7 “Ultra Activists” in a “Very Closeted Place”

GATE Edmonton, the first self-described gay liberation organization in a province known for its “basic conservative nature,” was formed in the years following Canada’s partial decriminalization of homosexuality. Founded in 1972 by Michael Roberts, “Edmonton’s first ‘public’ homosexual,” GATE was initially a small group of university students who met at private residences.¹⁰ Roberts, who had recently moved from Vancouver and drew inspiration from GATE Vancouver, was a driving force behind this initial impetus to organize.

GATE Edmonton started as a “semi-campus organization,” an unofficial university club composed initially of several male students, rather than a broad-based grassroots organization drawn from diverse segments of the queer community. In 1984, Rick Hurlbut, a student at the time, described the problems then facing GATE’s executive committee. He noted that, historically, “leadership, as was typical of the Gay Rights Movement of the time, was charismatic and somewhat autocratic. Key individuals, not necessarily elected, formed GATE’s policy, acted as spokespersons, and generally decided the direction the group would move.”¹¹ Another critic, who signed his letter to the editor of the alternative newspaper Poundmaker simply as Ramon, agreed with this assessment. Without explicitly naming Roberts, Ramon argued that GATE developed in the way that it did because of one dominant personality who did not accurately represent the diversity of opinions and lifestyles in the gay community. “Although searching out acceptance by ‘straights,’ he frequently showed little tolerance for gays experiencing or practicing a different homosexual lifestyle,” Ramon wrote, adding that very few people within the gay community saw GATE as a “militant” group.¹²

Ramon describes GATE as a sexually staid organization that was not well-known nor accepted in the larger Edmonton gay community. Ramon’s letter to the editor was a direct response to an earlier article on GATE written by Poundmaker staff member, Eugene (Devil inside) Plawiuk.¹³ In contrast to Ramon, Plawiuk attributed GATE’s lack of popularity within the gay community to the fact that “many gays don’t want to go marching in the streets.”¹⁴ So which was it? Was GATE too political and activist or too interested in presenting an image of respectable and restrained sexuality? Too radical or not radical enough?

In part, this difference of opinion was the result of a diversity of perspectives among the people making these judgments within and outside the queer community. The question was what constitutes an effective activist strategy and should that strategy focus on changing laws, raising social consciousness, or providing social services. Some commentators may have perceived GATE differently because of the group’s adaptability and wide range of interests. GATE members were astute enough to emphasize different aspects of their activism depending on the audience. In 1974, when a member of GATE spoke at Club ‘70’s Annual General Meeting to encourage others to attend a drop-in, the member explained “that G.A.T.E. has changed radically and is no longer the aggressive band of former days.”¹⁵ This may have been attempt by the GATE member to reassure Club 70 members who were otherwise ill-inclined to get involved. However, according to M. L. Mumert, one of the charter members of GATE, late 1974 was a time when the group became more radical, not less:

At that time, many of the people involved in GATE were ultra activists who regularly wanted to organize parades with banners around the city, most especially if there was a political campaign or some homophobic celebrity in town. While I pass no judgements on this type of activity, other than to applaud it from the safety of my closet, the high level of visibility of these activities caused a lot of people to leave or not to join GATE in the first place.¹⁶

Throughout the 1970s, GATE Edmonton engaged in a diversity of actions, including mounting education campaigns and letter-writing campaigns, lobbying the Alberta Human Rights Commission, protesting Canadian immigration policy, and providing social services. The minutes of the 2 November 1977 general meeting, for example, show evidence of multiple simultaneous actions, some of which were more radical than others, ranging from social dances at Club 70 and Flashback to picketing a civic election forum where mayoral candidates were questioned about their position on gay rights.¹⁷

In later years, GATE increasingly emphasized peer counselling and other social services. After some of the more politically active GATE members helped form the Alberta Lesbian and Gay Rights Association (ALGRA) in 1979, GATE voted to refrain from any political affiliation.¹⁸ This does not mean that it abstained from all political activity, however, because it became a group member of ALGRA.¹⁹ As another example, GATE polled political candidates in the 1982 provincial election to determine their stance on civil rights protections for sexual minorities.²⁰

At the same time, no clear boundaries existed among radical gay liberation, the reform of civil rights’ legislation, and service-oriented efforts to support individual and community well-being. These ambiguities were discussed at a general meeting on 8 January 1975, when GATE members debated the position of gay activists within society. The hand-written meeting notes contain an incomplete reference to gay activists as: “reformist, revolutionary, or political change agents?” Crossed-out in the same note was a final possibility—“radicals.”²¹ In the 1970s, as GATE was evolving as an organization, members were questioning how best they could support and strengthen their community. At times this meant becoming politically active. However, the provision of social services was equally important and can be seen as an extension of, rather than a departure from, the organization’s activist principles.

