Stonewall Gazette

Written by Cristina Nualart


In the 1990s, the contemporary art scene was booming in Hanoi. New galleries opened, foreign art collectors took an interest in this relatively unknown country and, although censorship by a watchful regime did not disappear, Vietnamese artists gained some freedoms. Significant innovations included the appearance of performance art and of homosexual content in the artwork of Truong Tan, possibly the first openly gay Vietnamese visual artist.


Truong Tan’s first work showing homosexual content dates from 1992, when the painting Circus was displayed in a group show at the Hanoi Fine Arts University, where Tan was a lecturer. Truong Tan’s catalogue for his first solo exhibition in 1994 documents his tentative exploration of performance art and frequent use of ropes [see picture above]. The decision to show this work activated something in him. “My goal was set,” he said, explaining that he was ready to stop hiding his homosexuality and that he was determined to forge a career as a professional artist. It wasn’t easy, and for some time he kept his homoerotic drawings private. READ MORE

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Written by Daniel Wenger


There is only one hopeful scene in “Different from the Others,” a silent picture from 1919 that is widely considered the first feature film about gay love. In it, a gaunt, handsome man plays the piano in his Berlin drawing room. He is Paul Körner, a violin virtuoso, and, in his silk housecoat, surrounded by heavy drapery and Grecian statuettes, he appears to live a life that is resplendent but lonely. Then an unlikely event sets him on a new course: a young music student has come calling. Kurt Sivers, round-faced, excitable, has seen all of Paul’s concerts, and he approaches the master nervously, hands clutched to his chest. “My deepest wish would come true if you were willing to be my teacher!” an intertitle reads. Paul responds by offering Kurt his great open palm. Their alliance, a perfect meeting of passion and pedagogy, seems indivisibly strong—but, by the end of the film, we have learned that it is otherwise, owing to the self-hatred and cruelty that homosexual love can inspire, even in Weimar Berlin. READ MORE

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Written by Michael Waters


He debuted in the '70s, to both acclaim and outrage. A lobby group called Protect America’s Children made this statement in 1978—about a doll: “It’s another evidence of the desperation the homosexual campaign has reached in its effort to put homosexual lifestyle, which is a deathstyle, across to the American people.”

That year, the release of Gay Bob, billed as the world’s first openly gay doll, caused a minor sensation. Enraged consumers complained that a toy with a homosexual backstory would lead to other “disgusting” dolls like “Priscilla the Prostitute” and “Danny the Dope Pusher.” Esquire awarded Gay Bob its “Dubious Achievement Award.” And anti-gay organizations across the United States blustered.


Gay Bob, who was meant to resemble a cross between Robert Redford and Paul Newman, was blond, with a flannel shirt, tight jeans, and one pierced ear. The doll gave anti-gay organizations plenty to fear; intrinsic within it was a celebration of gay identity, evidenced by Gay Bob’s programmed speech. “Gay people,” Bob said, “are no different than straight people… if everyone came ‘out of their closets’ there wouldn’t be so many angry, frustrated, frightened people.”

In a cheeky move, the box in which Gay Bob was packaged came in the outline of a closet, so that when he left his box, he was literally coming out of the closet. Gay Bob explained: “It’s not easy to be honest about what you are — in fact it takes a great deal of courage… But remember if Gay Bob has the courage to come out his closet, so can you.” READ MORE

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Written by Dylan C Robertson


The secret to keeping on top of MP Randy Boissonnault’s work is his “gay agenda.” Boissonnault was appointed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in November 2016 as the Liberals’ new special advisor on LGBTQ2 issues, to help co-ordinate the government’s response to issues ranging from including trans people in Canada’s human-rights code, to a promised repeal of restrictions on gay men donating blood. In an interview with Xtra, Boissonnault says the government’s move towards an apology and redress would include creating some kind of historical record for those who were persecuted by the Canadian government. The federal government intends to move forward on a case-by-case basis if it issues compensation or pardons to people who were jailed and fired for being gay. “When it comes to compensation, there’s all kinds of models — and it’s also important when we’re looking at anything to do with pardons or discharges that we look at this on a case-by-case basis,” Boissonnault says. “We’re going to look at very many different ways, including leveraging technology, getting people’s stories on the record — doing this is a respectful and sensitive way.” Boissonnault breaks down his job into three parts: as a focal point for queer Canadians to reach their government, a co-ordinator among multiple government departments and a spokesperson to highlight successes and shortcomings.
READ FULL INTERVIEW

