Outspoken: An Afternoon with Betty Baxter and Daniel Gawthrop

Um so today we are so excited to welcome Betty Baxter and Daniel Gothra. Uh Betty was a member of the National Advisory Council on Fitness and Amateur Sport, a founder of Canadian Women in Sport and initiated the National Coaching School for Women. She spent years as an educational and human rights consultant. Daniel Gothre is the author of seven books, a co-founder of The Cutting Edges, Vancouver's LGBTQ plus hockey association, and has written extensively about hockey for numerous publications. Today's program is part of Love in a Dangerous Time, which is a traveling exhibition from the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, which was developed in partnership with the LGBT Purge Fund. This exhibit is currently on display in our main hall upstairs, and it'll be there until September 15th. Um, this exhibition explores the history of the LGBT purge, which was a decadesl long campaign in which thousands of members of the Canadian Armed Forces, the RCMP, and the Federal Public Service were investigated, harassed, and in many cases dismissed because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. We invite you to spend some time with this exhibition while you're here. You can also visit at the table an exhibition by Salt Spring Island artist Janette Sir, currently on display in our East Gallery um as well as on the lower level. Lastly, the co-chair of the LGBT Purge Fund, Todd Ross, um actually wrote the forward for Betty's books. I'm just going to read at her request uh the last two paragraphs of this wonderful forward by Todd Ross. When Betty approached the LGBT Purge Fund and shared her story, we were pleased to support her through the LGBT Purge Fund Community Fund, her story and the connections to the LGBT Purge hit home. Not only was an exemplary career cut short, but her dedication to sport, to call out wrongs, and to continue in the face of injustices matched the same courage and conviction of so many who were wronged. Betty Baxter was the right person to be building Canada's national team. Her powerful narrative will grip you from beginning to end. And while we can't go back in time to correct these wrongs, her story reminds us of the importance of doing what is right now and for the future. Welcome, Betty and Daniel. I want to start every talk that I give in public acknowledging the LGBT purge fund. I I'm just going to throw this out. How many of you had heard of the LGTB purge today before today when you walked in the lobby upstairs? >> So several had heard of it. So you're 90% ahead of most of the groups that I've been talking to. And that's one of the things that Daniel and I talked about is we wanted to focus the readings from our respective books on the human rights aspects and some of the wrongs that we experienced and what how we coped with those wrongs. Um, I'm in particular trying to talk at the beginning of every talk about the purge fund because I'm conscious that the reason there was a community fund as part of the class action settlement is because people died. The people who did not live long enough to get reconciliation or any of the funds from the class action, their monies went into a community fund and I received a grant from that community fund to help promote my book. So, I feel that responsibility very heavy that I'm able to come here and travel to other cities to promote my book because people didn't live long enough to hear an apology from the federal government. So, I want us all to hold that that it was a time when no one acknowledged the harm that was done. And now that it's being acknowledged, I'm thrilled that here we have one of our our lovely libraries in British Columbia putting that exhibit so that the public can see it. And I spent about 10 minutes when I first arrived here. It's a very moving exhibit. I also want to thank again Todd Ross. Uh I called Todd Ross at the uh suggestion of my publisher because we were trying to figure out how to appropriately acknowledge that the Purgeman had contributed to the book. And when he answered and said that he had been a volunteer coordinator on my campaign in 1993 and met me when I was running for federal office because he had just been declared by the military in a squimalt that he was disadvantage disadvantagally unemployable because of homosexuality. So he was a young man of 21 and I knew I remembered the name and when I saw his face I recognized a young man who stepped up to help me as I was trying to run for federal office. So these are the things that happen after 40 or 45 years. You run into good people still doing good things. So, with that, I'm going to start the reading off and Dan and I agreed that we would have me do some of the readings that exemplify the human rights issues and then I'm going to pass it over to Dan and then we'll come back again for some of the things that we did that became a little more celebratory or positive in nature. So, my first reading takes place in Cuba. I am a member of the national team. The first part of the book is basically a young athlete coming from southern Alberta, small town, learns the ropes, makes the national team, and we're training in Cuba. And I've been out to myself and some close friends, and I will say one or two of whom are in this room that uh I've been out as gay for about a year and a half, two years, and we never spoke about our sexual orientation on the team. It would basically have ended our careers. So, we're in Cuba and I am rooming with the one of the only other uh lesbians on the team. It one afternoon a strange event unfolded unfolded when the Cuban interpreter, a woman in her 20s who had been assigned to our team, came to the room at the resort that I shared with Carol. This interpreter had guessed that we were gay, the only two gay players on the team at the time, and she asked to come in and quietly closed the door behind her. He sat carefully on one of the cotss and whispered that she needed to ask us a serious question. We stopped what we were doing. I sat on the other cot facing her while Carol stood at the end of the cot where she had been folding clothes. We were very curious. The interpreter spoke English well, but she was obviously having difficulties finding the words to use for her question. Finally, in a quiet voice, she said she liked women and asked if there was any way we could help her get out of Koopa. She believed she had been discovered and that her job and perhaps even her life may be threatened. We were a gasast. We were also instantly fearful about our own safety. How had she picked us out? We didn't know how to help her and we stressed that she should not approach approach our team leaders as they wouldn't have any information and in fact might further endanger her by taking information to our hosts. My heart was pounding. Would she out us? Could we be ejected from the country if someone learned of this private conversation? We were out to only a few of our teammates and none of our coaching staff. Were she truly in danger? We were afraid for ourselves and for her, and after several moments of stressful conversations, we suggested she contact the Canadian embassy in Bana, but we had no other ideas as to how to help her. As she left, we stressed again that she should not contact our coaches. When the door closed, we were both too alarmed to say much to each other. But we swallowed our fear as we prepared to go to training that afternoon and hopefully lose our distress in our physical efforts. Now, for the first time, the fear that our personal lives could be exposed tainted our training environment. At that time, women athletes were often called lesbians or dikes as a common insult. If women played softball or even basketball, the slurs were more frequent. But volleyball seemed to have escaped the butch reputation, and we had felt relatively safe as long as we stayed closeted. If you were strong, people believed you couldn't really be a woman. And many female athletes went out of their way with feminine dress, jewelry, and manners precisely so they wouldn't be suspect. I already knew students who had been rejected by their families because they were gay or knew of coaches who purged their teens of any loan known lesbians, claiming they were harmful to team harmony. Canada was thought to be a safe country, but the federal government had been actively purging gays and lesbians from the civil service since the late 1950s, and the military had followed suit as homosexuals were considered a security risk. It had only been a few years since homosexual had been decriminalized, and it would be many more years until Michelle Douglas's groundbreaking military case was settled in December of 1992. Our conversation was 1975, so we're in the late mid70s. and Canada began the process of adding protection based on sexual orientation to the country's human rights legislation. Back in 1974, gay block bashing was common on Canadian streets, and we knew that being discovered at a gay bar could ruin our athletic careers, especially as gay bars were routinely raided by the police. In Cuba, we didn't know what kind of punishment discovery would lead to. We never raised the subject with our teammates and other athletes didn't even joke about it because it was too raw and too risky an insult for any of us. straight or gay. As a result, there was no one we could safely speak to about our encounter that afternoon. We saw that young woman briefly in the gym that evening and then didn't see her again in our remaining days in Cuba. Had someone seen her exiting our room? We had no way to even ask about her. She seemed to have been reassigned. The next piece is quite a bit later and in the middle what happens is I finish a successful career as an Olympic captain. I become an apprentice coach and then I am named as the coach of Canada's national team which was I was young for the job and I had been groomed specifically for the job. So this