eros. Sometimes you And the stumbUng and mumbling: description of the oppression homo- find among musicians a tremendous essayist John Leo is afflicted with either- sexuals face, from the myth of homosex- erotic or sentimental or emotional or-itis. Every positive statement (psych- uality as a sickness to discrimination on relationship." iatrists no longer consider homosexuality the job. Last question: "You've said the gay a sickness) is smothered by a negative •

movement will have to come to terms (but most psychiatrists still think homo- George Anthony is entertainment editor sooner or later with the limitations of sexuals are sick). for the Toronto Sun, a tabloid whose

sex. Do you mean people shouldn't Leo hasn't done gays any favours with perfidy is no doubt well-known to define themselves in terms of their his analysis. His is the old liberalism, regular TBP readers. He also works for sexuality?" The answer: "To the extent knowing it must understand and en- Marquee, a bi-monthly distributed free they define themselves in terms of dorse a social right but unable to accept — and still not worth the price — in genital sexuality. Like about a week ago the consequences of acceptance. Canadian theatres. He never writes a dis-

I was trying to jack off. I couldn't come • couraging word about movies.

for the first time in my life. For a whole "Wir sind schwul" (We are gay) pro- Here he is with Lily Tomlin, talking

hour! 'Wow!' I said to myself, 'This is claimed the front cover of the October about her appearances with John " Some imaginative editor with a sense of interesting.' issue of the German magazine Stern. Travolta in Moment by Moment. occasion at New York magazine thought • The cover was guaranteed to shock — "Lily has even more to say about Tra- to ask Quentin Crisp (The Naked Civil The new liberalism is the old elitism: I'm it was a photograph of two men about volta. (Note diminutive first name.) Servant) to review three books on OK and screw you is the refrain. It to kiss. Inside, the article began with a " 'The first thing one notices about

fashion: the result, in the Nov 20 issue, crops up in Barbara Amiel's column two-page black and white photograph him is how sensitive he is.' (Pause) 'And is bitchiness at its knowing best. in the Jan 1 Maclean's, where any that was captioned: "This is no cinema how sexy, too,' she adds thoughtfully." "If you have no personality, you may sort of government interference in scene, this is a real photo. The two men Less coy but still cloying are Colin be able to save your face and, possibly, the affairs of people is derided on the embrace each other tenderly in bed..." Dangaard and Michael Reeves in the your entire anatomy by following the grounds that the genie of state control The text itself listed the names of 682 Jan 9 Us. Tomlin, the older woman to current fashion," writes Crisp, "but all can never be stuffed back into the bottle. openly gay men, ranging in age from 17 Travolta's younger man, comes off as a

we shall know about you, when we see The analysis is simplistic and selfish: to 68, whose occupations were sexual neuter: you coming down the street, is that you the growing and unnecessary necessity everything from doctor to student to un- "Tomlin, a single woman with no had enough money to buy a glossy for Social Insurance Numbers in every- employed civil servant — they even in- special man, younger or older, in her life magazine and were sufficiently cunning day life can't be equated with civil rights cluded an unemployed cop. About 50 of admits she has never had any real-life to work out the cut of the garments for minority groups, including gays. In the men were featured with photographs experiences to parallel her screen

shown therein." Amiel's polite and tony circles, friends and short comments from each of them. romance with Travolta. 'Maybe I live in

Take that, dandies. and lovers don't lose jobs, homes and Although it said nothing new, the ar- a different place,' she smiles." • self-esteem because of their friends and

Poor Bette Midler wants to be a myth, lovers; but it does happen in the real notes Warren Hoge in Dec 10's New world. Yes, "in a truly free society" the York Times Magazine, but first she's got aid of the state wouldn't be necessary. to live down her tacky baths reputation. But nothing's free about this society, "Trash with flash" for "an adoring especially freedom. audience mostly homosexual and largely • undressed" will diminish Midler's Gays get blamed for everything: by middle-America appeal, says Hoge, and feminist psychologist Dr Phyllis Chesler, that's where legends are apparently quoted in the Dec 19 Esquire, for made. preventing women from re-establishing ((WlHlltllW !$*> - jt»rt!fch'>m8»a fttsaf) mxxst . The days of Jeanne D' Arc of the themselves as sex objects. Now, that

Tubs are being washed away: coming may sound contradictory. Feminists, last (*; acnautH ae*Nro «** ism*. u«4 p«vt>a, Jn far up, after her Janis Joplinesque role in year (and last decade, for that matter), SuMteSHKWM* ofkm sww the film The Rose — a nascent Sophie didn't blame anybody for not making MM ««««#> MSwjwt. 8to »ev$rffet«*\ftv«e Tucker image. . .naughtiness the nabes sex objects. women But times change: IKfeSMist>J»;r mxi »««Swi w*> Swaf wssw tasspajatt, can accept. the new feminist chic, says the long-time • tes»w> T«*o» ««m man's magazine, is the lusty woman. Poet-musician-political being Allen "We are living in a male homosexual Ginsberg has lots to say about poetry, culture — Wall Street, the Vatican, music and politics in an interview in the football teams, fashion designers," says vrrxwtl £t w* wtf* Dec 8 Georgia Straight; Ginsberg the Chesler. "Men are separatists, and don't mwfcm! mm) lxrt,»mi.

gay man also has some words about want women around for longer than it sexuality: takes to screw them. These are the men The question: "As you get older you who are dictating fashion," and lately seem to believe more strongly in purely they haven't let women be sexy. But the platonic love." The answer: "As you get lady psychologist thinks women are iSftiffBffif 'I am gay": 682 testimonials in the German monthh magazine Stern. older, you're willing to settle for what rebelling against fashion dictators, none

you can get! (laughter) Like if somebody too soon. The gay images of film flicker on, Michael Caine is the bisexual consort of doesn't want to suck your cock you can Gay Talese (no relation to the seldom positive: Maggie Smith, British actress brought to play music with him." movement) is kinder towards •In The Wild Geese, a mercenary film Hollywood on Oscar night. He's a good Another question: "You mean your homosexual behavior. It's healthy, he starring Roger Moore, Richard Burton puppy. She kicks him, he licks her. And music is like a sort of spiritual says, because women can now get away and Richard Harris, one man recruited he's an antique dealer. The only cliche with showing nipples at charity balls and for a raid to free a black African leader he doesn't have are wrists. But for all

people are relieved because they aren't isasure-nuff queen. "Oh goody," he that, their relationship is shown to be

transsexual tennis stars. giggles when told he's been hired. "Do I loving, and Caine is permitted to pick up mon-i-tor (m6n'e-ter) n, One thai • have enough time to get a divorce? I've a young actor in the course of the day cautions, admonishes or reminds. One baby step forward, one giant step been trying to dump him for weeks." and night.

Any device used to record or con- back, too much stumbling and mum- •In Number 1 of the Secret Service, an •In Invasion of the Body Snatchers —

bling in between: that's Time's January abysmal is is trol a process, (tr. v.) To check, to super-spy spoof, the hero set in San Francisco — there a funny 8 essay on homosexuality. stalked by a succession of killers, in line, though you have to hear Donald test, to keep track of, to scrutinize, The step forward is the assertion that whom the film-maker's confusion over Sutherland's inflection to believe it. The to keep watch over, to direct. (La- the best public policy towards gays is no what is a transvestite and what is a trans- boyfriend, taken over by the aliens, just tin, one who warns, from monere, public policy at all — no sodomy laws, sexual becomes obvious. But whatever isn't the same person: "How do you for example. The step back is the declar- they are, they're apparently bred to be mean, different?'* asks Sutherland. to warn.) ation that rights to protect gays will soon nothing but vicious killers. "Has he gone cra/y. turned gay, got a become rights to defend drunks, and •In California Suite — slightly social disease, become a worse — the proliferation of "catego- positive but unbearably saccharine — Republican?" FEBRUARY 1979 THE BODY POLITIC/37 Gay Equality Mississauga ThelvoryTunnel

is a gay social/political organization Gay Small Press by Ian Young that welcomes membership from the Mississauga/Brampton area. For information: Gay Equality Mississauga Box 62 Brampton, ON L6V 2K7 Unmarked grave for infant gay mag

Over the past few years, Toronto has David Baker is art editor and Anne Q"r&ajC>ru ^iaiiz.'M^i\>\ been treated to a succession of gay Davidson co-publishes. periodicals: Esprit, Directions, Night The first issue is very promising, Askrol Times, and the latest five-minute with some imaginative choices of wonder, Standout, which billed itself as contributors. That delightful genius "a lifestyle newsjournal for gay people" Oswell Blakeston is here, with a couple