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In the United Kingdom, LGBT History Month is observed during February, to coincide with a major celebration of the 2003 abolition of Section 28. This year's theme is Religion, Belief and Philosophy. Let's celebrate our community!

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Written by Karen Iris Tucker


Bullies roamed his high school gym class, so Cleve Jones feigned a chronic lung ailment and retreated to the library. It was on one such occasion that he flipped through the magazine that likely saved his life. A headline piqued Jones’ interest: “Homosexuals in Revolt!” It topped a Life report on the nascent gay liberation movement that was taking root in New York and California. The year was 1971.

“I’m pretty sure that was the exact moment I stopped planning to kill myself,” Jones, 62, says in his new memoir, When We Rise: My Life in the Movement. “I took the pills I had been hoarding from their hiding place and flushed them down the toilet.” Until then, Jones says, he had thought there was no one else like him on the planet.

From there, Jones takes readers on his thrilling, if perilous, voyage from fey, long-haired teen hitching his way from his home in Arizona to San Francisco, to becoming the mentee of Harvey Milk, one of the first openly gay elected officials in America. Jones survives San Francisco’s viciously homophobic police in the ’70s and, later, the AIDS epidemic that took his dearest friends. In the process, he helps mobilize the anguished, fiery momentum of LGBTQ rights in the United States and also conceives the Names Project AIDS Memorial Quilt. His life story continues to impress; When We Rise is credited as an inspiration for the ABC miniseries of the same name that is expected to premiere in February 2017. Jones was a historical consultant for the TV project but says he hasn’t yet seen it.

It seems only fitting to talk to Jones, a grass-roots political firebrand, at a time when the election of Donald Trump feels like a massive setback for progressive, pro-LGBTQ policies. Describing himself variously as “terrified” and “heartbroken” by the results, Jones is nevertheless unbowed: “The next person to tell me we survived Reagan and Bush is going to get slapped.” READ MORE

RELATED Gay Rights Pioneer, Cleve Jones, Covers A & U

Written by Owen Bowcott

Alan Turing

Thousands of men convicted of offences that once criminalized homosexuality but are no longer on the statute book have been posthumously pardoned under a new law. A clause in the policing and crime bill, which received royal assent on Tuesday, extends to those who are dead the existing process of purging past criminal records.

The general pardon is modeled on the 2013 royal pardon granted by the Queen to Alan Turing, the mathematician who broke the German Enigma codes during the second world war. He killed himself in 1954, at the age of 41, after his conviction for gross indecency.

Welcoming the legislation, the justice minister Sam Gyimah said: “This is a truly momentous day. We can never undo the hurt caused, but we have apologised and taken action to right these wrongs. I am immensely proud that ‘Turing’s law’ has become a reality under this government.” But critics say move does not go far enough. READ MORE

Written by Jim Farber


More than 50 years ago, an album appeared that let the love that dare not speak its name sing out loud. The man who voiced the male-to-male love songs contained on the album wasn’t identified on the cover. Neither were the musicians who played on it, the man who produced the music, nor the two male figures who lurked in the dark shadows that enveloped the cover. The disc, titled Love Is a Drag in 1962, featured a sincere crooner interpreting American standards previously recorded only by women, like My Man, The Man I Love and Mad About The Boy.

"The Washington Blade, in partnership with the D.C. Public Library, is digitizing its nearly 50-year archive of LGBT news and photos. This week, the Blade and DCPL announced the early years are completed and available online," writes Blade Staff.

