Interview with Sean Grieve

18-06-12-SG.docx




“HIV in My Day,” Sean Grieve (June 12, 2018)

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“HIV in My Day” – Interview 33

June 12, 2018
Interviewee: Sean Grieve (SG); Interviewer: Ben Klassen (BK)

Ben Klassen: Well, thanks so much for being here…

Sean Grieve: Of course.

BK: …And for sharing your story with us today. We’re really looking forward to hearing your
experiences. We like to start these interviews by asking you how you first became involved in
the gay community or started engaging in gay life.

SG: I actually started hanging out in front of what was then called Pal’s on Government St. in
Victoria. I used to take down numbers for a girl that worked the street there. And little by little, I
got little braver as I got a little older, and went down the stairs, and that’s actually how I got
involved in the gay scene. It was probably 1983 – yeah, ’83. By ’84, I was [laughs] here in
Vancouver and hanging out in places like the Gandy Dancer, the Edge, Love Affair – all the fun,
festive bars up and down Davie St. Yeah.

BK: There were a lot more of them back then, I guess.

SG: If I remember correctly, there were thirty-four gay bars here at one time, like operating at
one time. It was candy to a kid, I’ll say that. Yeah, that initially is how I got introduced into the
gay community. Prior to that, I was the only gay person I thought I knew. I grew up in Sydney at
that point, so apparently nobody else there was gay, although I found out later on, several of the
people I went to high school with… surprise. [Laughs]

BK: I mean, statistically… [laughs]

SG: Statistically, exactly.

BK: You have a little snapshot of the gay community in Victoria then?

SG: A small one, yeah. It was tiny – it was a cliquey little community. I don’t really know what
to say about Victoria. I didn’t spend a long time there. As soon as I was – I guess I probably was
nineteen when I moved over here by myself. So, I was in Victoria maybe for a year, year and a
half. I was a street kid in the beginning, so I did kind of jump between the two cities a lot, but I
didn’t really have… I guess I had a childhood friend that I knew who was gay, but other than
that, I didn’t really – there wasn’t much of a gay street life, not like there is now, where kids are
okay to be very out and open if they live on the street. You had to be quiet.

BK: Was that a community that you were a part of when you came to Vancouver as well?

SG: Yeah, a little, a little. Yeah, I hung out on Granville St. for a while, but even then, back then,
it was pretty – I shouldn’t say that it’s not like it isn’t now – Granville St. is still pretty dicey,





“HIV in My Day,” Sean Grieve (June 12, 2018)

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right? Just depends on the time that you’re down there. Back then, it was during the day. But no,
I didn’t really know anyone that was gay on the street here. So, it wasn’t until I got a little older
and started jumping in and out of bars… Well, not legally-speaking, but… [laughs]

BK: Any other thoughts on what the community looked like in Vancouver in those early years
when you were here?

SG: It was far more colourful than it is now, I can say that. Davie St. was very lively. I think it
had a lot to do with – forgive the term of the day – the hookers, the hookers on Davie, right?
From all the way down on Howe to all the way down on Jervis, and even a little further than that.
It was just colourful, it was vibrant, and there was a real sense of community that seems to have
disappeared. And I get that. We’re a lot safer on the street than we used to be and we didn’t have
to look after – like, now you don’t look after each other the way you used to back then. You had
to have many eyes because, you know, the guys from Surrey would come in and jump you, and it
could be violent on Davie, but at the same time, boy, it was a lot of fun. Just the different
characters – not that there isn’t any now either, but it just it seemed – well, obviously there were
more. HIV wiped out half of us back then, you know, almost overnight. So, there were a lot more
drag queens – it was fun. It was a very festival atmosphere all the time, and I’m talking on a
Tuesday night. Like, Davie St. just ran twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Now it
seems to have business hours, you know? Yeah.

BK: Is it sanitized or something now? That’s probably not a good word to describe…

SG: Yeah, sure it is. You know, gentrification happens everywhere. I kind of equate those two
words – sanitized and gentrified. It just – I think, too, homosexuality is a little more accepted
now, so there isn’t really the need to be as in-your-face and as flamboyant as we used to be.
Yeah, I’m here, I’m queer, get over it. So, that’s what’s kind of changed Davie St., probably. It’s
just a little quieter.

BK: Do you recall what happened with all of the sex workers and that vibrant street life – do you
recall when that started to disappear?

SG: Yeah, it’s kind of weird, I don’t really remember when it disappeared. I do remember a
shift, you know how it went from the street to more – giggle, giggle – in the newspapers, because
it was becoming a little more acceptable to advertise. Sex workers could kind of advertise in the
back of the West Ender, or Georgia Strait, or Discorder magazines of the day, and then the
Internet came along eventually, and I think that’s what really dried up Davie St. They could
bring it indoors and sex work wasn’t as looked down upon either, so I think that too has
something to do with it somehow. I don’t really remember why though, but I do remember just
little by little it started to disappear and it was sort of quiet.

BK: It’s certainly not what the West End is known for nowadays, at least to my knowledge.

SG: No, not to my knowledge either, but it used to be, you know? Gee, even in the ‘70s, I can
recall as a kid being told stay away from here, because there were heroin junkies here and
hippies, for heaven’s sake.





“HIV in My Day,” Sean Grieve (June 12, 2018)

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BK: It’s hard to imagine.

SG: Yeah, can you imagine? The West End’s changed a lot in the last thirty-plus years,
drastically, and I think it’s for the good, you know. It’s still colourful, but like I said, it’s on
business hours – there’s nothing wrong with that.

BK: Not to switch gears completely here, but when did you first start to hear about HIV or
maybe start to see that?

SG: I remember hearing about GRID, the gay-related immune deficiency, at – I just spoke about
it but it’s gapping me… bar down at the end of the street – Gandy Dancer. And there was pins
they were handing out, these little punk pins of the day, and they said, “On me, not in me.” And
for the longest time, the group of us didn’t really get what that kind of meant at all, and then one
of us got brave enough to say, “What are you talking about?” And this guy said, “Well, you’ve
heard about the gay cancer haven’t you?” And went off about GRID and we were all sort of
horrified, like what do you mean we can die having sex? Then it clued into us all, right – “On
me, not in me,” like cum on me, don’t cum in me. That was the only way to survive at that point
– that was like 1983 – probably late-’83, ‘cause I was just underage and was giggling that I was
getting in there. [Laughs] But that was the first time I had ever heard about it. And then
obviously after that it was Rock Hudson, and then suddenly it became known as HIV/AIDS, it
was no longer the gay disease, which was odd because Rock was gay. But you know, Liz Taylor
had something to do with changing society’s view, actually. But that was my first exposure to it.
It was kind of frightening actually, and at the same time, at that age, I didn’t really – not that I
didn’t care, it just didn’t seem to have an impact on me. It wasn’t until a few years later on when
things really got bad around here that it had an impact.

BK: So, initially there was a sense of distance almost?

SG: A total sense of distance. You know, that’s kind of why I bring up the button. It was just like
a button you wore with a slogan on it, right? It didn’t really mean anything. It hadn’t really hit
home yet. I’m sure we were all just kind of in denial, right? Oh, it’s happening in Europe, it’s not
happening here – all that sort of silly thinking that you do, usually when you’re young. [Laughs]

BK: And something potentially terrifying. How do you make sense of that?

SG: Exactly, you don’t. Usually you just sort of put it in the back of your mind and figure if it
happens, it happens, and I’ll deal with it when it does.

BK: It is interesting though to me that your first experience hearing about this was through a bar
where – it wasn’t through an ASO, it was through…

SG: Which is where it would happen now, right? I guess that was the only place to reach out to
people back then. And there literally is – as I smile – telephones sat at home, right? There was no
Internet, there was nothing. So, I don’t even remember reading anything about it in the paper,
you know. And I guess too that kind of makes sense if I think about the time. It was gay-related





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so we didn’t exist, so why would any of that exist? And so, a bar would be the logical place to
reach out to people. I remember it was Tiny, actually – who wasn’t tiny… he was a very large
man, that was handing out the buttons. I kind of wish I had asked, I just sort of proudly put it on
and thought, yeah, whatever… [laughs] Literally, it was a couple of weeks later, I believe, that I
finally got brave enough on a Friday on one of the men’s nights to go, “Tiny, what’s this all
about?” You know…

BK: But I guess that’s what some of the earliest forms of education might have looked like, the
information being put out there.

SG: It pretty much was word of mouth, that really was it. There… well, I guess there was a queer
paper here, but that too didn’t really focus on a lot of – not in the beginning. As it became more
politicized, yes, Xtra West was quite… yeah.