30 Spruce. 3ireai- (i.e., gay men). The paper failed (after of his gnomic dialogues; there is a won- one issue) for the same reason so many derfully story, Larcrko sexy "Boy & Man," by gay magazines fail: they aim at a Ray £?60-559O Gosling; and several odd miniatures commercial product without having by Alan Wakeman. Daniel Curzon, either the capital investment or the Peter Robins and Ian Harvey also managerial know-how to make that appear — all frequent and dedicated

product a success. contributors to the gay press. It is a pity Nature's Look Responsible for the latest in this long that Peter Robins' story has been man- line of failures are Peter Buchove and gled in the pasting-up, though an errata Twin better... Arthur Whitaker, the suit-&-tied cover slip is enclosed. boys of a recent Toronto Life article on [Relax the "new gay capitalism." The one time I visited Standout's unnecessarily andpamperyourself Invites female impersonators, transvestites I spacious suite of offices, no one on the with treatment, and transsexuals to private showings of the afacial staff of five or six appeared to be doing finest selection of silicone breast forms, I or have un wanted hair any work or indeed filling any function special bras, lingerie and loungewear featuring removed permanently. at all. Two or three men cracked weak our exclusive "Nature's Twin.™" jokes at the expense of the aspiring Call writers who had hopefully submitted Consultations by appointment only I your certified and their work. Another smooched with an Ask for Simone • Confidentiality is assured experienced electrologist unappetizing-looking office boy. And so Catalogue available — send $1 to: the long afternoon dragged on. \ forafree, personalized The "entrepreneurs" this consultation. of pseudo- Twin, Inc. Nature's capitalist farce will no doubt go on to Dept. BP, 16752 N.E. 4th Ct. other ventures, learning nothing and North Miami, Florida 33162 remembering nothing. The subscribers Karl (416)967-0095 and contributors, of course, lose out. Telephone: (305) 651-7885 That Art Whitaker is a decent man, with benign intentions, makes Standout's The Gay Journal: "Investor's Chronicle" abrupt demise all the sadder. Even among non-commercial gay The Gay Journal should provide an periodicals, there are few enough pro- intelligently edited, attractively designed viding thoughtful commentary on gay outlet for the work of gay and lesbian art and literature (other than short writers, artists and photographers. But

reviews). Boston Gay Review, along only if it can find the money to keep with Gay Sunshine, attempts to provide going. Subscriptions are £4, from BBD more detailed analysis than most papers Publishing, Flat F, 23-4 Great James St, can give. The latest issue, no 4-5, is, as London WC1N 3ES, England. Single usual, top-heavy with poetry reviews issues are 75p each. (there are no fiction reviews at all) but Aleister Crowley was called "the does contain two articles on film. One, a wickedest man in the world" — at a perceptive piece by Michael Bronski, time when Hitler and Stalin were at the analyzes some of the homophobia in height of their power! In fact, the poet much feminist literature (he is dealing and magician with a penchant for the specifically with Joan Mellan's Big Bad theatrical was in the great tradition of Wolves: Masculinity in the American English eccentric writers like Beckford, Film) and contrasts the work of some of Beddoes and Count St en bock. Here is the new gay critics such as Jack Crowley on one of his religious relatives: ^^S^'*** Babuscio and Will Ait ken. "I remember my Uncle Tom telling me The issue also contains an illuminating he was sure God would be displeased to ti&& piece by poet Kirby Congdon on the ori- see me in a blue suit on Sunday. And gins of his masterpiece, Dream- Work. It today, he is surprised and grieved that I

is a pity though, as Congdon 's book is do not worship his God — or even my not widely available, that one or two own tailor as would surely be more sections from Dream- Work are not re- reasonable." His scandalously erotic printed along with the notes. poems, written and published in the

I have had some complaints about wake of the Wilde debacle, were burned

Boston Gay Review in the past (I still by Her Majesty's Government.

wish they would recruit a designer) but it The latest book about the man who provides intelligent, analytic reviews of called himself "The Great Beast" is gay art (not just books from the big Susan Roberts' The Magician of the commercial publishers) and that is a very Golden Dawn ($13.50: Beaverbooks, great service. Subscriptions are $5 for 10 953 Dillingham Rd, Pickering, ON, L1W issues from Box 277, Astor Station, 1Z7), a novelistic treatment of Crowley's Boston, MA 02123. Single issues are life that, in spite of its more than 300 50«. There have been a number of gay pages, leaves the impression of a some- literary magazines: Daniel Curzon's now what vague sketch rather than a detailed defunct Gay Literature, Mouth of the biography. The venerable Israel Dragon (which promises to rise from the Regardie, in a foreword, refers to Ms

dead soon), and the new fiction quar- Roberts' "good, easy writing." I find

terly Paragraph. The latest entry is The her style turgid and vulgar. Francis Gay Journal, a quarterly edited by King's recent The Magical World of Roger Baker, who has presided over a Aleister Crowley, published by Coward

number of superior English gay mags, McCann, is better written, and a far notably Spartacus and Quorum. Ian more informative study.

38/THE BODY POLITIC FEBRUARY 1979 . . .

Classifieds

Montreal or able to relocate, looking for I'M 5' 10", 145 lbs, long reddish hair. lover relationship. Age preferred 26-36. Let's permanent/secure relationship, maybe Interests include, electronics, photography, meet and exchange views. Drawer B340. FRIENDS well horticulture, poetry, music, especially 4 son/father type, sexuality gr. act., hung. SLIM, MASCULINE, age 30, seeks w/s fun 6'2", masculine blues, bluegrass, Southern rock. Looking for Alberta I AM: 45, 180 lbs, beard, from guys to age 40. Explicit letter and photo looking, good mind, good body, good cock, friendship with gay guys similar to if possible. Drawer B328. FEELING HESITANT /ALONE in regard good professional job, serious, myself. I'm fun loving with a great sense of ATTRACTIVE MALE, 35, 6', 170 lbs, the GAY to taking those first steps into gay world? looking for humour. Send photo if possible. Penpals also straightforward, unconventional, masculine, affectionate, honest, fun-loving, not share feelings even Why your (maybe a younger male to live with in a downtown welcome. Drawer B310. with a wide range of interests in life and sport your first steps) with someone (a woman) to share experience and to help house, hoping GOOD NATURED Chinese male, 38, pro- would like to meet similar male up to 25 years who is in the same boat? If this kind of school. Drawer B326. someone through fessional, would like to meet gentleman in of age for lasting relationship. If you are friendship appeals to you, or if you feel alone CORSETS, GIRDLES, tight belts, constric- 30s for company and good time. I'm sincere clean-shaven, slim, sincere, masculine and at- for other reasons, please write. All letters tive clothing. If you share my interests, write and warm. Enjoy music, show and bridge. tractive-looking please reply with photo and answered. Drawer B302. in view of meeting. Drawer 322. Toronto, Whitby, Oshawa. Drawer B31 1. phone number. Drawer B329. British Columbia BOYISH, MASCULINE, youth, profession I'M 36, SLIM, masculine, sincere and affec- PROFESSIONAL MAN, 40s, intelligent, al, discreet, quiet, artistic, desires tionate. Seek sincere masculine friend who well-educated, seeks similar male companion TWO ENERGETIC young, gay women seek penpals, companionship. Photo for same. desires trust and friendship. Drawer B3 14. for conversation dining out, going to con- others of simjlar disposition. Not into roles. Drawer 320. CLOSET TV, 50s, 5'8", desires close relation- certs, theatre, movies. Sex not the object. We like sports, dance, music, etc. We are ship with other mature TV, appear straight Write Box 553, Don Mills, Ontario M3C 2T6 . physical and like active women. Would like DUAL-PERSONALITY GEMINI, 22, 5'10", introspective, when out. Should have independent means to hear from all interested women in Van- 175 lbs. Am serious, TAUREAN DREAMER loves the sparkle of possibly Discretion assured couver-Victoria area, (age 21-22). Drawer 345 fun-loving, witty, gentle, warm, passionate, and share an apt. the big city but couldn't take it without hot sensual. Want to share life but need space and expected. All serious letters welcome. chocolate and comfortable couch and a good LESBIAN WRITER attractive thirties, new too. Seek openly gay male under 40 to bring Drawer B3 17 book or self-elected solitude. Well travelled, to West. Interests: literature, feminism, art. out best in me. Reward: two friends /lovers GAY MALE, 41, 6'2", 200 lbs, masculine reasonably urbane for a rural refugee. Enjoy Wishes to meet mature, congenial women in one. Photo, phone, drawer B297. and hairy, except for head! Average looking good food, lively conversation, high spirited friends. Victoria, Vancouver. Drawer B309. WRESTLING. Slow, deliberate, intense and "coming out." Want to meet masculine hi-jinx metropolitan cultural life, honesty ATTRACTIVE YOUNG gay woman, 5'8", sessions. Nude, costumes, boots, etc. Begin- types who enjoy an interesting life, not over simplicity. Am 30, 150 lbs, have been professionally and aesthetically oriented, ner but learn fast. Teach me how to beat you! 45. Let's communicate and see what happens. called handsome, haven't we all. Would like wishes to meet women who are likewise Montreal. Bill 463-1380. All letters answered. Drawer B294. to hear from "out" gay men 25 to 35 who inclined. Drawer B304. could cope with the above. Photo would be MID-30s, HAPPY, independent-minded,

