Torquere (E-Journal - York University)

Dickinson, Peter

English

Brothers' Keepers, or, The Performance of Mourning: Queer Rituals of Remembrance

Calderon, Jorge

Mon sida de Jean-Paul Aron : l'autocensure ou le jugement du miroir

Saunders, J. Clark

Conservative, Liberal, Radical: Three Ways of Understanding Gay Issues in Church and Society

Lee, Rick H.

Readers wishing to review books should consult the list of Books Re-
ceived on the torquere website (http://www.arts.ualberta.ca/-torquere), 
and contact the Book Review Editor, Katherine Binhammer, at 
Katherine.Binhammer@ualberta.ca. 
Les lecteurs!lectrices interesse(e)s a recenser un ou plusieurs ouvrages 
sont prie(e)s de consulter Ia liste de Livres re~us disponible sur le site de 
Torquere (http://www.arts.ualberta.ca/-torquere), et de communiquer avec 
Katherine Binhammer, redactrice associee pour les comptes rendus, a 
I' adresse suivante: Katherine.Binhammer@ualberta.ca. 
Jim Egan. Challenging the Conspiracy of Silence: My life as a 
Canadian Gay Activist. Compiled and edited by Donald W. 
McLeod. Toronto: The Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives 
and Homewood Books, 1998. 159pp. Includes preface and 
afterword (by McLeod), photos, bibliographical references of 
Egan's correspondence, index. ISBN 0-9683829-0-8. 
RicK H. LEE (Rutgers University) 
The late Jim Egan was an important figure in the history of Canadian gay and lesbian activism: he counter the homophobic views of articles appearing in national 
publications in the 1950s, organized and presided in discussion groups 
in Toronto in the 1960s, and in the 1990s, he and his partner Jack 
Nesbit were involved in their Supreme Court challenge of the Old 
Age Security Act's discriminatory policy excluding same-sex couples 
from receiving spousal benefits. Given that "[T]he result of the May 
25, 1995 Supreme Court decision in Jim Egan/Jack Nesbitt [sic] same-
sex spousal benefit case . . . embodies the ambiguous and contradictory 
character of the current legal situation facing lesbians and gays in 
Canada" (Kinsman 5), Donald W. McLeod's Challenging the 
Conspiracy of Silence is indeed a timely contribution to Canadian 
gay and lesbian historiography. For the book offers not only a portrait 
140 I Lee 
of its subject's life narrative, but equally interesting, an ethnographic 
and historical study of the homophobic sociocultural context in which 
Egan found himself embedded and against which he struggled. 
In his preface, McLeod begins by recounting a personal anecdote. 
As a participant during the annual pride celebrations in Toronto in 
June 1997, McLeod joins his colleagues from the Canadian Lesbian 
and Gay Archives in carrying around banners that read: "Keeping 
our Stories Alive" (9) . He recalls that day: 
By the time we get to Yonge and Wellesley, the crowds have 
taken over most the street ... Hundreds of thousands of people 
... have pressed into a few blocks to celebrate gay pride. I 
feel overwhelmed. I ask myself, "How the hell did I end up 
here?" and ponder the more important question, "How did 
gay people in Toronto end up here?" (10) 
McLeod's strategy in recalling this anecdote is especially pertinent: 
for he sets the stage for the entry of Jim Egan, the social actor who is 
the subject of Challenging the Conspiracy of Silence. McLeod, 
convinced that "the best way to tell Jim Egan 's story would be for 
him to tell it himself, in his own words," usefully clarifies in his 
preface that "this work is in fact an oral history of Jim Egan," an 
extended and amalgamated transcript of "a series of taped interviews 
conducted over a period of ten years" between Egan and McLeod 
and others (13) . 
The experience of reading Challenging the Conspiracy of Silence 
illustrates the book's success in preserving the quality of its subject's 
speech and thought processes, as Egan negotiates himself through 
the recesses of his memory, recalling both the important and quotidian 
events in his life. The 'transcribed' prose reveals Egan to be a sensitive 
and modest yet determined man, highly self-reflexive in the act of 
recounting his past to his various interviewers. Consider the following 
passage as Egan recalls his childhood: 
I was extremely fortunate compared with some young 
gay males. Mind you I'm not saying I had any intimations 
of being gay at the age of nine. I didn't. But I certainly had 
that feeling that many gays have that I was somehow different 
than the other boys. I had only the faintest notion of that, but 
I did feel different. I felt somewhat alienated from them, but 
I was fortunate in that I was never what could be described 
as a sissy. I got along quite well with the other boys on the 
Book Reviews/Comptes rendus I 141 
street. We chummed around together. But they were 
interested, eventually, in playing baseball and I never, ever, 
had the faintest interest in that sort of thing. And so it 
developed, in a perfectly natural way, that I became very 
much of a loner, which didn't bother me in the least. (17) 
Passages like the above (and there are many) are wonderful and vivid 
not least because they are able to retain the nuances inherent in Egan's 
simultaneous acts of speaking and remembering. Egan is here captured 
in a moment of honest and genuine reflection: he articulates the extent 
to which his childhood sense of alienation from other boys and his 
eventual acceptance of being self-sufficient have equally contributed 
to shaping his identity as a gay man. 
The book's conversational tone, moreover, convinces its readers 
of Egan's abilities as a great storyteller. Such skills are most evident 
in Chapter 5, entitled "Gay Personalities of Old Toronto," where Egan 
shares his "random memories of a few of the personalities and 
characters who were active in [Toronto's] gay community" in the 
1950s and 1960s (70-78). In less than ten pages, Egan introduces his 
readers (and listeners?) to a cast of men as varied in their personalities 
as they were in their wardrobes. Here we meet, among others: George 
Hislop, who later formed the Community Homophile Association of 
Toronto (CHAn in December 1970 (70); Jimmy Roulton, who played 
the piano at the Chez Paree Restaurant, once a meeting place for gay 
men in Toronto (72); Frances and Geraldine, two interracial friends 
who dressed in drag - the former, "a black guy who weighed two 
hundred pounds at the absolute minimum and was always plastered 
with makeup, including green eye shadow and lipstick," the latter, 
"also about two hundred pounds but with porcelain features and 
makeup galore" (72); Miss Jeffries, "an absolutely fragile little 
creature ... sort of pretty, in a refined kind of way, and [who] always 
wore these vinyl jackets" (73); and Alex Bakalis, who was murdered 
by a male hustler in May 1960 (77-78). Egan's brief but colorful 
character sketches of random acquaintances and close friends alike 
foreground not only the diversity of the emerging gay community in 
postwar Toronto, but also the ways these men's lives intersected with 