BK: And I think there was a paper called Angles that was maybe around at the time.

SG: Oh, I’d forgotten all about Angles. [Laughs] Oh wow, hey.

BK: Do you recall maybe not in the earliest period of the epidemic, but as the epidemic
progressed a little bit, do you recall where you were getting your information from? Were there
good sources of information out there that you were aware of?

SG: Not that I was aware of. Most of everything that I heard or I was able to get was from
someone else who had heard it from someone else, which really – after a while, that reliability on
that information being factual just gets out there with opinion, right? Yeah, it’s lost. That was
pretty much the only way in the very beginning. And the Bute St. Clinic now that I think about it.
They were pretty good about trying to get the word out, ‘cause I went in for a test on a whim and
it was someone standing out saying that they were offering anonymous testing, so…

BK: And do you recall when that was roughly?

SG: ’92, probably in October – somewhere around there, and I remember calling back and them
saying, “Oh, we can’t tell you that. You need to come in.” And so, that was it. I bolted actually. I
knew that there was no point in going back, I know what they’re going to say. So, I didn’t really
get tested-tested until, I believe it was Sean Fay, said, “You’re not looking very well, and I think
we need to test you.” And I said, “No, no we don’t. I already know what it is.” And blah, blah,
blah. And he said, “Well, still we need to test you.” He did the same thing. I called. They were
like, “No, we can’t tell you the results over the phone.” And I was like, “No, I know. I’ve known
for a while. Thank you.” Different time, definitely. Not like it is now, you know, where
everyone’s tested – if you go into the hospital, you’re tested, and that just makes complete sense,
right?

BK: Well, I definitely want to talk about and get to that point and talk about your experience at
that juncture, but I guess sticking with this earlier portion of your story, how were you
responding to this initial information that was coming out, I guess in terms of any of your
behaviours or…?





“HIV in My Day,” Sean Grieve (June 12, 2018)

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SG: It didn’t change any of my behaviours in the slightest – not at all. It did change how I was
seeking employment though. I heard that people were afraid to go into people’s houses and start
looking after people, and so that’s initially what I did. I stopped hairdressing – that was
roughly… memory’s foggy, so it was probably 1986, ’87 that I started to transition into Upjohn
Healthcare Services, and I would go into people’s homes and look after them – cook for them, do
whatever was necessary, and that’s kind of how I dealt with it. I thought I have to do something
rather than just sort of not do anything. I don’t know how to explain that, I just remember being
so moved by the whole thing that was happening and I thought I have to do something about this,
and I didn’t really know what to do. I don’t even remember how it happened that I ended up in
that – probably picked up an ad in probably Angles of all things – you know, now that I’m
thinking about it. And they were asking people to go in and do simple things, like wash people’s
dishes, because people obviously were sick and couldn’t, you know, function at all – at all. Some
of that medication was horrible. You know, AZT was made unfit for human consumption in
1968, so they knew something about it then, but it was a last-ditch effort. You know, and I
remember that really clearly, a lot of the guys around me just dying so quickly, and that I guess
was how I dealt with it. I thought, well, I’ll go and help as best I can. It’s funny, I distinctly
remember thinking back then, I’ll never get this, I will never get this disease, and I thought that
since I had immersed myself in it somehow at the ground level that it was never going to happen
to me. Surprise. But you know, that has a lot to do with not changing my behaviours, you know?
I spent a lot of denial in the early days about it – it was someone else’s disease, oddly.

BK: Who was that? Was there a conception of who that someone else was for you?

SG: Sure, yeah. It was some guy that always hung out in a bathhouse or something like that. I’m
one of those rare gay guys – I’ve been to a bathhouse once in my life. The experience freaked me
out so bad that I just never went back, right? [Laughs] I’m sure they’re great places, but for me,
that’s actually where – I guess I demonized it. Actually, the more I think about it, yes, that was
sort of the person I thought would be likely to have HIV, someone who went there, or went to
the park, or, you know. Not someone who goes and does the same behaviour in a bar, right?
[Laughs] Yeah. It’s funny actually, I think a lot of people demonized people in bathhouses and
going down to Stanley Park in that day as being people who spread it, although never taking
responsibility for themselves. I don’t ever remember condoms being available anywhere back
then, at all. In fact, I believe you had to buy them – I don’t… It’s almost as if there’s bowls of
them now in restaurants. [Laughs]

BK: Yeah, almost literally, yes.

SG: Literally, yes. The Fountainhead has them, right? Yeah, I’ve gotten off track there.

BK: No, I think that’s an interesting tangent to follow a little bit. So, safer sex or safe sex wasn’t
really something that was being talked about or promoted all that much in those early years from
what you saw?

SG: People were promoting it. Was it being listened to? About as much as it is today. Yeah,
some people were very adamant about it. Most though, just didn’t care or didn’t think – like, I





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thought, “It’s not going to happen to me, it happens to other people, you know? That happens to
people who use drugs. I don’t use those kind of drugs, so I’ll be fine, right? I don’t shoot
cocaine, I snort it, so I’m not like them,” although no different. Yeah. It was a very interesting
time. There really wasn’t – if I think back, really think back, there really was no resources at all
outside of that Bute St. Clinic. I cannot remember anywhere else in all of Vancouver. You
certainly wouldn’t have gone to St. Paul’s – they didn’t really like gay people back then, but it
was a Catholic Church, you know. It was the ‘80s. People actually believed in witches. [Laughs]
I was thinking back, you know, before I thought about doing this, and Anita Bryant, the woman
that got the famous pie in the face, right? The gospel singer, the super-hater of the world, she
believed that witches existed, really believed it. It was a very simple time. [Laughs]

BK: This is absolutely tangential, but one of the guys that we interviewed was actually at the
event that she got pied at – I believe it was in Toronto. Completely tangential, but…

SG: Exciting. We had our own activists here, I remember them well – no names mentioned.
Someone once tripped the premier’s wife and covered her in ketchup.

BK: His name has come up a few times. [Laughs]

SG: He has a nickname – [name]. [Laughs] That’s actually, if we hit back on it, guys like him
too were sort of our source for finding out about how really serious this epidemic was. If it
wasn’t for a few them, I think – you know, the Joe Averages, as those people who stepped up
really early… yeah. All the beginners, I don’t think I would have had half the information I was
able to get at all. I’ve often wondered, if I was a young kid now, would I become HIV positive. I
doubt it. I think the resources are strong enough that I would have to have faced that truth,
whereas back in the day because it was so few and far between, you could dismiss it and do it
quite comfortably – oh, it’s not going to happen to me, like we were talking about. It’s those type
of guys that get it. I go out every night, but I get up and I run, I exercise, I do these type of
things. It’s not going to happen to me, I live a different life. Although, I went to the Shaggy
Horse just like the rest of them, so… [Laughs]

BK: What was the Shaggy Horse?

SG: Oh, the Shaggy Horse. The Shaggy Horse was a – I guess it was a leather bar, although I
never really saw that side of it. All I ever really remember, the Shaggy Horse, was that it had
terrible carpet on the walls.

BK: Shag carpet? [Laughs]

SG: Yes, oddly enough, and sticky. So, I’m sure there were things going on at the Shaggy that I
really didn’t want to know about at that age anyway. [Laughs] I was usually quite inebriated by
the time I ended up there. I vaguely remember where it was – I believe it was on Hornby, it may
have been Howe, but down there somewhere.

BK: Hearing about all these places, it does almost make you long to have experienced some of
those…





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SG: Yeah, Vancouver was fun. I really can’t stress how fun it used to be. Not that it – you create
your own fun obviously, but this just had a built-in fun. You started at the Gandy Dancer and you
moved to The Edge, and then from there you went to the Love Affair, and then you crossed over
Davie St., because Celebrities used to be called the Rock Palace and it was a rock bar of all
things – I know, on Davie St., yeah. Hardcore rock, too, like the biker, leather… So, you’d have
to avoid that, because they were angry folk. And then right next to it is Numbers, so you’d cross
back over, right? If you were brave enough, like us, we would just march right past what is now
Celebrities, but you would zigzag back and forth all the way down Davie St. all night and then
make your way back down. It was fun. There was no cover in bars then, there was nobody living
in Vancouver, actually. [Laughs]

BK: Yeah, the city has changed a lot too, right?

SG: Yeah, it’s grown so fast.