nice, but not necessary. Drawer B323 . NB. NS. PE1 professional into science, arts, nature, FRIENDS f CLEAN, QUIET, Halifax male, 40s, 5'10", building friendships and many other things HUSKY GUY, 26, seeks young companion 145 lbs, brown hair/eyes. Looking for sin- (some of which I've yet to discover). Like to for movies, intimate evenings and weekend National cere, discreet, honest, masculine males to meet other nearby gays for whatever trips. I enjoy camping, canoeing, fishing and meet or correspond with. Photo appreciated. adventures seem appropriate. Reply in confi- all outdoor activities. I promise to answer all MASCULINE, PISCES, 38, 5'8", 160 lbs, Drawer 308. dence. PO Box 784, Brockville, Ontario, K6V responses. Phone number if possible. Drawer warm, thoughtful and very affectionate, is 5W1. B347. looking for a lasting, sincere and meaningful Northern Ontario BOYISH, MASCULINE, youth desires SUBMISSIVE, small endowed wanted. Box relationship with same 22-30, intelligent, not musician, new BILINGUAL, CLASSICAL friendship. Quiet, artistic, lonesome, 288, Station D, Toronto. scene. Will to interested in bar or gay help to Thunder Bay and looking for friends to go discreet, love life, to share experiences, good ATTRACTIVE, HORNY, masculine, shy, relocate for right person. Will exchange hiking, snow shoeing, film viewing, eating, times. share forward Penpals also welcome to slim, white male, English Canadian, age 38, photo and phone numbers. Looking music making, and other ...ings. Charles fantasies. Letters, photos for same. Drawer 5'9", 155 lbs, blue eyes, brown hair, bearded, to your letters. Drawer B315. Dallaire, 371 Foley, Thunder Bay, Ontario. B258. well endowed and cut, Gemini, seeks to GAY MALE, 20's, 5'6", 125 lbs, long brown correspond and meet other similar attractive, hair, seeks other males who love to suck Ottawa Toronto horny, masculine males, 25-45, who are cock — I do. Write a sizzling letter relating tall male, HANDSOME, HAIRY, HUNG, GOODLOOKING, slim, masculine, under looking for a serious sincere friendship, also fantasies. your Dave PO Box 153, Stn 29, travels extensively, varied interests, wants age 30, sensible, and looking for someone a possible relationship and fun times. I am Victoria, Montreal H3Z 2V5. active/ males anywhere. to meet Greek kinky really nice who has a lot to offer?? If so, I'm mature, sensitive, honest, intelligent, affec- Drawer Alberta Photo appreciated. B298. 6'1", 178 lbs, age 35, masculine, considered tionate clean, gentle, warm, loving guy, who LEAN, CLEAN CUT, handsome, good looking, successful and enjoy the finer enjoys theatre, movies, music, books, PROFESSIONAL MALE, 34, average looks masculine gay guy, 30, w/m, 5'9", 140 lbs, things in life, including flying, travelling, conversation, dining, disco dancing, plus but stupendously intelligent, sensitive, good- brown hair, hung. Would like to meet other theatre, etc. Phone number appreciated. many other interests. Into love, life, dig natured, sophisticated, excellent sense of slim, attractive, clean-shaven, natural, mas- Utmost discretion assured. John, Box 191, mutual J/O fantasies and sensuous love- humour and modest. Outside interests culine gay guys for friendship and fun. Postal Station A, Willowdale, Ontario. making. Am aggressive but versatile. Please include theatre, good food, travel. Drawer Reply: Box 725, Postal Station B, Ottawa, MASCULINE, professional, 26, 6'1", 165 no S/M, hard drugs and one night stands. B318. K1P5P8. lbs, blond, blue eyes, moustache, greek Only serious replies. Discretion assured. Write and tell me about yourself. Love to hear British Columbia 33, INTELLIGENT, bilingual, like cycling, active, affectionate, looking to love one other running, light sports. Warm towards sincere, man, same age or younger. Write and tell from you. Photo and phone number appre- VICTORIA, ARTICULATE, attractive and loyal people. Dislike "gay swingers". Jazz, me about yourself. University student or ciated. PS:own house. Pen pals welcome. intelligent male, 26, honest and affectionate, classical, folk music pleasing. Amateur pho- other professional especially welcome. Photo Drawer B327. seeks companionship. Island residents only, tographer. Seek eventual sharing, close rela- appreciated. Drawer B333. please. Drawer B344. tionship. Richard. Drawer B246. SINCERE male 29, 5'8", brown hair, attrac- VANCOUVER GAY MALE, 24, tall, attractive, seeks friends for companionship, sex, tive, athletic, vibrant, open and honest. Quebec social evenings, seeing movies, plays or what- Attempting the construction of my life with QUEBEC, 38, 5'8", 168, very interested in ever. Drawer B334. intimate friends and lovers and wide ranging meeting people who like feet, briefs, socks. MASCULINE GUY would like to meet same THE interests based in marxist, gay/feminist Exchange possible. I am very masculine. Can for occasional evening or weekend get-to- principles. Having fun and sorrow in the here I travel and receive others. Tastes to be gether. I'm 25, 6'4", 185 lbs, in north 1114 and now and wishing to share talk, activities, discussed in private. Drawer B325. Toronto. Enjoy evenings beginning with Vtl St I All hi HIS and loving sexuality. Drawer 32 1 wine, listening to music, conversation. GUY, 31, discreet, seeks Saskatchewan MASCULINE, Drawer B335. other masculine guys for fun and friendship. INTERESTED IN meeting French artist? MM H«lill\li«

FEBRUARY 1979 THE BODY POLITIC/39 . .