is what happens the fall after my first international tour. There's a few adventures around the international tour, but I'm going to read you as I pinpoint from that first summer. So now we're now in 1981. In the fall of 1981, after the world university ad in Romania and three long weeks of traveling, the athletes returned to their home cities to enroll in their various university programs. We'd planned to meet again for a Christmas training camp in Toronto. As head coach, I had sent them fitness training programs and spent some administrative time in the volleyball association's office in Ottawa. My tasks were to write up the competition reports, prepare my travel schedule, to scout some of our opponents, and to determine the logistics for the winter and spring training camps. No one questioned me about our summer travel, and I had no opportunity to find out how we had ended up on a train in Romania without appropriate travel documents. That's a reference to the future, the previous chapter. This silence was odd, but then on one of the first trips back to the office in late September, a colleague and former member of the men's national team, who I'd known for years, asked me to step into his office. He closed the door quickly behind him, and as he sat down, I stopped in front of his desk, raised my eyebrows. What's up? gesture. He drowned his fingers on the desk for a moment, then looked up and said, I want you to know some of my best friends are gay, and it's not an issue to me, but I'm giving you a heads up. He paused, searching for the words. "There's a lot of talk about you being a lesbian. Too much talk." "Why are you telling me this?" I asked with some trepidation. Though I'd known him a long time, we were never more than acquaintances, but he was good friends with the technical director, who had been my master coach the previous year, and who had seemed oddly absent since my return. In my 12 years of being affiliated with the volleyball association, no staff member, coach, or official had ever raised the topic of my sexual orientation. This was my first encounter with the administrative staff since returning from Europe. I wondered where the executive director and other office staff were. I didn't believe this encounter was merely by chance and asked myself, was the office empty today by design? Was his task to see my reaction? But he seemed calm, almost disengaged. "I don't know," he said. "I thought you should know." "They might ask you awkward questions at November's board meeting." Uncertain whether his comments were based on friendship or even goodwill. I left the office troubled, but as I walked away, I also remembered the strange encounter when the executive director had come to the training gymnasium in early July is where he asked me pointedly why I was taking a gay athlete on the team. After that short discussion with my colleague, I wondered whether a gossip campaign had been initiated while I was away. I prepared for a trip to Mexico to observe an international volleyball tournament in October where I would scout young athletes. I re resigned myself to dealing with the organizations concerned at the November board meeting. But in the meantime, I did confront an Ottawa University coach who worked and traveled with the national team when I was a player. I happened upon him on the street outside the University of Ottawa gym a few days before I left for Mexico. After a brief but friendly greeting, I asked, "Have you heard rumors this past summer about my sexual orientation being a problem for the national team?" He shuffled in place, backed up a bit, then looked at his hands before stuffing both in his jeans pockets. "Yeah, there's been a lot of talk. None of it official though." He paused before continuing. They've made some good points. I looked at him closely, surprised that he was so forthcoming, but now I was curious. Such as. He shifted his weight again, clearly more uncomfortable, and answered quietly, "Well, what parent would send their daughter to a program if they knew the coach was a lesbian?" I held my temper in check when I answered, "You and I both know there has been inappropriate behavior by coaches in these programs, but I have not been one of them, and you also know that." I walked away considering the double standard that was now apparent in fuming about how many times the CDA had put aside complaints about male coaches inappropriate behavior towards young female athletes. But I was also worried. I'm going to stop there and then I'll pick up after Dan has a few moments to tell you about hobby. >> Okay. Thanks be. Well, first of all, um, welcome everybody here and, um, I have to say it's, uh, it's quite an honor to be sharing, you know, a platform here with an Olympic athlete since, uh, I come to my book not from any sort of level of achievement as Betty has, but rather as a u, as I call it, a perpetual intermediate recreational beer. Um, [laughter] it's a it's [clears throat] interesting. Betty, this is first today is the first time in 33 years that Betty and I have seen each other. Um I was covering her campaign uh for um uh MP for uh Vancouver Center, an election won by Betty Fry, who's held the seat ever since. And uh Betty and I, the story of Betty and being fired, um there's some commonality here because I was fired too. Um but I was fired by Extra West um after endorsing Betty on the front page of Extra West without informing my my bosses in Toronto. [laughter] [gasps] But uh I was also fired because I didn't do a good job as publisher, but that's another story. Um anyway, um I really I really was also uh moved to be invited for this particular discussion because um in terms of the purge, the story that I have to tell doesn't have anything comparable around people being fired from hockey for being gay. And part of the reason for that is that it would have been impossible because there is nobody who would ever have been identified as gay in hockey. And so that itself is part of the paradox and what I'm talking about. So [gasps] what I bring instead to um to to this discussion is is a look at um and with through the book was a look at how um orthodox masculinity came to uh u has evolved in terms of its its hold over the game and how it's perceived. Um before I get into my two quick readings just wanted to um give people an idea uh about what the book's about. my publisher at Arsenal Press, Brian Lamb, asked me uh to contribute to what he called a publishers's letter that he sends to people to get them to endorse the book. So, the short piece that I said was that back in 1994 when Vancouver's cutting edges were born, and that's the um the gay men's team at the time that I helped that I started, um the idea of gay men playing hockey and competing against straight men who were fully aware of our identity was indeed cutting edge. Hockey, like many other team sports, was a homophobic game that had long tormented us, forcing many to abandon it at puberty. So, why did we come back then? What was it about a sport long known for its on ice violence and off ice toxicity that attracted queer focus fans and players? And how could we reclaim the sport from our traumatic memories of it by embracing our true authentic selves? These are questions I've explored ever since. What was missing from hockeyy's historical record was what I like to call a forensic audit of its orthodox masculinity, the triumphalist machismo that still dominates it. And so with Cutting Edge, I set out to examine how traditional ideas about sexuality and gender have determined how hockey is played, who ought to play it, and who it's for, and how might queer culture point the way toward a more enlightened game. So, for my two readings, I've chosen um a couple of examples where this maxi this masculinity and toxic masculinity um it's the heaviest part of the book. There's a chapter midway through that's the heaviest part. It is ultimately a story of triumph, but two examples where that masculinity had an impact on gay gay boys and young men. And so I'll begin with this one. Among gay men who have been alienated from hockey all their lives, no one has had it worse than the figure skater. If there was such a thing as a purple heart for adult survivors of my favorite sport, some form of official recognition of the courage it took to resist hockeyy's hegemonic hold over the experience of Canadian boyhood. The most deserving recipients would be the men who as boys had the courage to choose figure skating over hockey. Targeted for homophobic abuse regardless of their sexuality, these men made themselves vulnerable as boys just by being who they were and wanted to be and by expressing themselves artistically on the ice. Ridiculed by other boys, the male figure skater was subjected to abusive bigotry for no other reason than the stupid idea that figure skating is just for girls. Hockey players in particular resented the male figure skater for choosing the silent inner world of a low masculinity individual sport, more of a creative pursuit really, over the compulsory camaraderie of a high masculinity team sport. As if the queer male figure skater effeminy, his visible gayness was not enough of a threat to their own sense of manhood, hockey players could not fathom how another guy could prefer a sport that emphasized aesthetics over aggressive physical contact. and they were jealous of those homos for being better skaters than they were. One of the most revealing personal accounts of this experience is that of William Brightell, a sports sociologist and former competitive figure skater whose story I drew uh from his uh essay, What do you mean you don't play hockey? You a queer or something? Reflections on life as a non- hockey playing Canadian boy published in Overcoming the neutral zone trap hockeyy's agents of change a University of Alberta press publication from uh 2021 was that rarest of creatures in the small Ontario town where he was born and raised. A non-disabled white male