February 11, 2025 • 24 mins
EPISODE SIX – Rufus Wainwright and pflag Canada
“A new kind of family.”
Anchoring this episode is Rufus’ breathtaking performance of his song “Going to a Town” at the PTP Pink Awards, a Toronto awards ceremony celebrating Canada’s LGBTQ+ Advocacy and LGBTQ icons and LGBTQ+ celebrities. In a heartfelt and personal interview from Rufus’ LA home, Daniel speaks with Rufus and his husband, Jorn Weisbrodt, about parenting (and step-parenting) their daughter Viva, about Rufus’ relationship withto his own mother – iconic folk legend Kate McGarrigle – and building a new kind of family. In part two, Daniel speaks to Rufus’ nominated and chosen Changemaker from Canada’s LGBTQ+ advocacy event, the Pink Awards. pflag’s Canada President Christa Duvall and “proud pflag mama” Lori Ward - talk about the transformative work of this beloved organization that has been advocating for 2SLGBTQ+ friends and families for nearly fifty years.
Queer Joy is a seven part podcast celebrating the 2024 Pink Triangle Press Pink Awards.
The PTP Pink Awards are a national pay-it-forward celebration of queer excellence where community champions choose changemaking charities from the queer community to uplift and amplify. In 2024 we celebrated champions writer/actor/producer Elliot Page, musician/composer Jeremy Dutcher, activist Latoya Nugent, athlete Marie-Philip Poulin, musician/composer Rufus Wainwright and our legacy award winner philanthropist Salah Bachir. Join host Daniel MacIvor where he shares unforgettable moments from the awards and interviews where he sits down for honest and insightful conversations with our Champions and their chosen charities. Experience Queer Joy with Daniel MacIvor, some true queer Champions and our PTP Pink Awards with host Queen Priyanka
Pink Triangle Press formed in 1971 as a collective to publish The Body Politic – a monthly newspaper that is regarded today as a game-changer in the queer media landscape. And in 1984 as an offshoot of The Body Politic PTP formed Xtra Magazine, more focused on social life and culture, lighter fare, available free in bars. And when The Body Politic closed its operation in 1987 Xtra took over as PTP’s main publication mixing arts and culture coverage with harder news stories. There were print editions published out of Toronto, Vancouver and Ottawa. In 2015 Xtra moved entirely online where it continues the legacy of the original publication with award-winning journalism that strives to be – as its banner proudly states – queering the conversation. Check them out at xtramagazine.com.
#podcast #award #queer
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:07):
Hi, this is Queer Joy, and I'm Daniel MacIvor. And this is Rufus
Wainwright live on stage at the inaugural PTP Pink Awards on November 7th,
2024, two days after the American presidential election. Hello. I usually,
(00:27):
at these type of events, I just get up and kind of sing,
but obviously it's a terrible few days. I live in the United States
and it's good to be here. It's good to be here. Everything's been
so rushed and so crazed, and I was walking around town today and
I was like, oh, my God, I'm gonna sing this next song for
(00:49):
the first time after what occurred on Tuesday and it struck me.
We'll give you the whole heartbreaking, joyful moment of that performance
later. But first, my conversation with Rufus from his home in LA a
(01:12):
few weeks before the awards. So, who are you? Give me the top
of the long list of things you are. Don't be afraid to get
personal. Okay. Hi, my name is Rufus Wainwright, and I am a composer,
songwriter, singer, husband, father, Canadian, American, a lot of things.
(01:32):
It's interesting that father and husband made the top of the list.
Family is very centrally focused for you. Yes. And that's not the case
for everybody. How do you make that work? Yeah, no,
I guess I'm fortunate. In most respects, I'm fortunate. But there's also
moments when it's tricky being so close to one's family and so enmeshed,
(01:57):
as we McGarrigle Wainwrights are. So, I guess music was the central
hearth of our existence, and we just, I think, very much in a
kind of folk music tradition, which was very popular
for my parents in the '60s and '70s, before disco hit.
(02:21):
That was a way to... That brought us all together. You needed someone
to sing a tenor part or a bass part,
or to do one of the endless verses of some murder ballad or
something. So I think it was really the music that drew us together.
And also, in a lot of ways, was a way for us to
almost connect emotionally without having to actually talk
(02:49):
and face stuff. We could kind of just put everything to the side
and sing. And sing they certainly did. For those of you not fully
in the know, Rufus comes from a musical lineage that would rival,
if it was acting, it would be the Barrymores, if it was politics,
it would be maybe the Kennedys or the Windsors even. This is a
(03:10):
group of folk singers and troubadours that redefine the genre. Rufus's mom
was Kate McGarrigle, who along with his aunt Anna, were the McGarrigle Sisters.