each other's. Egan's descriptions illustrate the extent to which these 
men, despite their differences , once indeed inhabited (literally and 
metaphorically) the same geography of desire. 
The book's strength - namely, its success in preserving intact 
142 I Lee 
Egan's conversational tone- is also, however, at particular moments, 
its greatest weakness. While McLeod no doubt means well in 
attempting to replicate the idiosyncrasies inherent in Egan's act of 
verbally recalling his past, he could have taken a bit more editorial 
liberty at the level of 'form' without necessarily sacrificing the 
integrity of the 'content' of his subject's life story. Put another way, 
he could have drawn more concrete connections between formative 
moments in Egan's life in order to provide a more substantive and 
even reading experience of his book. For example, consider the book's 
treatment of Egan's voracious reading habit during his life: 
I gradually became an omnivorous reader [as an 
adolescent]. A lot of my reading was not necessarily 
intellectual. I read everything by H. Rider Haggard and 
Conan Doyle and Verne and Dickens and most of H. G. Wells. 
I read all the Saintstories by Leslie Charteris, the Charles 
Chan books, Agatha Christie ... and everything that Edgar 
Rice Burroughs ever wrote. And many biographies and 
autobiographies. I used to buy the old Doc Savage and The 
Shadow magazines every month ... I simply gobbled up 
books in the library, at the corner of Danforth and Pape 
avenues. 
As I became aware of my own interest in males, I found 
that in those days, of course, there were few references to 
homosexuality in any of these books. There was Whitman, 
when I finally discovered him, and Housman, whom I 
discovered when I was sixteen or seventeen, but even then I 
still knew very, very little ... 
The work that really triggered gay awareness for me was 
my quite accidental discovery of The Picture of Dorian Gray, 
by Oscar Wilde. And although I was probably fifteen when I 
read that book I instantly recognized myself as Basil 
Hallward. (18-19; emphasis added) 
I must say that when I was writing and researching my 
articles and letters [in the 1950s] I did feel sometimes that I 
was working in a vacuum. But I wasn't completely alone. 
My omnivorous reading habits continued unabated 
throughout this period, and I read all the gay classics I could 
find. I was particularly interested in the historical and 
philosophical aspects of homosexuality, and read works by 
Book Reviews/Comptes rendus I 143 
Magnus Hirschfeld, Havelock Ellis, John Addington 
Symonds, Edward Carpenter, and others. I read the classic 
works of Wilde, Proust, and Gide, and kept up with the latest 
gay literature, from Vidal . .. and others. (57-58) 
The wide-ranging inventory of titles in both of these passages clearly 
reveals Egan as both passionate and resourceful in his reading habits. 
From his accidental discovery of Wilde's Dorian Gray to his later 
interest in reading works of sexologists, Egan recalls the ways in 
which reading has shaped his understanding and acceptance of his 
sexuality throughout his life. Yet the first passage appears in Chapter 
I, entitled "Beginnings"; and, the second, in Chapter 4, entitled 
"Challenging the Conspiracy of Silence: Jim Egan's Emergence As a 
Gay Activist during the 1950s." While these passages intimate an 
important connection in terms of content, their separate appearances 
in the book leave that very connection tenuous at best. To what extent 
was Egan's reading of, say, sexological case studies as an adult 
informed by his reading of "many biographies and autobiographies"? 
And, in turn, to what extent does this shape his desire to narrate his 
own life story? In short, as an interviewer, McLeod could have asked 
much more pointedly leading questions of his subject. Likewise, as 
an editor and compiler of those interviews, he could have drawn more 
concrete connections when the evidence warrants them. 
Paradoxically, however, readers such as myself who gently fault 
some of McLeod's editorial decisions must necessarily also commend 
him for his obvious sensitivity toward, and his genuine respect for, 
his subject and evidence. For, in the end, McLeod has indeed produced 
"an oral history of Jim Egan" (13), as well as provided an extensive 
bibliography of Egan's correspondence between 1950 and 1964 in 
the book's several appendices. Even though the book focuses mainly 
on Egan's life in Toronto during the 1950s and 1960s, McLeod's 
afterword and the chronology in Appendix A provide useful and 
thorough documentation of Egan's later years in British Columbia. 
Challenging the Conspiracy of Silence will attract a wide range of 
readers, academic institutions, or local community archives interested 
in any or all of the following: autobiography and life narrative, the 
early history of Canadian gay and lesbian social activism, and the 
history of postwar Toronto. Those already familiar with Gary 
Kinsman's The Regulation of Desire will find Challenging the 
Conspiracy of Silence an especially wonderful companion text: for 
144 I Wotypka 
the latter offers a more elaborate and intimate glimpse of Jim Egan, 
an important figure whose life story helped to shape the larger 
narrative of gay and lesbian history in Canada. 
Given that members ofLGBT and queer communities often "do 
not have the institutions for common memory and generational 
transmission around which straight culture is built" (Warner 51), 
Challenging the Conspiracy of Silence reminds us of the necessity to 
honor and embrace what we have inherited from the past, least of all 
as means with which to make intelligible the present historical moment 
and to shape the future . As Egan eloquently reminds us, "Gay people 
today have no idea what it was like being gay in those days. 
Homosexuality was not discussed openly in polite society. There were 
no positive gay role models" (86). To the extent that the book's 
publication coincides with two anniversaries- the fiftieth anniversary 
of Jim Egan and Jack Nesbit's relationship (23 August 1998) and the 
twenty-fifth anniversary of the founding of the Canadian Lesbian 
and Gay Archives (September 1998) -readers of Challenging the 
Conspiracy of Silence are invited to celebrate our role models and 
the keepers of their stories. 
Works Cited 
Kinsman, Gary. The Regulation of Desire : Homo and 
Heterosexualities. Montreal: Black Rose, 1996. 
Warner, Michael. The Trouble with Normal: Sex, Politics, and the 
Ethics of Queer Life. New York: Free, 1999. 
Catherine Lake, ed. ReCREATIONS: Religion and Spiritual-
ity in the Lives of Queer People. Toronto: Queer Press, 1999. 
192pp. $14.95 (Cdn) ISBN 1-895564-06-9. 
JOANNE WOTYPKA (University of Alberta) 
A t first, ReCREATIONS seemed destined to join the ranks of other anthologies on queers and religion which often chronicle the unfortunate experiences had by many gays and lesbians 
at the hands of organized religion. Happily, this presumption of mine 


