Vanessa Dunn: Hi, my name is Vanessa Dunn.
Vanessa Dunn: Welcome to episode two of The Youth/Elders Podcast.
Vanessa Dunn: In the Fall of 2018 we hosted weekly recording sessions at Toronto's Oakwood Village Library, bringing together queer youth, queer elders and many folks in between to chat candidly about a wide variety of topics.
Vanessa Dunn: A note before listening- a r eference i s made to 52, which is short for 52 division, a police station located in downtown Toronto.
Vanessa Dunn: There's also a reference to Cherry Beach, a beach close to downtown Toronto, which w ould've been fairly secluded in the early eighties.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm an artifact in that, I was in the bath raids.
Speaker 2: "Yeah.
Speaker 2: Wow!""A living artifact""Yes!" What do you remember of that?"
Speaker 1: Everything.
Speaker 1: I was at Richmond Street Health-porium it was called, um, was in a room with someone we had just, um, relaxing and having a cigarette- those were the civilized days.
Speaker 1: And I heard this loud banging and I make a comment of course in regards to it, which had nothing to do with it.
Speaker 1: Um, and then I heard more loud banging and the second time- and then suddenly the music went off.
Speaker 1: And the first thing I thought of was some gang from Scarborough, gay bashers come in and they're, you know, they busted in and they're going to, you know, do their number and then I suddenly realized, no, it's worse, it's the police, right?
Speaker 1: Um, I had a locker, um, and I was on my way back from this guy's room to my locker.
Speaker 1: I was stopped in the hall by him and told to stay there.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 1: So I did so.
Speaker 1: Um, they were allowing people if you had your ID they'd, you know, write you up and release you, right.
Speaker 1: I had my ID in my car; they were escorting people to their cars to get their ID to get released.
Speaker 1: But I- there's something in me that just said, no, I have to see, I have to witness this.
Speaker 1: What happens at 52.
Speaker 1: Are we going to, are we going to end up- go to 52, are we going to go down to Cherry Beach and get, you know, taken care of?
Speaker 1: By the time I was processed and ready to go, all the paddy wagons had been filled and I was handcuffed, um, in between the two other guys placed in the back seat of the car, um, of the seargeant in charge, his name was Banks.
Speaker 1: And um, one person on my right, um, was- he and his family were a Jewish family from Hungary and he was just...
Speaker 1: Vocally, he was,"You can't do this! This is, you know, we have our rights" and I'm saying,"Shut up, shut up, shut up! We're going to go down to Cherr-".
Speaker 1: I was terrified at that point that because of his voice, right.
Speaker 1: He had the strength because he'd lived through this kind of discrimination before, right?
Speaker 1: Um, the only thing that happened at the police station was verbal stuff.
Speaker 1: Nothing else- I didn't really see anything else.
Speaker 1: And then the next morning, had to make a court appearance.
Speaker 1: I was eventually, you know, it was thrown out of court and then I went to other trials; I was asked by the Right-to-Privacy Committee if I would go to other trials to refute police evidence, which I did.
Speaker 1: Say.
Speaker 3: Must have been terrifying.
Speaker 1: It was.
Speaker 1: Y eah.
Vanessa Dunn: So, today's episode revolves around activism, resistance and social movements: of the past, of now, and of the future.
Vanessa Dunn: The queer community has a strong history of resistance, which has helped to radically shape society as we know it.
Vanessa Dunn: In our opening piece, we heard from a man who was part of the bathhouse raids, the infamous 1981 incident where police stormed four bathhouses in downtown Toronto and violently assaulted, humiliated, and arrested male patrons.
Vanessa Dunn: All in all, roughly 300 men were charged: the largest single arrest in Toronto's history up until that point.
Vanessa Dunn: It also triggered a huge movement and is historically seen as the catalyst of the queer uprising in Canada- an uprising and a history that was largely represented by white cis gay men.
Vanessa Dunn: Times have changed and so have movements in the queer community.