The years 1969-1982 have been digitized; the remaining years will be added over the course of 2017. To access the archive, visit washingtonblade.com and click on the Archives link in the top left navigation. “We hear from readers every week looking to access old Washington Blade stories,” said Blade publisher Lynne Brown. “We are excited to announce this milestone in our effort to fully digitize and make publicly available all Blade content from the past 47 years.”

Written by Anna Swartz


[Thursday, December 15, 1973] marks 43 years since the American Psychiatric Association, the organization that publishes the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, voted to remove homosexuality from its list of mental disorders — a change that, to many, marked a major step forward for what would become the modern LGBTQ rights movement.

However, a week after the decision, the New York Times published a conversation between two doctors, Robert Spitzer, a professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia and a member of the APA's nomenclature committee and Irving Bieber, a professor of psychiatry at the New York Medical College and the chairman of a research committee on male homosexuality. What that discussion would show was that there would still be a long way to go until gay and lesbian identities would be welcome into the mainstream. Indeed, the APA's decision wasn't an end to the pathologization of sexual orientation. As Spitzer said in the story, homosexuality did not meet the criteria for a "psychiatric illness" because it did not "regularly cause subjective distress." In other words, being gay and comfortable with it was no longer a disorder — but being gay and unhappy about it was. "In no longer considering it a psychiatric disorder, we are not saying that it is normal or that it is as valuable as heterosexuality," Spitzer noted. READ MORE

Written by Shane, Editor of Stonewall Gazette


Although this is the third year in a row that Justin Trudeau attended Vancouver's Pride Parade, it was his first as the sitting Prime Minister of Canada, making it a historic occasion for the nation's third largest city.

Vancouver's Pride Parade took place between 12 p.m. and 3 p.m. on Sunday, July 31, 2016, with 138 entries and tens thousands of marchers. Earlier this month, Trudeau made history as the first Canadian Prime Minister to attend Toronto's Pride.

CBC reports:
The 38th annual Vancouver Pride Parade had thousands marching in it, but the main attraction appeared to be the Prime Minister and his wife and children who were feted on the parade route on Sunday.


"What an incredible pleasure it is to be back here at Pride this year here in Vancouver," said Justin Trudeau along the route as he pushed a stroller with one of his children in it and his wife Sophie Grégoire joined him in waving enthusiastically to the crowd of roughly 500,000 people. MORE

(Vancouver, Canada) Alan Herbert, the former city councillor, was the first elected chair of the Vancouver Pride Society board in 1994. Back then, he says, the parade had a meagre budget and only attracted about 5,000 people — a fraction of the hundreds of thousands it's expected to attract this weekend. "We were really trying to make a name and a place for the Pride society," Herbert said. "So when we got the participation of say, the police department or the fire department or the RCMP, that was a major achievement." Around that time, Philip Owen became the first mayor to march in the parade from start to finish. The moment Owen and Herbert shared after finishing the route that day and looking over as the rest of the floats came in is one Herbert says he will never forget. "The music was great, the weather was perfect, there were balloons everywhere and he just looked at me and said, 'Why haven't I been here before," said Herbert. READ MORE

Stephen Reagan (L), Barb Snelgrove (R) and Jim Deva (inset)

(British Columbia, Canada) A new community gathering space in Vancouver's West End honouring the late Jim Deva officially opens today — which friends of the late LGBTQ activist say is a fitting tribute for someone who was "an amazingly tenacious man who was very, very passionate about community." The Jim Deva Plaza, occupying a section of Bute Street from Davie to Burnaby Streets, has opened as part of Vancouver's 2016 Pride festivities. "It's an amazing space," said Barb Snelgrove, a member of the City of Vancouver's committee overseeing management and programming in the plaza, speaking on the day before the opening. READ MORE

RELATED

• Vancouver's LGBTQ Community Mourns The Death Of Jim Deva
• Jim Deva Remembered At Memorial As Passionate Free Speech Advocate

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Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made history today when he attended Toronto's 2016 Pride. Trudeau's appearance at a Pride event in his official capacity as Prime Minister is a watershed moment not only for Canada but also for countries around the globe. Perhaps Trudeau's example will inspire other world leaders to use their office in helping to bring about greater awareness, empathy and acceptance of the LGBT community to societies at large.