Jim Egan. Challenging the Conspiracy of Silence

oai:torquere.journals.yorku.ca:article/3657

Townsend, David

The "Blood Libel" and the Spectator's Eye in Norwich and Toronto

Martin, Ann

"Sweet Dolly Sodam": Narrative Drag in Djuna Barnes's Ryder

Rubinstein, Dan

Gay Caballeros 
DAN RUBINSTEIN 
I Dan Rubinstein is the news editor of Vue Weekly, Edmonton 's urban alternative newspaper, and a freelance writer who's never met a story he didn't like. Anybody with questions or comments about this article can reach him at drubinstein@compusmart.ab.ca. And he's always looking for story ideas. 
Hank is torn. In theory, he should adore k.d. lang for coming out 
proudly and defiantly in rural Alberta. But Hank, a gay man who 
ranches on the province's east-central plains, has other priorities. "I 
won't buy her CDs anymore because she stopped buying beef," he 
says. "I think she'd enjoy the rodeo, though." 
Growing up 30 kilometers down the highway from the 4,000-
acre cattle ranch where he lives today, a few miles from lang's 
hometown, Hank was a frequent rodeo competitor. That's what prairie 
kids did. Bulls and bucking broncos were left in the pasture, however, 
when he ran off to college and grad school; he figured he'd become 
a city slicker. 
Then, in 1992, Hank attended his first gay rodeo in San Antonio, 
Texas. "That was where I felt, 'Oh my god- I'm not alone!' There's 
a whole community." 
From its hardscrabble origins in Reno, Nevada in 1976 - local 
ranchers refused to rent livestock to organizers in 1975 -the gay 
rodeo circuit has swelled into a flourishing Can-Am tour with as 
many as two dozen stops in peak years. In mid January, the Road 
Runner Regional Rodeo in Phoenix kicked off the 2001 calendar, 
which will feature 18 rodeos, including unlikely destinations like 
Salt Lake City and Little Rock as well as the seventh annual Canadian 
Rockies International Rodeo in Calgary - the "international" 
dimension of the parent International Gay Rodeo Association. 
torquere: Journal of the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Studies Association I 
Revue de Ia Societe canadienne des etudes /esbiennes et gaies 
Vol. 2 (2000) © CLGSA I SCELG 
Gay Caballeros I 135 
A veteran of all six Cowtown rodeos, Hank (no last name, please) 
is already jacked about this summer's late-June hoe-down. With its 
three-day schedule of dances, prime-rib-and-baked-potato dinners, 
concerts by country stars like Chris Cummings, a total attendance 
approaching 2,000, and a full slate of traditional rodeo events, from 
chute dogging to barrel racing, plus camp events like the wild drag 
race devised to encourage beginner participation, the gay rodeo is a 
celebration of western heritage with an inclusive, machismo-free twist. 
"There's such a sense of freedom," says Hank, 44, who refused 
to go to his boyfriend's aunt's wedding last summer ("maybe if it 
was her first wedding") because it was the same weekend as the 
Calgary rodeo. "I'd experienced that feeling before at the Gay 
Olympics in Vancouver," he continues, "but these are my people, 
people from a rural background who happen to be gay. If you ' re 
young, gay, and rural you don't have to run off to the city and become 
a hairdresser." 
To engage part-time, wanna-be cowboys, gay rodeos generally 
feature a wide range of events guaranteed not to cripple participants. 
(For instance, goat dressing, which involves, naturally, dressing a 
goat in a pair of jockey-style underwear.) But overall, with bucking 
half-ton bulls to be conquered, events are challenging enough for 
professionals. "It's not a sissy rodeo," says Robert (not his real name), 
a gay rodeo regular who was raised on a farm north of Calgary. 
"You' ve got to be tough. You're working with real live animals. 
There's danger in it -I've seen quite a few people get injured and 
packed out." 
Accordingly, the greater the danger, the greater the stakes. A 
handful of old-school cowboys who make the gay rodeo rounds, 
travelling from the Southern Spurs Rodeo in Atlanta to the Sierra 
Stampede in Sacramento, earn a living from their winnings. Of course, 
they have to supplement earnings by competing in mainstream rodeos 
-which is one of the reasons why The Roost, Edmonton's largest 
gay nightclub, is packed when the Canadian Finals Rodeo swings 
through town every November. Much of the extra business can be 
attributed to the thousands of tourists in the city to watch the CFR, 
says Roost manager Carl Austin. But if there are closeted gay men 
playing in the NHL, then pro rodeo world, one of the twenty-first 
century's last bastions of machohood, is certainly no exception. 
For Robert, 37, the gay rodeo circuit has offered Stetson-capped 
136 I Rubinstein 
salvation. Still dealing with his recent homosexual awakening, he's 
found community and acceptance on the tour- and won some prize 
money, too. He was last year's all-around Canadian champ in Calgary 
and he almost broke into the Top 10 against some tough American 
competition in Phoenix in January. 
Not bad for a guy who, as a teen, watched from the sidelines 
while friends and family members competed. "It was very 
intimidating," he says about the traditional rodeo atmosphere he was 
surrounded by while growing up. "I didn't feel comfortable there. I 
