“It’s the house with a Black Lives Matter sign in the Leather Pride colours. You can’t miss it.”
When I first walked into Nancy Irwin’s Leslieville house with, yes, a Black Lives Matter sign in the Leather Pride colours in the front window, I nearly blacked out. Nancy Irwin (aka “Naughty Nancy”) has an indoor swing. I repeat, this 64-year-old woman has a swing inside her home. And before you go imagining some Pulp Fiction inspired gothy slings (those are in the garage), let me be so clear: there is an honest-to-god, old fashioned tree swing in the middle of this woman’s excruciatingly tidy living room. Nestled amongst the leather covered furniture and surrounded by walls that exclusively exist to showcase framed photographs of lovers, friends, playmates and her artistic life’s work, the swing lolls alongside towering sideboards sporting the largest collection of vintage queer publications I’ve ever seen and Nancy’s alarmingly detailed filing system for personal papers, correspondence, and plain old snail mail. The swing’s seat is a beautifully varnished single plank of wood, so smooth you could slide right off it in even the lightest state of inebriation. It’s expertly affixed to the joists in the ceiling above with, well, two long links of heavy-duty stainless steel chains. The day I first laid eyes on this swing, my broken little child brain elbowed itself up onto the breakfast bar of impulsive need that is my cerebral cortex and began banging on the table with its bony little fists; I want to be Nancy.
Nancy is the dyke you read about in queer history classes and the woman you always wished had a hand in raising you. She’s travelled the world on her trusty motorcycle, Casper, and written it all back home in postcards and packages to her editors for Canadian Biker Magazine. She joined the Leather contingent in the 1993 March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay, and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation. She nursed our dearly departed as they died. She published endless articles on queer health and culture for Xtra Magazine. She’s the original handy-dyke of our collective imagination. She’s the hub of the crew of original Leatherdykes who got all up into the Toronto scene way back when, and one of the few women who pricked, poked, and punctured her way into the land of all the scariest Leathermen you won’t find in Tom of Finland’s sanitized sketches. These days, she rides her beloved Casper at the front of the Dyke March with the Amazons Motorcycle Club every year and bathes naked in the clawfoot bathtub permanently installed in her immaculately maintained backyard. Taking a responsible break during the first few Covid years, she still holds legendary parties in that very same backyard. Her friends come with food and drink, stories, memories, and more skills than most gay porn studios combined.
When I rocked up to her house the first time, I had my partner in life and community archival activism by my side. Ostensibly, we were there to look over Nancy’s collection of everything she’s ever written, hear a few stories about the queer Toronto leather scene that came before us, and mill about what was billed as a small gathering of Nancy’s closest friends. By the end of the day, we met 20+ queer icons of 1990s Toronto, my partner was gifted stacks of priceless clothing and leather from historical dyke events across North America, and we tasted the best cheesecake either of us had ever had. And yes, I did finally take that swing for a spin, but only after it had once again been graced by the legendary butt of International Ms Leather 2014, Ms. Patty.
But where did Nancy Irwin come from? Who was she before she installed that swing? Believe it or not, there was a time when Nancy-Fucking-Irwin had never even heard of feminism. It was 1979 and the Toronto Lesbian punk band Mama Quilla II (they would later evolve into the influential band The Parachute Club) would soon be fighting for their lives on the battle of the bands style radio competition running on 102.1 The Edge. Despite not being a UofT student, 19-year-old Nancy had just enrolled in one of the early women’s studies classes at UofT (they started the program in 1971), after finding her cutting edge 1970s psychology class a bit of a snooze.
Out of the goodness of her gorgeous heart, Nancy sat down with me in her backyard while my partner fixed her a cup of tea to tell me all about that tender time in a dyke’s life when the world comes into focus, and you start becoming the person you’ve always wanted to be. But don’t my word for it, click that snazzy play button below and tune in for 9 minutes of a story told to absolute perfection by a master of the craft. Here is Naughty Nancy at home and it all starts with my partner, Keegan, bringing her a perfect cup of tea.
Interview with Nancy Irwin (aka “Naughty Nancy”), by Atticus Hawk
July 6, 2024 | Toronto, Ontario
Interview Transcript
Nancy Irwin:
Oh, this is so fabulous here comes my tea. Oh, it looks perfect. We are recording and I’m talking about women’s studies at UofT.
Atticus Hawk:
Ooo!
Nancy:
I met my first girlfriend and then I went to the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival.
Atticus:
My god, they indoctrinated you so quick.