who not only never played hockey in his youth but also never attended a single hockey game at any level. nor as an adult had you watched an entire NHL game on television. Not even Olympic hockey games when Canada was playing the US. On the final day of the 2010 Winter Games, when most Canadians were glued to their screens watching their men's hockey team win gold, Bridell was teaching a yoga class in Kingston. Sydney Crosby in overtime. Yawn. Whatever. Ryell came by his anti-hockey snobbery, his purposeful indifference to the sport honestly. From early childhood until his peak years in competitive figure skating, he was taunted, bullied, harassed, and even sexually assaulted by Canadian boys and young men who played hockey. His story should be familiar to any male figure skater who fails to comprehend the appeal of a sport that has done nothing but oppress them all their skating lives. As Bradell recalled, his problems began at age five when he got his first pair of figure skates, a handme-down from his uh sorry, from his sister. They were white. Boys at the local rink waiting to play hockey after his skating sessions teased him about those skates. The problem, it seems, is that white skates are for girls. Everyone knows that, he wrote. By age 11, Brideel had, in his quote, endured six years of being called queer, on a more or less daily basis. I'm frequently shoved around, punched, and on occasion kicked. This mostly happens during recess at school, but the boys who bully me are hockey players, so it's pretty much guaranteed that if they miss me at school, they'll find me at the rink. And on it went throughout adolescence and into young adulthood. At one point, Bredell was invited to a sleepover under false pretenses by a hockey player he was attracted to, only to become the victim of a degrading group sexual assault by that player and his teammates. And the second story is about hockey directly. >> [clears throat] >> So to give a bit of context, the next section I'm going to read uh takes place during the gay games in 1990 in Vancouver, which I co-organized that that event. And I earlier in the chapter, I talk about how difficult it was to recruit gay men to my team that I was trying to have. There was already a women's team already registered for the games, but I wanted to have a men's team. And it turned out I ended up having to recruit a lot of women because there were too many and couldn't get on the women's team. Anyway, this is how this section starts. [gasps and sighs] I recall nothing of the pre-ournament scrimmages, but I do recall my alarm at the closetedness of some of my male teammates, their discomfort the closer we got to opening ceremonies about the prospect of media covering an event for which they'd signed up of their own free will. It was here I learned one of my first sobering political lessons about gay liberation. Despite our shared desire to be free, we all have different levels of anxiety and ways of coping as gay men, especially when it comes to the pressures and expectations of orthodox masculinity in mainstream culture. For me, the matter was simple. After a long hibernation, I had come out at last, not screaming my sexuality from the rooftops, but no longer hiding it either. My politics were typical of an earnest human rights activist with all the militants one might expect of a lapsed Roman Catholic recently unshackled from his Vatican chains. Brother Mark uh I was getting on with life by living without compromise more than happy to be witnessed in the gay millu. Zealously prescriptive I wanted everyone to achieve and celebrate the same hard one liberation I had. My assumption was that all participants regarded the gay games the same way as a public expression of celebration, a shared rejoicing in the simple fact of being ourselves. I thought we all felt or sought to feel the same way, fearlessly confident and happy to be seen by our friends and families who of course were allies in embracing the moment of our own becoming. But such a perspective was far too idealistic. Damn. Where am I here? Oh yeah. As a couple, as I'm going to talk about one of these teammates, there were two, but I'm going to talk about one. As this teammate in particular would demonstrate, true liberation is never as simple as one declarative statement or single event. This player was forced by his own experience of hockey bigotry to adopt a personal survival strategy of quiet discretion. He was the best player on our team, a gifted skater with a fusive, sorry, fusive. Sorry, my eyes here. I might need readers, too. with offensive talent who had once been a referee in the Western Hockey League WHL. For years, Russ Neely had moved up in the game as a ref, advancing in every level of on ice official until reaching the pinnacle of major junior hockey. Neie had every reason to believe that those green lights would keep going for him all the way to the NHL, where he would become part of the world's top refereeing fraternity. His WHL colleagues told him as much. However, the walls were closing in. His gur ambition was colliding with his desire to be true to himself. He had grown up in the heart of the Fraser Valley Bible belt in a town where evangelical homophobes typically spewed their bigotry at any sign of unorthodox male behavior. And so from elementary school onward, he had put on a survival mask of pseudorness. This mass would serve him well in hockey, especially in the black and white world of the zebra striped ref, where poker faced inscrutability, was a necessary component for projecting impartiality. The pressures of being a ref in the WHO, a significant feeding source for the NHL draft, are heavy for anyone, regardless of sexuality. The fan abuse to which all refs are still subjected today, abuse that includes homophobic taunts and epithets, has long been seen as part of the game. Straight presenting and masculine, Neely had a good cover. He doubted that anyone in the hockey world suspected his secret. During his first season of roughing in the W, both teams in a division final asked him to officiate. But by the time his second season began in 198485, Neie already hiding his homosexuality from fellow on ice officials, players, team staff, and rink personnel, was finding the pressure unbearable. Every night he could hear the mobs of drunken fans screaming at him from the stands. "Whenever I heard shouts of you, ref, I wondered if my mask might be slipping," he told me recently, breaking a public silence of four decades. I may have had the courage to referee for league finals where games drew as many as 15,000 fans, but not to do it as an openly gay man. Even if I did possess such courage, I knew that opportunity would not exist if I were true to myself. So, I decided it's either hockey or it's me. And to borrow the title of Derek Sanderson's book, I decided I've got to be me. By January 1985, Neie called up in January, sorry, in January 85, Neie called up the WHL's executive director and supervisor officials of officials and told him he was quitting. He was met with shock. After all the training and sacrifice, you now decide to quit when you're this close. The only explanation he gave was that he wanted to pursue a different path. 5 years later, here he was, signed up for the gay games where he could enjoy hockey as a player without putting himself in the crosshairs of unwanted attention. At the time, I hoped he would share his story with any media covering the games, failing to appreciate how rot this traumatic experience still must have been for him. Now, he was coming out at his own pace by participating in a more positive sort of blending in the solidarity of shared experience through gay sports. After the hell he'd been through as a ref, there would be good karma for Russ Neely. A few years later, he became one of the few guys in my little hockey world who met their future husbands by playing on the same team. >> So, you can see the theme that we're trying to do is show you that certainly our encountering with discrimination was not individual, but was actually endemic and and symptomatic of the time. So Dan left us in the early '9s. Uh I'm going to take us back to 1994 or 1984 rather. By this point in the book, I I think there must be some rule there. You're not supposed to read at the back so that people will have to read the book, but I seem to want to, you know, tell you some hits from the back of the book. At this point of the book, I was fired shortly after my encounter with staff and that November board meeting and I was fired with no notice. So it it was a traumatic life shattering experience that suddenly after 18 months my job was gone. So I came back to Vancouver and I talk a little bit about uh some touching moments with my family as I decided exactly as Dan has explained. You have the choice between being who they tell you is unacceptable or being yourself and you have to make the choice to be yourself. So, I am now in San Francisco at the very inaugural gay games in 1982. I have a new lover that I've met in Vancouver. I am determined that I will be an out and proud lesbian. And in some of circles that was a bit obnoxious. In fact, I will share it's not in the book. I kind of made a point in those years that I would say the word lesbian in public until people stopped gasping [laughter] when I said this. And so I wasn't really welcome company in lots of places because I decided like you're going to do this. So this is now uh at the gate games and people are trying to encourage me to play volleyball but I'm very aware that the sport and organized sport is a place of pain for me. The gay games encouraged the representation of individual cities, not countries, as required by most international sport competitions. As a result, 55 gay and lesbian participants had come from Vancouver, including a men's volleyball team. I hadn't even known there was a gay volleyball league in the West End, although I stayed away from watching any volleyball, as my