Vanessa Dunn: A significant movement in Toronto in the last five years has been with Black Lives Matter, a coalition that resists, among other things, anti-Black racism and state-sanctioned and institutional violence.
Vanessa Dunn: In 2016 Black Lives Matter served as grand marshals at the Toronto Pride Parade and halted the parade for 30 minutes in order to have their list of demands accepted by Pride.
Vanessa Dunn: Among their demands, a ban on police in the parade, those in full uniform and carrying guns.
Vanessa Dunn: Surprisingly, or not so surprisingly, their action and their demands were met with boos and jeers from the crowd and outright venom online.
Vanessa Dunn: By whom?
Vanessa Dunn: Well some would argue by the largely white cis gay population, mostly men.
Vanessa Dunn: It's rare to be able to point to a moment in time that crystallizes a state of a community or communities, but I think the 2016 action by BLM at Toronto Pride was the unearthing of a queer community, largely divided- politically, racially and ideologically.
Vanessa Dunn: Part one of the podcast is from the October six live recording session entitled"We're Here, We're Queer, the history of 2SLGBTQ Social Movements and What Now?" We had special guests, Lisa Amin, human rights lawyer and Greg Campbell, actor, director and writer join us for the conversation.
Vanessa Dunn: A few notes before we begin.
Vanessa Dunn: It's important to note that Lisa identifies as mixed race.
Vanessa Dunn: Lisa references a 2016 event where police chief Mark Saunders on behalf of the Toronto Police Services, apologized to the queer community for the Toronto bathhouse raids.
Vanessa Dunn: This apology was also for the raid on the women's Bathhouse Pussy Palace in 2000.
Vanessa Dunn: At the apology event, Black Lives Matter staged a pop-up.
Vanessa Dunn: A week later, they staged the larger action at the pride parade.
Lisa Amin: So you brought up the 1981 bathhouse raids, which I think a lot of people in Canada would point to as the historical start of the the quote-unquote Gay Pride Movement.
Lisa Amin: Um, anyone can argue any direction on that, but let's start there.
Lisa Amin: And, um, because because it relates to the psyche and the lived experiences of the people who are older, gay, white men, um, a lot of whom really wanted an apology for a- for a very long time and they worked to get an apology from the cops for that.
Lisa Amin: And, uh, you know, as a human rights lawyer, just to take a very short aside, uh, when people look for remedies for the indignities that are visited upon their personhood as a result of discrimination, um, a lot of the time what they're looking for are things to kind of, uh, to, to, to- the healing effect of an apology is not to be understated.
Lisa Amin: You know, a lot of people really, really, really feel that they need that to close a chapter in their lives.
Lisa Amin: And so, you know, a lot of these guys legitimately and sincerely worked very hard and actively wanted that.
Lisa Amin: And so a few years ago the cops said,"Ah sure, we'll apologize for that.
Lisa Amin: Some jackass rammed a door and started a gay movement, well, we're sorry, alright, we're sorry we ever saw ya and look at ya now." I'm just kidding.
Lisa Amin: Just kidding.
Lisa Amin: They had a really, really, uh, kind of, you know, self-congratulatory small little session about as big as this room, uh, which holds an eight-person table and, uh, and a small group was there and they had also actually the cops while they were on it, somebody said,"You know, we should apologize to those dykes." And so, and so just so- when God was a baby.
Lisa Amin: And, uh, and I was kinda cute.
Lisa Amin: I was on the Toronto Women's Bathhouse committee too, and it used to throw the Pussy Palace, the seldom seen women's bathhouse.
Lisa Amin: And as people are likely aware, uh, that got raided, uh, in the mid nineties, I guess, I guess?
Vanessa Dunn: Y eah, n o, i t w as 2000.
Lisa Amin: It was the early two thousands, uh, they were subjected to, uh, to cops trailing through the bathhouse under, under the guise of a liquor license inspection.