had all the opportunities in the world - my closest friends and 
neighbours rode rodeo, so it wasn't that I didn't have the right 
connections. I just didn't feel comfortable." 
Two years ago, when he came out to his family, a lot of things 
changed for Robert. He began attempting to reconcile his rural 
background and demeanor with a sexual orientation considered (at 
least stereotypically, and in North American pop culture) to be very 
urban. Support from his family helped; after Robert explained to his 
mother that he was gay, his mom told his father, who surprised Robert 
by saying "nothing's changed. You're still the same person you were 
before. We accept you the same as we always did." But there was 
still that disconcerting rural-urban hurdle to clear. And taking in his 
first gay rodeo after stumbling upon the scene through a friend has 
been a tremendous confidence booster for Robert. 
"I'm more at ease with myself now," he says, reflecting on his 
fledgling stint on the tour, which began last year at the annual Las 
Vegas extravaganza. "I don't feel as intimidated by other people. I'm 
more sure of myself." 
Organizers of the Calgary rodeo, held on a private ranch on the 
outskirts of the city, are sure of themselves, too. Even in Alberta -
the province that launched Stockwell Day and was admonished by 
the Supreme Court of Canada for not protecting the rights of fired 
gay teacher Delwin Vriend- the rodeo has faced surprisingly minimal 
controversy since its debut. 
Current rodeo director Kevin Murray remembers a photo of a 
man wearing a wedding dress appearing in newspapers across the 
continent in Year One, an unfortunate representation because most 
competitors were clad in jeans and plaid shirts. There were also some 
protestors that summer- animal rights activists. 
Hank, in fact, considers the Alberta countryside a tolerant 
Gay Caballeros /137 
environment. As long as you're a contributing member of society 
and rein in the outlandish behavior, he says it's relatively easy to be 
a gay rancher. "I'm not going to walk down the road holding my 
boyfriend's hand and kissing him," he says, "but my neighbours don't 
walk down the road kissing their wives, either. People are accepting 
of you as long as you carry your own weight. Don't put rural people 
down. Most have satellite TVs and they get Will & Grace." 
South of the border, there have been a couple of homophobic 
incidents. Some yahoo fired off a few rounds outside the Corona 
Ranch in Phoenix a couple years back, according to Murray, and 
organizers of a rodeo in Washington state's bible belt once received a 
telephone threat. "It was a wonderful setting," laments Murray. "There 
were beautiful hills. But there might have been snipers in the hills." 
(Last year's Calgary rodeo also sparked some controversy: members 
of a Denver-based gay clog dancing troupe say they were harassed 
and denied entry into Canada by customs officers at the Sweetgrass 
border crossing after a vehicle search turned up wigs and female 
clothing that female impersonators planned to wear while performing 
at the rodeo.) 
Yet those anecdotes are exceptions. Heck, at the inaugural Salt 
Lake City rodeo in Mormon-soaked Utah last year, the mayor served 
as the grand marshal and media coverage was positive. "If Salt Lake 
City can host a gay rodeo and be wildly successful, there's nowhere 
we can't go," says Doug Graff, the lORA's California-based 
spokesperson, 1999's "Mr. Gay Rodeo" for fund-raising purposes, 
and a talented bull rider who'll be back in the saddle whenever his 
torn rotator cuff heals. "That's our mission," he continues, "to support 
country-western heritage and lifestyle in the gay community." 
"I can't tell you how many times I've gotten choked up about 
doing what we're doing and loving it so much," Graff adds, describing 
a transcendent moment in Albuquerque where a rider from Utah rode 
a bull that had never been tamed before with jaw-dropping grace and 
beauty. 
With Bud Lite on board as a sponsor, gay rodeo is growing, 
another example of the mainstream world accepting the legitimacy 
of gay culture and the gay dollar. "We've worked with some major 
redneck stock contractors," says Graff, "but thank God for the 
almighty green dollar." Even in Alberta, in conservative, oil capital 
Calgary, it's a good sell. "Calgary is all about making money," offers 
Hank. "They really don't give a shit about anything else." 
Case in point, the Calgary Stampede. It's one of the largest rodeos 
in the world, an organization one might expect to be overly cautious 
about its image. Yet Stampede officials have agreed to rent one of 
their indoor arenas to the Alberta Rockies Gay Rodeo Association 
should they land the IGRA finals rodeo later this decade. "Our sales 
department is always looking for new uses for our facilities - we do 
not discriminate at all," says Jodi Johnson, the Stampede's media 
and publicity manager, calling the gay rodeo just another potential 
business partner. 
"As far as we're concerned, business is business," Pat Bell of the 
Calgary Convention & Visitors Bureau responds when asked about 
the rodeo's impact on Cowtown. "The cash register has no opinion." 
Neither do the bulls. 