The debate over whether GATE was revolutionary or reform-oriented also reflected something of the character of the early organization. Plawiuk’s 1973 article in Poundmaker captured both GATE’s “political militancy” (which the group was supposedly “getting over”) and its pursuit of a politics of respectability in an effort to gain social acceptance.²² “One thing GATE does,” Plawiuk explained, “is try to de-emphasize the sex angle of gayness. . . . When people phone up the first time the person answering usually tries to dissuade the caller from the idea that they have orgies, or that by coming over to the house they are going to find a bed partner.”²³ In this way, GATE was attempting to dissociate itself from a common stereotype of gay men as promiscuous and emotionally uncommitted, a stereotype that ultimately labelled them as sexual deviants and cast them as potentially dangerous to the moral foundations of society.

Some gay men saw this emphasis on sexual respectability as counterproductive. They were not interested in following monogamous heterosexual norms. In response to Plawiuk’s article, for example, Ramon explained that, although some gay folk obviously benefited from GATE’s existence, the group promoted a very limited vision of “gay life” that did not serve the needs of a more diverse community. In particular, Ramon argued, GATE members attempted to represent themselves as respectable queers by downplaying and depoliticizing their own sexuality. “It is unfortunate, in my opinion,” wrote Ramon,

that they want to be understood as humans and not “faggots” for faggots is what they are. . . . The self-confident homosexual will not be set back by faggot, fairy, gearbox, and so on. It is the writer’s opinion that these are colorful explicit terms far more meaningful than homosexual and not derogatory if one is self-assured in one’s own homosexual role.²⁴

In other words, some segments of the gay community saw GATE as attempting to assimilate homosexuality into a largely heteronormative culture.

The debate around sexual liberation was happening not only outside the organization but internally as well. A meeting on 17 August 1972 included a discussion about whether “cruising” should be allowed at GATE. Cruising here referred to the practice of looking to meet people, often in public places, to have casual sex. The meeting ended with the Chairperson “suggesting that everyone just behave like ‘civilized people.’”²⁵ In other words, from the beginning of its existence as an organization, GATE Edmonton was implicated in debates over how to act as a gay man among other gay men and, more broadly, in public spaces in the city. Being “civilized” or “respectable” was often a practical tactic used by activists to gain the respect and support of the larger, mainstream society. It has also been described as a selling out of radical principles. If respectability politics are thought of as one end of a spectrum of queer activism, the other end would likely be liberation ideologies. However, as GATE demonstrated, distinctions between respectability politics and gay liberation may seem clear-cut in theory but are often messy in practice.

Under the banner of liberation politics, GATE collaborated with a wide range of organizations, not only gay rights organizations across Canada but also other social justice groups. On 17 November 1972, for example, GATE issued a message in support of a rally by the University of Alberta Vietnam Action Committee, stating that “all people must have the freedom to determine their way of life. Whether one wishes to choose one’s sexual orientation or one’s government, one must be free—free from both internal and external pressures—free from both internal and external oppression.” GATE ended this statement by declaring, “The oppressed peoples of the world demand freedom—and demand it NOW!”²⁶

Gay liberation was a radical activist stance that rejected the status quo and encouraged “coming out” as a political tactic. Gay liberationists deliberately built a visible movement that was meant to liberate gays and lesbians from the discrimination of a heterosexist society and from their own internal prejudices.²⁷ One of their primary tactics was to organize protest marches to challenge the social isolation of the closet and to change social norms. In the United States, the gay liberation movement rejected civil rights activism. After all, “why petition to be let into a social system so deeply riven by racism, sexism, militarism, and heterosexism?”²⁸

In Canada, however, civil rights were linked to liberation activism. Organizing around a human rights paradigm allowed GATE Edmonton and other Canadian gay liberation organizations to build a visible community and to create a political identity.²⁹ They did not see these goals as contrary to the values of gay liberation.