Lisa Amin: Uh, but yeah, so fast forward and they said,"We're going to apologize for the lesbians as well." And the people who were still repping for the Bath House Committee, um, talked amongst themselves and they said,"Oh, hell no." And so, um, the women and Trans people who were all queer and Trans identified now, uh, kind of flipped the bird to the cops and said,"we don't accept your apology, we think it's insincere.
Lisa Amin: Uh, go stuff it." So they apologize.
Lisa Amin: So, you know, so it's not necessarily inevitable that we have to bend over and accept or want an apology from the state.
Lisa Amin: We can see how some people want it.
Lisa Amin: We can also see how others have a critical eye and say,"Actually- what?" You know, to what and in what service are we doing this?
Lisa Amin: Are we participating in what's essentially a grand gesture?
Lisa Amin: And so when there was blowback about that, oh, and also Black Lives Matter did a little pop up at the event and protested, um, during the apology session.
Lisa Amin: This confluence of objections to their pop up apology performance is what raised ire.
Lisa Amin: I think that there is probably an underestimation by a lot of young people who are well situated, um, that older people are exaggerating the harm that they suffered, the older gay white men.
Lisa Amin: Um, and so they didn't understand the importance to those older gay white men of the apology.
Lisa Amin: And, uh, I think that there should have been a little more give there.
Lisa Amin: You know, I think sometimes you just need to meet people where they are.
Lisa Amin: And I don't think it's fair to say that, uh, that the men who were, uh, treated the way they were in 1981, uh, many of whom are older gay, white men, uh- to pretend in 2018 that just because they walked through the streets and are getting a freeer ride now, uh, that they suffered no harm then is false and harmful.
Lisa Amin: I think everybody has to be more receptive of the reality that we have all experienced homophobic harm and a lot of us have experienced racist harm.
Lisa Amin: And a lot of us have experienced misogynistic harm and a lot of us experience transphobic harm and ableist harm and class-based harm.
Lisa Amin: Um, and that we are an extremely diverse community, you know, that we're not a single issue community and we shouldn't necessarily, uh, accept a single response.
Lisa Amin: So whether that's an apology on behalf of, uh, uh, of, uh, the cops to a group, you know, um, we're not insulting each other by refusing to accept the part as the whole, you know, I think we're insulting each other by not doing so.
Greg Campbell: I'd like to speak to something that you said about 1981 being the beginning of gay liberation in Canada.
Greg Campbell: Um, it was the big event in Toronto for sure is the one that we all know and recognize.
Greg Campbell: But back in- when I was coming out in'77, yeah, in Montreal, there was a, uh, a bar raid on a bar called Trucks.
Greg Campbell: It was a leather bar and it was, I think it was in the fall, but, um, in'76, the Olympics happened in Montreal and because of the Olympics, the cops cleared out the city.
Greg Campbell: They cleared out all the- they raided bars constantly.
Greg Campbell: The way that the gay bars were raided constantly, we kept- the music would shut down.
Greg Campbell: We'd have to go out on the street.
Greg Campbell: We were all angry.
Greg Campbell: So by a year later when this bar got raided, because- I think two people were having some kind of sexual activity upstairs.
Greg Campbell: All the people in the bar that night were, were taken out and arrested as found-ins in a bawdy house.
Vanessa Dunn: Is this, sorry, 1976?
Greg Campbell: '77 a year later.
Greg Campbell: And um, so the day after that happened, uh, I w- I went out and I heard about this demonstration and I still have a flyer from that demonstration, but the bars shut down their music.
Greg Campbell: I think it was at midnight.
Greg Campbell: I'm not really sure.
Greg Campbell: All the bars- all the gay bars closed.
Greg Campbell: And we all poured out onto the street and it was at, um, Peel and Sainte Catherine Street.
Greg Campbell: And we stopped traffic there for at least two hours.
Greg Campbell: And people were yelling,"Gay, gay, dans la rue, gay, gay, dans la rue!" And the cops I remember were circling on motorcycles circling like, like wolves in a pack, trying to push us away.