Kathleen Wynne, Justin Trudeau and John Tory

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was accompanied at the 2016 Toronto Pride by Kathleen Wynne, Premier of Ontario, and John Tory, the Mayor of Toronto. This marks the first time that leaders from all three levels of Canadian government - Federal, Provincial and Civic - attended together. Wynne herself made history in 2013 when she became the first openly lesbian politician elected as a Premier in Canada.

On July 31, Trudeau will also be attending Vancouver Pride. Before his career in politics, Trudeau worked as a teacher in Vancouver, a city he calls his second home. Trudeau has marched in Vancouver's Pride Parade twice before but this will be his first appearance as Prime Minister of Canada.

Trudeau is a very strong advocate for LGBT rights and made Canadian history in June 2016 when he raised a Pride flag on Parliament Hill.

Svend Robinson

The advancement of equality and civil rights for gay Canadians owes much to Svend Robinson. The former NDP Member of Parliament, who now lives in Geneva, Switzerland with his partner, Max Riveron, was the first Canadian MP to come out as openly gay in the 1980's. One of his significant achievements while in office was getting sexual orientation added to hate-crime legislation in Canada.

In a recent interview with the Georgia Straight, Robinson recalled what it was like for the few people brave enough to participate in Vancouver gay pride marches in the late 70's.

"A lot of the people in that parade were wearing paper bags over their heads to symbolize the fact that they were afraid of losing their jobs or being beaten up..." Robinson shared.

Robinson also talks candidly about how his Burnaby office was vandalized after he came out of the closet.

Does he have any regret about being a gay trailblazer? No. Robinson declared it: "...an incredible privilege to be open, to be out, to be on the front lines... So to be part of a liberation movement to make this world a better place was very special."

You can read the full interview Robinson did with the Georgia Straight before the annual Vancouver Pride here.

Chris Vogel and Richard North

CBC reports:

Chris Vogel and Richard North are the first gay couple to try and legally marry in Canada. Their marriage certificate, granted by the Unitarian Universalist Church of Winnipeg in 1974, was one of the first same-sex marriage certificates issued in Canada. However, their union was not recognized by the province. They launched a decades-long legal battle to challenge marriage laws and fight for same-sex spousal benefits. North said he hopes others won't have to go through the struggle they've endured. "Our marriage certificate, hopefully, is a beacon of hope. The museum will be part of the process of changing the way the world sees homosexuality," he said. Read More

LISTEN: 
Excerpt From CBC's Digital Archives 1974 Radio Program, "As It Happens":

Gay Winnipeg Couple Marries

Chris Vogel and Richard North (vintage photo)

[Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada] It was a time of protests, legal fights and backlash. With a growing sense of solidarity, gays and lesbians became more visible in Canadian society in the 1960s, '70s and early '80s. Homosexuality gradually became more accepted as more Canadians came out of the closet to demand equality under the law. Chris Vogel and Richard North, a gay Winnipeg couple in their 20s, were stymied in their efforts to obtain a marriage licence from the province. That didn't stop them, though -- they found a sympathetic Unitarian-Universalist minister to perform their marriage ceremony. Now, as they explain to Barbara Frum of As It Happens, they're in a struggle with the provincial government to have the union recognized. 

Did You Know? 