Nancy:
So quick! So, I went to Michigan where I saw women built the stage, women carpenters built the stage, and electricians ran the wire, and I had never in my life seen women doing this sort of stuff, so it was absolutely amazing to me because I grew up when there were no examples of women, right? You know, when I got a motorcycle, and it took me a month before I saw another woman on a bike in Toronto.
Atticus:
Right, right.
Nancy:
That was 1980.
Atticus:
Yes.
Nancy:
Right? So, you know, the way you feel when you see another woman when you’ve been told that you can’t do it, which was primarily what I got told for everything, you know, except for sewing and cooking and…
Keegan James:
House making?
Nancy:
Yeah! Except for that, you know, I couldn’t do it and, well, as you know, I’ve done a lot of things I can’t do.
Atticus:
And so little cooking!
Nancy:
[laughing] And so little cooking!
Keegan:
[exits to check on pastries for the tea] Let me go make sure I put the lids on everything…
Nancy:
Anyway, what else did you want me to tell you about?
Atticus:
Tell me more about this Michigan Womyn’s Festival. Like, you’re seeing all these people doing stuff, what were you doing when you were there?
Nancy:
Well, I was arriving. Trying to think if the first year we went by motorcycle. Did we take the truck one year and the bike another year? I don’t really remember the truck; I remember the bike. And… No, it was later, so we must have gone by truck the first time, and–
Atticus:
–and who’s we?
Nancy:
Ah! My first girlfriend, Shirley.
Atticus:
Shirley?
Nancy:
Yes! What a wonderful, wonderful woman…
Atticus:
Where’d you meet?
Nancy:
102.1–
Atticus:
–Oh my god, no.
Nancy:
–The Edge. They had…
Atticus:
They had a lesbian dating show??
Nancy:
No, they had a radio opportunity where different bands, Toronto bands, could submit a demo tape of your band, and two bands would get played at the same time.
Atticus:
Oh!
Nancy:
And then people voted–
Atticus:
–Nice, nice.
Nancy:
–and then the one that won went up against the next one.
Atticus:
Right, right, Battle of the Bands, but radio version. Yeah, okay.
Nancy:
And I think what happened was, there were a lot of dykes and fags in Toronto who knew Mama Quilla II.
Atticus:
Mama Quilla II!
Nancy:
And back then, there would have been a phone tree, and everybody would have listened to Mama Quilla II on the radio.
Atticus:
Oh my god.
Nancy:
And then after phone… I’m making this up. I don’t know… But Mama Quilla II was a really good band.
Atticus:
Yeah?
Nancy:
And they won, and so, I was listening and I thought “well, I’m going to go to whatever,” because I was living in downtown Toronto, “I’m going to go to whatever band wins.”
Atticus:
Where in downtown Toronto? Has she got a cross-street?
Nancy:
I was living at Avenue Road and Yorkville–
Atticus:
–Yes.
Nancy:
–in a dumpy little apartment building.
Atticus:
[whispering] I’ve seen those…
Nancy:
Very dumpy, antique, bachelor building. Building of bachelor apartments, the only one like it in Toronto. I had a refrigerator that was connected to three floors of fridges–
Atticus:
–[whispering] How does that work?
Nancy:
–and it had pipes running through the whole building.
Atticus:
[stunned] Like, it had Freon up and through it?
Nancy:
Yes! Running through the whole building.
Atticus:
Holy shit.
Nancy:
And they had to shut it down once a week and defrost the fridges.
Atticus:
[wheeze laughs] So, Mama Quilla II–
Nancy:
Mama Quilla II won, but I didn’t… Well, I heard it was an all-women band–
Atticus:
–Hot damn!
Nancy:
–that won. I thought “wow! this has just made it extra interesting.” And it went to a club called The Edge, which was at the corner of Gerrard and Church. Because we used to go to little punk bars that were… You know, Larry’s Hideaway and these different places, right? So, I walked into… I used to be a teeny bopper going to those bars and the bouncers knew me and my girlfriends and we always had to, like, beg our way in because we didn’t have money. And I was living with my parents back then. And well, now I was living on my own, but… So, I showed up at the bar, and I recognized the bouncers and they kind of looked at me and, well, I didn’t know. And it was free! I walked in and it was like “holy fuck.” This was my bar. Like, a bar I used to frequent, and it was like it had been taken over by dykes.
Atticus:
Dykes!
Nancy:
I had never seen dykes in my life–
Keegan:
–A sea of dykes…
Nancy:
–and it was a sea of dykes. And the place was jammed, there were so many people, and I found myself a single seat right up close to the front. And so, I sat there, and I enjoyed the band and the audience, holy fuck. And then, there was an intermission and a number of people left. Now, that could be you got to go to work in the morning, it could be, you know, any reason, but a number of people left. And then this woman who was sitting over there with a group, she came over to where I was because my table vacated.