Community building was linked to GATE’s lobbying for civil rights because without legal protections, people would not join the gay liberation movement. In 1974, for example, one GATE member noted that “people are afraid of involvement because of fear of exposure.”³⁰ GATE blurred the line between radical high-profile activism and immediate on-the-ground services. Early on, GATE Edmonton implemented a drop-in evening and a phone line, initially in a private residence and then later at its office.³¹ The organization also hosted dances and provided peer counselling. In a city with few openly gay residents, community building was an essential function of the group. So, although some accused GATE members of being radical activists who were too quick to hold a protest march, one of their first impulses was to provide a structure for community building. Indeed, such an action was a necessary part of achieving social, political, and sexual liberation.

In a July 1983 interview, Walter Cavalieri—GATE’s director of social services at the time—emphasized the solidarity felt by the gay and lesbian communities:

I think, in spite of all of the bitchiness that is ascribed to gay men and the butchness ascribed to gay women, we are an extraordinarily loving and caring community. I think we all experience so much oppression that we have discovered within ourselves a capacity to reach out and share—not only the capacity, but the understanding that we must, if we are to survive, treat each other with some degree of tenderness and love and sharing.³³

Despite Cavalieri’s optimistic portrayal of “an extraordinarily loving and caring community,” and despite the gay liberationist challenge to heteronormativity, GATE Edmonton—like many gay liberation organizations at the time—was a predominantly male space.³⁴ Its organizing members, who were initially all men, had to work to develop a more inclusive space for its increasing female membership. By 1976, according to the Calgary Herald, about a third of GATE Edmonton’s members were women.³⁵

Female representation in the organization and male-female collaboration were important discussion points early on. On 16 February 1973, GATE held a drop-in “long anticipated by the all male membership of GATE,” which “brought out several Edmonton gay women for the purpose of finding areas of mutual interest and involvement.” The conversation went on to acknowledge that the men and women had “areas of mutual interest and concern” but also “that lesbians have problem areas that no male organization can really handle.” As a result, there was some debate over whether GATE should be restructured to accommodate both lesbian women and gay men or whether a separate lesbian organization should be created that could collaborate with, while remaining separate from, GATE Edmonton.³⁶

“It is encouraging to note that male or female sexism didn’t seem to establish itself as a valid reason for not becoming affiliated with a gay liberation organization,” wrote Don Musbach, GATE’s regional co-ordinator, in his summary of the drop-in meeting.³⁷ Women did subsequently become more involved in GATE; key women went on to work on various committees, to be counted among those present at meetings, and to take on other duties, including volunteering to answer the crisis phone line. Women were present at the annual meeting held in March 1974 and the minutes suggest that they discussed volunteering as female phone counsellors due to the increase in the number of women calling for “information and assistance.”³⁸ However, relationships between women and men in the organization were not always positive. A separate lesbian organization, Womonspace, was founded in 1982 by women who had left GATE because “they were doing all the work but the men made all the decisions.”³⁹ One Womonspace member recalled “that if we had something to say, it was either ignored, interrupted or we were being patronized.”⁴⁰ GATE did not always succeed in creating an inclusive environment and remained an organization dominated by male leadership.

Another way that GATE attempted to build community was by organizing and participating in coalitions with other social justice groups. In 1978, for example, GATE was simultaneously involved in two coalitions that tackled the same issue using very different tactics. Both organized in protest against “some homophobic celebrity in town.”⁴¹ One of these coalitions—a collaboration with, among others, the Metropolitan Community Church, Boyle Street Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, Club 70, Jasper Avenue Social Club, Gay Youth of Alberta, and the Alberta Human Rights and Civil Liberties Association—was called CONCERN. The other was named the Coalition to Answer Anita Bryant. Both organized against Anita Bryant’s visit to Edmonton. Bryant’s Canadian speaking tour was a matter of concern and protest by gay and lesbian activists across the country.⁴² Bryant was known for her anti-gay organizing in Dade County, Florida, where, because of her memorable campaign to “Save the Children,” a county ordinance that protected homosexuals from discrimination was overturned.⁴³