enquiring mind, plus dependable approach to PHILIPPINO OR CHINESE friend, under incomes $125 per month, includes utilities. Phone 416-766-9241. Available Jan 1979. life. I am a straight acting and appearing pro- 30, wanted by tall, successful man, 48, fessional, who seeks a quiet, sensitive but affectionate, with nice apartment and car. Look Forward to hearing from you. masculine individual 21 to 34 with wide- Likes to travel, photography. Recently visited NEED OFFICE SPACE? Large, sunny ranging interests and integrity, who is prefer- Asia. Drawer B285. office for rent, nice old building, Bloor St. is similarly clean ably non-smoker and ASIAN FRIEND sought by slim mascu- George, Toronto $77 per month. Suit free- shaven, trim, physically fit with light body line W/M, well-educated, quiet, discreet. lancer, lawyer, small business. Phone 923- hair. 1 consider that shared interests tend to 6670 537-5681. Interests include films, theatre, travel, (days), __ promote for more enduring companionship, auctions. Let's see what we have in DANFORTH SUBWAY: 1000 sq. ft. reno- just as much as tenderness and cuddling. common. Drawer B303. vated 2 level, 2 bedroom upper duplex. Strict confidentiality recognized. Please 5'7", Complete broadloom, 5 appliances, reply: Drawer B307. SINCERE, AFFECTIONATE male, fireplace, balcony, parking, discreet S/M 145 lbs, enjoy theatre, art, dancing, music MAN, POLITICAL, RELIGIOUS, but non- OK. $495.465-4497. and much more. Wishing to meet other gay dogmatic, 27, 6'3", 170 lbs, bearded, seeks men. Please enclose photo, Drawer B299. PARLIAMENT/WELLESLEY, bright, one other for mutually supportive, loving well-kept home, all carpeted; bed and linens, relationship. I'm intelligent, affectionate, GENEROUS YOUNG 40-year-old executive closet, dresser, table, chairs, fridge, sink, educated, sensible, gentle, involved in leftist wants to expand his circle of younger male cooking facilities. Share new issues and struggling to integrate personal- friends. Students and others who would like to $5 each bathroom /separate shower. $28-$48/week. political faith contradictions into responsible meet someone whose interests include conver- Linda Boyd, 861-2551 (9-5); 924-0863 (after life-style. Photo appreciated. Drawer B306. sations, cooking, dining in/out, weekend (5 for $20) 61 travel, cinema, theatre, classical music, are ATTRACTIVE MASCULINE, white, 31, (Ontario l°Io East-central asked to write including a photo if available. residents add sales tax) A PRESTIGE location; large male, 28, 5'6", 140 lbs, would like to hear Others in Southern Ontario or New York ravine lot abuts park, 3 bedroom, 1500 sq ft., from same or gay from anywhere, for a get- J.A.L. Inc. floor. City, who would like to visit Toronto, or main Private entrance, patio and together, friendship, or just to correspond. 89 Burnside Drive parking. Fireplace, dishwasher, drapes,- have visitors are also welcome. Drawer B293 . No S/M, B/D, also interested in going to Toronto, ON M6G 2M9 broadloom. $550, utilities included. Suit 2-3 2-3 winter. GAY GUY, 34, 6'3", 215 lbs, lots of fun to California for weeks this Would readers 752-7772 like to hear from those interested. Must be be with. I like to party, smoke and smoke, Wholesale inquiries invited able to pay own way. Prefer masculine men, drink, supertramp-summers freak. I want to 28 and under. Discretion required and meet gay guys and girls for friendship, (416) 366-2859 LETTERS returned. Photo and phone. Will answer all. relaxing or for fun evenings. I love music, (Line open 24 hours) GAY PEN PAL club, Chasers, Box 423, Drawer B305. dinner parties, animated conversations, quiet Verdun, c, times, a bar-hopping buddy, a lover!!! Drop Quebe GAY MALE, YOUTHFUL, trim, healthy, a note with your phone number and a photo OPERATION PRISONER SEEKS correspondence. Lonely natural, energetic, warm, sad, angry, 30, if you can. I'll answer all promptly. Cross and would appreciate all replies. dislike complacency and phony joy of con- Help me out country skiing anyone! Drawer GAY CUPID of my blue mood. sumer-society, seek young companion. Box B296. Daniel Mayo no. 151-783, PO Box 5500, Chillicothe, Ohio, US, 45601 6181, Station A, Toronto, M5W 1 P6. GAY MALE in forties with comfortable Where: 519 Church Street home, interested in meeting a masculine male 24-YEAR-OLD prisoner, seeks I AM 28,5'6", 130 lbs, have blue eyes, brown North of Wellesley hair, moustache, hairy body, am versatile 21-35. Interests: sports, music, travelling. correspondence. 6'8", 215 lbs, black hair, When: Fri., Feb. 16 and love to kiss and cuddle. Varied interests; Sincere and reliable replies only. PO Box 504, blue eyes. Would like to start book collec- movies, plays, socializing. If you're 25 — 40, Station K.Toronto. 9:00 PM tion. Pjease correspond. Mark Behring PO looking for warm sexual friendship, write AVERAGE LOOKING, 28 yrs, 5' 10". Box 911, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, 57101, Drawer B348. medium build, 150 lbs, clean-shaven, no USA. GR ACTIVE GUYS wanted by guy who moustache, not too hairy body and non- MALE, EARLY TEENS, WISHES to works at keeping his body in good shape. smoker, please call Rick 769-8503 after 7 PM. correspond with any males or females from Want a guy who also works at his body. Have Would like companionship in gay friends for 15 to 30. I am an Aries, fair complexion, my own place. Love long hard sessions. quiet evening at home, TV, music, summer brown hair, blue eyes, and medium build. Don't enjoy long telephone talk. Serious only cycling, etc. Interested in music, and the country. Please Les 465-6423. HOT YONGE BUNS sought by masculine, write Stuart Hyndman, 1 Lawrence Court, Bundoora, Melbourne, SEEKING MASCULINE, trench-active, boyish looking 26-year-old, 6'2", short, Victoria, Australia 3068. intelligent buddy, interested in outdoors, brown-haired, blue-eyed, clean-shaven, well workmen's bars, male gear. Include photo, hung, affectionate, white male; who likes MALE MALAYSIA CHINESE, 28, seeks Box 214, Station M, Toronto. music, dancing, goodtimes, and great sex, J penfriends 21-45. Keen to know more about would like encounters with younger guys for gay life in Western society. Peter Lim, 9 HOT DANCER, blond, 5'10", 145 lbs, seeks mutual pleasure. Available evenings Jalah Helang, Larkin Jaya, Johr Bahru, partners for bump and grind on and off day and and have own apt near downtown. gays, Johor. West Malaysia. dance floor. Open to new steps. Drawer New bi-guys, and first timers expecially DANCE WITH GATE B253. welcome I AM a 25-year-old white male prisoner. I am and treated with loving care. I travel all over J 5' 10" tall, black hair, blue eyes, and wejgh MALE, 33, SEEKS discreet friends with southern Ontario. Reply with phone for 170 lbs. I am an outdoor person. I like most exotic tastes for semi-regular meetings. prompt response. Discretion assured and >ports including, football, baseball, tennis Detail your likes and suggestions (leather, expected. Write BUSINESS to Michael, PO Box 1340, and weight lifting. Seek letters from the lingerie, or too shy to try). Send photo. Station A, Toronto. outside.Edward P. Harper, no. 146-175, PO Drawer B288. WANT TO BUY junior (working) partner- Box 51 1, Columbus Ohio, 43216, USA. VISITING TORONTO? New in town? Call ship in established business. Prefer BC, lower Bob 923-8306. MESSAGES mainland or Victoria. Reliable and hardworking. Boxholder, Box 733, Ganges, MALE, 28, 5'8", 140 lbs, seeks companion READING I AM NOT an intellectual elitist! Signed T. BC, V0S1E0. likes movies, bowling, skiing, dining out. Guest. FLASHPOINT for the news from a liber- Also glass of wine. Write PO Box 188, PAINTING, wallpapering. Moderate rates. socialist perspective. Covering gay FEB 10 is cruising day at AGO. See you tarian Station W, Toronto M6M 4Z2. Toronto. Call 416-967-5186 there. news, labour, women's issues, ecology, with firm bodies counselling. WANTED: STUDS hard PSYCHOTHERAPY, science, and much more. Subscriptions $4 for TO DEAREST friend Greg, "Could you into long greek sessions, active or passive. MY Confidence guaranteed. Eugene Schoentag, bust?" Love, 24 issues from Flashpoint, Box 3658, Regina Massimo. Bathurst, Toronto, 416-967-0272. Travellers welcome. Photo with reply a must. 524 Sask. State your fantasies. Am 26, handsome, OVERHEARD ON YONGE ST: Faggots CARRIER PIGEON, a small distributor sexy, accomplished. Looking for a good time bug me because straight guys can't show of feminist and socialist publications such affection to each other any more without HOMES not a lifetime. Prompt reply guaranteed. as Gay Left, and Second Wave, is pre- Drawer B254. being called gay. ASIAN with good sense of humour YOUNG paring an anthology of "Socialist Perspect- aged 30, enjoys theatre, TO JEROME WITH love. Gerry, Ed and as houseboy and companion. Gentleman has WHITE MALE ives on Gay Liberation." Both original art- good conversation, dancing, wishes to meet Ken. centrally located town house. Non-smoker. icles and previously published material are for friendship. Presently living in the Ideal for student or working boy. Drawer same To the anti-NORMAL singers: Love to wring welcome. Anyone interested in contributing All replies treated B346. Jane/Steeles Avenue area. those J-clothes. Signed, an admirer. should write Carrier Pigeon, 88 Fisher Ave, with discretion. Would like to hear from you. BEACHES, bachelor flat, residential neigh- Boston, Mass 02120 (617) 445-9380 FEMINIST SENSIBILITY seeks classifieds Drawer B257. bourhood, Queen /Beech area, $215/month, who do not associate the particulars of sex WE ARE ARRANGING an informal group young student in- heat, hydro included, responsible, reliable, WOULD LIKE TO MEET to read complete books and discuss them with organs with the paucity of their social lives. 698- terested in sports, theatre. Please reply with quiet person(s) only. Available Jan 15, Gay Drawers. intellectual rigour from a liberated gay per- number. B275. 5172 mornings. photo and phone Drawer write Dennis, Box To Portia, Melody, and Mary Sue: Honey...! spective. If interested, PO MALE, 29, CLEAN and honest seeks young SHARE BEACHES HOME with woman, Non- Love always, Phyl. 873, Station A, Toronto M5W 1G3. masculine male with own apartment and car dog, two cats. Small but cosy, fireplace, smokers please. Thanks for all the TO BUBELLA BUNNY. TTC, boardwalk nearby. $150, share utilities. that is 21-25, circumsized, enjoys oral sex, LESBIANS, Mara O'Ryan shares her poetry fabulous breakfasts. do I get Ilsa's When Available March 1st. Phone 690-1840. kissing and caressing. Prefer slim, little body love poems money? Piggy. with you. Rosammana: adequately endowed. This ad hair, and quite YOUNG RESTAURATEUR seeks hard- praised by Diana Press, photoprinted. Cost to establish a mutually MON CHER MICKEY — so where's the is for friendship and working roomie for semi-furnished 2 bdrm one dollar. Write General Delivery, Main I'm sure you're out next dirty letter??? — Rick. satisfying relationship. flat near Yonge and Bloor, until Sept. Cat. Post Office, Government Street, Victoria.BC there. Write with photo and phone number. TO BILLY S., New Wave Nurse, you can al- 960-0685. Drawer ways tie my tourniquet. — Max Blue. B277. ROOMMATE WANTED.Share four bed- MALE, ATTRACTIVE, 40, wishes to meet MICHAEL SOYE of Winnipeg — write me room house. West end near Bloor subway. 2 SERVICES males (married or single), who like receiving care of the paper. Robin and a half, bath, 2 fireplaces, furnished living ART EXHIBITION in Upper Library at oral and giving greek. Discreet. Have own WHL: I love what you do to my genes. CHO room. Young responsible guys with secure Massey College, 4 Devonshire Place, 4-9 place. Drawer B301 40/THE BODY POLITIC FEBRUARY 1979 , ,

No need to get into rigid roles and categories of course; that's always a bit dull.

