This Canadian-born Queer Elder is looking to move home (with his husband) to be surrounded by his siblings and generations of their descendants. Not just because of the current state of affairs down here, although that certainly added urgency and increases our stress levels daily.
And we need some help to get us across the finish(border)line.
We have filed a Permanent Resident Application for my husband.
The government fees, along with the cost of using a Registered Canadian Immigration Consultant (to avoid f’ing it all up) have drained what little savings we had. In fact we’ve been blessed to have my biologicals as well as our current circle of friends donate enough to cover the balance.
Now we need to save/ raise enough funds to move us and our little demon hellcat north. Clearly our situation is not as dire as that of many Queer folx living in certain parts of the US, or other parts of the globe. So asking strangers down here for money feels icky.
Unless there’s some well-off neocon nativist who will pay me off; US$100k to “go back where I came from” (send inquiries my way).
After my family and local friends have all contributed what they can (thank you), the next logical step would be to ask the communities where I lived, and played, and fought for our survival.
The harsh reality is that 99% of the people I knew in Chatham and then Toronto’s gay and kink communities are gone. Many of the community-based (ie unofficial) groups in which I participated left no paper trail- no official Registration, no Board Minutes, never a Head Office beyond a member’s living room. No 40th Anniversary Reunions are likely for the small number of us who survived this long, and we’ve no Facebook Group connecting us.
I have plenty of posts and pages here for anyone wanting more details- I was born in Toronto in 1958, lived in various towns/ cities across Ontario until I moved from Toronto to Columbus, Ohio at the beginning of 1996. Leaving Toronto was a necessary step in my survival- too many funerals, too many dreams destroyed, too few signs of a ‘happy ever-after’.
As an aside- see my youTube video Did We Lose a Generation to HIV/aids? for how ‘we lost a generation’ sidelines survivors.
Now this Tired Old Queer is looking for younger queers (in Chatham, Toronto or elsewhere) who say they respect me to show it. Actually, you don’t need to be young, and you don’t need to be queer. Click here to help bring me home.
A very Canadian thank you.
