Michael Riordon

The interviewees volunteer with an AIDS organization in a small town: an unidentified HIV-positive gay man speaks to college students about HIV/AIDS; an out lesbian from a city describes her community-building activities in the local gay and lesbian community; an HIV-positive gay man talks about taking care of his health and contributing to his community; and, a leader of the AIDS organization describes its clients, services, and funding issues.

Two gay, HIV-positive men who are in a relationship talk about recognizing their sexuality, leaving a city for a small town, and their many volunteer activities. 

The interviewees are two gay men (one of whom is First Nations) and four lesbians (one of whom is First Nations). Each talks about coming to term with their sexuality and how they built their social circle. 

The interviewee--a gay, Indigenous man who is a counselor, describes the effects of the sexual abuse he experienced as a child; he is concerned that small First Nations communities are unprepared to accept their own men and women who’ve contracted HIV/AIDS in cities and are coming home to die.

A gay man who is raising his son talks about the development of his own sexual identity, parenting, and living in a small community (where he works in mining); his male partner’s voice is mostly inaudible.

Two gay men in their twenties (one of whom grew up in a logging camp) who are partners, and an older gay man describe their stories-so-far of their lives as sexual individuals.  [Parts of the interview are inaudible.]

Jim Egan-- whose early letters to the editor (“it was always a demand for equality rights for the gay community”) and later legal battle against the federal government for the spousal allowance earned him the label ‘gay activist'-- and his partner of over forty years [at time of interview], Jack Nesbit, talk about the activism, farming, earning a living, houses they built, a men’s group they run in the small city in which they live, and relationship issues.

Three gay men – two are a couple and one of the men in the couple is an Indigenous man and residential school survivor – live in a town with a military base; each man talks about his childhood, coming out, and being gay in a small town.

Having experienced considerable homophobia as a former wife of a logger and a former teacher in rural communities, a woman who is a lesbian and a parent living on an island prefers to be in the closet; her female partner speaks of going back into the closet out of respect for her partner’s wishes.  [Note: Parts of the interview are inaudible.]

Two women who are partners describe how they came to move from a city to Salt Spring Island, where they are restoring a heritage farm and doing organic farming, one interviewee’s process of accepting her sexuality, and, benefits and negatives of living in a small community.