But there' s no reason not to let others know that you ' re looking for friends or CLASSIFYYOURSELF lovers or a place to live, or that you want to trade your stuffed tarantula for February, open to the public 9:30-4:30, 7:30- working partner. Service oriented with exper- a vintage recording of Yma Sumac. And we have the way to do it: 10:30, on February 8. No admission. ience in administration, indoor sales, The Body Pontic's classified ads. TBP can take your message all over customer relations, hospitality. Good MONTREAL MODEL, exciting sample business sense and talent for organization, North America, and beyond, and can zero in on right where you live, too. picture only $1. Super 8 film $20. Marcel economics, public relations, merchandising. Raymond, 1855 Du Havre St. Suite 1001-C, it's easy — and cheap. Just 20 cents a word for personal ads, 60 cents Wide range of interests. Four languages. Montreal H2K 2X4. (514)522-9331. Models for businesses. You simply fill in your message in the form below, count up Contact Box 218, Station A, Toronto. wanted! the number of words and send it off to us with a cheque or money order INTERESTED IN hearing from gay vet- APHRODITE'S alternative. Retailing for erinarians. Employment a possibility in for the correct amount. Get in before the deadline listed below and your ad trans vestites. Brochure (416) 466-7112. PO Western Canadian city. Drawer B319. Box 873, Station A, Toronto, M5W 1G3 . will appear in the very next issue. ARTICULATE STUDENT with diverse IDENTITY HOUSE-Lesbian, Gay, Bi, peer You can say just about anything, but there are a few things you should abilities and interests badly needs work. I counselling and groups. Rap groups: 2:30- If in meeting people it's best to be positive. have hit hard times in Winnipeg. Have done keep in mind. you're interested 5 PM Sat for women and Sun for men. Free anything from hard labour to independent re- Tell them yourself and your interests, not about what you don't like. walk-in counselling, Sun-Tues 6-10 PM. about search. I'm a quick study. All replies answered ' Donations accepted. 544 Ave of the Americas Specifying exclusions on the basis of race or appearance (saying ' no fats immediately. Thank-you. Drawer B316. NYC. 212-243-8181. or ferns' ' for instance) is just plain rude, and being rude doesn't make friends. WORK AT COW CAFE (see our ad). Cook RENT-A-CHEF — Personalized catering fine. there talent, charming personality, strong legs Saying that you ' re interested in meeting people for sex is But are service:small dinners; brunches; parties. essential. Please send resume to 406 Dupont a few restrictions — the law's, not ours. Under the Criminal Code of Canada Reasonable rates. Downtown Toronto. Street, Toronto, M5R LV7 924-7873. it is illegal to have sex with anyone of the same sex under the age of 21 ATTRACTIVE MALE, 6 FT, 170 lbs, dark, to have sex with more than one person at a time regardless of their ages, or to complex and well built. But due to sudden

financial difficulties, I am forced to look for solicit for the purposes of prostitution. We're not allowed to run ads that

a good paying part-time job. I am indicate you want to do any of those things, either. Otherwise sex is still legal experienced in many fields but prepared to do so far. But to protect both you and us, we reserve the right to alter or refuse anything. All replies answered immediately. Thank you. Drawer B207. any classified ad.

If you want people to answer you directly, put your address or phone DID WE MISS your ad? Our apologies. number in your message. Or, you can take advantage of our forwarding Please contact us and we'll have it run next service. dollars extra we'll assign your ad a drawer number 'ssue. For only two and collect answers in our office to be sent to you once a week.

If you want to answer someone else's ad, that's easy, too. Put your reply continuedfrom page 42 in an envelope, seal it and send it to us making sure to mark on the front Subcommittee on Gay Rights, c/o Saskatchewan you' re re- 7IS Association on Human Rights, 31 1 20th St W, the drawer number Your Place S7M0X1. return stamp sponding to. You don't need to address here send any money to answer an ad. PROVINCIAL The Body Politic DIGNITY FOR GAY CATHOLICS and Your unopened reply will reach the Box 7289, Station A Drawer concerned friends, mass for gay community Toronto, ON DComUtion for Gay Rights in Ontario, Box 1S6, person you ' re answering in just Sundays at Our Lady of Lourdes Church, M5W1X9 Station P, Toronto, ON M5S 2S7. Sherbourne Street, 4 pm, backhall. a few days. Manitoba Gay Coalition, Box 27, UMSU, upstairs. Meetings 1st and 3rd Thursday, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, R3T 2N2 8PM, Lynch Hall, 960-3997. Ontario Gay Teachers' Caucus, Box 543, Station MAKE NEW FRIENDS throughout Canada. F, Toronto, ON M4Y 2L8. Ph: (416)654-1183. CONDITIONS

i Saskatchewan Gay Coalition, 7508, through the mails. Join GAYMATES, a pen pal club for gay Box All ads must be prepaid by money order or cheque — do not send cash Saskatoon, SK. men. For information write GSI, PO Box The Body Politic reserves the right to alter or refuse any ad . Late copy will be held over for 3043, Saskatoon, Sask., S7K 3S9, Canada. the following issue. Deadline for the March issue: Wed, February 14 JEWISH? Free Friday nights? Want NATI0NAL/BINATI0NAL RATES: something to do before going to the clubs? Individuals: 20c per word, minimun$4. Businesses: 60c per word, minimum $6. B'Nai Kehillah may be for you! Come and Binational Gay Youth Coalition, Canadian head Forwarding Service: $2 per ad per issue. If you would like us to assign your ad a drawer find out. Every 2nd and 4th Friday, 8:15pm, office: 29 Granby St, Suite 301, Toronto, ON mail to a week please check the indicated below. M5B 1H8. Ph: (416)366-5664. number and forward you once , box Holv Trinitv. Eaton Centre. Canadian Gay Archives, Box 639, Station A, Toronto, ON M5W 1G2. Name TRAVEL G Canadian Lesbian and Gay Rights Coalition/ Coalition canadienne pour les driots des Address TRAVEL COMPANION wanted for one or lesbiennes et des gais (CLGRC/CCDLG), CP two week economy trip to Cuba in March. 2919, Succursale D, Ottawa, ON K1P5W9. Postal Code Non-smoker, preferably Spanish speaking. Ph.(613)233-0152. Drawer number required Coalition binationale pour la jeunesse gaie, D Call Chris, evening (416) 925-9185 . Siege social quebecois: CP 753, Succursale H, I enclose $ _for_ jssues SAN FRANCISCO Crystal Hotels, attractive Montreal, PQ H3G 2M7. rooms, congenial atmosphere, convenient ''Committee to Defend John Damien, Box 608, Please run my ad in the. .section. downtown locations, weekly rates $25.00 to Station K, Toronto, ON M4P 2H1.

