I’ve just returned from the first meeting of the Accidental Community project. There was a photo slideshow by local artist John Kozachenko, a very brief overview of the history of gay men’s communities in the West End, Q & A and interactive discussion, and a look at future directions for the project. Fascinating stuff. I learned that the man after whom Davie Street was named—Alexander Edmund Batson Davie, 8th Premier of B.C.—was rumoured to be gay, though he had a wife and children. But apparently he hung out with gay people who, upon his death, started a social club in his honour and renamed the street after him. The articles I could find online don’t elaborate on just what kind of social club this was.
I was invited to this meeting by one of the project members, who’d contacted me a couple of months ago via my queer history project, looking for leads for his research (unrelated to mine, but it never hurts to ask). Unfortunately, I couldn’t really help him, since I haven’t kept in touch with the one person I interviewed and all my other sources are publicly available. Still, I’m enormously flattered that my little project got his attention in the first place.
In addition to some cool history, another thing I got out of this meeting was how disconnected I am to the West End, living way the hell out in the suburbs. True, there are advantages—it’s much cheaper to live out here, and I do have some (non-gay) friends nearby—but maybe I’m missing out on more than I realise. Years ago I voluntarily severed almost all ties with queer communities; I’ve since eased some of the way back in, and only recently have I realised what a mistake that self-imposed exile was. Where to go from here, though? That’s what I’ll have to figure out.