Author: Atticus Hawk

Nancy Irwin At Home: An Interview with an Icon

July 31, 2024
by Atticus Hawk
Activist Histories / Community-based Oral History / Kink Cultures / Lesbian History / Oral History / Queer History / The Gays Did What Now?

Nancy Irwin is the dyke you read about in queer history classes and the woman you always wished had a hand in raising you. World traveller, biker, writer, raconteur extraordinaire; Nancy sits down with The Gays Did What Now? for a tender reminiscence of dyke life in 1980s Toronto and her first girlfriend, the “very experienced lesbian,” Shirley. Listen to the audio or read the transcript for a riveting story of Nancy before she was the international dyke icon she is today.

Pride Toronto 2024: The Accessibility Information You REALLY Want

June 26, 2024
by Atticus Hawk
Digitization / Disability / Queer History / The Gays Did What Now?

Calling all disabled dandies, handicapped homos and crippy queers; it’s Pride in Toronto! Time to get nasty with it and whip out our big, fat, throbbing media literacy degrees to scour the Pride Toronto™ website for any shreds of accessibility information we can actually use. Read on for all the accessibility information you need to know and bask in our homemade, screen-reader-compatible Bare Minimum Accessibility Map: Pride Toronto 2024 Edition!

Crip Orgies: cum’on everybody! 

May 29, 2024
by Atticus Hawk
Activist Histories / Disability / Kink Cultures / Queer History / The Gays Did What Now?

You ever seen a wheelchair user fuck harder than the best porn stars in Vegas? How about the hardcore harness fetishists losing it over the straps of a hydraulic sling lift? Ever considered the implications of the condom catheter X leg bag situation as the ultimate power move in watersports? In 2015, disability activists Andrew Gurza and Stella Palikarova embraced it all with Deliciously Disabled, an accessible, sex-positive party held at the iconic Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, right in the heart of Toronto’s Gay Village. But why there and when can we get tickets for the next one?

Hanlan’s Point: Sand, Butts and Topographical Intrigue

April 24, 2024
by Atticus Hawk
Gay History / Queer History / The Gays Did What Now?

It’s finally sunny in Toronto and we all know what that means; the gays are about to descend on the chilly waters of Hanlan’s Point, Toronto’s historically queer nude beach on The Islands. But how did this glorious little gay cruising ground come to be such a storied space? Was it actually ground zero for the Canadian Pride movement? And are The Islands even islands?? Learn the answers to these pressing geographical questions and more about sand deposits than you ever wanted to know in this month’s installment of The Gays Did What Now?

John Weiss Was Here

March 28, 2024
by Atticus Hawk
Activist Histories / Gay History / Kink Cultures / Photography / Queer History / The Gays Did What Now?

Artist, teacher, bon vivant, “The Best Gay Dad Ever”, dog's best friend; John Wiess (1946-2017) was many things to many people. John was an artist and middle-school art teacher up in North Bay, a spirited host who adamantly refused to cook a single thing and such a gregarious misanthrope that he actively sprinted away from people he didn’t want to talk to in public. Kirk Cederwahl spent years sprinting after a bolting John; and with good reason. Kirk was John’s boy and John was Kirk’s daddy.

Trans Misogyny in the Colonial Archive: An Interview with Jamey Jesperson

February 27, 2024
by Atticus Hawk
Academia / Activist Histories / The Gays Did What Now? / Trans History

For this edition of “The Gays Did What Now?” we’re hyping up the crowd for Jamey Jesperson’s March 5, 2024, guest lecture Trans Misogyny in the Colonial Archive: A Sex Worker’s Counter-History at the University of Toronto. This talk promises to transport you (yes, YOU) through three choice stories of intrigue, passion and protest from colonial Mexico City and fur traders in Oregon County to the salacious media campaign against Black brothel worker Mary Jones in antebellum New York.