His dad is Loudon Wainwright III. His sister is Martha, who by the
way is heading out on a tour in 2025 celebrating the 20th anniversary
of her stunning debut LP, Martha Wainwright. His stepsister is Lucy Wainwright
(03:32):
Roche, daughter of Loudon and Suzzy Roche of sister act vocal trio The
Roches. And please do yourself a favor with an easy search and watch
The Roches jaw dropping version of the Hallelujah chorus from the November
17th, 1979 episode of SNL. And Rufus' teenage daughter is Viva Wainwright
Cohen, whose mother is Lorca Cohen, daughter of Leonard, which of course
(03:54):
means that Rufus daughter's grandfather is Leonard Cohen. The lineage continues
and the family grows. Rufus husband, the arts administrator and artistic
director Jorn Weisbrodt has even been folded into the musical family business.
So you're managing Rufus now. So would it be fair to call what
you're doing with Rufus family business? Yeah, I mean, it is. I mean,
(04:16):
I think, a lot of people have sort of warned us, and were like, oh, you
got to keep your career separate and it's difficult for your relationship
and all of that. And look, there's obviously some truth in that,
but, I mean, family business was the norm. If you had a shop,
it was a family business. You had a farm, it's a family business.
(04:36):
And so in a way, us working together is, yeah, it's a total
family business for sure. I mean, to me,
I have a very traditional sort of German upbringing and that included going
to the opera and going to the theater, but it never really included
the arts as a career. It was sort of something that you did
that you enjoyed and I had always fantasized sort of about,
(04:58):
of being part of like one of these amazing artistic families.
And Rufus and the McGarrigles and the Wainwrights are that in the music,
in the folk music world. So, I mean, music I think is the
most beautiful art form in a way. Sorry, Daniel, you're a writer,
but I do think it's sort of almost singing is the most rewarding
(05:18):
activity that human beings can possibly do with their bodies and with their
minds. If I was a singer and very involved with my musical family,
that is exactly the point of view I'd want my husband to hold.
Rufus and Jorn are a great couple and they make their own rules.
Friends of theirs have described Jorn as the man wife and Rufus as
(05:40):
the woman husband. They keep things very fluid in terms of roles.
And as glamourous sounding as the work continues to be, in 2024,
Rufus played Carnegie Hall and shook up musical theater in London's West
End, writing the songs for Ivo van Hove's adaptation of Opening Night.
Things also have a practical side. Rufus has taken to appearing on mainstream
(06:02):
news programs, denouncing the growth of division and hatred in American
politics. Jorn is a work at home husband who makes the family dinner.
And both Jorn and Rufus have tapped into the joy of parenthood,
having permanently relocated to Los Angeles to be close to Viva.
Well, I think in the end of the day, what matters most,
and this is something that I'm quite proud of, is just that you're
(06:24):
present. To be there physically is so important, which my father wasn't
able to do with me. He was on the road a lot of
the time. And it was also a different era. The '70s and '80s, I
don't think dads were really expected to do much. So for me to
spend a lot of time with Viva has turned into one of my
(06:44):
major accomplishments in life, and I've done a few things.
Rufus has chosen as his change maker pflag Canada. Pflag is a beloved
organization first formed in the '70s and going strong still today as a
space of advocacy and support for two 2SLGBTQ+ people who might be struggling
with family adjusting to coming out. Although it seems apparent on why Rufus
(07:07):
would choose a family focused change maker like pflag, one also might imagine
that pflag might not have been on his radar. One might imagine that
being from a show business family of radicals and rascals would make the
whole coming out process easier. But it turns out one would be wrong.
I think what drew me to it especially is because my parents,
(07:32):
bless them, did a kind of terrible job
in terms of my coming out. It wasn't totally their fault because I
came out very young. I was 13, and it was 1987,
and AIDS was ravaging the world. And I think deep down they were
just scared shitless and didn't really know how to
(07:56):
deal with it properly. And so, my dad, my mom, and as I
said, out of fear and also out of trauma that I think she
had growing up in the Catholic Church especially, was like, I might kick
you out of the house. She threatened to kick me out of the
house when she sort of found out. I don't think she was serious
(08:18):
about it, but it was pretty intense. And we then later came back
together and she apologized and we were able to... And she loved Jorn and
she was... And we discovered opera together. We went on that journey together,
(08:39):
and it was great, but it was not an easy road,
shall we say? So I do remember, quite young, seeing these moments where
parents would come out and really unabashedly support
their children and being just so blown away by that and really
(09:00):
aching for it. It was something that I really needed and that I
didn't get. It's hard to describe the feeling of being at a pride
parade and seeing pflag come into view with their rainbow flags and homemade
signs. Love makes a family blessed with a gay son. Free hugs.
