We left the trucks at the end of the logging road in the heart of British Columbia’s Coast Range. We trudged through the fireweed and blueberries into the forest. The late summer rains came, and the trail became like soup. Being what some might call butch, we were not bothered at all by the mud or the weight of our backpacks, which grew heavier as the crinoline and party hats inside grew sodden.
We reached the cabin near dusk. The rain turned to sleet. Water poured off the tin roof in silver rivulets. The storm obscured the peaks and glaciers above us. The universe vibrated with danger and possibility.
We filed inside, fired up our gas stoves and made soup, as mountain men do when they find shelter. We unpacked the portable stereo, peeled off our thermal underwear and slipped into cocktail dresses, crinoline skirts, tuxedos and high heels. The manliest among us shook up a round of martinis. As the sound of “Boogie Wonderland” ricocheted from the walls, and the vodka and vermouth did its work, we all heard a small, clear voice from the cabin’s loft:
“Daddy, why are those men wearing dresses?”
Then, deeper: “Just go to sleep, son.”
It is disconcerting for decent homosexuals to engage in our natural and instinctual rituals, only to be interrupted by straight people. Of course heterosexuals have every right to hike into the mountains and teach their children to act out their Jungian fantasies with knives, binoculars, rifles and cheap beer. It’s a free country. But it’s freaky when they are so shamelessly open about it, so in your face.
And it’s hard, in these changing times, for a self-respecting Canadian homosexual to know how to act. Gone are the days when the right course of action would be to pull up our skirts and run, shrieking, into the slushy tundra for fear of our lives. Canadians expect a little more decorum from us; a little more…how should I put it? Normalcy. Nowadays, when gay people get together for a party, everyone assumes we’re having a wedding.
How things have changed in the 40 years since Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau declared that there was no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation.
We can now hold hands—or hit the sack—without getting arrested. The police have generally given up raiding gay bars and bathhouses. Our stars and heroes have come out of the closet. Olympic swimmer Mark Tewksbury. National funnyman Rick Mercer. Trés gay crooner Rufus Wainwright.
We have been embraced as part of the fabric of the culture by the straight shooters who once scared the pants off us. This lovefest was sealed in a musical hug a decade ago, when het* highwayman Stompin’ Tom Connors reached across the gender-bent divide to play a country tribute to lady-crazy k.d. lang.
And now there’s marriage. I was proud of my friends Dawn and Elizabeth when they exchanged rings in a garden ceremony back in 2003. It was the most grown-up thing any of my queer pals had ever done. The couple was among a gaggle of knot-tiers who took their fight for marriage all the way to the Supreme Court. Now the Government of Canada has recognized same-sex marriage, and our country has become the pink nuptial capital of the world.
Which is as it should be. But all this good news has made for challenging times for gay people in Canada. Because—and this is the part that takes the fizz off the champagne—along with rights come responsibilities.
Once upon a time, when a single fellow hit 40, people just assumed he was gay and stopped pressuring him to settle down. Not anymore. Now not only are we supposed to marry, we are expected to help shore up Canada’s flagging demographics by making babies with our friends or adopting them from the far-flung corners of the developing world. The conservative majority—by which I mean our mothers and fathers and siblings—want us to drive minivans, attend PTA meetings, move to the suburbs and buy lawnmowers, just like them. They want us to stop having fun.
They have had some success. Just look at the thriving “gaybourhoods” in Toronto, ON, Montréal, QC and Vancouver, BC, where the formerly footloose now push strollers, arms loaded with Pampers, cheeks puffed with the grotesqueries of baby-talk. You ask these grown-up gays to park the stroller with granny and head out to where the wild things are, and they invariably respond with shy mumbles about getting to bed by eight.
A strong few are resisting this madness. There is a growing movement among Canada’s queer population to respond with a big, fat No to this insidious effort to force us to grow up. We have built a way of life around throwing the nation’s best parties, serving as confidants for our soccer-mom siblings, and providing super-fun aunts and uncles for the nation’s kids. We committed long ago to being available for shopping, coffee dates and weekends in Montréal or Banff (AB), and we are not going to let something as trifling as a human-rights victory obscure these historic duties.
It was such noble resistance that brought 10 of us to that mountain cabin in the middle of a late-August storm. We were out. We were proud. And were not going to let the Man stop us from shaking our Gore-Tex booties to Earth, Wind and Fire.
Yet, when the voice of that little urchin tumbled down from the loft cabin, our faces paled in shock. Dancers settled to their wooden benches, adjusted their wigs self-consciously and set down their martini glasses. Someone muffled the stereo. The room fell silent. We felt the weight of the nation’s new expectations. Snow sluffed from the tin roof and hit the ground with a whump.
We gazed up at the loft, fearful, defiant.
A little head poked out from the shadows. A pair of eyes caught the light of our headlamps. They darted back and forth across the scene, registering our brassieres, wigs, tuxedos and party hats, and they widened. “Can I play?” asked the lad, smiling broadly.
“Oh, God,” came the muffled voice of the father.
A détente was established: grownups upstairs with earplugs. Kids down with dancing slippers. The music returned. Adulthood was deferred. The night was born again, and the future of the nation sparkled like sequins in fresh snow.
Editor’s note: *That’s “het” as in “heterosexual.”