Greg Campbell: And there was no way that we were going to let this continue.
Greg Campbell: And for me, I was 17 years old.
Greg Campbell: It was the first time I'd ever experienced a demonstration or any kind of like fighting back.
Greg Campbell: So, and I remember my best friend, he wasn't out of the closet, he was saying,"I can't, I can't do this.
Greg Campbell: There's cameras." And I said,"But just duck.
Greg Campbell: Duck the cameras.
Greg Campbell: This is important." So we were all chanting on the street for like two hours and it was on the news.
Greg Campbell: I remember one of my friends appearing on the news with a sign, very exciting time.
Greg Campbell: And um, I was lucky because I grew up between Stonewall and AIDS and I was, I had the freedom, uh, and, and I also grew up in Montreal, which, although that happened in Montreal, I, I rarely felt any homophobia downtown in Montreal.
Greg Campbell: In the suburbs, yes.
Greg Campbell: But when I got downtown, it was a very free, uh, laissez-faire society downtown.
Vanessa Dunn: Late seventies Montreal?
Greg Campbell: Late Seventies.
Greg Campbell: Yeah.
Greg Campbell: In fact, my friends and I always talk about how lucky we were to grow up in Montreal at that time.
Greg Campbell: Um, it wasn't until came to Toronto in 1983 that I got called faggot on the street, like within a day or two of arriving.
Greg Campbell: In Montreal it never happened.
Greg Campbell: So, um, it was just a, a really great time of gay liberation and freedom in, in Montreal.
Greg Campbell: And then, um, and then, you know, AIDS came in 1981 and on, so...
Vanessa Dunn: And so when you talk about that, um, march in- or crowd in'77, what'd the crowd look like?
Vanessa Dunn: At the time, was it predominantly men was it?
Greg Campbell: Oh, let's see.
Greg Campbell: It was predominantly, I would say predominantly white, uh, men.
Greg Campbell: Uh, and it would be a lot of French Canadians.
Vanessa Dunn: So I guess like coming back just sort of, there seems to be a real disconnect or right- immediately after BLM at the, at Pride in Toronto, there seem to be a really big di- disconnect between some elder communities and- maybe, maybe I- it seemed like it was between elder white men, cis white men, but also there was plenty of other communities involved in that.
Vanessa Dunn: But I'm just wondering where the disconnect has happened, why they couldn't, why suddenly police presence wasn't an issue.
Vanessa Dunn: If that history is not so far away that bath raids, being policed in public parks.
Vanessa Dunn: That's something that queer people, particularly men really understand.
Vanessa Dunn: So it's, it's interesting I guess at the end of the day.
Vanessa Dunn: Is it just, is it a race issue?
Lisa Amin: Yes.
Vanessa Dunn: That was from the October sixth live recording session entitled"We're Here, We're Queer: the History of 2SLGBTQ Social Movements and What Now?" The next clip you're about to hear is from the November 3rd live recording session entitled"QBIPOC, QTBIPOC, POC, a discussion of Race and the Queer community" facilitated by Max Mohenu.
Vanessa Dunn: This session centered the voices of those who identified as Black, Indigenous, and/or a person of colour.
Vanessa Dunn: A note before listening, Toronto Pride is a big topic of conversation because after a few years of not having uniformed police in the parade, as per BLM's demands, Pride executive director, Olivia Nuamah said the board of directors would welcome an application from Toronto Police in 2019.
Vanessa Dunn: The response from the community was swift and a vote was called where pride membership voted to reject uniformed police presence in Pride 2019 with a vote of 163 to one 161.
Vanessa Dunn: Olivia is a queer Black woman who has faced criticism from many communities within the queer community.
Vanessa Dunn: Okay.
Vanessa Dunn: Back to the podcast.
Max Mohenu: How do we feel about navigating Pride going, going[ laughter] and how well a lot of us are probably like LOL.