It's like the sun coming out, and at the same time,
(09:22):
like our hearts all filled to breaking. We were all aching for it.
It didn't matter how old we were. All of us were children for
that moment and feeling it all; gratitude, regret, tears, tender affection
and love. So many of us suddenly so aware of how outside we
had been, now inside. After the break, we'll feel the warmth of pflag.
(09:47):
I'm Daniel MacIvor, and this is Queer Joy.
The 2024 PTP Pink Awards was made possible by the generous support of
our sponsors, and we are deeply grateful for the generosity of our title
sponsor, Deciem, The Abnormal Beauty Company. Thanks to Sara Fromstein and
(10:07):
the entire Deciem team. Okay, Rufus, get up here.
I have to say, pertaining to my story of coming out very young
(10:31):
and at a very, very dark time in 1987, well, my dad,
he just turned to me and he said, so, are you gay,
straight, or what? And I didn't really know what to say at that
point. He was fine with no answer, actually.
But my mom had such a hard time. When my mother...
There's that magazine in Quebec called Fugues. Remember Fugues? Yeah, she
(10:52):
found a copy of Fugues and probably some other more salacious things.
And I came home, and she had a scotch in one hand and
a cigarette in the other. And she said, Rufus, don't tell me something
I don't want to hear. So I didn't.
And we pretended for a few years. And my whole life is really...
My whole early childhood life is really filled with some pretty traumatic
(11:16):
memories of just, of that whole process. So in a lot of ways,
an organization like pflag would have been so helpful and
saved us a lot of pain, both myself and my parents.
Because I think in a lot of ways, the parents, they're in as
much pain in a lot of ways. So I would like to invite
up Lori and Christa up here to give them this amazing award.
(11:40):
I'm Daniel MacIvor and this is Queer Joy. And that was Rufus Wainwright
at the 2024 PTP Pink Awards. And this is pflag Canada.
My name is Christa Duvall and I am the president for pflag Canada.
My name is Lori Ward and I am a proud pflag mama.
I asked Christa to tell me about pflag's history. It started in New
(12:03):
York in the '60s by a mom named Jeanne Manford. And back then,
the acronym, well, in the States they still use it, the acronym stands
for Parents and Friends for Lesbians and Gays.
Took a little bit more time to come up here to Canada,
but similar in the same way that it started in the States,
it was moms in Toronto, and they started a group called Parents of
(12:26):
Gays. Eventually, by the '70s, late '70s, they transitioned again to pflag.
Fast forward, we're now pflag Canada, but we only use the pflag as
a way of people recognizing us. We don't use that acronym.
It's not representative of the entire community and all of the voices and
(12:47):
the people that belong to it. So we use pflag in Canada as
lowercase. Pflag today, we have over 60 chapters across Canada and we're
adding new chapters all the time. I just did an interview for a
chapter to start in Nunavut. Like we're coast to coast and soon to
be coast. And every chapter is independent. Every chapter does something
(13:09):
differently. So we started off as providing support
for parents who were looking for help when their child came out to
understand and get information and how they could help their child.
That's transitioned. We have so many people who are part of the queer
community and part of the trans community who are now looking for that
(13:31):
support, as well as the parents. We've also got kids who are coming
out at super young ages and are gender diverse and they're exploring their
lives, and so they need support. So what you'll find from one chapter
to the next is all different support services. Each chapter,
(13:52):
they run what is needed in their community. So what you'll find in
Toronto is gonna be different than what you'll find in Windsor,
in Alberta, in Victoria. All different. A powerful and important organization
started by mums. And it's worth noting that the first mum, Jeanne Manford,
started the organization as a way of finding support because her gay son
(14:13):
had been arrested at the Stonewall riots. As we've been saying,
scratch the surface of any of our history and there's protest and heartbreak
and joy. Here's Lori. My relationship started with pflag when my daughter
at the time came out and told me that she was a lesbian.