BK: Yaletown used to be a bunch of warehouses, and…

SG: I was just going to say, everything you see from Burrard St. west, it didn’t exist – just didn’t
exist. There was a collection, a handful, maybe two handfuls of high rises in Vancouver. There’s
now 650. Yeah, you’re making me think of Doll & Penny’s – I’m sure you’ve heard a lot about
that. That actually – when did Pumpjack – whenever Pumpjack showed up was when Doll &
Penny’s kind of ended, but it was the last sort of – places like that, too, now that I’m thinking
about it, restaurants, that’s where we got our information from. I can remember a little, you
know, sort of one of those info card things there, and there was one about HIV there, although it
was really called AIDS, but the HIV wasn’t quite there yet. Yeah, it’s funny. Actually, I hadn’t
thought about that in a while.

BK: No, I think it’s really important for us to get a snapshot of that, because I think there is a
conception of ASOs throwing lots of information at people, but maybe in a lot of instances it was
a lot less formal than that. It was just…

SG: Far less formal. I don’t think there was any formality in it. It probably wasn’t until 1990 that
I remember everyone sort of collecting together. Prior to that, it was just sort of very fringed –
you know, the odd radical individual – no names mentioned. Bless them because we wouldn’t be
where we are today without those folks, you know? Yeah, there was maybe five, six people that I
can think of that were very outspoken.

BK: And getting their hands on information and getting it out there.

SG: Exactly. And spreading the word. Things like, you know, that AZT wasn’t good for you,
you know? That I never read anywhere until someone told me. “You know that that was made
unfit for human consumption?” And I thought, BS, so I actually went to the library and looked it
up, and sure enough… But it was that radical group of individuals that got that sort of stuff out to
us – don’t do DDI, don’t do this, don’t do that. Yeah, it was an information-starved time. I think
of now and anything I want to know about HIV, I just ask Google and I do it at work all the time.





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I’ll be on the computer and go, oh gee, I don’t get what that is. Hey Google, what does CHIWOS
[Canadian HIV Women’s Sexual & Reproductive Health Cohort Study] stand for – stuff like
that. That’s amazing, actually, but it would have been so helpful back in the day had we had
some sort of – well, society didn’t care, the more I’m thinking about it. They just didn’t care. I
can distinctly remember Ronald Reagan saying on TV, “They’re gay, why would we give them
medication?” They’re only going to kill themselves anyway, basically was his attitude, you
know? I know, weird, hey? I mean, I was kicked out of the house for being gay. There were a
couple other things that helped me with that decision, but that was the primary factor. But that’s
how it was dealt with in that time. Yeah, it was a police officer that told my parents that, that was
the best thing for me was to be out on the street… [laughs]… which oddly enough, when I look
back on it, weirdly enough it was probably the best thing that happened to me, but yeah. I
wouldn’t be the stellar individual I am today.

BK: Wow. What did the mainstream response to the epidemic look like here in Vancouver? Can
you recall any of that?

SG: There… That was really, really… That didn’t really exist either. I know of a couple of
doctors and it was like that until ’98, ’99, you know? You could go to Sean Fay, he would help
you out, Richard Taylor – there were so few doctors that were even willing to deal with it, so
there was no mainstream – it just didn’t exist. Not like it is now. I mean, we have the Infectious
Disease Clinic – it goes on and on and on. Fifth floor… I remember a time when people died in
St. Paul’s and they put caution tape on and then emptied the room and everything was
incinerated – the bed, everything, it was all put into plastic and incinerated. Yeah, that was
weird. So, there wasn’t a mainstream – it just didn’t really exist. It really was a small group of
people who figured they needed to do something. You know, I can remember Sean Fay saying to
me, “I was tired of seeing all you young guys come here and signing your death certificates a
year later.” But it’s bizarre, hey? If I go out now, which I don’t do often, I look around and there
is literally a generational gap. There doesn’t seem to be anyone that’s about forty-eight to fifty-
eight – we’re just so few and far between. It’s interesting. If you put a timeline up, you can also
see when medications came out that were good.

You know, I recently went to the Positive Gathering and we all grouped ourselves in a large
room by the year diagnosed. There was actually someone from ’81, which was like, oh my god.
[Laughs] Here, let me touch you – you’ve got some mojo going there. But it was neat to look
around the room, and you went from ’81 to about 1990, there were four people, maybe five. And
then in ’91, there were a few more, by ’92, there were four of us, you hit 1995, there were ten
people, then there was like ’96 – there was twenty, and groups got bigger and bigger and bigger.
And then towards the end, toward most recent times, it got smaller again, which I thought was…
odd, that it would sort of… But I think people are treated now, so they’re living, they don’t go to
these functions anymore. Someone asked me about work – how could we reach the youth? How
can we get youth involved because youth doesn’t see that this is an epidemic, it’s not a problem
with them. You take your red pill or your blue pill – off you go. So, none of that, nothing like
that, not even a – existed. Like, I’m surprised we even got any information. You’re making me
think about it, I remember most of that information now being stopped at the border – it was up
there with pornography. Little Sister’s couldn’t get anything in in the beginning. They just saw it





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as demonizing. Interesting, I’d forgotten about that. There was very little you could do to get…
It’s nice now.

BK: Yeah, it is interesting to think about those newly diagnosed folks, and maybe there being a
perception that they don’t need that community anymore.

SG: No, they don’t. When I look at the communities that I belong to, like Positive Living as it’s
called now, there’s very few. Most of the people that are in ASOs all seem to be around my age,
which is – it stands to reason. We were about the last generation prior to the HAART drugs and
everything else that heavily relied upon those services. You know, I’m sure you’ve heard the
coined phrase Lazarus Effect, living in five-year increments. I’m still doing that to this day. It’s a
mindset that you just – I guess when someone tells you, “Get your things in order, kid. You’re
not going to be here in a few years.” So, you party for a few years and you don’t die – wait…
well, still not dead… hm, guess I better do something with myself.

BK: Yeah, when you were diagnosed, was your conception that it was still a death sentence?

SG: Oh, yes. Sean literally looked at me and said, “If you’re lucky, you’re going to live five
years, so my suggestion is you go and have a fun time with your life. Just go and enjoy yourself,”
because in that day too, once you were diagnosed, someone at AIDS Vancouver took over for
you and made sure you were put on disability. Thankfully, they came into existence, because…
You know, so you just – I guess most of us just sat around waiting to die, and it didn’t happen. A
lot of us ended up with addiction issues because, well, what do you do? Do drugs, party, have
fun – sadly, spread the disease around, more than likely, right? When I think back, yeah, it was
reckless – I was completely reckless, as most people were, from my perception anyway. Things
are different now that way. The urgency is no longer there. That said though, I’m very aware that
that’s in a unique bubble we live in here in Vancouver, because once you leave Vancouver and
start getting out into the real world, people actually still die of AIDS and are stigmatized and all
those other things that are draconian from that era that we keep reflecting back on in the mid-
‘80s, early-‘80s.

BK: When did it stop feeling like a death sentence to you? Was there a moment where it clicked
– hey, I’m actually not going to die from this?

SG: Yes, I do. I do remember that. It was roughly around 2002 and I thought – actually, it was
2000, 2001, I thought, well, I’m not dying and I’ve got to do something. I can’t sit around
anymore, I’m so bored, it’s not funny. If I see another re-run of whatever, I’m going to vomit on
myself. [Laughs] And so, I went back to school, I went back and got my grade twelve and other
things that I just didn’t get a chance to do because of circumstances when I was young. But I
distinctly remember thinking I’m not dying, so I’m obviously one of those weird freaks that –
knock on wood… I’ve been on the same medication for I don’t know how long, probably
seventeen years now. So, early 2000s is when I kind of went, this really isn’t a death sentence
anymore. Although, if I think about that, outside of BC, yeah, it appeared to be that way.
Vancouver’s always seemed to me anyway to have stepped up very quickly. It followed San
Francisco and New York, places that were much, much bigger than it, and kind of saying, you
know, we have to do something about this or it’s not going to bode well in the end.





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BK: With the exception of things like incinerating whole rooms at St. Paul’s in the early years.

SG: In the early years – well, they actually did that for quite a long time, but bless them. You
know, there was actually – a lot of people have negative things to say about St. Paul’s and I often
try to remind them that you know that was one of the few places – that and Mount St. Joseph –
you could go, because if you went to Vancouver General, they sent you to St. Paul’s and Mount
St. Joe’s. They weren’t going to deal with you, they didn’t want to have anything to do with you.
You know, “You’re from the West End. You need to go back down there.” Of course, that was
back in the day – you might as well have just worn a t-shirt that said faggot on it. [Laughs]

BK: If you were looking for anything to do with HIV treatment?

