London's gay rights trailblazers reflect on current homophobic tensions

David Long vividly remembers the gay community club at Colborne and Pall Mall streets in the 1980 and '90s: People  outside shouting homophobic slurs as he walked in the front door, the windows long boarded up because they'd been broken so many times. 

"We were suffering attacks all the time at that time. People were throwing stuff outside, but the music didn't stop and the dancing didn't stop, in defiance," said Long, who served as president of the Homophile Association of London Ontario (HALO) and was at the forefront of the fight against the mayor at the time, Dianne Haskett. She refused to proclaim gay pride at city hall because it went against her Christian values. 

The Ontario Human Rights Tribunal ruled against the city and Haskett, and a Pride flag was eventually flown over city hall. 

"It's just very sad when you see what's going on now. I'm just hearing the same things over and over again, the same lame excuses justifying discrimination." 

Several smaller rural communities around London have refused to fly rainbow flags, a symbol of acceptance for the LGBTQ community, in their municipalities, most notably Norwich Township, which saw flags torn down all over its downtown last year and this year voted to ban the flying of rainbow flags on municipal property. 

Long remembers the AIDS epidemic and changes that happened in hospitals, such as allowing non-family members to visit and making visiting hours longer, because of pressure from the gay community. 

"We changed a lot of things. We thought we changed what we needed to," Long said. 

This weekend, protesters squared off against people attending Wortley Pride in Old South. Last week, a Pride flag in front of Banting high school was torn down by students and thrown into a nearby garbage can. Police are investigating that incident as a hate crime. 

"There's always been a lot of hostility toward the flag, particularly in the rural settings. We'd hear a lot of concerns being raised," said Matt Reid, who served as a trustee with the Thames Valley Different School Board and oversaw the policy that led to the flying of the Pride flag at all schools starting in 2016.

'Going backward'

"I worry that as a society, we're going backward by a decade or two. There were so many advances and here we are," Reid said. "I worry about that student at Banting who might be witnessing their classmate tearing down the flag, who might be in the closet or coming to grips with their own sexual orientation or identity and how they are going to internalize that and how it will affect them for years to come." 

The school board's quick and unequivocal condemnation of the Banting incident should be praised, Reid said. 

It's the transgender community that is getting the most vitriol, coming from a small but vocal minority, said Richard Hudler, who joined HALO in 1976 and was involved for decades in London's gay and lesbian rights movement. 

"I look back and it wasn't until 1986 that we go in the human rights code. It was quite legal to fire us for being gay before that," he said.

"Watching what's happening is very concerning. I think the pendulum is swinging back. We have the laws to support us, but people need to have a scapegoat, and it's harder for them to directly make accusations against gays so they've got the drag queens and the trans community to attack. It's worrisome because they don't have the same protection as we do." 

Hudler moved to London in 1976 to work at the psychiatric hospital and he was fearful of getting fired.

"I was pretty closeted. I didn't have a masters degree, and if they knew about my sexual orientation, they'd have an easier time getting rid of me," he said. 

He found his community at HALO, eventually becoming the president and the person who headed the fight to the human rights tribunal against city hall. 

Another activist, Kathleen Holland, also worried about being fired from her job. She worked for what was then called the London Board of Education, and fought for the right to have her spouse put on her benefits. "I wasn't covered in a union, I had my neck on the line," she said.  

'Flashback to the '90s'

After eventually leaving the school board job, Holland became a financial planner.

"I went back into the closet in 1998 because I was self-employed — I needed to earn clients, they had to like me, and you never known. When I married my spouse, I had to keep it close to my chest." 

The current moment feels like a flashback to the 1990s, when people were lashing out at the gay community, Holland said. 

"I think people become more open to hearing your message when they see you in front of them, as opposed to holding a concept in contempt," she said. "By allowing the rhetoric that was infused into mainstream society through Donald Trumps presidency, it gave people permission to give voice to the voice that should have stayed in their heads." 

She wants kids who might be questioning their sexual orientation or grappling with their gender identity to reach out to others in the community.

"The most important thing to do is to surround yourself with like-minded individuals, people who lift you up," she said. 

Reid echoes that advice. 

"You can't let the actions of a vocal minority overshadow all the good things that are happening in the schools and in the community," he said. "Those people don't speak for the majority but the progress we needed to make is not done. We need to continue this community and all minority communities."