• Before their wedding ceremony, Vogel and North had the banns read at a Unitarian church in Winnipeg. Marriage banns are a Christian tradition in which the names of the couple and their intention to marry are read for three successive Sundays before the wedding. The reading of the banns negates a couple's need for a marriage licence, but jurisdictions may refuse to register the marriage. 
• Vogel and North were the first gay couple in Canada to challenge marriage laws. Ten months later, their appeal was ended when a judge ruled that a homosexual couple cannot be considered married because they are of the same sex. 
• In 1982, Vogel filed a complaint under Manitoba Human Rights Act on the basis that the government was discriminating against him on the basis of marital status and sex. A government employee, Vogel believed he and his partner should be entitled to the same benefits (dental, life insurance, etc.) as other employees and their spouses. The complaint was dismissed the next year. 
• In light of changes in 1987 to Manitoba's Human Rights Code, Vogel launched another legal challenge in 1988. The case wound its way through the courts, and in 1997 the province's human rights adjudicator ruled that benefits should be extended to gay and lesbian employees. 
• In 2000, many gay couples hoped to use the banns as a legal loophole for obtaining a marriage licence. 
• By 2005, the Civil Marriage Act made same-sex marriage legal across Canada. This made Canada the fourth country to legally recognize gay marriage, after the Netherlands, Belgium and Spain.

[Vancouver, B.C.] Which political party are you going to vote for in Vancouver's upcoming 2014 municipal election? Would it be Vision Vancouver, which is centre-left of the political spectrum or maybe the centre-right party, NPA (Non Partisan Association)? Or Perhaps the left-leaning COPE (Coalition of Progressive Electors)? What about the centre-left Vancouver Green Party? The Georgia Straight's Charlie Smith has an interesting article about how the Broadbent Institute took a political swipe at NPA candidate Kirk LaPointe implying that he should not be seen as a friend to Vancouver's LGBT community. Here's an excerpt:

The day after Kirk LaPointe announced his entry into the Vancouver mayoral race, the free-market Fraser Institute did him a favour. It released a report condemning the City of Vancouver's finances, using older data to present a misleading illustration of how it compares to the City of Surrey and other municipalities. The impression was that Vision Vancouver can't really be trusted to look after the books. 

Today was payback time for LaPointe and the NPA. On the eve of Pride weekend, the Broadbent Institute issued a Press Progress bulletin conveying an impression that LaPointe and the NPA are no friends of the LGBT community. (The Broadbent Institute's Vancouver-based director of strategic partnerships, Mira Oreck, "played an instrumental role in the campaigns of current Mayor of Vancouver, Gregor Robertson", according to her biography.) 

The Press Progress article notes that as editor-in-chief of the Hamilton Spectator in 1999, LaPointe wrote a signed editorial explaining why the paper chose not to publish a photo of two men kissing. In "Photo decisions based on needs, taste", LaPointe stated that "the image would be offensive to a number of our readers" and that it was a "provocative gesture" and "staged". 

One of the men in the photo, Bryce Rudyk, took exception to LaPointe's column. In a letter to the editor, Rudyk wrote: "In the space of a few typewritten lines, LaPointe devalued and marginalized our relationships, essentially saying that we were offensive and not 'normal' enough to run a picture in his paper". 

The Broadbent Institute would have done well enough to stop there, but it tried to drive the knife in deeper by claiming that the NPA has a "less-than-stellar record on gay rights". The justification? In 2006, the NPA-controlled council voted against a motion by Vision's Tim Stevenson to create an advisory committee on LGBT issues. At that point, LGBT issues were part of the committee addressing diversity. 

Here are some things that the Broadbent Institute neglected to mention in its Press Progress bulletin: 

• In 1986, the NPA's Gordon Price was the first out gay man elected to council in Vancouver history. 

• The NPA's Alan Herbert, a champion of LGBT rights, was elected to council in 1996. Herbert is a former chair of the Vancouver Pride Society and AIDS Vancouver. 

• In the 1990s, the NPA had three members of the LGBT community on the seven-member park board. 

• It was Vision Vancouver, rather than the NPA, that decided not to run bisexual writer Trish Kelly as a park-board candidate after she had been nominated. 

It's true that there has occasionally been a rocky relationship between the LGBT community and the NPA. 