SG: Yeah, exactly. It didn’t happen to straight people. Funny story about that, I was volunteering
at BCPWA as a peer counsellor. I met a girl who was straight, that was HIV positive and from
South Van, and I still distinctly can feel my body just going, [gasp] what? Almost as if I’d seen a
white spirit bear in the middle of the forest. It was just like, “Holy shit, you do exist!” I’ve heard
rumours, you know, that straight people get this disease. That’s another thing actually if I think
about it back in the day, it really wasn’t – if any media source hit on it, it was always from a gay
male issue. Like, I remember kind of 1996ish when the – what was that thing? World AIDS
Conference came here, I guess that’s what it was called – the World AIDS Conference. But
being really shocked about the whole African continent being – it never really occurred to me, I
guess… I don’t know, there was a real disconnect, the more I’m thinking about it. Like, I
honestly believed it was a gay disease, and a little time goes on, you kind of go, okay, maybe it’s
not. Maybe the information I’ve received is false. [Laughs] Somebody’s changed this in
Wikipedia. [Laughs] User edit.

BK: Even after the whole GRID thing falls by the wayside, there’s still this really strong
connection made between HIV and gay men.

SG: And gay men. Actually, it still is, you know. I won’t mention any names or that of a study or
anything, but at work, I have had the opportunity to interview people outside of this little bubble
we’re in downtown, and it still is thought of as a gay disease. And the stigma that surrounds that
prevents a lot of people from seeking treatment, and that shocks me, it kind of freaks me out
completely that, really, it’s still… Like, we talked about earlier, it’s still 1980 in Surrey. Yes,
there are some services there, but the attitude is still 1983, ’84, which is troublesome, because I
know how I felt then. Oh, it’s not going to happen to me. I’m impervious to this, right? Yeah,
interesting.

BK: When did the epidemic start to become a little bit more visible here in Vancouver? Do
you…?

SG: 1990 – ’89, ’90. It looked like a lot of what used to be really beefy men in Levi’s 501s – the
old clone look as we used to call it – the moustache, shaved head – they all started losing their
asses, and then their legs got skinny, and then they got skinny. And then they all started looking
like the old Benneton ad – ghosts, just basically draped. And it was everywhere. And I do





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remember, there was a lot of stigma. I felt really bad for a lot of the guys, actually, because they
were really shunned. You know, I can remember people crossing the street to avoid talking to
people, because I guess that meant that we all had to face it too, right? But it was probably, yeah,
1990. Prior to that, it sort of – it was still this ethereal, no, it’s not really happening here. That’s
happening in San Francisco, yeah. But by 1990, it was very visible. Like, you went into a
doctor’s office, and guaranteed, you know… As my friend used to – I shouldn’t laugh, but bless
him, he had a wonderful sense of humour, and he was very morbid, but he’d say, “Oh god, I just
sat down next to a skeleton,” you know. But you’d be in a waiting room and there were several
people who had wasting syndrome, and it was apparent that something wrong was going on
because you could see the balance was starting to… I can distinctly remember that. It almost
happened overnight, which was weird. I think back, I was young and memory makes you think
that things happened like that. It probably was a one- to two-year period where it just really – it
exploded. It just – it no longer was one guy out of ten, it now was like six, seven guys. And,
“Hey, have you seen so-and-so?” “You didn’t know? He died.” And it would be like, “No, oh
my god, I didn’t.” You know, it was very strange. Scary, really – really scary and sad when I
think back on it to watch Davie St. just sort of wither away like that, and literally wither away.
Like, really big guys, the sort of lumberjack look. It was frightening to run into someone that you
once knew at 220lbs and they were suddenly 90lbs, you know? Yeah, it was hard. I’m glad it
doesn’t happen anymore, not around here anyway.

BK: And by that point, was the community starting to respond in a more…

SG: Positive manner, no pun intended. Yes, definitely. There were a lot more organizations
springing up, and almost like overnight. I believe it must have been 1990 or ’91 that BCPWA
started on Hornby St. in the – it’s gone now, but there used to be a purple house there. And it was
just actually a collection of lesbian women who just saw us all disappearing and they figured –
you know, Jackie Haywood and folks figured something had to be done here. And so, the
grassroots, bless them, all grew and here we are today with more ASOs than we can shake a stick
at, which is good – they cater to everybody. One time, we were all lumped into just one group,
which must have been horrible for straight people – I can’t – I don’t really remember. I do
actually remember when the straight folks started to come into BCPWA, and it was when
injection drug use started to really spread it, but someone living a so-called “clean straight” life
would have never in a million years showed their face anywhere near those places. Not like it is
now where you have the women’s network and, you know, it’s just amazing. But very few
resources, very few people wanted to do anything.

I asked my dad, because I wanted to get a perspective, why was homosexuality so looked down
upon? You know, I said, “Come on, you guys must have known Liberace was gay.” I worried as
a small boy that I was going to end up like him, you know. [Laughs] I knew we had something in
common, I couldn’t put my finger on it, and then I thought, oh god, the rings. Yikes. And my dad
said, “You have to understand, if you called someone gay, that was worse than murdering them.”
It was a death sentence kind of thing, you would have ruined their career, everything would have
fallen apart for them. He was like, “You don’t have any idea what that word kind of meant.” And
I was like, whoa. I can see why it was so long and why it took so long for people – and why it
was women who really stood up first and said, “No, this has got to stop. Our brothers are dying
everywhere here.” I hadn’t thought about that in a long time.





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BK: So, was there a sense of the community coming together in some ways?

SG: Oh yes.

BK: And lesbians.

SG: Definitely, yeah. It was a – I talk with guys often about this now, you know, you guys have
no idea how segregated the bars are now. They’re very – preps go here, rough boys go here.
Back in the day though, it was mingled and there were women in the bars. It was – the
supportive community, that I see has sort of drifted away and the support now is a paid supported
community – nothing wrong with that, but the dynamic has changed. But it was a little more
supportive, and just grassroots-level, doing it for free, not for $22.85 and hour.

BK: I guess a lot of those early ASOs were really heavily reliant on volunteers.

SG: Yes, definitely. BCPWA, I can think when I first started there, I think it had five, maybe six
staff members, but a hundred volunteers, because it wouldn’t have existed otherwise. And there
were a lot of guys like me too that were in that very early time that – after a few years of partying
and realizing you’re not dying, you’re slowly looking for something to do that’s more than just
snorting cocaine, smoking pot, and drinking your face off – that gets boring after a while. It
sounds great in the beginning and it is, but it tires quickly for most.

BK: When did you get involved at PWA?

SG: I have a hard time remembering when that happened. It probably was about 1994, roughly
about the same time as… actually, yeah, Kurt Cobain died. Funny how you mark things, hey?
[Laughs]

BK: That’s a big one, yeah.

SG: It was a big one. Actually, it’s funny, I came out to my friend that night, the night that Kurt
died. We were at – what the hell was the name of that place? Fish House or something like that –
it was sort of a trendy straight bar that had punk bands – anyway. But I came out to him in the
bathroom there and it was like coming out all over again. [Laughs]

BK: It never ends.

SG: Yes, it never ends. Yeah, it was about ’94, and it’s funny, when I think back on that, the
individual who took me in there eventually became a board member, but there was no
application form, there was none of this security, police records – all that kind of… She just
looked at me and said, “You want to help us out? Fantastic. We’ll see you tomorrow morning at
such-and-such a time. We’ll find something for you to do.” Yeah, it was an interesting – it was
just much different, very volunteer-run. And way more supportive when I think about it. But
nobody needs support anymore. Vulnerable populations now seem to need the support, the
average person doesn’t seem to need it anymore. They’re navigating the HIV life quite well. You





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know, there aren’t really any side effects on the medication, most people can work full time,
most people can live full lives. Back then, when I think about it, you spent a lot of time on the
toilet, either above it or on it, you know. You didn’t eat well, you didn’t sleep well, so…

BK: When you talk about support, what did that look like at PWA?

SG: PWA was amazing. They had Polly & Esther’s, which first started as a pile of clothing and
it eventually morphed into a store. But they had the lounge where, you know, there weren’t the
rules like there are now too on restaurants donating food to places and stuff, so we actually ran
kind of a kitchenless kitchen. There was always food, clothes – you pretty much could get
everything you needed. You know, I remember the AIDS Vancouver food bank was horribly
substantial – you would walk out of there with five, six bags. You didn’t need to buy food – it
was amazing how the community rose up like that in the beginning. And obviously, as more and
more people became positive, it started to thin out, but in the very beginning, all that was met, all
those needs were met, and there didn’t seem to be any urgency for anything. You know, I can
even remember thinking – my TV died one time and I went in and said, “My TV died.” And she
said, “Oh, here, come look, we have several of them. Do you want one?” My first computer was
from BCPWA – a lovely little Mac tower, with the little window – kind of wish I’d kept it.