Atticus:
Right?
Nancy:
And she asked me if those people had in fact left. And I said “yes.” [speaking as Shirley] “Could we come and sit here, my friends and I?” [speaking as Nancy] “Absolutely!” So, that is how my first girlfriend and I met.
[Keegan chuckles]
So, she came and sat at the table and then the band played. And I didn’t have to get up early in those days. And afterwards, you know, like, we talked and she said, “are you going to OISE [Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, a UofT department]?” Like, “next week at OISE, there’s this, like, woman reading,” you know, this like, lesbian reading about something or other. And “are you going to this concert?” You know, it was probably like Holly Near. Or “are you going to see Ferron?” I said, “I don’t know.”
[Keegan chuckles]
And so, she said, “Well, the one next week at OISE,” you know, blah blah blah or what have you. And so, I went. And it’s like, “Wow! These women. These women all look really interesting. Really interesting! I’ve never seen women like this before.” And then I went to the next thing that she told me about, and the next one. And then, one of the ones, this woman who I had met at a French immersion course… And this is a whole other–
Atticus:
–Where did this come from!
Nancy:
–This is a tangent! You don’t need this.
Atticus:
–I do!
Nancy:
–but she saw me, and she said, “Nancy Irwin! What are you doing here? Are you coming out?”
[Atticus and Keegan both wheeze laugh]
Right? She screams–
Keegan:
–I guess so.
Nancy:
–And I’m like, I, I, actually…uhh.
Atticus:
You hadn’t thought about it.
Nancy:
I didn’t have that language yet. I had not fully claimed the “dyke” status. I was… I can tell you about the first night with my girlfriend, but you maybe don’t–
Atticus:
[coaxingly] Ah, ah, ah!–
[Nancy laughs]
Keegan:
–It’s story time!
Atticus:
–[to Keegan] Why don’t you get us some cake?
Keegan:
–Do you want some dessert? Here, I’ll bring it over so you [inaudible].
Atticus:
–I’m here for this.
Nancy:
So, we went to an event, and the event was very close to my house. So, I invited Shirley home.
Atticus:
You bring the lady back.
Nancy:
And I think she was really nervous because she knew me as straight, right? Like, all of her friends were telling her, “Keep away from me. I’m straight. I’ll just”–
Atticus:
–I’m having difficulty picturing this.
Nancy:
–“break her heart.” I will try her out and then try out 20 more women, before I… Well, I’d never heard of that either. And so, she came to my house. My apartment was so small. There was a mattress on the floor and there was a couch. So, she came and hung out and we talked and we this, and we that, and then I said to her — because it was getting late — I said, you know, “if you want, you can stay over.” And so, she said, “okay.” And I was like, well, then, you know we’ll go to bed, right? And so, she went in the bathroom and closed the door, so I just took my clothes off because I was going to go to bed. And she came out of the bathroom wearing a T-shirt. Like, some kind of, like… I don’t know, I guess she had the T-shirt on already, and she looked at me. And like, well, she just, like… I’m naked, well because I’m not going to wear clothes to bed.
Atticus:
So, this nudity thing has always been a thing, eh?
Nancy:
Oh, it’s been a thing since before that, for sure.
Atticus:
[sardonically] Open-minded parents?
Nancy:
[flatly] No.
Atticus:
[amused] Oh, interesting choice.
Nancy:
Well, my dad used to come home from work in the summer, and he’d drop his trousers, and he’d have his work shirt and his underwear on.
Atticus:
[teasingly] Yeah, but that was normal. Pretty normal?
Nancy:
Well, my mother didn’t think that was normal. “Art! Go put some pants on!” You know? So, Shirley came out of the bathroom wearing a T-shirt, and there I was naked! And I know that she felt instantly embarrassed. Like, she’s the experienced lesbian and she’s wearing a T-shirt. And I’m like, you know… Because I was going to bed. And then we went to bed. Turned the lights off. We’re in bed, we’re lying there, and I’m thinking “I don’t really know what to do,” right? And I’m lying there, and I’m lying there, and finally I rolled over, and kissed her.
Keegan:
[wistfully] Mmm, that’s so tender!
Nancy:
And that’s when I found out about lesbian sex.
[all laugh, fin]
Atticus Hawk (they/he) is a doctoral candidate in the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto. His research looks at the role of Leatherdykes in the creation of medical knowledge and harm-reduction practices for fat, trans and disabled bodies in kink.