(14:35):
I was actually okay with that. I just didn't really know how to
handle what I thought her life was going to be like going forward.
And it wasn't about non acceptance. For me it was, I didn't know
what their life would look like. I didn't know...
The white wedding dress kind of went out the window, at least that's
what I thought would have to happen. So I wondered if life was
(14:58):
going to be harder for them. And that was my concerns.
And then I thought, wow, I'm okay with this, but what are families
that have political and religious beliefs? What are those kids doing?
And so that really kick started me to go, okay, let's get on
with this and see what's going on out there with the community.
(15:20):
So I contacted Rosie O'Donnell, and Rosie actually wrote me back and said,
find your nearest pflag chapter. At that time, there wasn't an active chapter
in our city, so I quickly needed to take some training and got
our organization up and running again. And so right away,
(15:44):
in getting pflag rebooted, I got to meet so many wonderful people and
learned so much. I had no idea what it meant to be transgender,
genderqueer. Those were foreign terms to me. I thought I was gonna meet
parents, only parents whose kids were struggling. And instead I was meeting
the individuals themselves. And then, a little while down the road,
(16:07):
our child comes to us, who's now an adult, and said,
there's more to my orientation and it's that I'm struggling with my gender,
my identity. Well, by this time, I had educated myself and understood what
it meant to be transgender, and that there were varying
(16:28):
parts, moving parts to all of this. And so now our child identifies
as non binary and uses they/them pronouns or he/him pronouns. And they're
living their life like it's golden. And that's all a parent really wants
for their child. And that's what's made me so happy. And meeting other
parents and other families, seeing them come in, struggle and then come
(16:52):
together as a family unit and be happy and realize that's all we
want, is thriving, happy, productive kids that give back to society,
and we've done that with our child. So, it's good.
So pflag has transformed as our community has transformed and has helped
to create a new idea of family. Here's Christa. We are creating families.
(17:18):
The main goal of pflag is to keep families together, to give them
the information and the knowledge and support that they need so that their
child is successful and that they know how to support their child.
If we have successful children, whether they're adult children or children
children, if they're supported, they're gonna go on and do amazing things
(17:41):
in their lives because they have that. Parents are getting that information,
they're getting that love. They're getting everything they need from a pflag
chapter. We also talk a lot about chosen family in pflag. A lot
of queer and trans folks lose their families. So when they come to
a pflag meeting, they're gaining a chosen family. They might not know it
(18:04):
right away, but they soon find out that we're gonna be there when
other people aren't, and we are gonna be there to hold you up,
and we're gonna be there to celebrate the really great things,
and we're gonna give you a hug when you're having a really crappy
day. So it's not just about a family made of blood.
(18:25):
It's about a family made of community. A chosen family, a family of
community, a family of love. And another kind of family, now that our
unions are sanctioned, now that there is support and acceptance and love
is allowed, for now, at least, we can form queer families,
like Rufus and Jorn have done with Viva. We can generate love and
(18:46):
acceptance that we may not have known ourselves. Rufus wanted me to share
this photo with you of his family. I love Rufus. I'm so delighted.
That's Rufus and Jorn and their daughter Viva. It actually makes me feel
emotional, to be quite honest with you, how wonderful
now that a child can be loved by two male partners or female
(19:12):
or transgender. Our world's coming along. Not fast enough for some of us,
but to see that, that's beautiful. She's a lovely, happy little girl.
It's just all about love. Pflag is love. This picture is love.
So I'm happy to see it. That got me choked up.
Well, it's a beautiful thing. It's a beautiful thing. And this is what
(19:36):
our work's all about. It's about making sure families understand
you are okay. You go live your lives. Stop fretting about things.
Stop thinking about what people think when love will always win.
Let's hope. Let's hope that love will win. That joy will rise from
heartbreak and protest, that family will form from community, like it did
(20:00):
on November 7th, 2024 at the Pink Awards, in many moments,
but probably most clearly, most heartbreakingly, most defiantly, in the
moment we lifted our heads and saw that queer room and realized that
we were outsiders inside something together. That we were family.
(20:21):
We'll leave you with this. I'm going to a town that has already
been burnt down. I'm going to a place that has already been disgraced.
I'm gonna see some folks who have already been let down.
(20:46):
I'm so tired of America. I'm gonna make it up for all of
The Sunday Times. I'm gonna make it up for all of the nursery
(21:10):
rhymes. They never really seem to want to tell the truth.
