There is a well-worn truism that ‘one should not bite the hand that feeds them‘. Which is also often used to suggest that one shouldn’t ‘bite the hand one hopes will feed them’ – which might well be good advice. Or perhaps it’s just a form of tone policing which too often leaves abusive power unchecked.
Now, I realize that few young queers are likely to ever read this post- blogging is so last century. Even older queers who are on-line are more likely to be on that Book of Face and/or subscribed to Substack writers. So perhaps I’m screaming into a void. But that is still a useful way to express and reduce my anger and frustration.
And I haven’t made it through 68 orbits around Sol, and all the self-discoveries made, to just sit quiet. I mean, my Print On Demand shop includes my ‘Here, Queer, Won’t Disappear‘ logotype on a wide assortment of apparel options.
If presenting as a cliche of an angry, grumpy, old man stirs up sympathy, let’s go with that. So, I’m challenging every young queer- he!! every one- who’s quick to tell me how much they value and respect what I went through as an openly gay young man in Toronto during the explosion of HIV/aids in my queer and kink communities to put up, or shut up as we work to move to Canada.
By which I mean any or all of:
- Prayers to whatever divinity(ies) you acknowledge;
- Rituals of support and encouragement;
- A lease on housing with supportive terms/rate;
- Contact info for someone with such a lease;
- Cold hard US or CDN cash.
The harsh reality is that 99% of the people I knew in Chatham and then Toronto’s gay and kink communities are gone. Many of the community-based (ie unofficial) groups in which I participated left no paper trail- no official Registration, no Board Minutes, never a Head Office beyond a member’s living room. No 40th Anniversary Reunions are likely for the small number of us who survived this long, and we’ve no Facebook Group connecting us. The second image on this page is my photo of the GYT (Gay Youth Toronto) exhibit at the Pride Festival in Toronto in 1978.
I have plenty of posts and pages here for anyone wanting more details- I was born in Toronto in 1958, lived in various towns/ cities across Ontario until I moved from Toronto to Columbus, Ohio at the beginning of 1996.
Leaving Toronto was a necessary step in my survival- too many funerals, too many dreams destroyed, too few signs of a ‘happy ever-after’. I wasn’t trying to escape Canada- just put some distance from the ghosts. And the mental health injuries I had buried.
As an aside- see my youTube video Did We Lose a Generation to HIV/aids? for how ‘we lost a generation’ sidelines survivors.
Despite the above rant, I’m still a middle-class Canadian born and raised last century:
