OttoSchloss
Active Member
I think there's a danger of seeing the drag queens involved in the U.S. Stonewall riots as standard bearers and leaders in our struggle. None of the local, out, gay politicians I knew of in early to mid '70s Toronto fit that description. Mostly, they were nice, polite, university educated types from the chattering classes who didn't particularly stand out from the crowd. With other like minded individuals they set up and expand a political power base, knew Robert's Rules of Order pretty well, lobbied elected politicians for expanded civil liberties for gays and lesbians, and changes to the human rights acts, to employment law, and to descriminatory hiring - and firing - practices, that sort of thing. Some rented warehouse space on Duncan Street and put out a magazine called The Body Politic, with a Gay Archives in the same building, for instance. And there was the Glad Day Bookshop, too. Dedicatedly slutty at times like the rest of the population, yes of course, but you can also think of these founding fathers of openly-gay Toronto as rather old fashioned stand up stand up for Jesus missionaries, with a certain dull, Toronto Presbyterian earnestness as well. Their strength was indeed their visibility - the ability to rally smallish groups of protesters for the occasional march, for instance, or get the rest of us to show up at a public meeting to rally support for a cause such as the reinstatement of John Damien who had been fired for being gay - but few were raven haired crossdressers ... sadly!
Flamboyant doesn't always mean drag and I wasn't singling them out for their courage. But often "drag" people are maligned in the gay community for their unabashed outness and outrageousness. And so are mincing queens and men that refer to eachother as "sisters" etc. My point being that when gays start deciding for each other what is acceptable and unacceptable behavior then the fight will have been lost. Sometimes the stereotype has to fight a little harder and experiences a little more of the discrimination some of us all have felt.
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