feelings about that sport were still too raw. another other than the soccer game featuring Anita's team, which was my new partner. I didn't watch any other sports as I felt a vague hostility toward organized sport and had yet had yet determined hadn't yet determined if the gay sport environment would be a safe one for me. But hanging out in the Castro area of San Francisco, watching the antics as women and men from cities across North America celebrated on the streets was both eyeopening and healing because everyone was out and proud and so clearly having a good time. Watching men holding hands and dancing or women hugging and kissing on the street was something I'd never seen before. Six months earlier, I had been fired for being gay. And here I was amid thousands of people o openly celebrating the same identity that my former employers felt was too toxic for sport in Canada. In Ottawa and Vancouver, the gay bars had been in secret locations, often in dark alleys behind unmarked doorways. And when you rang a buzzer, a small slot opened to reveal an unrecognizable face behind a grate. That person, the person behind that face, checked to determine if you were someone who belonged there or if you might be someone who had brought the police. I had always been intrigued by this secrecy and recognized that it was a very private and sometimes dangerous social life, but I had never felt ashamed of who I was. Being fired made me wonder about the ethics of a sport system. But even though I felt off balance, I knew my sexual orientation was not a problem, but rather a gift. Here in San Francisco, gay life was celebrated each day when the bars and clubs opened their doors to the streets, the sunlight glancing off glistening tables and countertops. Patrons called out to each other across the street all day long, and many emerged into the sidewalks from every venue during the evening hours for spontaneous street dances. In the Castro area, I met gay men from Vancouver, and they were already talking about coming back to Gay Games 2 in four years and bringing a much larger contingent. They urged me to put together a volleyball team to return with them. It was tempting, but I worried that stepping back onto the court in any sport would mean more pain for me. As I sat with the soccer team in an open air bar, watching a continuous party in the street, I thought about the great fun they'd had on the field, even when they lost. I imagined how different life would be if we could be open about who we were all the time. These games with their focus on inclusion and a celebration of joyful physical activity seemed much closer to what I valued about sport than the competitive elite system run traditionally by older men who rarely considered the athletes needs never mentioned inclusion and were content to change or ignore the rules if it benefited their friends. That was the system that had so unceremoniously thrown me out a few months earlier. At the time, I didn't know that some of Vancouver's gay men had met earlier in the week with Tom Wedell, a decathlete who had represented the USA at the 1968 Olympics. Tom had founded these gay games, and the Vancouver contingent was so impressed after meeting with him, they committed to starting an organization at home that would actively organize sport and celebratory events for the city's gays and lesbians. Nor did I know that in Mexico in 1968, Tom had witnessed Tommy Smith and John Carlos raise their black fist, black gloved fists at the medal ceremonies as a symbol of black athletes stand against racism. He had come back from those Olympics inspired to create a healthy space to challenge attitudes about the gay community. That had been the same historic moment that I had heard about from my brother, a moment that had caused me as a teenager to think about the Olympic movement. That week in San Francisco, I wondered not just about improving opportunities for women in sport, but also about justice in sport as a system. When I learned that Tom Modell had wanted to call this event the Gay Olympic Games, but the International Olympic Committee had initiated a lawsuit to prohibit the gay organizers from using the O word, or even the five ring symbol. The cynic in me nodded in understanding. I knew the IOC prided itself on representing only the elite and felt entitled and obligated to make such exclusionary decisions. The San Francisco committee had fought the legal battle for months and eventually dropped the word Olympics but continued to use three intersecting rings in the gay games logo. It seemed typical of international sport that the powerful IOC would see a volunteer-run organization, a volunteer-run celebration as impinging on their territory, especially if the Olympic symbol was to be used by a community that was already marginalized, encouraged to stay invisible and stereotyped as unhealthy. I loved my experience in San Francisco, but I was not ready to physically participate in sport. In my core, I needed to feel strong again and feared embracing any kind of sport because of the emotional turmoil. But staying away but staying away from participating in sport helped me find a community of women who were interested in change and I had a new circle of feminist friends. I was learning about the horrific discriminatory treatment leveled at the gay community. I may have lost my job, but at least I felt safe on the street. Every major city has stories of gay men brutally beaten and regular police raids on anti on any local gathering place. I met women whose families had disowned them after learning of their sexual orientation. Others who had lost custody of their children and who could never return to their hometowns. I became more and more committed to being an outspoken, visible lesbian working for change. I didn't set foot in a gymnasium for 3 years. My healing from the experience of being fired was progressing and I remained invested in the women in sport organization that I helped fun when I was fired and determined that I could make a difference as an activist. When the athletic director from UBC, my former coach, called me in the spring of 1984 and urged me to submit an application for the coaching position of the university's women's volleyball team. I was hopeful that it would be an opportunity to renew my passion and explore athlete- centered coaching again. So I submitted an application. However, between the application and the deadline deadline in the interviews for the position, I was invited to appear on a CBC television panel to discuss women in sport. The 1984 Olympic Games were proceeding without the Eastern Block of Countries, and as a result, there was a sudden interest in the politics of sport. The first question put to me was, "Have you ever experienced discrimination as a woman of sport?" I replied that I had been fired from the position of national coach for volleyball Canada because I was a lesbian. Due to my commitment to be out and proud, I'd come out on prime time national television. I don't believe. The CBC, however, had some trouble with my statement, and supposedly in fear of slander, they had my words dubbed over by the host, Valerie Pral. UBC athletics must have had some trouble as well for even though they had asked me to apply and I was one of the most qualified coaches in the country at the time, I was never asked for an interview. I was crushed. These were people who knew me well. They knew especially my skills and abilities in coaching. I had applied because I trusted the athletic director who requested that I do so because I saw the UBC coaching position as a way to regain the respect and status to make a difference in a sport I loved and had lost access to. There was only one reason possible for my exclusion. They would not hire a lesbian who would not remain in the closet. An interesting aside, and I hate to start rumors 40 years later, I was told by a UBC staff member that the hockey coach at the time who was a very very well-known man said that I would be hired over his dead body that he made that public statement. So, we continue, but then kind of some nice stuff happened. So, I was devastated by that that occurrence. But about six months later, then in 1985, Kim Harris, a gay man who had attended the Gay Games in ' 82 and had been a club volleyball player that I had met while in graduate school, contacted me to ask would I help with a practice of the UBC women's team, the very team I applied for the year previous. I applied for the coaching job just over a year earlier. Kim was a large athletic man with red hair and a big smile and was now assistant to the university's second new female coach in two seasons. However, she was very ill and would be away for weeks. I said no initial initially, not daring to be heard again. But Kim was incredibly persistent, and after much discussion, I agreed to come and conduct a practice. I didn't think he clear I don't think he cleared his request with anyone in the athletics office at UBC, and they may not have even known I was there. I had played happily in War Memorial Gymnasium at UBC throughout my varsity career, but now I found myself terrified to enter the gym. I knew it wasn't rational, but my dismissal from sport and a lack of employment considerations by the operators of the same building was huge in my mind. I began to sweat with fear at the thought of even going on campus. I went alone to the gym the evening before the practice, and although the place was almost empty, my heart was pounding. I stood at the entrance and looked at the volleyball court with my face heated and my pulse racing. To move toward the court would take all the courage I had. It was as if I was to face a firing squad. Would someone discover me here and throw me out? Organized competitive sport had become a zone of emotional terror for me? I stayed at the door trembling until the lone basketball player shooting hoops had collected his gear and left by the door at the other end. The gym