BK: It’s probably worth money now.

SG: It’s probably worth money now. [Laughs] It was a great organization. It’s a shell of its
former self now, which is again understandable. The dynamic of HIV has changed. You know,
those of us that function higher are functioning well, and people who can’t are the ones that need
the most support now, which obviously would be the medication that did all of that for us, right?

BK: So, I guess there were all those different components of more material support, like clothing
and food. Was there also a lot of social support?

SG: Definitely. Yeah, there was – although it recently just ended, there was the Average Joes
where positive guys could meet once a week at Numbers, and there just was stuff like that
everywhere. But again, we kind of were singled out in society back then. Now, it’s just like, “Oh,
you have a chronic illness. How unfortunate for you,” right? I shouldn’t laugh about it, I’m glad
it is that way. You know, yeah, you got the bug, huh? Oops. Yeah, the support was grand when I
think about it at one time. In fact, there became a… almost a war between the gay and straight
drug using community over BCPWA and its resources. Little by little, the Downtown Eastside
seemed to have won out for a while there, which they needed it the most. I think early
intervention in the beginning with all those nice girls that stood up and did something for us gave
gay men an advantage over most people. They were the first to sort of realize, well, this isn’t a
death sentence – time to move on, I guess. It was interesting. That actually was 1996. I distinctly
remember working in the lounge then and you could see the dynamic – the demographic
changed. The gay people went away and a lot of women started coming in, which was really –
with kids – that was frightening. Hm, I hadn’t thought about that in a while actually. That was
quite an interesting time in Vancouver, watching the division build in a community where people
would say, “I don’t go there anymore. It’s for junkies. I wouldn’t walk through the door.” And
funny how it’s flipped again, right? Now it seems a little more acceptable to go to Positive





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Living, which is interesting. I think the early days of HIV, there was a lot of stigma, and much
more I think than I recall. And we were even pushing it on each other – that I do remember
though, very well – avoiding people. People would whisper, “So-and-so is…” That would be it,
you’d never see them again. Sad – weird, hey?

BK: And that was pretty pervasive within the community as well?

SG: Yes. Yeah, you died alone, really. You know, you died among strangers in 10-C, which
actually used to be somewhere else, but I don’t really quite remember where it was. I think it was
on the seventh floor to tell you the truth – it might have even been the fifth. But it did move
around for a while, yeah. People got forgotten, which is sad, really – freaky. I’m sure that when I
go, if there’s something up there, I’m in trouble anyway, because I added a person’s name to the
quilt when it came to town, and they specifically told me before they died that under no
circumstances was I to do any such thing. [Laughs] Anyhow, I did. Actually, you asked too when
I thought that it might be survivable – I think maybe when the quilt came to town, too, was my
first inkling that maybe, just maybe we were all going to pull through this, that this was going to
be a survivable event. And that would have been probably 1997 I guess – I believe it came for
’96.

BK: What was seeing the quilt like?

SG: Overwhelming, because it’s big and we only had a very small portion of it come to
Vancouver, and it covered where Robson – where the art gallery is. They laid it out there and it
covered that whole plaza. It was quite something. I mean, it’s football fields-long. Yeah. Boy,
you know, the more I’m thinking back on it, women really stood up and took the early reins in
the AIDS movement. Huh. Funny how you don’t notice things, I guess, when you’re in them.
[Laughs]

BK: Well, if you’re worried about surviving…

SG: Yeah, exactly. But now that I’m thinking about it, all ASOs were basically women. Not
much has really changed – now it’s a little more fifty-fifty now, but yeah, bless the women,
especially that Jackie Haywood.

BK: We’re so lucky to have her on our team.

SG: Is she on the team?

BK: Oh yeah. She’s a lovely, lovely woman.

SG: Oh, nice. She sure is, isn’t she? That society did so much. I wouldn’t be sitting here in this
chair without them. You know, I went on their very first healing retreat to Bowen Island and that
really… The more I think about it, that’s when I actually knew I’d survive it, and that was mid-
‘90s. I don’t know if I believed it. Definitely, you know, 2000, 2002, I knew – no, you’d be dead
by now. [Laughs] You’re one of those people you read about.






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BK: Was there anywhere else that you found support in those early years when you were newly
diagnosed?

SG: The only place I knew of was BCPWA and AIDS Vancouver, and to be honest with you, I
don’t think anything else existed. I can remember Healing Our Spirit coming into being and
thinking, wow, there’s three places now, and it’s for the Indigenous folks. Like… Yeah, there
was no PAN [Pacific AIDS Network], no none of that – it just didn’t exist. I literally cannot
think of anywhere else. I mean, perhaps the Bute St. Clinic, but after my phone call with them, I
avoided them like the plague – giggle, giggle. [Laughs]

BK: Oof, bad joke. [Laughs]

SG: Bad joke, exactly. It’s something you learn – you learn to laugh at death. We had to, we had
to have black humour. When I think back to that tragedy happening at Davie St., if we didn’t all
make those jokes about those poor guys, I don’t think we would have all survived, the ones of us
that managed to survive. I think you had to take that horrible sort of black humour and… You
know, I still kind of find it funny sometimes. My roommate will say, “Do I look like Skeletor in
these jeans?” And recently he was having a wasting issue, which was a little frightening, but the
medication is back under control and yeah. But it makes me think back to that time – that was
how we probably survived it all. We laughed at it – didn’t really have a chance, I guess, you
know. For god’s sake, it was referred to as the diet. “Oh girl, you’ve got the diet. Uh-oh.”
[Laughs] There were all sorts of horrible jokes – you know, the rolaids – but the diet… we used
to refer to it as the diet. “No, I don’t have the diet yet.” But I guess that’s what happens in
extreme tragedies – you take one of two veins. You either lie down and submit to it or you stand
up against it, laugh at it, make fun of it, point at it instead.

BK: Were there other ways that you had of coping? I mean, there was PWA and black humour…

SG: Black humour – yeah, that was about it. And friends. We all kind of became a lot more
cliquier with each other. Like, I remember someone saying to me once that Vancouver was a
very cliquey city, and I thought, yeah, but I know why though. We’re protecting each other, so…
I remember my best friend getting sick. That actually was horrific. But I even shunned him. The
worse he got in the hospital, the less I was willing to go see him, and that I think is because –
well, obviously, I thought I’d have to face it one day myself. That was actually very early when
[name] died – [name] died in the same year I was diagnosed, actually. He died of pneumonia,
and there’s nothing more frightening than seeing somebody lie in a bed with tubes coming out of
their side and the shit that’s being sucked out of them. And they don’t even look like themselves
anymore – knock on wood that that doesn’t really happen anymore. But you just didn’t cope, I
guess, is what I’m getting at with that story. You just dealt with it – you either had to or – like,
you did, you stopped seeing people, you know?

I distinctly remember when [name]’s mom said that she had brought him home for the last
couple of weeks of his life. I thought, thank god, because I really didn’t want to visit him in the
hospital, and I thought – how selfish is that? But I guess that’s how you coped with it – denial,
denial, denial. It’s not going to happen to me, it’s happening to someone else, it’s all a bad
dream. Yeah. I still have survivor’s guilt actually over [name], which is funny – I laugh about it





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now, I’ve come to terms with it. But it probably should have been me and not him. I won the
contest after all. We had a contest to see who could sleep with the most men in a year, and I won
because [name] actually did a repeat. The rules were there were no repeats, it was a one-time-
only thing. I think we both ended up with the disease because of that contest, right? I’m pretty
sure that that’s how it happened – in fact, I know that’s how it happened. And he didn’t last long.
He was dead within two years. But that was normal back then. It’s interesting what happens now.
You know, now we’re studying aging. Like, I’m the first generation to actually poke past fifty
and have this disease. A good thing, denial [laughs] – it seemed to work for me, I guess.

BK: Did you ever find yourself in a caregiving role of any kind with any of your friends or
working at PWA?