I'm so tired of you, America. Making my own
way home. Ain't gonna be alone. I've got a life
(21:38):
to lead, America. I've got a life to lead. Tell me,
(21:58):
do you really think you go to hell for having loved?
Tell me, enough of thinking everything that you've done is good.
I really need to know. After soaking the body of Jesus Christ in
(22:21):
blood. I'm so tired of America. I really need to know.
I may just never see you again, or might as well.
(22:42):
You took advantage of a world that loved you well.
I'm going to a town that has already been burnt down.
I'm so tired of you, America. I'm making my own
(23:06):
way home. Ain't gonna be alone. I've got a life
to lead, America. I'm Daniel MacIvor, and this has been Queer Joy. I've
(23:28):
got a life to lead. Thanks to Grant Kobayashi in Los Angeles and
Polina Teif in Toronto. Please join us for our final episode,
Legacy with guests Michelle Mama and the inimitable irrepressible icon Salah
(23:48):
Bachir. Thanks to our presenting sponsor, Deciem, The Abnormal Beauty Company,
along with category awards sponsor BMO, and media sponsors iHeartRADIO,
the Globe and Mail and Everything Podcasts, and to our publicists,
Rocket Promotions. Queer Joy is a production of Pink Triangle Press.
Hi, this is Queer Joy, and I'm Daniel MacIvor. And this is Rufus
Wainwright live on stage at the inaugural PTP Pink Awards on November 7th,
2024, two days after the American presidential election. Hello. I usually,
(00:27):
at these type of events, I just get up and kind of sing,
but obviously it's a terrible few days. I live in the United States
and it's good to be here. It's good to be here. Everything's been
so rushed and so crazed, and I was walking around town today and
I was like, oh, my God, I'm gonna sing this next song for
(00:49):
the first time after what occurred on Tuesday and it struck me.
We'll give you the whole heartbreaking, joyful moment of that performance
later. But first, my conversation with Rufus from his home in LA a
(01:12):
few weeks before the awards. So, who are you? Give me the top
of the long list of things you are. Don't be afraid to get
personal. Okay. Hi, my name is Rufus Wainwright, and I am a composer,
songwriter, singer, husband, father, Canadian, American, a lot of things.
(01:32):
It's interesting that father and husband made the top of the list.
Family is very centrally focused for you. Yes. And that's not the case
for everybody. How do you make that work? Yeah, no,
I guess I'm fortunate. In most respects, I'm fortunate. But there's also
moments when it's tricky being so close to one's family and so enmeshed,
(01:57):
as we McGarrigle Wainwrights are. So, I guess music was the central
hearth of our existence, and we just, I think, very much in a
kind of folk music tradition, which was very popular
for my parents in the '60s and '70s, before disco hit.
(02:21):
That was a way to... That brought us all together. You needed someone
to sing a tenor part or a bass part,
or to do one of the endless verses of some murder ballad or
something. So I think it was really the music that drew us together.
And also, in a lot of ways, was a way for us to
almost connect emotionally without having to actually talk
(02:49):
and face stuff. We could kind of just put everything to the side
and sing. And sing they certainly did. For those of you not fully
in the know, Rufus comes from a musical lineage that would rival,
if it was acting, it would be the Barrymores, if it was politics,
it would be maybe the Kennedys or the Windsors even. This is a
(03:10):
group of folk singers and troubadours that redefine the genre. Rufus's mom
was Kate McGarrigle, who along with his aunt Anna, were the McGarrigle Sisters.
His dad is Loudon Wainwright III. His sister is Martha, who by the
way is heading out on a tour in 2025 celebrating the 20th anniversary
of her stunning debut LP, Martha Wainwright. His stepsister is Lucy Wainwright
(03:32):
Roche, daughter of Loudon and Suzzy Roche of sister act vocal trio The
Roches. And please do yourself a favor with an easy search and watch
The Roches jaw dropping version of the Hallelujah chorus from the November
17th, 1979 episode of SNL. And Rufus' teenage daughter is Viva Wainwright
Cohen, whose mother is Lorca Cohen, daughter of Leonard, which of course
(03:54):
means that Rufus daughter's grandfather is Leonard Cohen. The lineage continues
and the family grows. Rufus husband, the arts administrator and artistic
director Jorn Weisbrodt has even been folded into the musical family business.