was now empty and silent. I took two steps into it and stood beside the playing court through several long moments of cold sweat and heart palpitations. Eventually, my heart slowed and I listened to my slobes, deep breaths, turned a small circle, looked at the empty bleachers where I had trained so hard. Finally, I decided I could walk into the gym the next day and be a coach again. I've got one more small section, but I want to tell you a very personal issue. I'm doing a reading in exactly 11 days at the University of Ottawa in the room beside the gym >> where I coached and was fired from. >> And I read that piece today because I'm going to have to call the dean at the University of Ottawa and say, "Can someone come to my hotel and babysit me for about 45 minutes because I need to stand in that building until I can actually go and speak to people about my book." So, even as I read that, the reason I pause to tell you that A, you're a super friendly group, but B, it's been 44 years since I've been in Ottawa and and 40ome years since that moment at UBC, but I had a heart response as I was reading that to you. So when someone takes away who you are, it's not like a bandage that get that gets fixed. So it's an important part of my book that I start these conversations, but also that I'm able to go back to Ottawa in 11 days and say, I want to talk to you about some of the mess that's Canadian sport and see if we can't make it better. So, it's like I don't know, maybe old activists never die, but the opportunity to let people know that that harm isn't a one-time thing. I will read you now kind of a nice a nice thing and then I'll pass it [snorts] back to Dash. So, of course, because Kim wouldn't let me not be a resource in volleyball, I got involved and I got a team with one that woman back there and we went back to You can put your hand up here. [laughter] We went back to San Francisco and won the gold medal at the gay games and suddenly I'm helping organize for the the games to come to Vancouver. And now I'm on the board and we're going to meet with the press because there's been some opposition. homosexuals coming to Vancouver. In July 1990, a few weeks before the opening of Celebration 90 Gay Games and Cultural Festival, our board of volunteers, of which I was now the official spokesperson, was invited to meet with the editorial board of the Vancouver Sun and its sister newspaper, The Province, in the imposing boardroom of their corporate offices. We entered the room with some some sense of intimidation, but we were keen to promote the games to these key media people. Five of us sat in a semicircle at one end of a large table while the two editorial teams took seats down each side. They had questions that they were coming they said were coming from their readers. The editor of the Vancouver Sun posed the first question. How can you expect the city to be welcoming to people coming to attend an event for one special interest group? My my board colleagues from Metropolitan Vancouver Arts and Athletics Association looked to me to respond as I had done far more media events than most of them in my years in sport. I was well prepared with this question. That's exactly why we're here to talk to you. I said, "The public and the press seem to believe this is an exclusive event, but the basic principle of the gay games is the complete opposite of what you assume. The gay games are more inclusive than any sport or cultural event ever held in this city. They are open to participation by anyone to join and celebrate anyone. We don't ask for identification, a sexual orientation, or even gender on the entry form. There are no minimal standards for entry. As with most sporting events, if you want to play and you're willing to stand with thousands of members of the LGTV community, you can play. Even if you are members of the press, you're welcome to send in a registration form and participate. This is the antithesis of a special interest group. We will welcome any volunteers. We'll also welcome any volunteers who want to help us support those participants. He leaned forward in his chair. But how do you know you won't have protests or violence? We knew we know there is opposition to these games. He was referring to the full page advertisement in his newspaper that had run weeks earlier. Sorry, I just lost my place. Paid for by the pastor of a church in the Fraser Valley. That advertisement had asked the public to pray to God for intervention and in boldface proclaimed, "Keep the homosexuals out of Vancouver." "We acknowledge that there are members of the public who don't like the ideas of these games." I said, "But the 29 sports we are offering all have male and female co-chairs who have created disciplined volunteer teams for every venue to ensure these competitions run smoothly. We'll have trained volunteer security at every venue to provide athletes and cultural participants with the safety and support they need. In fact, since the ad opposing the event ran in your newspaper, we've had a flood of new volunteers call our office. It seems Vancouver is ready to show the world that we're an welcoming city after all. The session with the editorial boards went well. The following week, both daily newspapers ran positive editorial commentary encouraging the public to support the celebration, a change from the tepid opposition in their editorial few weeks earlier. >> Over to you, sir. >> Okay. Well, I just hearing that now, Betty, it's funny because I really I was struggling for what exactly to read today because there are so many passages that are we and I I have a lot on the gay games in this book as well. Uh but you know we're limited for time. But I'll just say the one thing that you know around the same period. Um when when I first found out about the games while I was living in the valley working in a small town newspaper, I would pick up the Christian fundamentalist newspapers for amusement to read the headlines because they were all so alarmist. And so the main one about the gay games that we all remember was sodomite invasion planned for 1990. And so when I moved to Vancouver, a group of cheeky writers who I got to know in a little writer group appropriated that headline for the title of our own journal called the sodomite invasion review. Anyway, that's not [laughter] that's in there as a footnote. >> We met at the gay games him coordinating hockey and be on the board. >> Yes. Um okay, I'm just going to get to my sections here so I don't get lost. All right. Um, okay. Yeah, that's right. Okay. So, um, this part, this my my last kind of section of reading is going to be on and what are we what are we at, by the way, time? >> I didn't even look at the time. >> I've got it here. It's >> Oh, it's almost Okay. Yeah. So, I'm calling this kind of what's in a name because uh it's about how the cutting edge is started uh briefly and got our name and then I'm I'm kind of cutting to a later part of the book to show how um every organization has to evolve and it's not like some linear thing. Okay, we created this great thing and now we're never going to change it. Um we had to change and so I'll explain that [clears throat] during the week of celebration 90 Kame 3 and cultural festival. While playing in the hockey tournament I helped to organize, I had a chance encounter with an acquaintance that would lead to events that finally produced the safe game hockey environment I'd been seeking. I had just finished a game at Britannia rink with the real Puckers. One of the host city's two teams at the games when I heard someone call out my name from the bleachers as I left the ice. Smiling and waving at me from the stands was Vancouver Sun reporter Kevin Griffin. I had met Griffin during my brief stint at the Sun the previous year. We'd worked on one story together, but never gotten to know each other personally. I'd heard it through the city's lavender grapevine that he was one of a handful of gay men in the paper. In those days, one had to be discreet about sexuality in a big city newsroom. The sun was managed by rugged bricks and other aging white men, their faces flushed with the whiskey of their liquid lunches as they ogled the young female staffers. I hadn't seen Griffin since early January when I was last in the newsroom. Now, here he was, notepad and pen in hand, covering the games in his capacity as a son's multiculturalism reporter. A fact we both found highly amusing. "Dan, this is great," he enthused. "I had no idea they had hockey. I wish I could have played." "Well, maybe I can next time," I replied. A throwaway line, really, since I had no confidence there would ever be a next time. Over the three years that followed, Griffin and I became good friends, but other than joining a few drop-in sessions here and there, we didn't do much on the hockey front. In the wake of Celebration 90, there was no urgency to build a new hockey team. The struggle to build a roster that first time was still fresh in my mind. But during the fall of 1993, when Gay Games four organizers in New York City ramped up their call out for registrations, Griffin and I got serious and put our heads together. The real puckers no longer existed, but a few of the players were still around. One of them, a lesbian realtor, offered to host a meeting at her apartment west of Denman. Griffin and I, along with one other player, attended the meeting with her. She wanted to play in New York at the games and was willing to help put together a roster. I shared my frustration that there had been no momentum from Celebration 98. No realistic way to keep the real Puckers together to continue playing on a regular basis. I didn't want to have to start over from scratch every four years, assembling a team for the Gay Games, only to disband it when the event was over. Griffin agreed that we should try to build a team that would last. At the same time, we discussed the importance of the team name to its identity. Real Puckers was a