CONCERN initially proposed to organize a public debate, because “the moral strength lay with CONCERN and not with Miss Bryant.” They preferred the format of a debate or a forum rather than a demonstration, arguing that Bryant “had been confronted too few times by reason and argument rather than emotional outbursts.”⁴⁴ To indicate their disagreement with this tactic, the Edmonton Women’s Coalition responded by forming the Coalition to Answer Anita Bryant, which organized a cleverly named “unwelcoming committee” that would demonstrate against Bryant’s stop in Edmonton.⁴⁵

GATE members debated what tactics the organization should endorse. During the 17 April 1978 regular general meeting, a proposed motion to limit GATE’s participation to only those activities organized by CONCERN was defeated. Instead, the majority voted to endorse and participate in both CONCERN and the Coalition to Answer Anita Bryant, and to inform GATE members of all the actions being organized.⁴⁶ In this way, GATE simultaneously took a reformist and a revolutionary stance by helping to organize a reasoned debate on the issues raised by Bryant’s visit while also joining a protest of over three hundred people.⁴⁷

Finally, GATE’s community extended outside the province. GATE Edmonton shared many of the strategies, and tactics of other organizations, such as GATE Vancouver and Gays of Ottawa. It also often shared similar challenges. This is in part because all were confronting the same heterosexist political structures and cultural norms. They also deliberately built coalitions and were supportive of activists and causes in other Canadian cities. Edmonton activists, for example, raised money in support of John Damien, a jockey who was fired by the Ontario Racing Commission because of his sexual orientation.⁴⁸

However, Alberta is known as the conservative backwoods of Canada. Gay activists themselves described the province’s conservativism and the oppressive prejudices they faced. In 1983, Cavalieri, an American ex-pat who lived in Toronto and Lennoxville before moving to Edmonton, described Alberta as a “Bible belt. Terrifyingly so at times. It’s a very closeted place. Probably the most closeted place I’ve lived.” He explained that it was difficult to get Edmontonians to turn out to show support, often because of the dangers of being exposed publicly.⁴⁹ In contrast to larger metropolitan centres such as Toronto or Vancouver, activist communities in Edmonton remained relatively small. The size of the network of activists in Edmonton had a real effect on the types of actions that could be taken. In 1972, for example, GATE attempted to hold a demonstration in connection with Gay Pride Week but had to cancel. “The possibility, actually the probability,” wrote Michael Roberts regretfully, “of only one or two people participating in a ‘demonstration’ seemed ludicrous.”⁵⁰ The small size of Edmonton’s activist community challenged GATE’s attempts at organizing.

At the same time, Edmonton was not unique in its social environment. In the 1970s, blatant homophobia was prevalent throughout Canada. A 1975 article from the Edmonton Journal noted, “If you’re a homosexual there are better places to be than Edmonton, Alberta, or Canada, for that matter.” Comparing queer activism in Canada to activism in the United States, the journalist declared that “gay power in Canada is at a crawl.”⁵¹ Edmonton was regionally different from Toronto and Vancouver, two cities that would quickly become hubs of activism, but in the early 1970s, discrimination in the media and political backlash were not exceptional. Nowhere in Canada, for example, was it illegal to discriminate in housing or employment based on someone’s sexual orientation until Québec amended its Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms in 1977.⁵²

Like other provinces in Canada, Alberta had no civil rights legislation that explicitly protected gays and lesbians. However, the political context of the province was changing in the early 1970s and this change allowed a moment of possibility for gay and lesbian activists. In 1971, the Social Credit Party, which had dominated Albertan politics for thirty-six years, was defeated by the Progressive Conservatives. On 1 January 1973, under the Progressive Conservatives, two important pieces of legislation came into effect: the Alberta Bill of Rights and the Individual’s Rights Protection Act (IRPA). When it was initially enacted, IRPA protected individuals from discrimination based on “race, religious beliefs, color, sex, age, ancestry or place of origin.”⁵³ People who experienced discrimination could file a complaint with the Alberta Human Rights Commission. The complaint would then be investigated and, if deemed necessary, some form of mediation would be attempted. The Alberta Human Rights Commission was the first gatekeeper in a process that might see a case of discrimination being argued at the Supreme Court of Alberta.⁵⁴