Gay Caballeros

Wotypka, Joanne

144 I Wotypka 
the latter offers a more elaborate and intimate glimpse of Jim Egan, 
an important figure whose life story helped to shape the larger 
narrative of gay and lesbian history in Canada. 
Given that members ofLGBT and queer communities often "do 
not have the institutions for common memory and generational 
transmission around which straight culture is built" (Warner 51), 
Challenging the Conspiracy of Silence reminds us of the necessity to 
honor and embrace what we have inherited from the past, least of all 
as means with which to make intelligible the present historical moment 
and to shape the future . As Egan eloquently reminds us, "Gay people 
today have no idea what it was like being gay in those days. 
Homosexuality was not discussed openly in polite society. There were 
no positive gay role models" (86). To the extent that the book's 
publication coincides with two anniversaries- the fiftieth anniversary 
of Jim Egan and Jack Nesbit's relationship (23 August 1998) and the 
twenty-fifth anniversary of the founding of the Canadian Lesbian 
and Gay Archives (September 1998) -readers of Challenging the 
Conspiracy of Silence are invited to celebrate our role models and 
the keepers of their stories. 
Works Cited 
Kinsman, Gary. The Regulation of Desire : Homo and 
Heterosexualities. Montreal: Black Rose, 1996. 
Warner, Michael. The Trouble with Normal: Sex, Politics, and the 
Ethics of Queer Life. New York: Free, 1999. 
Catherine Lake, ed. ReCREATIONS: Religion and Spiritual-
ity in the Lives of Queer People. Toronto: Queer Press, 1999. 
192pp. $14.95 (Cdn) ISBN 1-895564-06-9. 
JOANNE WOTYPKA (University of Alberta) 
A t first, ReCREATIONS seemed destined to join the ranks of other anthologies on queers and religion which often chronicle the unfortunate experiences had by many gays and lesbians 
at the hands of organized religion. Happily, this presumption of mine 
Book Reviews/Comptes rendus I 145 
was a mistake. As the title indicates, ReCREATIONS deals not only 
with religion as constructed by society, but with spirituality as 
developed by the individual and with how the two interact in the lives 
of queer people. Unfortunately, as some of the contributions to the 
book show, these facets of life sometimes clash. For other contributors, 
the needs of the spirit were able to overcome the problems with 
organized religion, allowing for fulfillment either in the birth religion, 
or in a spiritual system chosen later in life. This is not to say that there 
is something called the 'queer religious experience' any more than 
there is something called the 'queer experience.' While this book as a 
whole illustrates the ongoing conflict between religion and sexuality, 
it also reflects the diversity of spiritual questing within the multifaceted 
queer community. 
It is precisely this diversity that gives ReCREATIONS an edge 
over other collections. Not only are diverse sexual orientations 
represented, but a great variety of religious experiences as well : the 
spiritual transformations recounted range from Christian to Pagan, 
from Mormon to Quaker. Some contributors stayed within their birth 
traditions (for instance, Jewish, Catholic, Muslim), and others, in 
embracing their queerness, found a meaningful spiritual system 
outside organized religion, including everything from an omni-
religious spirituality to Wicca to the Radical Faerie movement. 
The book's diversity is facilitated by the method of organization. 
Eschewing divisions by gender, orientation, or religious affiliation, 
editor Catherine Lake instead chose the three broad categories 
"Witness," "Exile," and "Sanctuary." Each section contains offerings 
in prose and poetry that are loosely based on each theme. 
"Witness" records the experiences of those who coped and are 
coping with the attitudes of their religions. Many of the pieces are 
"coming out" stories: both coming out as queer to self and to family, 
and coming out as religious. Harreson T. Cebiliak covers an itinerary 
of his daily grade ten experience which included not only questions 
of sexuality, but also bullies, drugs, and a dysfunctional family torn 
apart by alcoholism. Despite this, Cebiliak writes that "remaining 
true to my soul's evolution has allowed me to magically transform as 
a dance with the Divine," revealing the strong spirituality that enabled 
him to survive his childhood (19). In "My Human Revolution," Kate 
Greco describes her journey from married Catholic to lesbian 
Buddhist, asking the question that many spiritual seekers have 
146 I Wotypka 
pondered: "is it the actual practice that brings about results, or is it 
the faith in the practice?" (57). With the selective use of certain 
Scriptural passages deployed as frequent weapons against the queer 
community, such a question is often on the mind of the queer religious 
practitioner: is it the institution or the experience of the Divine that 
one follows? Often, sadly, the two are very far apart. Frequently, the 
message of love and compassion mysteriously morphs into one of 
hatred and exclusion when issues of queerness are raised. It is this 
issue that is explored in the next section. 
Certainly, for some contributors to "Exile," both the institution 
and the religious experience preclude queerness. Daniel Curzon's 
"Why I am an Ex-Catholic" speaks to the utter alienation many queer 
people have experienced at the hands of organized religion. Though 
at some points flippant about his ordeal- "I can't honestly understand 
why any gay people would want to have anything to do with the 
Catholic Church, except to picket it. (Or maybe get a job in it.)"- his 
"roaringly anti-Catholic" mindset speaks to the breadth of the gap 
between the queer and the religious ( 104, 1 03). Unlike Curzon, several 
of the writers did find their way out of their birth religions and into a 
system that allowed them to be both gay and religious or spiritual. 
Yoruba priest As wad discusses his journey from his Southern Baptist 
roots to African traditions, via Islam, Witchcraft, and Shamanism. 
For him, and others of nonwhite heritage, homophobia combined 
with questions of color, leading led him to pose the questions: "Why 
is God white?" "Why does God hate Blacks?" and "Why does God 
hate gays?" (94). 
"Sanctuary," the final section, celebrates spirituality that 
embraces, rather than excludes, the queer experience. Brian Utter 
recounts his confusion in having to choose between hetero- and 
homosexuality as the only two choices allowed by his Catholic 
upbringing, with only one of those two being correct. Embracing his 
bisexuality meant breaking with all polarities, including those taught 
to him by the Church, and experiencing spirituality as something 
individual, "as intricate and entangled as the life I've experienced" 
(145). Like Greco's musings on religion and religious practice, Utter's 
experience led him to a belief that spirituality "emphasized living 
well [rather] than practicing correctly" (145). Some writers did find 
homes within organized religions. Transsexual Mikki Maulsby turned 
to Wicca ("a custom-made suit") after trying out several varieties of 
Book ReviewsiComptes rendus I 147 
Christianity ("one-size-fits-all"), finding a link between the 
persecution of witches and of queers (147). The joy of being a solitary 
practitioner was also part of the allure: without the need to have the 
approval of others, Maulsby is free to experience noninstitutionalized 
spirituality that transcends prejudice. 
One of the most interesting examples of the examination of how 
prejudice plays itself out in mainstream religion is Avi Rose's 
"Deconstructing Leviticus." Growing up in a devoutly Jewish family, 
Rose went from insider to outsider when he came to terms with his 
homosexuality. Leviticus, which contains those quotes most often 
used against queer people ( 18:22 and 20: 13 ), became a focus for 
Rose's integration of sexuality and spirituality until eventually he 
"became angry with the text for denying [him] the right to be the 
human being and the Jew that [he] was" (118). By deconstructing the 
text and examining the history behind its construction, Rose has not 
only aided his own quest, but provided logical arguments for use by 
people dealing with those who use Leviticus as a weapon. 
In addition to the prose texts cited above, each major section 
contains poems which speak to the authors ' experiences as eloquently 
as any of the other entries and add to the overall diversity of the 
anthology. Cynthea Masson's "Conversion Class" tells of being with 
her partner in "a room I Full of heterosexual couples I Anticipating 
huppah" and wondering whether they are fully accepted or merely 
tolerated ( 42). In "Growing Up Religious," Brian Day recalls images 
from his Christian youth of having to reconcile his queerness with 
the message of the Church: "From the church we had the glass I of a 
text, the grace I of language. For that other I there was no writing we 
knew. I Fag jokes were a relief I from the burden of silence, the blank 
I pages that kept us closed." 
The heterogeneity of ReCREATIONS makes it difficult to 
represent the texture of the anthology. I have not mentioned Frank 
Hull's account of being a gay Mormon who also has cerebral palsy, 
nor Ace's recollections of growing up Roman Catholic in New York 
in the 1950s and 1960s as a no-op Female-to-Male. To fully appreciate 
the work's scope, it must be read as a whole. ReCREATIONS is a 
valuable addition to the body of work concerning the intersection of 
sexuality and spirituality. 