So you're managing Rufus now. So would it be fair to call what
you're doing with Rufus family business? Yeah, I mean, it is. I mean,
(04:16):
I think, a lot of people have sort of warned us, and were like, oh, you
got to keep your career separate and it's difficult for your relationship
and all of that. And look, there's obviously some truth in that,
but, I mean, family business was the norm. If you had a shop,
it was a family business. You had a farm, it's a family business.
(04:36):
And so in a way, us working together is, yeah, it's a total
family business for sure. I mean, to me,
I have a very traditional sort of German upbringing and that included going
to the opera and going to the theater, but it never really included
the arts as a career. It was sort of something that you did
that you enjoyed and I had always fantasized sort of about,
(04:58):
of being part of like one of these amazing artistic families.
And Rufus and the McGarrigles and the Wainwrights are that in the music,
in the folk music world. So, I mean, music I think is the
most beautiful art form in a way. Sorry, Daniel, you're a writer,
but I do think it's sort of almost singing is the most rewarding
(05:18):
activity that human beings can possibly do with their bodies and with their
minds. If I was a singer and very involved with my musical family,
that is exactly the point of view I'd want my husband to hold.
Rufus and Jorn are a great couple and they make their own rules.
Friends of theirs have described Jorn as the man wife and Rufus as
(05:40):
the woman husband. They keep things very fluid in terms of roles.
And as glamourous sounding as the work continues to be, in 2024,
Rufus played Carnegie Hall and shook up musical theater in London's West
End, writing the songs for Ivo van Hove's adaptation of Opening Night.
Things also have a practical side. Rufus has taken to appearing on mainstream
(06:02):
news programs, denouncing the growth of division and hatred in American
politics. Jorn is a work at home husband who makes the family dinner.
And both Jorn and Rufus have tapped into the joy of parenthood,
having permanently relocated to Los Angeles to be close to Viva.
Well, I think in the end of the day, what matters most,
and this is something that I'm quite proud of, is just that you're
(06:24):
present. To be there physically is so important, which my father wasn't
able to do with me. He was on the road a lot of
the time. And it was also a different era. The '70s and '80s, I
don't think dads were really expected to do much. So for me to
spend a lot of time with Viva has turned into one of my
(06:44):
major accomplishments in life, and I've done a few things.
Rufus has chosen as his change maker pflag Canada. Pflag is a beloved
organization first formed in the '70s and going strong still today as a
space of advocacy and support for two 2SLGBTQ+ people who might be struggling
with family adjusting to coming out. Although it seems apparent on why Rufus
(07:07):
would choose a family focused change maker like pflag, one also might imagine
that pflag might not have been on his radar. One might imagine that
being from a show business family of radicals and rascals would make the
whole coming out process easier. But it turns out one would be wrong.
I think what drew me to it especially is because my parents,
(07:32):
bless them, did a kind of terrible job
in terms of my coming out. It wasn't totally their fault because I
came out very young. I was 13, and it was 1987,
and AIDS was ravaging the world. And I think deep down they were
just scared shitless and didn't really know how to
(07:56):
deal with it properly. And so, my dad, my mom, and as I
said, out of fear and also out of trauma that I think she
had growing up in the Catholic Church especially, was like, I might kick
you out of the house. She threatened to kick me out of the
house when she sort of found out. I don't think she was serious
(08:18):
about it, but it was pretty intense. And we then later came back
together and she apologized and we were able to... And she loved Jorn and
she was... And we discovered opera together. We went on that journey together,
(08:39):
and it was great, but it was not an easy road,
shall we say? So I do remember, quite young, seeing these moments where
parents would come out and really unabashedly support
their children and being just so blown away by that and really
(09:00):
aching for it. It was something that I really needed and that I
didn't get. It's hard to describe the feeling of being at a pride
parade and seeing pflag come into view with their rainbow flags and homemade
signs. Love makes a family blessed with a gay son. Free hugs.
It's like the sun coming out, and at the same time,
(09:22):
like our hearts all filled to breaking. We were all aching for it.
It didn't matter how old we were. All of us were children for
that moment and feeling it all; gratitude, regret, tears, tender affection
and love. So many of us suddenly so aware of how outside we
had been, now inside. After the break, we'll feel the warmth of pflag.
(09:47):
I'm Daniel MacIvor, and this is Queer Joy.
The 2024 PTP Pink Awards was made possible by the generous support of
our sponsors, and we are deeply grateful for the generosity of our title
sponsor, Deciem, The Abnormal Beauty Company. Thanks to Sara Fromstein and
(10:07):
the entire Deciem team. Okay, Rufus, get up here.
