Two names to be added to Craig Chaplin Memorial Award

This spring’s presentation of the award in my brother’s memory will include a couple of firsts – two individuals are being cited and they’re from across the Canada-U.S. border in neighbouring Vermont. To be more accurate, one-half of the couple of Dr. Delores Barbeau and Carol Olstad, R.N. will be honoured posthumously as Carol, who [...]

So three lawyers walk into the Ontario Legislature…

…but this is no joke! There’s a friendly exercise each morning that the Ontario Legislature sits when Members have the opportunity to introduce guests seated in the gallery – family members of one of the high school student pages, perhaps a visiting township reeve, or dignitaries representing other governments, be they in Canada or elsewhere. [...]

Rest in Peace, Jamie Hubley

“I’m tired of life, really. It’s so hard, I’m sorry, I can’t take it anymore.” “I don’t want my parents to think this is their fault, either. I love my mom and dad. It’s just too hard. I don’t want to wait three more years, this hurts too much.” As carefully as he worded his [...]

Not pictured

View Full Album I am mindful, on this Father’s Day, that I do not have many photographs of Thomas Arnold (“Arnie”) Chaplin.  (The additional ones I do have are wedding party shots with people who might not wish to be published.)  However my memory informs me of many more, in safe-keeping with Mom, from the [...]

June 18 proclaimed as Pride Day in the Town of Perth, Ontario!

Imagine my delight, and yes pride, to learn that LGBT Lanark County had won its bid for a Pride Day proclamation in Perth for June 18. (This was also the first I’d heard of LGBT Lanark County. Their web site is pretty impressive!) The Perth Courier, and an advertiser-householder known locally as the EMC, both [...]

Unpacking (more) personal baggage

Pardon me for the humourless dissecting of my neuroses Have I mentioned before having used, for many years, the esteem-busting mantra “If anyone deserves AIDS, I do!”  (Looking at it now I feel like each word should be italicized for emphasis, rather than just one or two.) What a message: If anyone deserves AIDS, I [...]

“It Gets Better” tops 2010 list

Dan Savage and husband Terry Miller started something in 2010 that Mark Kelley and the CBC Connect crew put at the top of Connect 10: A  Countdown of the most popular stories online in 2010. Responding to highly-publicized cases of bullying and suicides of gays and lesbians, the “It Gets Better” project was launched with [...]

World AIDS Day 2010 – Stories – 2 – “This friend living with AIDS who gave me so much…” by Dominique Gauvreau

Each author in this series has generously given me permission to post their work. The views and experiences shared are their own. Where applicable, links will also be provided at the end of the piece. This is the World AIDS Day, 2010 entry in Dominique Gauvreau’s blog Rencontre sous le Chêne de Mamré (Meeting under [...]

For Betty Ann

  I’m the only one, I dare say, who can appreciate at this very moment – Tuesday, November 23, 2010 at 04 04 06 01 EST – both the frustration and the ‘been punk’d’ feeling I have after experiencing countless “(Not Responding)” messages from any number of programs I’ve successively tried to employ in writing [...]

Ever-developing story – Clint “I-like-it-when-gays-die” McCance speaks to CNN’s Anderson Cooper: brain farts maybe?

I’m keeping this post open to add more developments.  Suffice to say, to begin, that Clint McCance’s so-called apology on CNN’s AC 360 is not going over very well.  (As I wrote at the time it seemed like Anderson had to pull out the nature of his wrongs.  They weren’t forthcoming from McCance himself.) David [...]

Clint McCance is a man who should be run out of Arkansas

This idiot’s 15 minutes (I don’t expect he’d know what that means) will, hopefully, soon be over but surely not before he loses his elected job on the Midland, Arkansas school board. Anderson Cooper set the story up this way last evening and then had a couple of great guests, including the whistle-blower: A screen-shot of [...]

Sticks and Stones…

I’d imagine it must be painful for a parent to have to impart to their children those familiar words, “Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me.” I was certainly skeptical. Long before summoning the courage to come out to my parents at age 21, I had known that I [...]

A streetcar stop reunion brings back memories

The other night, my arms heavy with groceries, I heard my name being called at the corner of Yonge and Carlton. That’s a very busy corner so this is definitely a ‘small world’ story. He told me, as I didn’t immediately recognize him, that he was Pete Bailey from The Standard (in St. Catharines) and [...]

Beaten senseless, Windsor man adds his story to the archives of insane gay-bashings

I’m angry, I’m sad, angry, sad, angry, sad…   The Windsor Star’s account includes a video of the young victim, who clearly understands the value of personal story-telling, holding a press conference to describe the beating he endured and some of the deeper meanings, however ironic. I heard about this yesterday but only started to [...]

On this International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia

To Head Teacher/Principal wannabe C.G., who rarely missed an opportunity to taunt me, terrify me, pit me against his son and my other classmates; To the kids who teased me for the friends I chose; To those who often made the forty minute bus ride to and from high school each day so frightening; To [...]