SG: Not with my friends, but at Upjohn Health Services, yeah. I did home healthcare, and in that
day, I basically was, you know – what do they call them now… an LPN, so I did everything and
anything that needed – from wiping ass to cooking, vacuuming, helping someone bathe, dress. I
did a lot of that and I burnt out from it – I had to quit, actually. I did that for almost three years,
and little by little, again, I started to switch away from people with HIV to doing people who
were geriatric – I started to do a little more taking the old people for a walk around the park,
because it started to get a little too real for me. You know, I can remember one – we referred to
them as clients – one client in particular. He was very wealthy, but under no circumstances was I
allowed to let him drive – he drove me home every single day and he insisted on it. But his
impact was… I don’t know. That was I think really tough to watch him die, and I found him
actually. And it was – it was disturbing – I don’t know, I shouldn’t really talk about it or I might
get upset. Yeah, it was traumatic actually. Maybe I should talk about it. He… he did such a
wonderful job of imparting so much seventies gay history to me before he died, you know? I
probably wouldn’t know where I came from, so to speak, if it wasn’t for him, and I won’t say his
name because it doesn’t matter – you’re going to take it out anyways – Mr. Redacted. Yeah, I
actually hadn’t thought about him in a very, very long time. I loved him driving me home. It
frightened the hell out of me because he was half-dead, but he insisted on it, you know?

Yeah, I did a lot of that work, as much as I could in the beginning, but it had a really high
burnout rate. You just – it’s hard to look after someone for several months and then have them
die, especially when you – you’re so intimate with them. It’s much more different than having a
relationship with someone, you know? Chances are in a relationship, you’re not going to wipe
their ass, even when they’re really sick – you’re going to take them to the hospital, that’s how
most people react. When it’s a stranger though, you have a tendency to be a little more
compassionate, but you’re involved in every part of their life. He couldn’t get out of bed at one
point, in the end. He just – all he did was lie in bed and give his things away, which was bizarre.
Hard too to listen to someone tell you that they’re going to get well and go on a vacation, and
you know damn well that they’re not getting well – that was really tough. But I’m glad and I’m
honoured that I had the opportunity to look after so many guys in the last parts of their life. That
is just as important as the job I do now and hold people’s stories. It’s an honour to do that. Yeah,
it was – a lot of people wouldn’t do that work back then, you know?

I can remember my friend, [name] – bless his little soul, he’s gone now – but him, “Pft, I don’t
fucking understand why people won’t do it. Do you think you’re going to get the disease? You





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can’t get AIDS from dishes.” And that was like 1988, I remember him actually going after one of
the nurses at Upjohn Healthcare Services. He was like, “I’m not wearing gloves and I’m not
putting bleach in the water for them anymore.” Because I’d commented – [name] and I used to
talk and sort of debrief, I guess, with each other, and I said, “Have you noticed when you’re
washing the dishes that the gloves are like melting and leaving plastic residue on the plates?”
And he was like, “Yeah, why are we putting bleach in the…” He finally looked at me and he
said, “I can blow a guy and not get AIDS, so why am I putting bleach in the water?” So, he
confronted one of the nurses with that exact statement. “So, tell me, if I can suck a guy off, why
am I wearing gloves and putting bleach in the dish water in order to do their dishes?” Company
policy. There was a lot of barriers – like, literal barriers – to looking after people back then,
which I guess… I never followed them, now that I think about it. I was always like, whatever. If
I can be that intimate with someone and walk away disease-free, I really don’t think that
touching them, rubbing their legs because they have bone cancer, you know, is going to cause
me to be infected. And yeah, if I get a rash, I get some cream or whatever.

Yeah, there wasn’t a lot of support, especially at end of life. It’s not like now, you know – you
can go… although the Dr. Peter Centre has been around for seventeen, eighteen years, but now
you can go there to die. There wasn’t anywhere like that. I think about Dr. Peter himself, if
you’re familiar with him, obviously. What a brave thing to do, to die on television. That actually
was frightening, although I remember all of us getting together every single week, moving the
rabbit ears on the TV to get the CBC in and watch Dr. Peter. That’s actually a good – that’s one
of the places that information was spread, that we relied on. What he did for us – and he died in
’92, so he’s been – I guess it was 1990 to ’92 on TV – eighteen months, something like that. That
was a source of information, a trusted source actually, because it was coming from a doctor, a
doctor who happened to be gay as well and out – oh my god. [Laughs] Yeah. But supports were
few and far between for guys. Notice I haven’t said women. There were no women that were
dying of HIV that we knew of in Vancouver, you know? I only really knew of one up until about
’97. Interesting. I can see where people believed it was a gay disease – a so-called gay affliction
in North America anyway.

BK: Yeah, when you first got involved with PWA, it was probably gay, white men.

SG: Yes. And the odd Indigenous guy, yeah. It seemed to affect the gay Indigenous community
really hard in the beginning. But you know, I think back to the time, it wasn’t uncommon in an
ad at the back of the West Ender for one guy to ask for another guy and say, “No fats, no
femmes, no Asians… and no Indians.” And it was like – you wouldn’t do that today. Bigotry
isn’t as acceptable today as it was back then. It still blows my mind that the newspaper would
print something like that. But I remember it hitting the Indigenous community, the gay
community here really hard in the beginning. But primarily, you’re right – 75% was white male.

BK: That’s an important nuance, to say actually this community was really prevalent too,
because we’ve heard lots of other people say that it was super white, so it’s interesting to hear
you say that there were lots of Indigenous folks.

SG: Very much so, very much so. And in fact, the first women I knew were Indigenous women,
which stands to reason – marginalized population. Yeah, I could go off about demographics and





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social determinants. I’m living proof that social determinants do actually determine what you
become in life, you know? I wouldn’t be sitting in this chair today had I not left the house at such
an early age. It’s funny, I was sitting at work – we had a meeting just to kind of – you know one
of those pecha kucha things – have you ever heard of that? It’s Japanese for chit chat. It’s just
basically a PowerPoint and you do your life in twenty pictures – it’s very prevalent in this… I
actually used the “Silence = Death” to represent a time that – it made me realize, looking around
the room and listening to everyone, that you were more likely to not be HIV-infected if your
parents were supportive, you went to university – da, da da… And I realized, it really hit home
that it was like, wow, you know, your social determinants really do play a large role in – well,
even today, as to whether you’re infected with HIV or not. It’s not to say that someone at
university has the brains not to… because they don’t but they’re less likely and they’re probably
less likely due to social support. Yeah, it was just an interesting thing that sort of hit me and I
thought, wow, life probably would have been a little different. I might have been a little more
educated about HIV in the very beginning, or at least have had access. You know, Encyclopedia
Britannica doesn’t exist on the street – doesn’t exist anymore now, either, but… [Laughs]

BK: Probably not, yeah.

SG: Yes, there was a time that you went to a group of books… [laughs] to look things up.

BK: I can barely remember doing that.

SG: It’s been a while. I actually think they stopped producing them, probably twenty years ago
now.

BK: Just a minor clarification about your care – providing homecare for people from that period,
were those mostly HIV positive folks or…?

SG: 99% of them were HIV positive. It was at the end that I started looking after elderly – it was
actually two elderly women and an elderly man, but otherwise it was all gay men. And when I
think about it, they were all white. But that too, I guess you would have had to pay for Upjohn
Health Services to come in. It wasn’t funded – I don’t think it was funded by the government, not
in the beginning.

BK: Whereas some programs at AIDS Vancouver might have had – like the buddy program may
have been more accessible to a broader demographic.

SG: Yes, and I think roughly about – that’s when the buddy program kind of started was late-
‘80s, because the more I’m thinking about it, it was [name] that got me interested in really
wanting to do home healthcare – he sort of sparked it and he was part of the buddy program in
the beginning.

BK: Interesting.

SG: Yeah, it is interesting. Interesting how the brain works.






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19

BK: Yes, interesting to dredge stuff up

SG: It’s from the past, yeah. All I remember from that work really was just how… how hard it
was. It really – I have got skin on my back like a leatherback turtle now when it comes to people
dying. I’m just kind of like, hm, so why are you telling me this? Surprise, life ends. [Laughs]
Oops. God, I remember at one point, everybody I went to go see was dead. Yeah, it was weird.

BK: It must have given people a very different perspective on death and dying, especially
because so many of these people were so young.

SG: Well, that’s it, right? And you did develop a different perspective on death. It just… As silly
as this sounds, it just became a part of life, an expected part of life. And I don’t think that that’s
something that young men and women of eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, should have to
live through, because I don’t think it happened before us, I don’t think it happened to the
generation after us – not in that sense. I mean, half my friends are gone. Half the gay men I knew
are gone. And it’s probably a little more than half, but I just don’t include acquaintances and
things like that because I can’t really remember their names. But close friends, half of my close
friends are gone. Yeah. One of them fairly recently, but that’s a whole other epidemic, you
know? Actually, when I’m thinking about it, the only other time in history that I experienced
what I experienced in the beginning of the so-called AIDS epidemic is what’s happening now
with the opioid crisis, and particularly between 2016 and ’17. It mirrored, although it outpaced
the death rate, but it mirrored what it was like. You know, you would see someone one week –
the next week they were gone. And literally healthy-dead.

