This is the second episode of Mother Goose, Fairy-Go-Round, and it’s all about the challenge of holding on to a gay bar. Whereas the last episode was about finding a bar, this episode will explore how the people challenged the closet in formal and informal ways, as well as the relationship between queers and the racialized community that lived in the neighbourhood of Toronto known as “The Ward.”
If you want to learn more about this period, Jim Egan’s Challenging the Conspiracy of Silence and The Ward, The Life and Loss of Toronto’s First Immigrant neighbourhood are both essential reading. And, to learn more about the federal government’s purge, The Canadian War on Queers by Patrizia Gentile and Gary Kinsman is a key text. More Foolscap interviews, including the one with Elgin Blair, can be found at the Toronto Arquives, which is also home to many of the tabloid newspapers used for this story.
We dedicate this episode to Sandy de Almeida, our dear departed friend, who was – and always will be – the Mayor of Queer West.