I have to say, pertaining to my story of coming out very young
(10:31):
and at a very, very dark time in 1987, well, my dad,
he just turned to me and he said, so, are you gay,
straight, or what? And I didn't really know what to say at that
point. He was fine with no answer, actually.
But my mom had such a hard time. When my mother...
There's that magazine in Quebec called Fugues. Remember Fugues? Yeah, she
(10:52):
found a copy of Fugues and probably some other more salacious things.
And I came home, and she had a scotch in one hand and
a cigarette in the other. And she said, Rufus, don't tell me something
I don't want to hear. So I didn't.
And we pretended for a few years. And my whole life is really...
My whole early childhood life is really filled with some pretty traumatic
(11:16):
memories of just, of that whole process. So in a lot of ways,
an organization like pflag would have been so helpful and
saved us a lot of pain, both myself and my parents.
Because I think in a lot of ways, the parents, they're in as
much pain in a lot of ways. So I would like to invite
up Lori and Christa up here to give them this amazing award.
(11:40):
I'm Daniel MacIvor and this is Queer Joy. And that was Rufus Wainwright
at the 2024 PTP Pink Awards. And this is pflag Canada.
My name is Christa Duvall and I am the president for pflag Canada.
My name is Lori Ward and I am a proud pflag mama.
I asked Christa to tell me about pflag's history. It started in New
(12:03):
York in the '60s by a mom named Jeanne Manford. And back then,
the acronym, well, in the States they still use it, the acronym stands
for Parents and Friends for Lesbians and Gays.
Took a little bit more time to come up here to Canada,
but similar in the same way that it started in the States,
it was moms in Toronto, and they started a group called Parents of
(12:26):
Gays. Eventually, by the '70s, late '70s, they transitioned again to pflag.
Fast forward, we're now pflag Canada, but we only use the pflag as
a way of people recognizing us. We don't use that acronym.
It's not representative of the entire community and all of the voices and
(12:47):
the people that belong to it. So we use pflag in Canada as
lowercase. Pflag today, we have over 60 chapters across Canada and we're
adding new chapters all the time. I just did an interview for a
chapter to start in Nunavut. Like we're coast to coast and soon to
be coast. And every chapter is independent. Every chapter does something
(13:09):
differently. So we started off as providing support
for parents who were looking for help when their child came out to
understand and get information and how they could help their child.
That's transitioned. We have so many people who are part of the queer
community and part of the trans community who are now looking for that
(13:31):
support, as well as the parents. We've also got kids who are coming
out at super young ages and are gender diverse and they're exploring their
lives, and so they need support. So what you'll find from one chapter
to the next is all different support services. Each chapter,
(13:52):
they run what is needed in their community. So what you'll find in
Toronto is gonna be different than what you'll find in Windsor,
in Alberta, in Victoria. All different. A powerful and important organization
started by mums. And it's worth noting that the first mum, Jeanne Manford,
started the organization as a way of finding support because her gay son
(14:13):
had been arrested at the Stonewall riots. As we've been saying,
scratch the surface of any of our history and there's protest and heartbreak
and joy. Here's Lori. My relationship started with pflag when my daughter
at the time came out and told me that she was a lesbian.
(14:35):
I was actually okay with that. I just didn't really know how to
handle what I thought her life was going to be like going forward.
And it wasn't about non acceptance. For me it was, I didn't know
what their life would look like. I didn't know...
The white wedding dress kind of went out the window, at least that's
what I thought would have to happen. So I wondered if life was
(14:58):
going to be harder for them. And that was my concerns.
And then I thought, wow, I'm okay with this, but what are families
that have political and religious beliefs? What are those kids doing?
And so that really kick started me to go, okay, let's get on
with this and see what's going on out there with the community.
(15:20):
So I contacted Rosie O'Donnell, and Rosie actually wrote me back and said,
find your nearest pflag chapter. At that time, there wasn't an active chapter
in our city, so I quickly needed to take some training and got
our organization up and running again. And so right away,
(15:44):
in getting pflag rebooted, I got to meet so many wonderful people and
learned so much. I had no idea what it meant to be transgender,
genderqueer. Those were foreign terms to me. I thought I was gonna meet
parents, only parents whose kids were struggling. And instead I was meeting
the individuals themselves. And then, a little while down the road,
(16:07):
our child comes to us, who's now an adult, and said,
there's more to my orientation and it's that I'm struggling with my gender,
my identity. Well, by this time, I had educated myself and understood what
it meant to be transgender, and that there were varying
(16:28):
parts, moving parts to all of this. And so now our child identifies
as non binary and uses they/them pronouns or he/him pronouns. And they're
living their life like it's golden. And that's all a parent really wants
for their child. And that's what's made me so happy. And meeting other
parents and other families, seeing them come in, struggle and then come
(16:52):
together as a family unit and be happy and realize that's all we
want, is thriving, happy, productive kids that give back to society,
and we've done that with our child. So, it's good.