Catherine Lake, ed. ReCREATIONS: Religion and Spirituality in the Lives of Queer People

Noble, Jean

Boys Do Cry: Epistemologies of a Pronoun

Wray, B.J.

Book Reviews/Comptes rendus I 181 
Coda: Robin Blaser 
To complete this brief survey of some recent works of queer lyric in 
Canada, I wish to note the publication of The Recovery of the Public 
World: Essays on Poetics in Honour of Robin Blaser. This is a 
generous and impressive book of essays by well-known poets and 
literary scholars that focuses on compelling, difficult problems of 
ethics and aesthetics raised in the work of US-born B.C. poet Robin 
Blaser. Through his incisive, challenging thinking on poetics and the 
poet's role in society and, preeminently, because of his brilliant long 
poem The Holy Forest (Toronto: Coach House Press, 1993), Blaser 
ranks as one of Canada's finest poets. As in the case of bill bissett, a 
gay critical perspective has, to date, remained largely absent from 
discussions of Blaser's poetry. The reclaiming both ofbissett and of 
Blaser as gay male experimental poets is an important task for gay 
criticism on Canadian poetry in years to come. 
Vive La Poesie Queer! 
Works Cited 
Bayard, Caroline. The New Poetics in Canada and Quebec. Toronto: 
University of Toronto Press, 1989. 
Jirgens, Karl. bill bissett and his works. Toronto: ECW, 1987. 
Marlatt, Daphne. Readings from the Labyrinth. Edmonton: NeWest, 
1998. 
Moure, Erin. "On A Frame ofthe Book". Tessera 27 (1999): 25-31. 
Peter Dickinson. Here is Queer: Nationalisms, Sexualities, and 
the Literatures of Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto 
Press, 1999. 262pp. $19.95 ISBN 0-8020-8210-6 
B.J. WRAY (UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, DAVIS) 
H ere Is Queer contributes a much-needed Canadian presence to a growing body of gay, lesbian, and queer scholarship concerned with the complex relationship between 
nationalism and sexuality. Many of these existing texts address the 
182/Wray 
ways in which state-sanctioned nationalism coerces, excludes, and 
terrorizes "improper" sexualities. I am thinking here of recent books 
such as David Bell and Jon Binnie's anthology, The Sexual Citizen, 
Morris Kaplan's Sexual Justice, and Bruce Macdonald's Queer 
Judgments. More often than not, these works redress the problems 
of an official (hetero )sexual national identity by insisting upon an 
expansion of national institutions (legal, cultural, and political) to 
include diverse sexualities and their various forms of expression. Calls 
for same-sex marriage, immigration, full and equal citizenship, and 
so forth, are exemplary of this additive approach. On the other hand, 
scholars such as Shane Phelan, Carl Stychin, and Michael Warner 
shift the focus onto the rather vexed and problematic connection that 
has always existed between minority models of community-building 
and national models of identity-making. They argue that nationalism 
-especially the sense of connection, unity, and commonality that its 
discourses convey -holds a certain appeal for an otherwise amorphous 
community whose members do not share a single geography, passport, 
or currency. In the succinct phrasing of legal theorist Carl Sty chin, 
"Social movements . .. deploy the language of nation as a means of 
constituting and reinforcing their own identities" (7). These scholars 
maintain that one of the dangerous consequences of this linkage is 
the inscription of national norms onto sexual minorities, thereby 
upholding certain limited understandings of family, relationships, and 
identities across national and sexual communities. 
If it were not for a few notable and groundbreaking exceptions 
such as Gary Kinsman's The Regulation of Desire and Becki Ross's 
The House That Jill Built, Canadian book-length analyses of this 
intimate connection between nationalism and sexuality would 
otherwise be nonexistent. Rather predictably, this field is dominated 
by American and British case studies. The lack of critical resources 
on our Canadian context means that the nuances of Canadian 
nationalism are generally absent from larger debates concerning 
nationalism and sexuality. Here Is Queer offers a welcome corrective 
to this Canadian invisibility, and Dickinson must be commended for 
his willingness to intervene into these debates by foregrounding the 
often overlooked contributions of Canadian writers. In doing so, 
Dickinson accomplishes two distinct, yet overlapping, projects. 
Firstly, he expands the terrain of queer criticism on national and sexual 
identities through an attentiveness to the uniquely trinational 
Book Reviews/Comptes rendus I 183 
(Canadian, Quebecois, and First Nations) composition of"Canadian 
nation-ness" and our never-ending preoccupation with definitions of 
national identity. Secondly, he challenges the silence on 
(homo)sexuality that tends to characterize traditional Can Lit 
scholarship. Dickinson astutely reminds us that "the discourse of 
(homo)sexuality, and its role (or non-role) in the formation and 
organization of a literary tradition in this country, is virtually, non-
existent" (4) and, in response, Here is Queer intends "to juxtapose 
against the predominantly nationalist framework of literary criticism 
in this country an alternative politics, one propelled by questions of 
sexuality and, more often than not, homosexuality" (3). 
In a typically Canadian fashion, Dickinson's agenda in Here is 
Queer combines the political sensibilities both of the additive and of 
transformative approaches to nationalism and sexuality. His project 
simultaneously offers a queer rereading of several canonical Canadian 