Read more at The Georgia Straight

1969
“Homosexuality” is decriminalized in Canada. The passing of Bill C-150, the Criminal Law Amendment Act, puts an end to Canada’s direct legal persecution of same-sex oriented Canadians.

July 1971 
Last Canadian imprisoned for “homosexuality” released. Everett George Klippert is released after being imprisoned indefinitely in 1965.

August 1971
Canada’s first gay rights march takes place in Ottawa. Approximately 100 people march to the Parliament buildings demanding fair policy for gay and lesbian Canadians.

1977 
Québec becomes the first jurisdiction in Canada to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in its provincial Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms.

March 1981 
More than a thousand people flock to St. Lawrence Market [Toronto] to show their outrage about the treatment of the gay community at the hands of the police and local government. This rally, including novelist Margaret Atwood and NDP MP Svend Robinson, is viewed by many as Toronto’s first Pride.

1995
Bill C-41 (Hate Crimes Bill) passes with explicit reference to sexual orientation.

June 1996
Sexual orientation written in to Canadian Human Rights Act.

2000
Same-sex common-law partnership recognized by federal government.

June 10, 2003
Ontario becomes first province to recognize same-sex marriage.

July 2005 
Canada becomes the fourth country to allow same-sex marriage. Bill C-38 receives Royal Assent and same-sex marriage is legalized nationwide.

December 2006
A Conservative government motion to re-examine the issue of same-sex marriage is defeated in the House of Commons by a vote of 175 to 123.
Source: Metro News 
Related: 

• 1981 Was A Watershed Year For The Gay Liberation Movement In Canada 
• A Brief History of Gay: Canada's First Gay Tabloid, 1964-1966

FOR MORE - Check out our handy reference page

Written by Matt Mills


(Canada) On Feb 5, 1981, 30 years ago, more than 150 Toronto police descended on that city’s gay bathhouses, arresting more than 300 innocent men. It was part of a deliberate and organized campaign by government and police to push gay baths and bars out of business, to silence the gay press and to remove gay voices from public discourse. Gay people were not new to discrimination in 1975 when Montreal police raided that city’s Sauna Aquarius. But that is really where the story of the 1981 bathhouse riots starts. For at least the next six years, police in various cities across the country steadily increased their harassment of the gay press and gay men in gay spaces.

Gay people had, of course, previously fought police harassment, but the events in Toronto in the first half of 1981 were watershed for the liberation movement in Canada. The activist chops refined then equipped gay people across the country to fight censorship, win partnership and employment rights, demand reasonable treatment from government, face HIV/AIDS, fight homophobic violence and win marriage rights.

Read more at Daily Xtra

Related 

• A Brief History of Marriage & Civil Rights of Gay and Lesbian Canadians 
• A Brief History of Gay: Canada's First Gay Tabloid, 1964-1966

Track Two is a documentary film about the 1981 Toronto bath house raids and riots and the events that precipitated them. It is a rare and unique record of a watershed moment in the gay liberation movement in Canada.

"After recent news stories reporting that Judge Vaughn Walker (pictured), the federal judge presiding over the Olson/Boies federal challenge to Prop 8’s ban on marriage of same-sex couples, is a gay man, some commentators have started calling for Judge Walker to recuse himself from the case. Whatever Judge Walker’s sexual orientation is, it’s not a reason to take him off the case," writes James Esseks, Director, ACLU Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender & AIDS Project. "Since there have not been many openly gay judges in any of our courts, we don’t have much law addressing this question directly. But it doesn’t take much thought to work through the issue in closely related contexts: Can an African-American or a female judge rule on a case about racial or gender bias in employment? The courts have answered that one, quite clearly and many times over: Of course she can."

"Take Constance Baker Motley, an African-American woman who spent a long legal career with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, litigating desegregation cases (including Brown v. Board of Education) and other landmarks of the civil rights movement. After President Johnson put her on the federal bench, some litigants made motions to disqualify her from civil rights cases because she was African-American and a woman." READ MORE