Max Mohenu: How cause going back to- going back to what I was saying about, you know, um, friends and and allies, I've been having a lot of these problems trying to, for whatever reason, still trying to unpack and trying to educate on what exactly the issue, main issue is.
Max Mohenu: So, um, it do you for, for um- I just want to ask around the table.
Max Mohenu: Do you have any tips or do you have any ways to sort of- cause I think a lot of gaslighting comes into play as well when you're trying to really, really be like, okay, you know what, this police issue is like not a, it's not an issue that just came up overnight.
Max Mohenu: This is something that, you know, we've been dealing with, you know, um, we're dealing with white supremacy.
Max Mohenu: We're dealing with this systemic racism, we're dealing with a lot of these, these big, big things.
Max Mohenu: It's not, these are not new things that just sort of came up.
Max Mohenu: So, um, for anyone, did anyone at the table like to share how you kind of deal with those situations in which even to this day now going into a situation where the police have now been allowed back into Pride, how you sort of unpack and navigate those conversations without being like, you have to educate...
Speaker 4: Conversations with who?
Max Mohenu: With, w ell, you know...
Speaker 4: Okay, this is the side of my hand not this side of my hand.
Speaker 4: [laughter] Okay, gotcha, gotcha.
Speaker 5: It wasn't a white folk who said, oh, we're going to bring them back in.
Speaker 5: Pride is run by a black woman.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 5: And we went down and demonstrated- there was a call over to demonstrate at the Pride office, do you know many people were there?
Speaker 5: Ten of us.
Speaker 5: Ten.
Speaker 5: And I went,"Oh, this is so wrong.
Speaker 5: Like where is everybody?
Speaker 5: I know it's at five o'clock people are working, but not everybody is working.
Speaker 5: Like where is everybody?
Speaker 5: If this is such a serious thing and people are going off on Facebook about it, where is everybody?"
Speaker 6: I think there is a problematic issue and my heart goes out to her because the problem is, you know the history and, particularly, the history against Black bodies and police violence.
Speaker 6: There's been a history of police violence against trans.
Speaker 6: There's been a history of police violence against la- gays.
Speaker 6: There's, there's been a history and for you to be the ED of an organization that has not put parameters on their return, you've not, you've made it an open field day, you've undone all the work that people have done to say- it's not that the police, it's not that as you working as a police officer cannot walk in the parade, it's the weaponization of your body walking into the parade.
Speaker 5: I just don't want to see them, like, with a gun on them plus a big water pistol gun shooting people with this maniacal look in their eyes of like,"Aha I got you!" Like, and trying to shoot me and I'm going like this.
Speaker 5: And then there's three of them shooting at me with a water gun, like water pistols.
Speaker 5: I was like,"What the?!" That's why I'm not going back.
Speaker 5: If they're there, I am not going back because I, I, I fear for my life sometimes with cops.
Speaker 5: They don't see me as a white little person who is, you know, going home and little old lady.
Speaker 5: They, see me as a threat and as an enemy to the state and every indigenous person is seen like that.
Speaker 5: So I'm, like terrified of them being- coming back about terrifies me.
Speaker 6: My heart goes out to her.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 6: And I agree.
Speaker 6: I- it is such an awkward position and to stand there and having to deliver that message with a smile of welcoming, you know, I don't know what that feels like.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 6: I honestly don't know.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 6: It's just.
Speaker 3: When we did the- just so people get an idea of how hard it's been for Olivia.
Speaker 3: When we did the queer seniors' dance last year, two white gay men, older gay, white men came to the door and were threatening her.
Speaker 3: They wanted to get through the door to get to her because they said,"She has destroyed pride that Black..." So I said"Get out, this is it, out.
Speaker 3: I'm going to call the police.
Speaker 3: You cannot be here spewing hatred like that." So wherever she goes, these old gay white men are showing up and doing this.
Speaker 4: So wait, these are the same old gay white dudes who were alive when...
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Stonewall.
The bathhouse raids.
Yeah.
Speaker 4: ...So, so you gon' live through all that.
Speaker 3: But these are white gay men with privilege.
But you know they remix that story every couple of years...
That's not what what actually happened, like, that's how it goes.
Yeah.
Speaker 4: My G like no.
Speaker 6: But the thing is, now there is recognition.
Speaker 6: Queer marriages.
Speaker 6: We've arrived, so it's not that bad.
Max Mohenu: I guess I just get scared sometimes cause even, you know, you can even go on Pride Toronto's Facebook on any given day and like you shouldn't read the comments but every once in a while I'm like, you know, let me just play with the devil.
Max Mohenu: I'm going to go and read the comments.
Max Mohenu: And sometimes I'm like, I cannot believe that this is still the world we live in in 2018.
Speaker 7: Those are the same people that if Pride- that believe love is love- that if Pride was canceled would riot and would- it would be anti-Black riots.
Speaker 7: Right?
Speaker 7: Like, I'm just like the risk of not having a Pride would actually really be more- pretty directly affect people of colour.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 7: Black people in particular.
Speaker 7: Um, and so that like having to make that decision is like knowing that, like really acknowledging that...
Speaker 7: That's like, you know, I don't think you think that could happen, but it will happen.
Speaker 7: Like I believe that it can absolutely happen.
Speaker 7: All those white guys in buff shirts would decide that you took away our fun party.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 7: We're going to fuck with you.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 4: That's immediately what happened.
Speaker 4: Like when Black Lives Matter Toronto stopped the parade.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 4: The white gays were immediately like on the like,"F you, n-word", like all this like immediate from the crowd, like not like- just immediate from the crowd,"Buh-bup-buh-buh, n-word, n-word, n-word," like all the way through.
Speaker 4: Like it got hella violent, hella quick.
Max Mohenu: It's crazy what it unearthed cause I mean it- it's almost like, you know, when that happened I feel like, you know, and I, and I don't know if it was just maybe you know, me being very naive, but I feel like it almost unearthed like a completely different, completely different people.
Max Mohenu: Cause I feel like I was talking to people who in my mind, you know, really, really got what it is that we are all gathering for every year and really, really understood the history and really understood the importance of it, you know, and its history.
Max Mohenu: But the second, you know, there's someone who is, is, is, you know, questioning, you know, the man i.e., you know, Pride Toronto, and- and a lot of their motives and their talks, and what they're bringing to this parade every year automatically it's like, you know, racial slurs and you know, wanting to fight and wanting to do- it was just completely different, it's very, very, very scary having to navigate that every year and be like,"Oh I have a new racist on my Facebook.
Max Mohenu: Okay you're gone" and like it's, it's very, very, very, very crazy.
Speaker 4: I'm also a little bit confused though, cause like Pride again is a riot.
Speaker 4: It is a protest against police brutality.
Speaker 4: So I'm not sure like a) like it's not a party.
Speaker 4: Like it never was a party.
Speaker 4: So I'm not sure like why like there's, like, yes, like there's the back against the wall and that for sure is real, especially as a Black woman and knowing like what's gonna happen to like other Black people and Brown people, like if the police were not allowed to return.
Speaker 4: And then on the other hand, like it's like, why are we relying on government funding to do something that is supposed to be a protest to begin with?
Speaker 4: We're not protesting anything, if the state lets you do it.
Speaker 4: It's- if it's allowed, they, you know, they'll just allow you to, it'll be okay.
Speaker 4: They won't cause you no problems.
Speaker 4: And so that's like, that's also like a questioning is, like, look at how far it has like been colonized, like look at how far Pride has been colonized to the point where we still think it's a party and it needs to be funded by the government.
Vanessa Dunn: That was from our November 3rd live recording session entitled QBIPOC, QTBIPOC, POC: a Discussion of Race and the Queer community.
Vanessa Dunn: Now back to Lisa Amin and the future of social movements and activism in the queer community.
Lisa Amin: Uh, the critical mass is so important.
