Tag Archives: Gay history

What turns women to Lesbianism? Ideas from 1966.

Posted on February 14, 2013 by Kevin Allen | Leave a comment

Chatelaine Magazine featured a 5-page article in October 1966, exploring the phenomenon of lesbianism written by Renate Wilson. Largely sympathetic, the author contrasted lived experiences of the lesbians she interviewed for the story with academic and psychiatric theories of lesbianism – a certain gulf existed between the two of them.

Lesbians reported feeling fundamentally normal and were proud to be contributing members of society. Many did not know they were lesbian until their 20s: often after they had married men and had children.

Wilson’s interview subjects reported:

“Until I was twenty I didn’t even know the word lesbian.”

“I read about lesbianism but didn’t connect it with my own situation”

“I got married, had a baby. then I met this woman and it suddenly hit me like a sledgehammer: I could love her but not him.”

“I don’t hate men, I just don’t want to marry one.”

Wilson remarked that, “most lesbians aren’t distinguishable by appearance. Of the dozen I met [in] a Vancouver apartment, a few wore slacks, but only one was vehemently against skirts. They would not have stood out in a group of housewives, office girls or nurses getting together to play bridge or discuss PTA or union affairs.”

The article goes into some detail about potential causes of lesbianism, ruling out heredity, chromosomal abnormality, glandular imbalance, and free choice. Wilson settled on Freud and current (in 1966) psychological trends, which focus on psychosexual development and the role of parents in a child’s upbringing, which sounds far-fetched and bizarre to a modern-day reader.

Wilson noted that if a girl does have lesbian leanings and is willing to be treated by psychotherapy, a change in orientation does not have the best of chances. She writes: “According to the Toronto Forensic Service lesbians rarely attempt treatment and when they do they harder to help than males. In ten years, Dr. Turner hasn’t seen one lesbian persevere in therapy to completion; yet he can count considerable success with male homosexuals.”

The article concluded with the legal context for Canadian homosexuals, noting that in common law lesbianism is mostly ignored. Wilson explained, “When a revision of English law in 1885 condemned homosexual practices by men and women, Queen Victoria refused to sign it because, as she huffily explained, ‘women can’t do that together.’ Rather than enlighten Her Majesty, her ministers removed women from the clause.”

Calgary, 1965 – Anglican Pastor Wants Homosexuals in His Flock

Posted on February 7, 2013 by Kevin Allen | 2 comments

“The time has come for the church to become the Good Samaritan, instead of ignoring homosexuals as they suffer at the wayside.” So declared Reverend Richard E. Clark, pastor of the Anglican Church of the Holy Trinity, Calgary, in his Sunday sermon of March 28th, 1965. The sermon caused enough sensation to be reported in time for the daily news on Monday, March 29th.

At a time when homosexuality was not discussed in polite conversation, Clark spent much of his oration describing the status of homosexuals in Canadian society, stating that the church has overlooked the problem and abdicated responsibility to both psychiatrists and government. He suggested to his congregation that they begin to recognize that homosexuals are indeed sinful but no more sinful than “normal” society.

He was inspired to this point of view by Pierre Berton’s 1965 book, The Comfortable Pew: a critical look at Christianity and the religious establishment in the new age. In it Berton makes the case that the homosexual is the modern day equivalent of the leper in our society.

Reverend Clark concluded that, “If the Anglican Church of Canada wishes to make a significant contribution to the work of God then let us announce without hedging we invite you, the homosexuals and lesbians into our pews.”

[Both the clipped article and Berton’s book can be found at the Calgary Public Library. The article was found in the Central Library’s 4th Floor Local History Room]

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Posted in Gay history

Tagged anglican church, Calgary, calgary public library, gay, Gay history, Pierre Berton, queer

Gay Clubs in Calgary as far back as 1939!

Posted on January 31, 2013 by Kevin Allen | 2 comments

Back at the University of Calgary archives this week, looking at old theses – the one’s that had to be manually typed with splotchy typewriters! Gold was struck in finding Audrey Dwornik’s, Master of Social Work thesis titled: Self-help and Homsexuality (1970).

The premise of her paper is that groups of deviants because of societal pressures, seek each other out for support, acceptance and a sense of freedom. Despite the language, Dwornik was largely sympathetic to the plight of homosexuals at the time; she used “deviant” in an academic sense, as in “deviating from the norm.”

As part of her research she looked into the history of homosexual friendship groups in Calgary. She found the history of gay clubs in Calgary ran back to at least 1939. She writes, “It was in this year that a homosexual was arrested and he told the police about a homosexual club he belonged to. The name of the club was the Pansy Club. The members of this club rented an apartment where no one lived, but where they had their parties in private away from the fears of being arrested. The club mainly had a social function, but it also acted as a means of self-protection for its members while participating in homosexual relationships.”

There were Pansy Clubs in many North American cities, a caberet-style phenomenon that sprouted in New York and spread. Who knew it had made it all of the way to Calgary, whose population in 1939 was 85,726!

Check out this link to Pansy Clubs of the 1920s and 1930s, featuring the song, “Masculine Women, Feminine Men” (1926) Fox-Trot, played by the Savoy Havana Band.

Sidebar: Dworkin made some funny observations about homosexual friendship groups. For example, she explains, “The type of homosexual know as the ‘queen’ is only present in overt groups. Their role is to provide a place where the group may gather and where its members may have their ‘affairs.’ ‘She’ also helps finance members in distress, acts as intermediary in making sexual contacts, partially controls the entrance of new members by warning those already members of persons who may try to take advantage of them, such as persons who like to steal from homosexuals.” Phew, what a job description for those 20th century queens – expectations must have been high…