IRPA did not include sexual orientation in its list of protected categories, but it did give GATE activists a legislative framework within which to advance their cause. It also gave the organization a target: the Alberta Human Rights Commission. In 1976, GATE presented a brief titled “Homosexuals: A Minority Without Rights” to the commission. In it, GATE argued that homophobia existed in the province and had a demonstrable effect on the lives of gay and lesbian Albertans. The brief cited specific examples of discrimination, including the 1975 vandalism of GATE’s office, the refusal of certain newspapers to print advertisements from GATE, and firings of gay teachers. GATE recognized that because sexual orientation was not included as a specific category under either IRPA or the Alberta Bill of Rights, gay and lesbian residents were not legally protected from discrimination.⁵⁵

GATE also recognized that public education and legal changes went hand in hand. “The Alberta Human Rights Commission is given a mandate to promote the principle that every person is equal in dignity and rights,” the brief stated, “and to research, develop and conduct programmes of public education to combat discrimination.”⁵⁶ Inclusion of sexual orientation in civil rights legislation was seen as a first step. Education would then be needed to combat prejudice and ignorance.⁵⁷ The brief itself was a form of education; GATE attempted to raise awareness of the challenges faced by gay and lesbian Albertans through briefs, presentations, and letter-writing campaigns to politicians and commission members.⁵⁸

In part as a result of GATE’s activism, in 1976 the Alberta Human Rights Commission recommended that “sexual preference” be protected under IRPA. Unfortunately, this suggestion was not taken up by the Progressive Conservative government. In 1978, the commission released a statement to the media that explained:

While neither condoning nor condemning the many life styles that now may be legally practiced . . . the Commission is unequivocal in its belief that society should not, in the fields of employment, housing and services, discriminate against people because of the life styles they choose to live, providing the practice of those styles of life does not contravene the law. During the past four years several groups have approached the Commission and the Government seeking protection under the Individual’s Rights Protection Act. The Commission believes that some of these groups should now receive that protection and has recommended it on grounds of physical characteristics, marital status, source of income and sexual preference.⁵⁹

The commission, after some changes in leadership, did not reiterate this recommendation in their 1979 submission to the provincial government.⁶⁰ GATE continued to submit briefs and to present its case to the commission, although to little effect.⁶¹ Sexual minorities were not protected by Alberta human rights legislation until 1998, when the Supreme Court of Canada ruled, in Vriend v. Alberta, that this exclusion violated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The phrase “sexual orientation” was still not explicitly included until 2009, when the divisive Bill-44 was passed—a bill that simultaneously protected the rights of sexual minorities while also limiting teachers’ ability to discuss “controversial” topics, including homosexuality.⁶²

The lack of explicit legal protections for sexual minorities had a very real on-the-ground effect. As GATE mentioned in its briefs, cases of discrimination often went unreported for several reasons, including fears of being outed. Being publicly known as a homosexual could lead to instances of further discrimination in employment, housing, and even in family law cases such as child custody determinations. Without the inclusion of “sexual orientation” in IRPA, it was very unlikely that the Alberta Human Rights Commission would investigate and mediate instances of discrimination against gay men and lesbian women. Undaunted, GATE Edmonton pushed on.

At the same time that GATE was taking a civil rights approach, its members were also confronting other forms of discrimination, including negative or stereotyped portrayals in the media. On 28 November 1976, for example, Bob Radke and Rosemary Ray wrote to the University of Alberta’s paper The Gateway regarding a cartoon that conflated homosexuality with a lack of masculinity. In their letter, they explicitly linked a willingness to “treat the subject with humour” and to laugh at “cardboard stereotypes” with a society that ignored the “mental and physical abuse” suffered by gays and lesbians. “The plight of the homosexual in today’s society is no laughing matter,” Radke and Ray reminded the paper. “This does not mean that we, the homosexuals, have lost our sense of humour. It merely emphasizes the fact that we do not consider our situation to be all that amusing.”⁶³