Lisa Amin: And one of the things that we were missing in the 90s was a critical mass of people of colour, you know, which we have now in 2018 in Toronto.
Lisa Amin: Um, and so people who are as isolated as I once was as a child and you know, in a small place in a, you know, in a cold part of the country, uh, with a fast connection are connected to people from New York and Toronto and Berlin and all of these places doing cool shit.
Lisa Amin: They're all Facebook friends.
Lisa Amin: A lot of the people were, you know, already in the universities and already kind of already well read and, and big thinkers.
Lisa Amin: And, uh, and then so the difference I find that I see now with, uh, the level of thought and critical analysis that went into those discussions in the o-, you know, in the earlier days and that went into the work of Sister Vision press is frankly sometimes missing from the way that it is laid out in, uh, in social media environments for a number of reasons.
Lisa Amin: Number one, not everything has to be, uh, you know, a PhD dissertation, sometimes 140 characters is sufficient to make a point.
Lisa Amin: However, uh, sometimes when people don't have access to the privilege of, of a solid education and they have only a set of hot takes and uh, you know, an online community, um, there can be gaps in the way that and the way that the movements continue to grow, um, to grow deeply when we are mentoring and bringing new people into queer activism, which is I think one of our end goals in having these discussions.
Lisa Amin: Uh, one of the things that I think it's so important to, to hold in our hearts is you don't have to like everybody to love everybody.
Lisa Amin: You know, we don't have to be friends to be building community together and sometimes we will not be friends.
Lisa Amin: You know, sometimes we will be frankly frenemies.
Lisa Amin: Sometimes we will be sworn enemies, but if we can't get over ourselves, then how are we going to get over our oppression as a group?
Lisa Amin: You know, we can't, we can't.
Speaker 3: This final piece is from a speed history session where we pair a queer youth with a queer elder and give them a prompt to discuss.
Speaker 3: The prompt for this conversation was what social movements have you been a part of or witness to?
Speaker 3: This question was to consider the fact that not everyone has actively participated in movements but has been witness to and likely affected by them, including this elder who came out as a lesbian during her career as a police officer in New York City.
Speaker 8: So in Catholic school we did nothing.
Speaker 8: Um, it was a survival school.
Speaker 8: It was survival back then and uh, playing sports was the only thing.
Speaker 8: So I stayed out of all the movements.
Speaker 8: But, uh, when I did become a cop in a, in, uh, 81, um, right after that, there was a lot of- the first ones that I remember are the, u m, right to l ife versus abortion and you know, being on the sidelines to that was amazing.
Speaker 8: Also, there was a terrible, you know, I went to a riot in Brooklyn and, and then once the riot was calmed down, I went, you know, we had to go there and stay there.
Speaker 8: And I started to, and again, i t had nothing to do with gay or lesbian issues, but those were the first ones that I was with.
Speaker 8: A nd, and then, u m, the AIDS crisis came.
Speaker 8: And for us, first of all, I think the AIDS crisis forced so many gay men out of the closet by being ill, that it was the beginning of opening up about being gay because so many people did not have a choice t hat got sick.
Speaker 8: And, u h, so t here were people in families now who w ere losing men and, and because of that, u h, the world, and at least in my world, got to see that we were on the sidelines for a coup- a bunch of there was a, u m, the biggest one was ACT UP.
Speaker 8: And I remember ACT UP and I remember watching them, u h, obviously cause it was on the sidelines.
Speaker 8: They were all peaceful demonstrations.
Speaker 8: But I just thought, first of all, I was so impressed with their power and of their own and, u h, you know, fighting for their lives, both men and women.
Speaker 8: And, u h, I was...
Speaker 8: Mostly, I wasn't- I was in the closet.
Speaker 8: I didn't come out until probably 1990 and so, you know, I would watch those.
Speaker 8: And then we started getting assigned to the Gay Pride Parade in New York City.
Speaker 8: So, you know, I've been a spectator to many things, which I guess is the strangest to see things but not have to be a part of.