texts and the literary tradition that they have engendered, while he 
also seeks to expand the parameters of the existing tradition through 
inclusive canonical and pedagogical strategies. In Dickinson's own 
words, "While I firmly believe that 'que(e)rying' the canon requires 
making space for 'new' textual voices, I also believe that such a 
process requires the simultaneous rereading of 'old' voices in 'new' 
ways" (29). The most prominent 'old' voice in Here is Queer is the 
godfather of Canadian literary criticism, Northrop Frye. In response 
to "where is here?'' -Frye's famous question on Canadian national 
identity- Dickinson answers with a resounding "here is queer". He 
contends that "here is queer" because "the identificatory lack upon 
which Canadian literary nationalism has historically been constructed 
-the 'where' of Frye's 'here,' for example- is in large part facilitated 
by, if not wholly dependent upon, a critical refusal to come to grips 
with the textual superabundance of a destabilizing and counter-
normative sexuality" (4). Dickinson skillfully applies his dramatic 
challenge to this 'master' narrative of Can Lit across a range of 
canonical texts, from John Richardson's Wacousta to Leonard Cohen's 
Beautiful Losers. Dickinson also analyzes the more explicit treatment 
of nationalism and sexuality in the work of Michel Tremblay, Nicole 
Brossard, and Daphne Marlatt, and the linkages between race, nation, 
and sexuality in the texts of Dionne Brand and Tomson Highway. 
Dickinson's treatment of these authors deftly weaves together his 
own close readings with a myriad of interdisciplinary critical materials 
184/Wray 
(queer identity theories, postcolonial discourses of nationhood, 
Canadian literary history texts, book reviews, lesbian-feminist 
political writings, and so forth) to produce an original assessment of 
the role of sexuality in Can Lit. 
Dickinson's intervention into conventional Can Lit studies also 
speaks to several key definitional debates within gay, lesbian, and 
queer literary studies. The ongoing engagement of literary studies 
with the conundrum of nationalism and sexuality is seen in the various 
historical approaches to defining the fields oflesbian, gay, and queer 
literature. The composition of these fields, their canons, their authors, 
their subject matter, and their standing with particular national canons 
are all frequently contested areas of inquiry. For instance, early lesbian 
and gay literary critics such as Bonnie Zimmerman, Bertha Harris, 
. and Henry Abelove, insist that the composition of the canon of great 
literature, and the approaches to analyzing it, are shaped by excision. 
They argue that traditional literary studies excises, at the very least, 
three kinds of knowledge: the consideration of same-sex love as a 
central aspect of human experience, the analysis of the forms of 
gendered being that go beyond heterosexual norms for masculinity 
and femininity, and various popular texts and practices that are not 
'literary,' but that have helped people express forbidden desires and 
build resistant communities. National canons, according to this 
argument, must be opened to a recomposition that includes gay and 
lesbian authors and texts. Of course, this tactic relies upon a coherent 
human subject the gay or lesbian author whose sexuality, or even 
whose very existence, was effaced from history but now available to 
the knowing reader and the diligent researcher. This approach relies 
on the misconception that what gay and lesbian literary studies is 
really about is playing authorial and textual hunt-the-homosexual. 
In other words, we run smack into the biographical fallacy in this 
reductive search for homosexual 'clues.' 
It is precisely this tendency that Here is Queer, in the spirit of 
contemporary queer criticism, seeks to avoid. Rather than relying 
on the 'truth' of authorial lives or the intelligibility of (homo )sexuality 
in the plot or characters, Dickinson's close readings of canonical texts 
employ what he terms "my Sedgwickian analysis of Canadian 
literature" (12) to critically reassess the structuring power of gaps 
and absences. In Dickinson's words, "I seek to transform what I 
have been more or less calling the absent presence of queerness in 
Book Reviews/Comptes rendus /185 
Canadian literature into a more manifest or embodied presence" (6). 
Following from Eve Sedgwick's analysis in Epistemology of the 
Closet, Dickinson argues that a queer sexuality circulates within 
traditional Can Lit, and it is the ongoing and active critical disavowal 
of this counter-normative sexuality that enables the aforementioned 
"identificatory lack" ( 4) at the heart of Canadian literary nationalism. 
Dickinson's assessment of canonical Canadian literary texts also 
draws upon the notion of homosociality that Sedgwick outlines in 
her earlier work, Between Men. There is, according to Dickinson, a 
"triangulation of male desire in several of this country's foundational 
literary texts" (5) and furthermore, "Canadian literature, or at least 
English-Canadian literature is riddled with male couples who displace 
their love for each other - and frequently their nation - across the 
'body' of a woman, whom they symbolically share, or else onto a 
mythically feminized region or landscape, which they symbolically 
exploit" (5). Dickinson's close analysis of this phenomenon in his 
first three chapters is highly convincing and will surely raise the 
hackles of more than a few Frye devotees. I should also note that 
Dickinson's debt to Sedgwick is evidenced in his book's style; his 
lucid formalist criticism is frequently framed by personal anecdotes 