$30. Now at 141 Eddy St. Call 415-771-4597 The John Damien Foundation, Box 983, Print your ad below i in block letters, one word per box or 415-928-3450. Adelaide St Stn, Toronto, ON M5C 2K4. DNew Democratic Party Gay Caucus, Box 792, and yachts around VILLAS.APARTMENTS Station F, Toronto, ON M4Y 2N7. the world for the discreet holiday. Gather a Older Lesbians and Gays, Box 6248, Station A, few friends and travel in fashion. Charter Toronto, ON M5W 1P6. packages available. Call World Wide Villa Prairie Regional Office, CLGRC/CCDLG, Box Vacations, 416-923-3334. Ask for our 27, UMSU, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, brochure. MB, R3T 2N2. GRegroupement national des lesbiennes et des gais FRIENDS WELCOME to share pleasant du Quebec, may be reached through the address country living and rich family life with bi- given for 1' Association pour les droits des gai(e)s sexual couple, 30s. Big house, 45 acres of du Quebec (ADGQ). woods, beach on Bay of Fundy. Short or long 1" visits. Great place for a holiday. Box 1288, Diebv NS PUBUCATIONSr^™

G After Stonewall, Box 2051, Winnipeg, MB WAR BUDDIES R3C 3M2. DThe Body Politic, Box 7289, Station A. Toronto, WORLD WAR II veterans. Let's get in ONM5W1X9.

touch. Why not write and reminisce. Confi- [ Forum, a publication of the CLGRC/CCDLG, dentiality assured. Drawer B330. CP 36, Succursale C, Montreal. PQ H2L 4J7. [ IGaKe)* du Quebec, CP 36 Succursale C, Montreal, PQ H2L 4J7. WORK (.ay Rlsiag, Box 793. Stn Toronto, Q. ON M4T 2N7. FULLY QUALIFIED male executive-secre- UGay Tide, Box 1463. Station A, Vancouver, BC tary/administrative assistant seeking V6C2P7.

challenging reasonable position. Need a ! lesbian Newdetter Coalition, Box 773. Guelph, right-hand person capable of taking charge ON.NIH6L8. when necessary? Call Brian 921-0488, Metro Community Newi, 29 Granby St, Toronto. ONM5B IH8 mornings before 10 AM or write Drawer ( lOUT, Box 2741. Station B, Kitchener. ON B342. K2H6N3 RELIABLE HARDWORKING MAN avail- Out and About, Box 27, UMSU, University of Mail to: The Body Politic, Box 7289, Station A, Toronto. ON M5W 1X9 able for position as (assistant) manager or Manitoba. R3T 2N2.

FEBRUARY 1979 THE BODY POLITIC/41 ......