bad pun. Cute for the moment, but as random and temporary as the roster I'd assembled in 1990. A few straight friends and relatives had suggested Gay Blades, a tired 60s slang reference I knew was bad because, well, straight people had thought of it. [laughter] In my case, the team from a team from Southern California had already taken Blades for their name, so we weren't going to be copycats. Meanwhile, there was a question of where to play after the New York games were over. Given the challenge just to assemble a team for the same event every four years, the notion of an allgay league in a city like Vancouver did not seem realistic. Even if we did stay together after Unity 94, as the games were called in New York, it was pretty clear we would have to compete in a regular beer league against mainstream i.e. straight teams. What were the options apart from the wreck leagues run out of municipal rinks? Griffin told us there was a deer league at the Thunderbird rink on the Point Gray campus of the University of British Columbia, UBC. This was recreational, non-cont, adult safe hockey for all skill levels. Perhaps playing on the grounds of an educational institution would be a safer route for a gay team than a regular beer league run by the municipalities, offered Griffin. But if we wanted to sign up for this league in time for the next season, we'd have to investigate the idea as soon as possible. If UBC turned up to be a good fit, we could be signed up and ready to go for our first season right on the heels of Gay Games 4. Wow, guys, exclaimed the lesbian realtor. That would be amazing getting into the UBC league as a gay team. I mean, that would really be cutting edge. Those last two words jumped out at me. That's it. I said, we have our name right there. The name cutting edges would telegraph our hypnosis, our relevance as groundbreaking gay hockey players competing outside our safety zone of the gay ghetto. It was a good hockey name, too, incorporating the idea of the damage that skateblade edges can do. In a team name, such a double onandra implied a menacing opponent. Griffin endorsed it, and so did the realtor and the other player present. Now, cut to the early 2020s. From the very beginning, we were known as quote Vancouver Vancouver's gay men's hockey club. A mission statement formalized in 1998 when we registered as a nonprofit society. We saw this specific identity as politically important because gay men were the most stigmatized players of the world's most high masculinity and homophobic sport. But we also hope that others who were curious about the cutting edges, straight allies, women, bipok people, would understand that it wasn't just a gay men's hockey club, nor only a white one. That they would feel confident enough to approach us if they wanted to play with us, that they knew they would be welcome if they were in solidarity with us and had enough game to keep up in a wreck league. And many did join us. We had at least one straight ally, a lesbian, and an indigenous man on our eight person roster in New York at the gay games before our first season at UBC. Over the years, we've had a handful of cis women along with several bipok men, both queer and straight, and some straight allies. But when I think back over our long history before the last, say, five or six years, I can't recall an openly transgender player on any of our rosters. and club by definition is exclusive. So as a queer organization, how cutting edge were we now? The first openly transgender man to play with the cutting edges, and who still does, was a small and speedy forward named San Punzo, aged 31, when we sat down at eight ranks for an interview just before our respective edges teams hit the ice to compete against each other. Punzo told me he'd been playing hockey since he was 8 years old. Growing up in Maple Ridge, a small community nestled on the Fraser River about an hour's drive east of Vancouver. He played on girls teams until he graduated from high school. "I never played rep hockey," he said. "I was always like a bubble player. I just couldn't quite make that top team, and there wasn't really a very large girls hockey program in Maple Ridge. If I was in a bigger city with more teams, I would probably have been able to play in tier 2 and maybe move up a little bit. But basically, it was you were either rep or your house. those were the only options and that was kind of when I started to look into my gender identity. Ununzo said he always knew he wasn't really a girl. He had distinct memories of being four and 5 years old and telling his parents he was a boy. This was around 2000 when there were when there was growing awareness of transgender issues and his parents were supportive. They bought him boys clothing and put him in different sports. While his inner sister while his sister danced, he played hockey. After high school graduation, Punzo played juvenile for one year and then when he turned 19, switched to the women's adult league. I hadn't started transitioning yet and I played adult women's hockey for a year. I found people I connected with, found a team, and that was about when I decided to start to transition. He told me, "Once I started taking hormones, the league wouldn't let me playing. Once I changed my driver's license and my birth certificate, when I changed my gender marker on them, they were very adamant that I wasn't allowed to play. He never got an explanation, but suspects the league was worried about backlash from other teams that they'd complain it was unfair because Punzo would have would have a competitive advantage, which was ridiculous, he recalled, because they also had women who played college level hockey on scholarships who were way better than I would ever be. And that was also supposed to not be allowed. If you were on a college team, you were supposed to not be allowed to play rack hockey. That was in the rules. But they wouldn't let me play. And then it kind of got to a point where I didn't really feel comfortable playing even though I was on a team that was accepting and encouraging me to stay. It no longer felt like a comfortable place for me to stay. And so I actually just stopped playing completely. It was 8 years before Punzo played hockey again. He heard there was hockey in Vancouver for queer folk, but wasn't entirely sure he'd be welcome because the cutting edges were a self-described gay men's hockey club. Other LGBTQ plus hockey organizations referred to themselves as gay hockey associations without adding the word men and we were a club. So that's raised questions for Puno. I wasn't sure if I'd be able to play there, but then I thought if I'm going to be able to play anywhere, it would be on that team. That's where I would feel the most comfortable potentially and I would probably have the most chance of being accepted on that team. But I wasn't going to drive to UBC from Maple Ridge. Then just before the 22 23 season, Punzo learned that the edges were moving to the eight ranks hockey palace in Burnaby due to changing demographics within the club. That sealed the deal for him. I told Punzo that I remembered when he first joined the club and we played together on team green. He was pretty quiet in those early days, a good communicator on the bench and on the ice, but not very demonstrative in the dressing room where he would change quickly after the game and leave right away without showering. But ever since the cutting edges voted in 2024 to change our definition from gay men's hockey club to the more inclusive LGBTQ plus hockey association, then adjusted our logo to include a hockey stick taped in the colors of the trans flag beside the rainbow tape stick. He had become much more engaged with the cutting edges and more willing to share his opinions within the association. He had voted for the change. I told him that I'd noticed more trans players, mostly trans men, but also a couple of trans women and one or two non-binary players joining us since the change. He said it made a big difference in how welcome trans players feel with the edges. I think when you don't institutionalize who the organization is for and you don't have language on it, it's left to interpretation and it kind of creates a bit of ambiguity. He explained, "Gay men's hockey, even though the intention behind it was to be inclusive, does send a message that's not inclusive. In order to clarify, someone would have to reach out or know somebody to be like, "Oh, no. Everyone's welcome." Well, you'd have to know that. So, yeah, I think the wording change was huge and times change. this description now 30 years from now might not work too right but that's why we continue to evolve and grow and as a postcript to this little story at our AGM this year San Penzo became the first trans person on our executive acclaimed as vice president >> so we have the time to do some questions I know that uh there was a question collection if people want to write down a question. Um, who was the men's hockey coach? >> No, that was for you. I think you left out. >> Oh. Oh. Who was the men's hockey coach? >> Yes. >> He's passed away. >> Yeah, I'm allowed to. >> Are there any lawyers in the room? [laughter] >> His name was Bob Hind >> and he was very well regarded and and I actually know I have many friends on the Sunshine Coast who know his son well who I have no women, you know, peace with. But uh just the fact that a highprofile a high-profile hockey coach like that would just say you know right >> keep the dikes off our staff. >> But you that's the times right from the 80s and 90s that was a fair. >> Sure. >> Go ahead then. You got a question? >> No this is that was it. That wasn't that was it I'll see. >> Try that one. >> Okay. All right. That was one there. So we'll just put the other ones there. Okay. >> Oh yeah. Considering what's happening to gay rights in the US now, do you think there could be a backlash uh in in Canada? Um well, that's interesting because um >> I mean either one