Never Going Back: A History of Queer Activism in Canada is the first comprehensive history of its kind. Drawing on over one hundred interviews with leading gay and lesbian activists across the country and a rich array of archival material, Tom Warner chronicles and analyzes the multiple - and often conflicting - objectives of a tumultuous grassroots struggle for sexual liberation, legislated equality, and fundamental social change.
Warner presents the history of lesbian and gay liberation in a Canadian context, telling in the process the story of a remarkable movement and the people who made it happen. His history encompasses efforts to attain legislated human rights for gays and lesbians, significant regional histories, autonomous lesbian organizing, and the histories of lesbians and gays of colour, two-spirited people, and those living outside the urban mainstream of lesbian and gay life. It also recalls the crises confronting the movement: the backlash against queer activism from social conservative 'family values' campaigns, state and police harassment, and the exigencies of responding to AIDS.
Moving beyond the discussions of equality-rights campaigns, Never Going Back delves inside the movement to look at dissent and debates over liberation and assimilation, sexual expression, race, the age of consent, pornography, censorship, community standards, and an identity forged from a common sexual orientation.
About the Author :
Tom Warner is one of Canada's leading gay activists. During his thirty years of activism, he helped found the Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Rights in Ontario and several other organizations.
Review :
'Historically valuable, highly readable and engaging, Never Going Back is a carefully researched book, chock-full of the voices of more than 100 queer narrators from the rainbow polyglot called Canada... Warner lovingly honours the racial, regional, linguistic, gender, and sexual diversity of queer Canadians, and the feminist, anti-racist, and pro-sex strategies we've invented "to overthrow the dictatorship of compulsory heterosexuality." From big city publications, Pussy Palaces, and dyke marches, to small town dances, pride days, and house-parties, Warner acknowledges the often angry, impatient, and always creative responses to the legacy of anti-homo shame and invisibility, from Cornerbrook, Nfld., to Nanaimo, B.C. At the same time, he warns against complacency as governments slash HIV/AIDS funding, rates of queer poverty and anti-queer violence increase, racism persists, and queer stories remain silenced in schools. For everyone curious about queer activist victories and setbacks, and committed to the future of a richly queered Canada, Warner's book is required reading.'
--Becki L. Ross, Associate Professor, Sociology and Women's Studies, University of British Columbia
'On the strengths of his own activist engagement and pan-Canadian political contacts, Tom Warner has told a highly readable and dramatic tale. Here are recounted the struggles of activists across this country making waves and scoring significant victories, though still facing the challenges of continuing exclusion.'
--David Rayside, Political Science and Sexual Diversity Studies, University of Toronto
'An engaged, in-the-trenches view by an activist who was very often there as history was being made, Never Going Back offers a rich record of a movement that has changed Canada.'
--Barry Adam, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Windsor