In another case, the University of Alberta’s Business Administration and Commerce Undergraduate Society’s newsletter felt it necessary to reassure readers that the Ambassador Tavern, a popular meeting spot for both gay folk and Commerce students, was “not a haven for Fags or etc.”⁶⁴ Prior to this notice in the student paper, the Ambassador had begun to refuse service to its gay clientele.⁶⁵ Michael Roberts, insulted by the newsletter’s use of a derogatory term, wrote to the editor: “I would like to agree with you, the Ambassador is not a haven for fags, however I and many of my homosexual student friends do go there to enjoy our drinks.”⁶⁶ This prompted the editor to write a retraction, which was published alongside Roberts’s letter of complaint.⁶⁷

Alongside these stereotyped and demeaning portrayals of gay men, GATE also confronted a deliberate attempt by media outlets to silence the organization. In 1976, GATE went head to head with the Edmonton Journal for the paper’s refusal “to print ads for our counselling service on the grounds that it is a ‘family newspaper.’”⁶⁸ The Edmonton Journal was not the only newspaper that refused advertisements from GATE; others included the Grande Prairie Daily Herald-Tribune, the Calgary Herald, and the Red Deer Advocate.⁶⁹ Although the Edmonton Journal defended its practice as “sensitivity towards the feeling of the general public” rather than discrimination, and although “sexual orientation” was still not a protected category under IRPA, GATE decided to submit a complaint on 3 March 1976 to the Alberta Human Rights Commission.⁷⁰

GATE Edmonton’s strategy in this case was no doubt inspired by GATE Vancouver, which had filed a complaint of discrimination against the Vancouver Sun for refusing to publish an advertisement for the newspaper Gay Tide.⁷¹ GATE Vancouver’s complaint was eventually debated before the Supreme Court of Canada in GATE v. Vancouver Sun, the first Supreme Court case of its kind.⁷² The Sun’s refusal to publish an advertisement submitted to the paper by GATE Vancouver was initially deemed discriminatory by the board of inquiry appointed to review the case. After multiple appeals to the Supreme Court of British Columbia and the BC Court of Appeal, the case made its way to the Supreme Court of Canada, which “ruled that freedom of expression and freedom of the press—in this case, the freedom not to print something—trumped minority civil rights.”⁷³ The outcome of the GATE Edmonton complaint is less clear. Very little is mentioned about it in subsequent meeting minutes. It is possible that after “sexual orientation” was not ultimately included in IRPA, GATE decided to pursue other actions, including continued lobbying of the Alberta Human Rights Commission.

Edmonton’s first gay liberation organization was a hodgepodge creation, built of the hopes and ambitions of a core group of activists. Throughout the 1970s, GATE Edmonton spoke out against discrimination in the media, lobbied the government for human rights protections, built coalitions with other groups regionally and nationally, and provided services necessary for people’s social and emotional survival. Many of the group’s initiatives were not ultimately successful. For example, the Alberta government did not institute the legislative changes that GATE had pursued. However, GATE was successful in building an active and visible queer community. As Cavalieri observed in 1983, “Almost every one of the groups in this city spun off from GATE. We parented them through the years, giving them some financial help and some moral support.”⁷⁴

As the first gay activist group in the city, GATE provided the template for other organizations that would soon follow. It was also successful, despite its supposed radical beginnings in a politically conservative province, in being recognized by the government six years after its formation. The informal organization started by a small group of university students, and accused of being run by “ultra activists,” would by 1977 be officially incorporated as a society under Alberta’s Societies Act.⁷⁵ However, by 1987 GATE lost its society status and, forever adaptable, rebranded itself as the Gay and Lesbian Community Centre of Edmonton, a predecessor of Pride Centre of Edmonton.⁷⁶ At different points throughout its first decade, GATE emphasized different actions depending on what its members saw as the immediate needs of their community, but at no point did the organization completely abandon its gay liberation principles, and it often attempted several strategies at once. A change of tactics did not equal an abandonment of GATE’s vision.

For their advice and for taking the time to discuss this paper with me, I would like to particularly thank Michael Phair, Valerie Korinek, and Karissa Patton. I would also like to acknowledge the important work of the activists and archivists who continue to preserve this important history. The City of Edmonton Archives houses the Gay and Lesbian Archives of Edmonton, which was created to collect and safeguard records related to the history of the Edmonton queer community.