CommnnityPage

The Community Page is a listing of gay groups in Gay Youth OtUwa/Hull/Jeunesse Gai(e)s Hull Canada and Quebec which primarily direct them- d'Ottawa/Hull may be contacted at the same against NEW BRUNSWICK address and phone number as Gays of Ottawa. selves toward alleviating or struggling gay L'Association Gaie de I'Ouest Quebecots (AGOQ), Meetings/ Drop-in, Wed, 8PM, 378 Elgin St. oppression. It includes: democratically constituted CP 1215, Succ D, J8X 3X7. Ph: (819) 778-1737. organizations, cooperatively-run clubs and Fredericton Lesbians of Ottawa Now (LOON), Box 4947, community centres, bookstores which sell gay and Station E, K1S 5J1. Ph: (613)238-1717. Gay Friends of Fredericton, Box 442, E3B 5A4. Montreal feminist literature, and non-profit gay periodicals. Metropolitan Commmunity Church, Box 868, Ph: (506)472-0847. Organizations wishing to be listed, or to revise in- Station B, KIP 5T1. Ph: (613)741-0783. Androgeny Bookstore, 1217 Crescent St, formation presently listed, should contact: The Task Force on the Status of Lesbian and Gay H3G2Bl.Ph: (514) 866—2131. Body Politic Community Page, Box 7289, Station Male Psychologists, c/o Canadian Psychological Association Communautaire Homosexuelle de A, Toronto, ONM5W1X9. newfoundSnIT^ Association, 350 rue Sparks Street, Suite 602. I'Universite de Montreal, 3200, Jean-Brillant, Corner Brook Local 1265-6, Pav des Sciences Sociales, ALBERTA Peterborough Universite de Montreal, H3T 1N8. Community Homophile Association of New- Association pour les droits des gai(e)s du Quebec, (ADGQ) CP 36, Suceursale C, H2L 4J7. 1264 St Calgary foundland (CHAN), Box 905, A2H 6J2. Trent Homophile Association, Box 1524, K9J Timothee. Ph: Gay Organization of Women of Newfound- 7H7. 262 Rubidge St, Rm 203. Ph: (705)742-6229, (514) 843-8671. Comite de soutien aux accuses du Truxx, c/o 1217 Dignity Calgary, Box 1492, Station T, T2H 2H7. land (GOWN), may be contacted at the address Wed, 7:30-9:30PM, Thurs, 7:30-9:30PM. Crescent, H3G2B1. Ph: (403)269-7542. for CHAN given above. Coop Femroes. 3617 Boulevard St Laurent, Gay Academic Union, Box G-262, Station G, Thunder Bay H2X 2V5. Ph: (514) 843-8998. T3A 2G2. St John's Dignity/Montreal, Newman Centre, 3484 Peel St, DGay Information and Resources, Rm 312, 223 Northern Women's Centre, 316 Bay St, P7B 1S1. Community Homophile Association of New- Ph: (807)345-7802. Ph: (514) 392-6741. 12 Ave. SW, T2R 0G9. Ph: (403)264-391 1 Eglise Communautaire de Montreal, Montreal Information and counselling Monday-Saturday; foundland (CHAN), Box 613, Station C, A1C Community Church, CP 610, Suceursale NDG, Gay AA Monday; Lesbian discussion Tuesday, 5K8. Toronto H4A 3R1. Ph: (514) 845-4471. Men's discussion Friday. Eglise du Disciple Bien-Aime, 4376 De La Roche. Metropolitan Community Church. 1703 1st St. Catalyst Press, 315 Blantyre Ave, Scarborough, Ph: (514) 279-5381. NW, T2M 4P4. Ph: (403)266-1806. NOVA SCOTIA M1N2S6. Gay Friends of Concordia meet every Thursday in Parents of Gays meets last Sunday of each month Chatsworth Charitable Foundation, 29 Granby Halifax Rm 923, Hall Building, at 4 PM, c/o DSA, 1455 de at the Unitarian Church, 1703 1st St. NW. St,M5BlH8. Maisonneuve. Ph: 288-3787. Community Homophile Association of Toronto (514) Info, Box 610, Station NDG, H4A 3R1. The Alternate Bookshop, 1585 Barrington St, (CHAT), 29 Granby St, M5B 1H8. Gay Edmonton Ph: (514)486-4404, Mon-Sat, 7-11 PM. Suite 301, B3J1Z8. Congregation B'nai Kehiliah of Toronto for Gayline: (514) 931-8668 or 931-5330. Seven days a Atlantic Provinces Poll ileal Lesbians for Jews, / Club 70, 10242-106 St, T5J 1H7. Ph: (403)423- Example Gay c o 66 Gloucester St, M4Y 1 L5 week, 7-1 1PM. 5051. (APPLE), Box 361 1 , Halifax South Postal Meetings and services every 2nd and 4th Fri, 10 Station, B3J 3K6. Trinity Gay McGill, University Centre, 3480 McTavish, Dignity/Edmonton, Box 53, T5J 2G9. Square. H3A1X9. Edmonton Lesbian and Gay Rights Organization Gay Alliance for Equality, Box 361 1, Halifax Dignity for Gay Catholics, Box 249, Station E, Services Weredale Park, South Postal Station. B3J 3K6. Ph: (902)429^294 M6H4E2. Ph: (416)960-3997. Gay Social Project, 5 (ELGRO), Box 837, Substation 1 1 , University of H3Z1Y5. Ph: (514) 937-9581. Alberta, T6G 2E0. Gay Youth Halifax may be reached through the Free Lesbians and Gays (FLAG), Box 605, address given for the Alliance for Equality. Adelaide St Gay VD Clinic, Montreal Youth Clinic, Mon, Gay \ Ilia nee Toward Equality (GATE), Box Gay Station, M5C 2J8. Wed and Fri evenings, 3658 Ste Famille. Ph: (514) 1852, T5J 2P2. Office: 10144-101 St, Ph: Gay Academic Union, c/o Prof John Lee, Scar- 843-7885. (403)424-8361. borough College, West Hill, MIC 1A4. Women of McGill meet Tues, 8pm, Women's Metropolitan Community Church, Box 1312, T5J ONTARIO Gay Alcoholics Anonymous, answering service, Gay Union, University Centre, 3480 McTavish, H3A 2M8. Ph: (403)432-9204. Ph: (416)964-3962. Guelph Gay Alliance at York, c/o Harbinger, Rm 214, 1X9, Rm 425-6. Ph: Gayline or (514) 866—2131 Vanier Residence, York University, 4700 Keele St, Gay Youth Group, open to gay males 14-22, Guelph Gay Equality, Box 773, NIH 6L8. Downsview, M3J 1P3. Meetings: Tues, 8PM. Ph: meets Saturdays 2-4pm; call Gayline for info. Gayline: (519)836-4550. (416)667-3632, 667-3509. Groupe Gai a I'Universite du Quebec a Montreal, Prince George Guelph Gay Youth Group, Info: (519)836-4550, Gay .Alliance Toward Equality (GATE), Box 793, CP 8888, H3C 3P8. Mon, Wed&Thurs, 8-10PM. Station Q, M4T 2N7. Ph:(416)964-0148. Integrity: Gay Anglicans and Friends, c/o 305 Blantyre Willibrord Ave, Verdun, H4G 2T7. Ph: (514) The gay group in this city can be contacted Gay Anarchists, c/o Ian Young, 315 Hamilton 766-9623. through the Crisis Centre, Ph:(604)563-1214. Ave, Scarborough, M1N 2S6. Gay Community Calendar: (416)923-GAYS. 24- N ACHES: Gay Jewish Discussion Group, Box Vancouver McMaster Homophile Association, Box 44, hour recorded message. 298, Station H, H3G 2K8. Ph: (514) 488-0849. Station B, L8L 7T5. Gayline: (416)527-0336. Gay Community Services Centre, 29 Granby St, Parents of Gays, c/o Box 610, Station NDG, Women of Hamilton may be contacted at the H4A 3R1. Ph: (514) 486-4404. Dignity/Vancouver, Box 1036, V6B 3X5. Gay M5B 1H8. Distress and counselling line: (416) address given above for the McMaster Homophile Productions 88, 1406 rue de la Visitation No 3, Gay Alliance Toward EquaHty(GATE),Box 1463, 364-9835. Drop-in Mon-Thurs, 7-10:30PM; Association. H2L 3B8. Station A, V6C 2P7. Ph:(604)689-3139. Fri & Sat to 11:30PM. Women's Information and Referral Centre, Gay People of Simon Fraser,c/o Student Society, Gays at the U. of T., c/o SAC Office, 12 Hart Kingston 3585 St Urbain, H2X 2N6. Open Mon-Fri, 9 AM- Simon Fraser Univ, Burnaby. Ph: (604)291-3181 House Circle, University of Toronto, M5S 1A1. 5 PM; Tues, 5 PM-9 PM. Ph: (514) 842^781. or 291-31 11. meets Thurs, 7:30PM, 33 St. George St. Kingston Women's Centre, Queen's University Gay People of UBC, Box 9, Student Union Bldg, Gay Youth Toronto, 29 Granby St, Suite 301 Student Memorial Union, 3rd floor. University of British Columbia, V6T 1W5. Ph: (416)366-5664. Meetings at the 519Church St Association, Student Affairs Quebec Ph:(604)228-6781. Queen's Homophile Community Centre, Tues, 7:30PM. Centre, 51 Queen's Queen's Gay Radio, c/o Vancouver Cooperative Radio, Crescent, University, Glad Day Bookstore, 4 Collier St at Yonge, Ph: Centre Homophile d' Aide et de Liberation 337CarrallSt, V6B2J4. K7L2S7. (613)547-2836. M4W 1L7. Ph: (416)961-4161. (CHAL), CP 596, Haute-ville, G1R 4R8. 175 rue Rights of Lesbians Subcommittee, British Harbinger Gay Men's Drop-In, Tues, 2-5PM, Prince-Edouard. Ph: (418)525-4997. Columbia Federation of Women, 1730 Stephens Kitchener/Waterloo Rm 215, Vanier Residence, York University, Groupe Gai de I'Universite Laval, a/s Jacques St. V6K 3V5. Ph: (416)667-3632, 667-3509. News and Views, Sun, Tues and Wed, Benoit, 79 rue St-Louis, App. 402, Quebec. Society for Education, Action, Research and Gay Hassle-Free Clinic, 2 Homewood Ave, Suite 101 6:15PM, CKMS-FM, 94.5 MHz, 105.7 MHz cable Info: (418) 656-5800. Counselling in Homosexuality(SEARCH), M4Y 2J9. Ph: (416)922-3323. VD testing and info Gay Rights Organization of Waterloo (GROW), Paroisse Saint-Robert (Eglise catholique eucharis- Box 48903, Bentall Centre, V7X 1 A8. Integrity: Gay Anglicans and their friends. PO Box 2632, Station B, Kitchener N2H 6N2. tique), 310, rue de la Couronne, G1K 6E4. SEARCH Community Services, 28-448 Seymour Box 873, Stn F, M4Y 2N9. Ph: (416)921-4778 Kitchener-Waterloo Media Collective, Box St, V6B3HI. Ph:(604)689-I039. Gay Lesbian and Gay Trade Union Group, Box 162, SEARCH Youth Group, c/o SEARCH, 28^48 2741, Station B, Kitchener N2H 6N3. Station K, M4P2G5. Lesbian Organization of Kitchener (LOOK), Box Sherbrooke Seymour St. V6B3H1. Lesbian Organizationof Toronto, (LOOT), 2531, Station B, Kitchener CHAL-Estrie, CP 2032, Suceursale Jacques- N2H 6M3. 342 Jarvis St, M4Y 2G6. Ph: (416)960-3249. Waterloo Cartier, J1J3Y1. Victoria Universities' Gay Liberation Move- Metropolitan Community Church, 29 Granby St, ment, Federation of Students, University of M5B 1H8. Ph: (416)364-9799. Waterloo, Waterloo Feminist Lesbian Action Group (FLAG), Box 237, N2L 3G1. Ph: (519)885- Parents of Gays, c/o 29 Granby St, M5B 1H8. ext. 2372. Station E, V8W 2M6. 1211, Ph: (416)484-4634. SASKATCHEWAN I rmersitv of Victoria Gay Club, Student Union London Pink Triangle Press, Box 639, Station A, Bldg, U of Victoria, Box 1700, V8W 2Y2. M5W 1G2. Ph: (416)863-6320. Moose Jaw Three of Cups, Women's Coffee House, 342 Gay Action Group for Equality (GAGE), Box Jarvis St, M4Y 2G6. Ph: (416)967-2882. Moose Jaw Gay Community Centre, c/o Box 4341, Station C, N5W 5J6. MANITOBA TAG, Box 6706, Station A, M5W 1X5. 1778, S6H 7K8. Gayline, Ph: (519)679-6423. Info. 24 hrs/day. Ph: (416)964-6600. Peer counselling service. Peer counselling Mon, Wed, Fri 7-11 PM, Sat 2-4 Brandon Toronto Women's Bookstore, 85 Harbord St, Prince Albert Homophile Association of London, Ontario M5S 1G5. Ph: (416)922-8744. (HALO), 649 Colborne St, N6A 3Z2. Station Gay Friends of Brandon, box 492, R7A 5Z4. Transvestites in Toronto, Box 873, A, Prince Albert Gay Community Centre, Box 1893, Ph: (519)433-3762. Ph: (204)727-2305. M5W 1G3. Ph: (416)466-71 12. S6V 6J9. Ph: (306)763-2590. London Lesbian Collective, Box 4724, Station C, Tri-Aid Charitable Foundation, 8 Irwin Ave, N5W5L7. M4Y 1K9. Ph: (416)924-2525. Regina Winnipeg Western Gay Association, c/o University Wages Due Lesbians, Box 38, Station E, M6G 4E 1 Community Centre, University of Western Ph: (416)921-9091. Atropos Fellowship Society/Odyssey Club, Council on Homosexuality and Religion, Box Ontario. Ph: (519)679-6423. Women's Archives, Box 928, Station Q, M4T 2P1. Box3414,S4P3J8. 1912, R3C3R2. Dignity /Wlnnipeg.Box 1912, R3C 3R2. Mississauga/Brampton Saskatoon Gays for Equality , Box 27, UMSU, University of Windsor Manitoba, R3T 2N2. Ph:(204)269-8678. GEM/Gay Equality Mississauga, Box 62, Gay Academic Union, Box 419, Sub-PO 6, Box 7002, Sandwich Station, Manitoba Physicians for Homosexual Under- Brampton, ON L6V 2K7. Windsor Gay Unity, S7N0W0. standing, Box 27, UMSU, University of Gayline West, (416)791-6974. Peer counselling N9C 3Y6. Ph: (519) 252-0979. Gay Community Centre, Box 1662, S7K 3R8. Manitoba, R3T 2N2. telephone service. 310 20th St E, 2nd floor. Ph: (306)652-0972. Winnipeg Gay Community Centre Project, Box Grapevine, a group for Christian and Jewish gays. 27, UMSU, University of Manitoba, R3T 2N2. Ottawa QUEBEC Ph: (306)343-5963. Winnipeg Gay Youth, Box 27, UMSU, University Lesbian Caucus, Saskatoon Women's Liberation, of Manitoba, (204)269-8678. 5W3. Abitibi R3T 2N2. Ph: Dignity, Box 2102, Station D, KIP Box4021,S7K3Tl. Winnipeg Lesbian Society ,c/o a Woman's Place, GaysofOttawa/GaJsdel'OuUouais, Box 2919, Stubble Jumper Press, 21-303 Queen St, S7K 143 Walnut St, R3G 1P2. Ph:(204)786-4581. Station St, floor. Association gaie de I'AbitJM, a/s ADGQ, CP 36, D, KIP 5W9. 378 Elgin 2nd 0M1. Gayline: (613)238-1717. Business:233-0152. Suceursale C, Montreal, H2L 4J7. Continued on page 41