So pflag has transformed as our community has transformed and has helped
to create a new idea of family. Here's Christa. We are creating families.
(17:18):
The main goal of pflag is to keep families together, to give them
the information and the knowledge and support that they need so that their
child is successful and that they know how to support their child.
If we have successful children, whether they're adult children or children
children, if they're supported, they're gonna go on and do amazing things
(17:41):
in their lives because they have that. Parents are getting that information,
they're getting that love. They're getting everything they need from a pflag
chapter. We also talk a lot about chosen family in pflag. A lot
of queer and trans folks lose their families. So when they come to
a pflag meeting, they're gaining a chosen family. They might not know it
(18:04):
right away, but they soon find out that we're gonna be there when
other people aren't, and we are gonna be there to hold you up,
and we're gonna be there to celebrate the really great things,
and we're gonna give you a hug when you're having a really crappy
day. So it's not just about a family made of blood.
(18:25):
It's about a family made of community. A chosen family, a family of
community, a family of love. And another kind of family, now that our
unions are sanctioned, now that there is support and acceptance and love
is allowed, for now, at least, we can form queer families,
like Rufus and Jorn have done with Viva. We can generate love and
(18:46):
acceptance that we may not have known ourselves. Rufus wanted me to share
this photo with you of his family. I love Rufus. I'm so delighted.
That's Rufus and Jorn and their daughter Viva. It actually makes me feel
emotional, to be quite honest with you, how wonderful
now that a child can be loved by two male partners or female
(19:12):
or transgender. Our world's coming along. Not fast enough for some of us,
but to see that, that's beautiful. She's a lovely, happy little girl.
It's just all about love. Pflag is love. This picture is love.
So I'm happy to see it. That got me choked up.
Well, it's a beautiful thing. It's a beautiful thing. And this is what
(19:36):
our work's all about. It's about making sure families understand
you are okay. You go live your lives. Stop fretting about things.
Stop thinking about what people think when love will always win.
Let's hope. Let's hope that love will win. That joy will rise from
heartbreak and protest, that family will form from community, like it did
(20:00):
on November 7th, 2024 at the Pink Awards, in many moments,
but probably most clearly, most heartbreakingly, most defiantly, in the
moment we lifted our heads and saw that queer room and realized that
we were outsiders inside something together. That we were family.
(20:21):
We'll leave you with this. I'm going to a town that has already
been burnt down. I'm going to a place that has already been disgraced.
I'm gonna see some folks who have already been let down.
(20:46):
I'm so tired of America. I'm gonna make it up for all of
The Sunday Times. I'm gonna make it up for all of the nursery
(21:10):
rhymes. They never really seem to want to tell the truth.
I'm so tired of you, America. Making my own
way home. Ain't gonna be alone. I've got a life
(21:38):
to lead, America. I've got a life to lead. Tell me,
(21:58):
do you really think you go to hell for having loved?
Tell me, enough of thinking everything that you've done is good.
I really need to know. After soaking the body of Jesus Christ in
(22:21):
blood. I'm so tired of America. I really need to know.
I may just never see you again, or might as well.
(22:42):
You took advantage of a world that loved you well.
I'm going to a town that has already been burnt down.
I'm so tired of you, America. I'm making my own
(23:06):
way home. Ain't gonna be alone. I've got a life
to lead, America. I'm Daniel MacIvor, and this has been Queer Joy. I've
(23:28):
got a life to lead. Thanks to Grant Kobayashi in Los Angeles and
Polina Teif in Toronto. Please join us for our final episode,
Legacy with guests Michelle Mama and the inimitable irrepressible icon Salah
(23:48):
Bachir. Thanks to our presenting sponsor, Deciem, The Abnormal Beauty Company,
along with category awards sponsor BMO, and media sponsors iHeartRADIO,
the Globe and Mail and Everything Podcasts, and to our publicists,
Rocket Promotions. Queer Joy is a production of Pink Triangle Press.
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