of us could answer this. I mean I I think I almost feel like I need to know a little more about the question because in a way I guess yeah if if we can see similar things. I mean, one thing that I was puzzled about, and I haven't seen anything since, just just to go to hockey, is that, uh, last year, um, Trump, President Trump, uh, appointed Gary Bman, the NHL commissioner, league commissioner, and, um, Wayne Gretzky, famous Trump supporter, and, uh, um, Matthew Kachchuck, captain of the Florida Panthers, who were then the the the Cup champions at that time, to his uh, sports council. uh about and and the role that they were to play in terms of uh the culture of sport um was questionable and and we still don't know what they're doing but um backlash I don't know I mean we know that things uh around you know mega type things we have our own we're not in Canada when we know what's going on in Alberta and other places and I mean betting anything >> I'm going to add a question that I'm going to pass that one to you folks offer um I get asked this question all the time because my book has probably six or seven themes that are about the sport system, about coaching abuse, about funding inequities, about the the lack of I'm going to say it as straight as I can in that it's about the silence in sport. There's a culture in sport where people will know or wonder about abuse, a coach abusing an athlete regardless of gender or sexual orientation and they will not speak and that if you speak up about abuse, you're somehow betraying the sport system. And I am keen to talk about that and encourage people to talk about that. We won't stop harm unless we are willing to name what the harm is and where it's coming from. So having said that in many talks that I've been doing these last few months for the book people ask me am I hopeful and am I hopeful about removing discrimination in sport? Not at all. Am I hopeful about fixing fixing the sport system? Not at all. The commission that reported the end of March that actually named the harm and quoted over a thousand sport participants talking about how sport hurt them. It it's the first commission of the half dozen or so that really tells the true story. Since then, the government, the federal government has put about 80 million towards athlete support and supposedly there may be a new Brown Corporation that's recommended to take on sport. But if there's no action within 6 months of the report, there will not be any action. So, I am not hopeful. What I am hopeful about is the response to my book. I mean, in I'm 44 years late writing this book, but people want to hear this story. So, I am hopeful that people like you in your communities and teachers I've talked to and parents I've talked to will point out coaches that are too harsh or violent with athletes and say that doesn't happen in my community. We will raise the standard, the moral standard of sport. And forgive me because it's really easy for me to get on a soap box about this, but it it won't happen because the federal government passes a new policy or rejigs a system that has rewarded people who manipulate the system for so long. And it won't happen if every sport organization has a safe sport person who has to report to the same CEO that has come up through a system of basically old old uh you know what is the word nepotism. So, we have to be cynical, but we have to be hopeful and we have to keep naming it. >> I I do want to read one paragraph because someone wrote a nice question that I have the exact answer to in my book. So, sorry. >> No, that time >> your question was, "Thank you for sharing. When you came out to your family, how did they react? I was an athlete very aware of suppressing who I was." Well, as I said, when I was fired in Ottawa, it felt like my legs were cut off and I was thrown out in a matter of 10 minutes. I didn't get to say goodbye to the athletes or talk to anybody. There was media silence when I was fired. So, I went across Canada and stopped at every place I had a family member and came out to them. The most poignant of these conversations took place in Brooks, Alberta, at the kitchen table after dinner with my parents. My dad, who was never one for discussions of feelings, didn't go to the living room as was his habit, but instead stood up from the table and went to the sink and began washing the dishes, something I had never in my life seen him do. He wanted to stay in the room. As I was carefully telling my mother how my close relationships had been with women, awkwardly trying not to use the word gay or lesbian, she reached across the table, took my hand, and said, "I've sought for a long time that you are a lesbian." My relief was huge. My life as an out public and political activist began that moment in my mother's kitchen with her act of unequivocal love and acceptance. So that's how and it took there was there were issues. It took many conversations with many family members but in general it was informed by love and I am so grateful that I grew up in a family that put love first. I want to give you a little postcript. In the summer of 2024, nine years after my mother's death, I had the privilege of reading her journal regarding the struggles she faced in 1982. I was fired in January 17th, 1982. I came out to my mother first week of May as I was driving across the country. She was 62 years old, had just been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. My dad was in pain with arth arthritis in his spine. My two youngest siblings, both in their 20s, had moved home that summer to prepare to attend postsecary institutions in the fall. My younger sister was dating a young man who had left the local Hutterite colony, and by September, she was uncertain about continuing the relationship. I was surprised to read that through those summer months, my mother had often shed tears when discounting my declaration that I was quote different to my aunt, her close sister, and my own two sisters. But when summarizing her years, she wrote at the bottom, "Three things I have to understand. Back pain, arthritis, diabetes, and homosexuality." Now, if my youngest will just spare me to study at the Hutterites. >> So, I think that answers the question in the only way that I can. >> Okay. I I'm actually sorry, passed on the soccer question because I really want to answer this one. Any thoughts about the first male out player in the NHL, Luke Pro with the Edmonton Oilers? Okay. Well, this is an interesting construction of the question because uh in fact, for those of you who don't know, uh Luke Pro is not the first out player in the NHL. He's the first player who came out of the closet after being drafted by an NHL team. He has not played an NHL game. He has not been activated into an NHL roster. So he's still kind of like in coming out purgatory, let's say, or Catholicize his situation. >> Is that the same thing that happened to Michael Sam, the pro football player who was drafted as an openly game man and then never played? >> Yeah, I think so. But um yes, plenty of thoughts on Luke and he's actually there's a section about him in the book and I I I referenced him as well. The appendix to cutting edge includes an actual communications plan for NHL players to come out of the closet. It's a serious plan based on my 20 years as a professional communications, you know, rep. And um and the NHL will probably ridicule it because of course, you know, I haven't worked with them and don't know them and I'm not part of their thing. But I mention Luke in it because in a way he's already achieved a lot. Uh it's unfortunate because the irony of what he's doing like since he came out, this was uh he was drafted in 2020, he came out in 2021 and he's played four seasons since in the minor leagues. He looked like he was going to be out of it completely because he was in the ECHL, I think it was called, which is one below the American Hockey League. Then his contract with Nashville ended and then he started playing with Bakersfield who are a they're a they're a farm team of the Oilers and he's from Edmonton. So, I've already in an op-ed that nobody has taken yet, I've already suggested that the the Oilers at the very least, without making it a um uh you know, just a publicity stunt could based on his progress, if he's making progress, cuz he's a defenseman and he's a big bruising defenseman and he he sells himself as a player in a in an article that I quote from including that he might want to get into a couple of fights, which is interesting for the first out player, But the Oilers could say, "Invite him to training camp, right? It's not like they're committing to anything. Just invite him to training camp. See if he can get into a couple exhibition games." Like, I mean, what's wrong with that? They're not uh they're not, you know, like I say, overcommitting. Or give him a 10ame try out and then boom, he's the first player in the NHL. Um, I do advise him, unlike everyone else who hasn't been in the media yet, to just keep it really keep it really brief what he says about this because everyone already knows. But here's the irony. One of the reasons that nobody comes out is that uh, every NHL player knows that if you come out, you instantly become a distraction. And that's the word that Bman uses. That's a word that all the league governors use. you become a distraction because you're a story and you're drawing attention to yourself. It's no different than if you say came out about some condition you had or you were you needed to use a player assistance program for drugs or something. You're drawing attention. So, ironically, um >> four more questions. >> Yes. Okay, I'll finish this one up. Ironically, um in a way, he's now done a documentary. It's called The Hockey Player. I haven't seen it yet. I think it's on uh I don't know if it's on Disney or on um uh one of the other platforms, but anyway, the irony is that he has he wants to be known for what he does on the ice. Yes, he