42/THE BODY POLITIC FEBRUARY 1979 . D

OutlnTheCity by Alexander Wilson

Supermarket blues

When you walk into the supermarket places that are more pleasant to be in, sorbate bun with an edible-oil-shake on these days, you'll find things have and that address food in an entirely the side. But, as pleasant or convenient

changed. High technology is paring different way: not as commodity, but as as the natural foodstore might be, we down its colours: video blue and yellow activity and social event. should see that it can no longer give a are being pushed out by the aesthetics of The best example of course is real sense of political or economic al- no-name brands. At Dominion the Kensington. It's my favourite part of ternative. Its economic structure differs world is black and white. It's like the Toronto. The colours are the ones we from that of the supermarket only in pictures we used to see of Soviet super- were taught never to mix: Magritte blue, scale. Fast foods and trivialized natural markets: no choice, everything looks the bright red, lavender, aquamarine, char- foods alike are a function of consumer same. treuse. When they're all together, not society. What's an ostensibly socialist aesthe- just on the houses but the sidewalks, the There are any number of natural tic doing in the land of plenty? As you fences, the rock borders and the garbage food stores throughout the city and the skip past miles of corporate food, cans, an anti-North American aesthetic freesias, this is the only place. Early on, suburbs. The largest and most diverse in massed higher than you can reach, the emerges. Portuguese and West Indian the patrons are from North Toronto, the centre are: question itself is defused. The music blasts from the stores, even on the Yorkville and new Cabbagetown; but by Goldberry, St Nicholas Street near fluorescent lights make your eyelashes coldest days. Food is the central activity late morning there are more and more Yonge and Wellesley sizzle and turn what you thought were at this circus. It's not something we peer gay people — in the summer it can be Baldwin Street, in Chinatown massive aisles of food into an equally at through a film of plastic, but part of cruisy. Whole Earth Foods, Parliament St in massive collection of two-dimensional our lives and our history. Men and St Lawrence Market. Front St at Jarvis. Cabbagetown. objects, objects that appeal primarily to women lift it in crates in the morning, • •

a single sense — the visual. The other stack it on the sidewalks, talk about it Back in the Sixties, the alternative Perhaps the most progressive estab- senses — those that sexualized beings knowledgeably. At night the scraps rot place to shop was the natural foods lishments are the food co-ops. There are rely on for their survival — have been in the gutters. Kensington is the rare store. The eating habits of hip Califor- only a handful of them in Metro, and purged from the supermarket. moment in our society when the senses nians suddenly became the norm of the they are greatly varied both in terms of

These shelves and shelves of of smell and touch — and to some ex- counterculture. In a way, it meant some- structure and political awareness. But commodities have less to do with your tent hearing — are allowed to emerge. thing then to eat that stuff, however their potential as politicizing forces is life than with that "other" life of the TV Here the visual is one mode among unimaginative it usually was. Besides, clear: all of them are collectively owned, commercial, or the teen mags at the many, unlike at the odourless super- there was nowhere else to get ingredients and operate on a no-profit basis. Mem- check-out counter. What are you market or the office encased, embalmed, that were more or less pure. bers save money and have a say in pur- supposed to do with all these things? in "white noise." That's still pretty much the case, but chasing. They also support small, inde- Perhaps the answer, rather than to take But for all its dirtiness, Kensington is otherwise the picture has changed. You pendent fanners and traders. For this them seriously, is to treat the super- lamentably clean when it comes to can't any longer believe in that sort of reason they are a potentially serious market as a small-scale Disneyland. sexual anarchy. If you like to appear food, not when in California even the challenge to the Ontario food industry. On the other hand, there is a great gay, expect gruff responses from the fast food chains plop a sampling of al- And because power is divided equally deal about the sub-urban life of the patriarchs sitting behind the tubs of falfa sprouts on your microwave meal. among producer, consumer and worker, supermarket that is distressing to the ur- sauerkraut, and jeers (or worse) from And especially not when the aesthetic of the collective movement — unlike, say ban gay woman and man. The entire their macho, albeit often attractive, the unadorned — from "natural" wood the consumer movement — fundamen- project, from "family size" boxes of de- offspring. floors to untreated apple juice — has tally challenges the present economic

tergent, to packages of three pork There is little you can't get in Ken- been adopted by the very people it was order. The co-ops in the centre are the chops, to the exaltation of suburban sington. There's a whole street of fish thought in the first place to oppose. following: space, legitimizes the nuclear family. and chickens, a number of dairies and There isn't a counterculture anymore, 519 Co-op. 519 Church St (hours: The only role available to women in this cheese shops, Jewish and Hungarian among other reasons because the Friday 12-7, Saturday 10-4) Call Bob context is that of housewife. And gay butchers, several bakeries, piles of every proposed social changes never had an Biderman: 483-1409. people — well, we're just not included. sort of grain, seed and nut, West Indian economic basis. Karma Co-op. 739 Palmerston Ave There is a sense, of course, in which shops and cafes, and probably the best We're left with natural foods stores (hours: Thursday 4-8, Friday 12-8, we have already begun to subvert the in- produce in the city. And nowhere are the in nearly every district. Yes, the food is Saturday 10-2) Call Katherine Tait or sidiousness of the supermarket. They are prices better. good, but the rest of the post-late-Sixties Karen Perry: 534-1470.

at least good for cruising — for men, Kensington. Roughly the area bounded merchandise gives it away: French Donvale Food Co-op. 20 Spruce St. An anyway. Supermarkets in Hollywood are by Harbord and Dundas, Spadina and seaweed toothpaste for four dollars, order-ahead type co-op. Call Carmel reputed to have hustlers in them (in the Bathurst. Open every day but Sunday; magazines that talk about building Hili or Paul Rodgers: 922-7391 fast food aisle?). While things in especially crowded on Saturday. teepees in the woods or babble pseudo- Woodgreen Food Co-op. Woodgreen • Toronto haven't gone quite that far, the religiously , in the midst of ads for Community Centre. 835 Queen St East,

big stores in places where a lot of gay There is another market in town, the Japanese banks, about a new way of (hours: open five days; fresh vegetables men live, like St Jamestown and Green- Saturday one at St Lawrence. It's the achieving psychic peace. These are Tuesday, Thursday and Friday only) win Square, can have their otherwise Germanic alternative: to get the best neither our concerns nor our day to day Call Frances Corrigan: 461-1 168. sterile spaces eroticized by those clever pickings you have to get up at five on a struggles. They don't address — and The Island Co-op. An order-ahead co- enough to claim them for their own. Saturday morning, and when you get much less question — the social op for island residents. Call Julia Dominion, Loblaws, Miracle Mart, etc there it's so clean and ordered, so silent conditions that bring dreary highrises Oldenburg: 368-9384.

Virtually everywhere. and so White, it makes the rest of into our lives, or dreary bars. If you're interested in starting a food • Toronto look like New York. But if you This isn't to say that one should go co-op in Ontario, call the Ontario Co- There are plenty of other places to go, have to have some basil or a bunch of back to a steroid burger on a potassium operative Food Network: 532-8000.

FEBRUARY 1979 THE BODY POLITIC/43 'out

Do you feel stuck in solitary confinement, sentenced to a life of tedium? find it cultured, entertaining and well-informed — all in all, a high-class

Always having to hustle just to get it all together? Forever pounding the piece of goods. You may even want to invite a few friends (consenting, of pavement from mag stand to drug store, soliciting that one connection that course), to share the joys of what, we think you '11 agree, is one of the most will really do the trick? sophisticated seven-year-olds in How gross. How common. the business.

What an indictment of life. But You can make it a lark. Or a there is an answer. f^y^i &n&. lOAiziae me. party — indeed, a veritable orgy of liberation. People, we're sure, Why not make your home a For a subscription, fill in your name and address in the appropriate spaces below will be so pleased to be found-in Body house? and mail this form to: The Body Politic, Box 7289, Station A, Toronto, ON M5W 1X9. Make cheques payable to The Body Politic; do not send cash through the mail. where TBP is on hand that they It's as easy as falling into bed. If you want to charge your purchase, fill in your charge card number and expiry date may even plead giddy and get in the spaces provided in the charge box below, and be sure to give us your signature. After all, any place that is resort- carried away. (We know it may Please note the new rates: ed to by one or more persons for be hard, but advise restraint.) Canada: D2nd class, $7.50 1st class, $15 the purposes of proselytism or International: D2nd class, $10 D 1st class, $20 So, in brief, we summon you the pursuit offacts on immediacy First class subscriptions are mailed in sealed to investigate The Body Politic. Name plain envelopes and receive priority postal service. can become a Body house. You As we said, it's saucy, it's daring Charge this purchase to: Visa need only solicit a subscription to — well, we think you'll get Address nXfastercharge a

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