BK: And speaking of social determinants of health and how that factors into this ongoing
epidemic…

SG: Exactly. It’s interesting, isn’t it? I look at that epidemic and think why is it even happening?
We’ve already been through this. Yes, it was a disease and, you know, the circumstances were
slightly different, but we’ve already been through this. I mean, that I remember too at the
beginning – unnecessary death of people. Like… just unnecessary. But what else were we to do?
There weren’t really – I mean, the medications killed you. I flat-out refused in the beginning – I
will not take it, I’ll take my chances, and I’m glad I did. You know, I watched a lot of guys die
because of medication. I watched a lot of guys go to a certain doctor – we’ll never mention his
name – and they all died. You know, you’re really making me think about how we got
information out. It was really underground – guys going up to each other and going, “Stay away
from that doctor. Stay away from that person. Stay away from this clinician. You won’t live
long.” Whether that was true or not, there was a lot of that going on. I distinctly remember
saying to my friend, [name], “You need to go to Sean Fay, because the guys that are living the
longest right now are under Sean’s care.” Funny, now you’d be able to go to a website. [Laughs]
There’s no shortage of specialists, actually – there were no specialists back then. The handful of
doctors I can think of were the specialists, and they were just GPs – in fact, most of them still
are.

BK: Those physicians were just playing a guessing game a lot of the time too, I guess, and just
hoping that things would stick.





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20


SG: It was a game of Russian roulette, no different than acquiring the disease. You spinned the
cylinder to see if you would live. A lot of people didn’t – those drugs were really toxic. I can
remember looking after one guy who was quite beefy and everything when I first started looking
after him, and his only problem was fatigue and diarrhea. Then he went on the DDI, and within
weeks – in weeks, he was gone, and irreversibly so. But he took his chance. Chances are, he
probably wouldn’t have survived anyway. You know, usually by the time you were getting
chronic diarrhea, you were on your way out – that led to wasting and everything else, KS and
other scary things, that – knock on wood – we don’t hear of so much anymore.

BK: We talked briefly about activism earlier. Were you involved in any forms of activism or did
you see activism happening in Vancouver?

SG: I didn’t get involved, but I saw a lot of it happen. I remember the guys linking their arms in
front of emergency, not allowing anyone into St. Paul’s unless they were going to be treated and
treated with respect, and everything else. That I remember distinctly. It was a proud gay moment,
one of those… Those are my brothers. [Laughs] Ol’ [nickname] was one of those guys. I also
think too back to [name] and those other folks starting the art projects to fund things like AIDS
Vancouver and A Loving Spoonful – all those kinds of things that were coming up. But
otherwise, no, I didn’t really get involved. I don’t know why. I guess maybe I thought I was
doing enough looking after people, that that was kind of my role in the fight against it. Yeah, I
don’t know, I just – which is odd, because I’m really quite outspoken. I was very Queer Nation
back then, you know, in-your-face – combat boots and a tutu – you know it. [Laughs] So, I’m
surprised I didn’t get involved, but I guess… That would have been tough, a lot tougher on my
family than – somehow, I think that’s what prevented me, the more I think about it. It would
have brought shame on the family, so to speak.

BK: No, I certainly don’t mean to imply that you should have…

SG: No, not at all. I think back and I wish I had – I wish I had been part of that movement,
because I was very vocal, you know? I was the kid in grade seven that when the cutest girl in
school couldn’t get me to go out with her was the first one to say, “Well, it’s because I’m gay. It
has nothing to do with you, I’m just gay.” So, I was a little outspoken that way, so I’m surprised
I didn’t… But if I think about it, I don’t think my family would have appreciated that. It was
hard enough on my mom having me gay, and then hard enough even having me HIV positive,
you know, because I was open about that right from the beginning. We had to be. I always
thought about others, not that you can get it from a salad, Mom. [Laughs] But you had to think
that way, right? Yeah. But a lot of the activism, yeah, I just didn’t really pay attention to it. It
was sort of being done for me, I guess. I selfishly just thought, oh, thank you. I do remember
watching it in the media. You know, you couldn’t escape it, it was always on the front page of
Xtra West, a couple of individuals always in particular. [Laughs] And bless them for standing up
for us. That was a rough fight for some of them. Like, I said, when they linked – I can’t even
remember what year that was – but when they did all stand in front of the door of emergency and
not let anyone in and demanded to be treated, that’s bizarre, for one, that we lived in a world
where that happened, but yay that it did, because it probably paved the way for everything else.
Activism was big here, I remember that. I remember at one point, it did make it into The





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21

Vancouver Sun and The Province and it became mainstream kind of news. I myself never
participated in it.

BK: Thinking on a larger scale here – I’m slowly getting near the end of my questions – how did
the epidemic change the community if it did at all? What did it…?

SG: It fractured it, killed it. There is no community anymore, it’s gone. It does not exist the way
it used to – that’s really sad. Yeah, the community’s gone – it’s just gone, it died. My friend and
I talk about this, there’s no one left other than a few men like myself to teach kids the way I was
taught, you know? I was taught the difference between a guy wearing a dress and having a
moustache, and all those gay idioms I guess, and there really isn’t anyone to teach kids that stuff
anymore. That chain was broken and you can see it in the gay community – the drag community
dried up. There used to be a very vibrant drag community here – it’s just meh now, but no one
was around to teach anyone. The clone look is gone, [laughs] as I cry with a little laugh, but that
should have been passed on, and it was, kind of. Some things were kind of done, but for the most
part, there was nobody to foster community, and the community that did exist was too busy
trying not to die. I really miss that time. There was – I don’t know. You would walk into an
establishment and you would know everybody – everybody knew each other. And yes, it’s
because Vancouver was a little tinier, but that said, if you go to larger gay communities, that kind
of still exists, but not here. We really were wiped out, you know.

I read somewhere that statistically that we fared worse than New York and San Francisco and
Los Angeles, that sort of per capita thing, that more of the community died here than anywhere
else kind of thing. And that – it just left a gap. You know, I walk up and down Davie St. now –
not that I stay out until midnight anymore, but if I’m out at ten o’clock on Davie – we used to
call it the Gaza Strip, and I know that kind of evokes all sorts of images, right, and you’re right –
every one of those images you’re having is pretty much correct. [Laughs] People doing it on the
street, all sorts of just… and it’s gone. The carnival’s over, the circus left the town, and all we’re
left with now is the odd person that wanted to stay behind. And you go into a bar now and you –
there’s no friendly atmospheres anymore. Don’t get me wrong, there is, but not like it used to be.
Yeah, the family, the sense of family is gone. And I guess, too, that comes with, you know, kids
being able to grow up gay now – that has a lot to do with it too. We didn’t grow up like that, so
we had – we were forced into being social and reliant on each other, because that was all we had.
It’s not so anymore. But HIV really did a big number on our community – it snuffed it… it
wiped it out. If I think off the top of my head, I know a handful or two of guys that survived in
the fifty-plus, you know, and once you go past sixty… The only person I knew died recently and
not from HIV-related causes, but I don’t think there’s anyone really around from that sort of
Boomer… They’re rare, they’re very rare.

Yeah, there’s no community and that’s sad really – it really is sad. If the kids could only…
[laughs] I’m thinking back to Graceland, which was a bar and it – my god, they handed ecstasy
out in the beginning in bowls before it was illegal, so everybody was all over everybody. It was
very hedonistic – that’s a good way to say it – the hedonism of the gay community has become
very closeted where it used to be very open, and that’s a direct effect of HIV taking that gap out
and not having teachers, people to pass on. “This is what it means to be a radical faerie,” you
know? Now kids have to Google it to figure it out. There’s nobody to tell you how to be a radical





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faerie and there used to be people that did that. Yeah, I guess what I’m saying is the leaders of
our community are gone, so we’re kind of like Jews just wandering the desert looking for
somewhere to live – the more I think about it, that’s a great way to describe it actually. We went
from being a community that was very grounded and planted to one that is just sort of wandering
around, not… I don’t see a cohesiveness anymore. And maybe that’s a good thing, and maybe,
hopefully, it is because kids can grow up gay now, they can grow up trans, they can say to their
parents, “I like both sexes, actually. I want to be piggy,” right? But I definitely miss that
community, or maybe it’s that I miss the people. Yeah.

BK: You talked about the older gentleman who you looked after and him telling you all the
history, passing that on. I think that was just part of the way the community was before HIV.
There was this kind of passing down.