Speaker 8: U m, and, and that's one of the things about being a, a cop is that you end up being in the front row of a big circus sometimes.
Speaker 8: U m, and so the first Pride Parade I worked, I was so excited to work, but I was so, so threatened by it also.
Speaker 8: And back then, u m, there was a lot of homophobia and many, many cops when the- there was, so o ur gay, u h, police officers a re called, u h, the organization is the gay officers action, u h, G OAL- G.
Speaker 8: A....
Speaker 9: League?
Speaker 8: League?
Speaker 8: It's not league though.
Speaker 8: Anyway, it's, uh, gay officers and it's called GOAL.
Speaker 8: And, uh, when they came, there must have been three of them plus a couple of civilians and uh, and maybe one or two cops outside of New York City who joined them back then.
Speaker 8: And the, the lead guy was this sergeant Cochrane who is a hero to many of us.
Speaker 8: Um, they marched and many, many, many cops turned their back when they marched by, and, uh, and I thought it was heartbreaking in a, and a, I didn't know.
Speaker 8: I didn't fight it.
Speaker 8: Um, but I was so proud of them.
Speaker 8: Right.
Speaker 8: But I was bystander still at that point.
Speaker 8: There wasn't any trouble except that he, in the beginning, cause he was the first one to come out.
Speaker 8: Um, he had a lot of prejudice.
Speaker 8: Um, you know, and a lot of people, you know, they moved him a few times because he was harassed so badly at his job.
Speaker 9: And did you ever march in the parade?
Speaker 8: I did.
Speaker 8: Um, and then so in the 90s, um, I actually dated a woman who was out on our job.
Speaker 8: She was also a police officer and that- I was so, you know, not only did I love her, but I was so proud of her for being out.
Speaker 8: That obviously helped to lead me out.
Speaker 8: Um, and then years later, um, I marched and I got promoted.
Speaker 8: I was a captain and I marched as a captain, which is kind of cool.
Speaker 8: So yeah, there was a much bigger- myself and- I worked with a man who was lieutenant, so I was a captain and he was a lieutenant and we marched and you know there was, I don't know if there was anybody higher than us at that march, but I do remember the year after- the year before 9/11 2001 and the parade's in June and the- at that point, so that was 2001 that the police commissioner didn't march, but the, the man who was the second highest in the police department did with us.
Speaker 8: And that was pretty cool.
Speaker 8: So it's, you know, the fact that it's gone all the way to that is, you know, pretty wild.
Speaker 9: Cool.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Vanessa Dunn: I hope you enjoyed our second episode of The Youth Elders Podcast.
Vanessa Dunn: This has been a production of Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, the world's largest and longest running queer theatre company.
Vanessa Dunn: We want to thank all of the amazing participants who were featured today and all those who came out to the live recording sessions last year and shared their lives with us.
Vanessa Dunn: I also want to thank our incredible YEP team, Daniel Carter, LeZlie Lee Kam and Aidan Morishita-Miki.
Vanessa Dunn: Special thanks to our sound engineer Jessie Tollefsen, who not only recorded and edited each episode, but also created our theme song.
Vanessa Dunn: Thank you to artistic director, Evalyn Parry and the entire family at Buddies.
Vanessa Dunn: Special thanks to the Toronto Arts Council and Iana and her team at the Oakwood Village Library for their support.
Vanessa Dunn: And finally, thank you for tuning in and supporting the Youth Elders Podcast.
Vanessa Dunn: Please feel free to find us on social media as Buddies in Bad Times Theatre or@buddiesTO and online on the Buddies in Bad Times Theatre website buddiesinbadtimes.com/ yep.
Vanessa Dunn: There you can find out about upcoming episodes, featured guests and links to episode notes and community resources.
Vanessa Dunn: The Youth Elders Podcast was recorded on the traditional lands of the Mississauga of the Credit, the Anishnaabe, the Haudenosonee, and the Huron Wendat.