wants to help uh queer players everywhere, but he really still does. He's only 24. He still could make it and he'd like to, but he has become this has become his story. So, >> I'm gonna get down the two on heated rivalry just because [laughter] and I'm gonna apologize to whoever the person wrote about soccer. I know nothing about the gay soccer leagues in Vancouver. Dan passed it to me. Um, I think it's great if there's gay soccer leagues. That's awesome. I don't know anything about the context or how they were set or the history. So, not having and also in many ways I'm a bit of a fraud to talk about sport because I've been very out of organized sport for decades. So I follow the politics of it and I've gone in researching my book I went online and looked at the measures that they've taken to make sports safer and more um objective which are small but there are some. Okay. So that that's a comment. I'm going to take the political one about municipal uh what municipal governments can do. But first were you actually told why you were being fired? This is a common question that comes to me. The first chapter of my book is the confrontation where I was asked to go to a roadside motel and confront the three men who fired me. So that those two pages answer that question. On the actual firing day, which was four months later, no, I was asked to come into a room. I a legal paper from a lawyer was read to me that terminated me with no cause and I had 10 minutes to gather my possessions and leave. So that's how they do it. And >> so with no cause? >> Yeah. So you and it had to be no cause and that's a very interesting question for those of you that might feel that there's you know you know people who were compromised my lawyer I did the part that I stopped reading I didn't talk about how I talked to a lawyer after the first challenge to find out what were my rights and what might I expect in in the 1980s and 90s until 96 there was no protection federally zero so people could fire you even if they did name it but the lawyer told me if they were firing you for sexual orientation they would have to prove that they could prove it. So that meant anybody who had associated with me or who I had dated or who had seen been seen with me say at a club would have been compromised. So [clears throat] for me to even say it out loud means that they would be able to go and try to prove or not prove it. And that's why in my book the other question that's often asked is why didn't you name names? Well, in part the men who fired me in volleyball are revered and wellknown and everybody knows who they are. or you can look up the date and the title and know who they are, but they've had their airtime. And the reason I don't name the bad guys in the book is that this book could have been written about any sport. It those three men who fired me could have been any three men in any one of 88 sport governing bodies in Canada because they had the power. They did it because they could. So that's an important piece to know the legal piece. I was fired for no cause because that was easy under the law. Me telling the story, that's why it's a personal memoir. Lots of folks in volleyball have very different, very positive memories. They might have quite different stories, but everything in this book happened to me. I'm pretty much an authority what happened in East. Now, let me answer if I can. What can we at the community and municipal level to help promoting tolerance and equity in sport? Well, first of all, Dan's given a great example. We can be explicit in our language of inclusion. I'll I'll use the Ottawa example again. The dean in the Ottawa University that where I'm speaking in 10 days, was very gracious in describing me and describing the event and my athletic achievements, but she never mentioned LGTQ, whether you want to use the multiple letters or a short version. She never mentioned it once. So, when she asked for feedback on the description of her announcement, I went back and said, "You need to put in the words You need to if if you can't without going to the board of governors or whatever you need to do in Ottawa in my bio put that I have been an activist for the LGBTQ plus community because if you don't people will assume that the exclusion is on purpose. So those of you that are you know in mainstream organizations or part of municipal governance we have to be explicit. It's I'm still that person that wants to stand up and say lesbian get over it. Lesbian get over it. So that's where we are and the more we disguise discrimination by neutral language, the more we enable the silence about harm. And I think that's critically important. And municipal and local governments and local organizations are the ones who talk to families every single day. And those families, the more they know it's okay. It's okay to have a trans friend. It's okay if your, you know, friend from childhood is dating a woman. It's okay. Like the Harrison Brown, who Dan I think is has got a blur from knows well. He's a trans He was a trans player that was a women's pro hockey player is now a trans man. It's an advocate. He's written a book called Let Us Play. That's the simple answer. And I I'll get on my soap box for one more minute. Don't let anybody tell you that keeping trans women out of women's sport protects women. I could use very colorful language about that. What that means is that anybody that doesn't look like a woman or act like a woman or whatever the stereotype of a woman is should be suspect in sport. Those of us that have been in sport for 30, 40, 50 years, we're suspect as soon as we're strong. And as soon as we get any good, we have to play against men because we're better than all the women. So saying that we're keeping trans women out of sport to protect women is the huge false insulting statement. >> I won't say more, right? I >> I was going to riff off you anyway, but because of what you were saying about language, I wanted to add something just to the last bit of reading I did about the whole change within the edges. And it was that, you know, a lot of people of course uh who weren't aware of of us or how we were just hearing this would think, oh that's just a lot of wokeness. You're just, you know, was being woke this and that criticism. Some of the older guard players from our first generation of the edges when I met them recently privately, they they had heard about this. They're no longer with the the organization, but they said, "Can't we be gay anymore?" And you know that reaction was interesting to me because I said well of course we can but you know this I said this is better and you know one one indication of it for me was that when when we changed that and all these other people came to join our organization and play with us. Well first the rest of us could see the players who had already been there could see that the moment the trans players were included and they knew they were actually okay and good to go. We could see them thrive and we could see how they really brought game. And suddenly I found myself after some of my games saying turning to my manager and saying, "Hey Trevor, um can you bring so and so back again?" Damn, she's a good passer. Jesus. And um it just it's it's given our organization uh we feel way stronger now as a whole organization and um there's a lot more laughter I have to say. So inclusivity is fun. Now questions. Uh heater rivalry rivalry you go on that one. >> How do you see the huge success of heater rivalry uh impacting the quest for more inclusivity in sports? And Daniel do you wish you'd written heated robbery? Okay. Well, [laughter] >> well first of all no because I don't write romance. So full stop. I I should answer first before that on the next question that um some people to anyone who thinks that I'm that I wrote this book somehow in a flash in response to heated rivalry as an opportunistic thing. Well, no actually um I did write the book quickly, but I turned in my manuscript um 3 days after heated rivalry premiered on Crave. So, it was already written, but when I passed it in, my publisher said to me, "Well, that's great, Dan. you got it in a month early before you go back to Thailand because I spend the first part of the year overseas. But you might want to hold off and wait a bit to see how this heater rivalry thing plays out. So I did have to do a little bit more work. But no, I don't wish I wrote it and because I wouldn't want to be I wouldn't want to be Rachel Reed right now because she's really really busy. Um but uh I do think actually I do think it'll be very big in in creating more inclusivity in sports. I mean just the fact that you've got um I mean interestingly women [clears throat] more than gay men. Women are the largest audience both for the books and for the series >> and for hockey I think now it's grown women >> by by far in the PWHL. And there's a chapter on the PWHL by the way in in Cut Cutting Edge. Um but uh part of it is that you know you've got this depiction of men being with each other who are not only having sex but of course they're actually vulnerable with each other. They're attentive to each other. They're caring about each other in ways that we don't often see in mainstream culture. And I think that is changing how people think about hockey. I mean, uh, my chapter on on heated rivalry, uh, begins with a sort of fantasy of my own. I'm I'm doing a little bit I'm doing two pages, okay, two pages of heated rivalry style writing. I've got a press conference. The chapter begins with a press conference of an NHL player uh, preparing to go to the podium to make his announce his big announcement. And he's asked what prompted him to uh, to do this. and he says, "Oh, it's that scene from episode five where uh where Scott Hunter invites his his his lover down onto the ice and kisses him in front of the whole world." Um >> so yeah, I think it will I think it will um make a difference. I think it already is making a difference.