that vary in their effectiveness. Although it is refreshing to escape 
the minutia of close readings, his confessional style- which Dickinson 
situates within a wider tendency in current queer criticism in his 
"Coda"- risks confirming the self-centered, divaesque reputation of 
queer writing. Perhaps this is exactly what Canadian literature 
criticism needs! 
The focus of Here is Queer shifts from English Canada to French 
Canada in chapter four as Dickinson takes up three Quebecois plays: 
Michel Tremblay's Hosanna, Rene-Daniel Dubois's Being at home 
with Claude, and Michel Marc Bouchard's Les Feluettes. This chapter 
also signals a shift away from homosociality to an analysis of the 
explicit links between representations of homosexuality and Quebec 
nationalism in these plays. Dickinson usefully moves beyond his 
emphasis on close readings in the first chapters to include a discussion 
of the plays' productions and their critical receptions in English 
Canada. This expanded, cultural studies-like focus continues 
throughout the second half of the book and it allows Dickinson to 
engage with contemporary interdisciplinary writings on the 
intersections of sexuality, nation, gender, and race. Chapter five 
186/Wray 
examines the collaborations of Brossard and Marlatt and issues of 
translation within and between Canadian literatures, languages, 
bodies, and desires. Dickinson argues that lesbian desire in their 
texts potentially questions the male homosocial and patriarchal 
configurations of nationalism. Similarly, his analysis of Brand's work 
in chapter six looks at how race and ethnicity may disrupt conventional 
constructions of nationalism. Dickinson foregrounds Brand's 
boundary-crossings (in terms of her textual subjects and her own 
cross-cultural position as a poet, filmmaker, and activist) to 
demonstrate the various challenges her work poses to Canadian 
literary nationalism. Dickinson's textual readings conclude with an 
evaluation of Tomson Highway's plays. Dickinson argues that 
Highway's 'First Nation,' two-spirited writings destabilize the 
bicultural model of Canadian literature at the same time as they re-
imagine conventional notions of Indigenous community. 
I cannot overstate the importance of Here Is Queer within 
Canadian literary scholarship. Through an innovative focus on the 
absent presence of queer sexuality in canonical criticism, Dickinson 
crucially reimagines the legacy of nationalism in Canadian literature. 
His linkage of contemporary writers to this complex relationship 
between nationalism and sexuality offers an initial framework for 
future Canadian queer scholarship. But, Here is Queer focuses 
exclusively (and strategically) on well-known or canonical authors, 
and the work of emerging or recently established authors, thoroughly 
steeped in queer identity politics and interdisciplinary artistic 
practices, also requires our critical attention. Similarly, an expanded 
discussion on the interconnectedness (and separateness) of Canadian 
queer politics and queer culture would nicely compliment Dickinson's 
project. Canadian queer artistic productions and theoretical endeavors 
deserve an international audience, and I hope that Here Is Queer is 
only the first of many book-length studies on Canadian queer culture. 
Works Cited 
Bell, David and Jon Binnie, eds. The Sexual Citizen. Cambridge: 
Polity, 2000. 
Kaplan, Morris. Sexual Justice: Democratic Citizenship and the 
Politics of Desire. New York: Routledge, 1997. 
Kinsman, Gary. The Regulation of Desire: Sexuality in Canada. 
Book Reviews/Comptes rendus I 187 
Montreal: Black Rose, 1987. 
Macdonald, Bruce. Queer Judgments: Homosexuality, Expression, 
and the Courts in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 
2000. 
Phelan, Shane. Sexual Strangers: Gays, Lesbians, and dilemmas of 
Citizenship. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2001. 
Ross, Becki. The House That Jill Built: A Lesbian Nation in 
Formation. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995. 
Sedgwick, Eve. Epistemology of the Closet. Berkeley: University 
of California Press, 1990. 
-. Between Men. New York: Columbia University Press, 1985. 
Stychin, Carl. A Nation by Rights. Philadelphia: Temple University 
Press, 1998. 
Warner, Michael. The Trouble With Normal: Sex, Politics, and the 
Ethics of Queer Life. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000. 
Christoph Lorey and John L. Plews, eds. Queering the Canon: 
Defying Sights in German Literature and Culture. Columbia: 
Camden House, 1998. 498 pp. ISBN 1-57113-178-7. 
BRucE PLoUFFE (UNIVERSITY oF REGINA) 
T he title of this collection of essays is somewhat cryptic inasmuch as it is unclear what the phrase "defying sights" means, or, if in fact this coinage actually corresponds to 
standard English usage. A cursory scan of the contents reveals that 
the scholarship in this anthology investigates textual and visual 
artefacts in terms of their queer, that is, heterocentrist-defying 
characteristics which have heretofore remained unelucidated. 
In the editors' introduction to the anthology, "queer" is defined 
broadly as an expression of identity that is at variance with and 
marginalized by a dominant sociocultural ideology; more specifically, 
"queer" are those elements of deviance contained within cultural 
artefacts that resist the heterocentrisim shaping their contours. Lorey 
and Plews draw on a Hegelian epistemological model to account for 
the dynamic and trajectory of the queering process. If one speaks 
with Hegel, one is claiming that empathetic identification with more 


Peter Dickinson. Here is Queer: Nationalisms, Sexualities, and the Literatures of Canada