SG: There wasn’t a need for you and I to do this to pass on oral history, it was just passed down.
Yeah, I can always remember that the older gay men – I’m sure it was nefarious for most
reasons, but they did sort of teach you things, pulled you aside and said, “You know, when you
grow up, these things that you’re worried about now, they’re not going to mean anything to
you.” Or the older ones saying, “Oh girl, you hang on to that you thing, it’s gonna… Get a
career.” Yeah, there’s no one to do that for the young kids. And those of us that are around are
just too busy trying to live – I don’t have time to do stuff like that, I’m too busy trying to prepare
for a retirement that I wasn’t supposed to have. I was forced to get rid of my RRSPs, all of that. I
have nothing. So, there’s no time for me to do community things. I’m more occupied with trying
to prepare for a future – yay. I can look forward to being an old man, you know, according to
Julio Montaner, I can look forward to being a super senior if those genes are in my… Like, wow.
But that too comes with a price. We’re not able to connect, I guess, and I think that’s common. I
see a lot of single men my age, and it’s for multiple reasons, I guess – you get a little finicky. But
I think that too has something to do with the epidemic. We have other priorities that we have to
concentrate on.

BK: Is part of that maybe about burnout? Like, the people that actually made it through this…

SG: I am HIV burnt out in that sense, yep. Like, I’ve – I don’t think about actually anymore in
the sense of worrying about it, but that’s a good way to put it – I think we’re burnt out from the
whole epidemic. I don’t know, maybe it’s just that we’ve taken the time to actually be selfish,
too, and said, well, time to survive. So, that too doesn’t leave a lot of time for community. I don’t
know, it’s interesting to think about.

BK: Continuing on this thread, what advice do you have for younger generations of gay guys or
what would you want to pass on – lessons learned or anything like that?

SG: Be blessed for where you’re at right now. Be blessed for the world that that generation that
disappeared just before me fought so hard for you to have, ‘cause the generation that’s left just
after them, we spent too much time surviving, so we don’t really have the ability to pass the
torch to those kids. Just be blessed for the world that you live in. Be happy you live in North
America, because research that I’ve done says that only 11% of the entire world accepts who we
are, and that’s what I would pass on. And make sure that this doesn’t happen again in any





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capacity with any disease. Like, an off-shot sort of thought, but suddenly I’m thinking back to
the ‘70s when my aunt got cancer and nobody would sit in a room with her. This seems to be
something that we keep doing and maybe it needs to end with HIV – the stigmatization of
disease and all that. That’s what I would pass onto them – don’t let it happen again, because it’s
going to happen again. I think we’re all getting a little too comfortable and if we’re not careful,
we might end up with a strain of this disease that is resistant to all medications.

So yeah, just be happy, be mindful, and do your best to pass on the homo gene. [Laughs] Well,
you know what I’m saying – become a community. There’s not enough people in my age group
to really form a community anymore, you know? Most of us sadly passed away due to drug
issues, that’s the sad part about my part of the generation – we survived and then chose another
way to step out. So, don’t let it happen again, that’s the only thing I can pass on. How to do that,
I have no idea, but just to be mindful that it could – it very well could happen again. I mean, if all
the ASOs lose their funding and everything else, we’re back at ground zero, and that’s a big
reality that’s happening right now, because everybody believes this is a survivable event. I would
beg to differ. It’s a manageable event, but don’t let it happen again. A lot of – not that I’m going
to blame myself or anyone in my sort of age group, but we did turn our backs a little on what was
going on, and I think we could have prevented a lot of it from happening and we didn’t. But we
also were the HAART generation, right, the first to start to survive. And the last thing I’d pass on
– combat boots and tutus are awesome. [Laughs]

BK: Especially in combination.

SG: Always. They have to be worn together. There’s no other way. And preferably pink. Yeah,
be proud, literally. And it’s nice that they’re growing up in an era where they can be proud.
Yeah, that’s actually what I would pass on – be proud. Stand up, act up, fight back. And don’t
forget who Marsha P. Johnson was – you know, those kind of things. Google stuff. Don’t forget
the beginning of the movement. I’ve thought about that actually a lot in the past few weeks –
what would those three individuals that started that Stonewall march, what would they think of
us now? I don’t think their thoughts would be nice. I think they would think that we’re lazy and
complacent, compliant. That generation would be flabbergasted by gay marriage. [Laughs]

BK: And some of those people that started that riot would still not be very welcome in our
community.

SG: No, they’re not welcome in our community. I think of Marsha and the fact that she was a
trans woman puts her at a disadvantage in our community, even today, despite how the Jenner’s
made it socially popular – I’m still trying to be politically correct there. That’s the other thing I’d
pass on – stop this politically correct business. [Laughs]

BK: We need more black humour.

SG: Yes, we do. We do need more black humour. I’ve noticed working in research that we went
from being gay and bisexual to MSM and now we’re right back to where we were except now
we’re gbMSM. Doesn’t gay and bisexual just sort of say it all? Don’t be politically correct, use
your black humour.





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BK: I guess relatedly, any advice for folks who are newly diagnosed or would your advice to the
younger generation be the same for newly diagnosed folks.

SG: No, my advice to newly diagnosed folks is start your drugs right away – don’t wait. Seek
treatment right away and set those supports up for yourself. Yeah, don’t think that it’s an easy
ride, because it’s not. It’s a lot more than taking two pills a day. People never talk about the fact
that along with those two pills a day, you spend a good hour of every morning sitting on the
toilet – there’s a whole host of other things that come along with it, you know? It’s not
uncommon for people to go to the gym and then have to go home and have a nap. All those kind
of… So, if you start treatment right away, I think you avoid all those things. Put those social
supports in line for when they’re needed in the future, ‘cause the disease hasn’t changed, just
how we view it has. I think a lot of kids just think it’s a chronic illness, and sure it is in
Vancouver. You step outside of Vancouver – go to Kelowna – people die of AIDS. So yeah, I’d
say seek and treat yourself right away.

BK: And now that we have these drugs that are amazing for the most part available…

SG: We have a chemical condom now – how amazing, right? Like, the fact that we have PrEP is
just – the fact that we have a government that’s willing to hand it out for free… Yeah, do take
advantage of those things.

BK: PrEP, that’s all been in the last year that that’s… I think I’m out of my formal questions, not
that I really followed those. Anything else that you want to add or expand upon, or anything I
didn’t touch on?

SG: I can’t think of anything, but although I’ll leave here and I’ll have ten trillion things flood
me at once – oh, should have talked about that, should have talked about that. Yeah, bring the
activism back into HIV, actually. Not that it’s needed, but it is.

BK: Where do you see it needed or what’s missing right now, I guess?

SG: People have just become compliant about what they’re told to do rather than… I guess
fighting for others is what I’m trying to hit on, however that works for someone outside of this
bubble we’re in, to fight for those people, because they need a voice. And that’s really obvious. I
can share this – I worked on the Stigma Index, the pilot project here in BC, and outside of this
city, it’s still 1980. But there isn’t all the stuff going on that went on then. And so, a lot of folks
outside of Vancouver are still being left in the dust. You know, there’s still guys showing up, and
girls, with less than 90 T-cells, and they’re not on treatment. So yeah, the activism needs to come
back to get rid of the stigma that still surrounds this silly thing. But I guess that’s why I hit upon
that thing with my aunt [name] and cancer in the early-‘70s. It’s not the first time that we’ve had
a disease that’s terrified humanity, and humanity is very good at not dealing with things when
it’s scared – most of them stick their heads in the sand. [Laughs]

BK: And demonize the people who are sick.






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25

SG: Exactly. The same way that people who drink alcohol demonize people in the Downtown
Eastside yet never for one moment consider the fact that they too are doing their poison of choice
– it just happens to be a clean, regulated drug source – no different. I actually bring that up a lot
in the community – community tables. It helps some academics to ground themselves and go, oh,
that’s right, that litre of wine I drink every night is actually… woops. [Laughs]

BK: Anything else?

SG: No, I can’t think of anything else.

BK: I think I’ll just stop this then, but thank you so much for sharing all of this with us.

SG: Thank you guys for doing it, actually. That’s the most important thing, because like you and
I hit on, this is the way that my generation, the generation kind of before me – this is our only
avenue of passing these things on now. We don’t collect in large numbers anymore and when we
do, if you bother to look around at the gay parade, most of it is straight people. [Laughs] Come
down to watch the gay people.

BK: With their families.

SG: Which is cool. So, it’s really been an honour to just impart what I remember. And I’m sure
once I leave here, I will have way more.

BK: Like I said, we can also sit down again in the future if that sounds like it would be
productive for you.

SG: And for you guys, too.

BK: Of course. It’s built into our research protocol.

SG: Follow up.

BK: But thanks again.

SG: Thank you.