Jo knows my story. It’s not in her book. I am too scared, and I must protect my family
--Queer refugee from El Salvador.
If we can be denied our human rights, it might not be too much of a stretch for you to be denied yours.
--Jo DeLuzio
The Duke of Cornwall nestles in the most central part of Toronto possible, walking distance from the Art Gallery of Ontario, Queen's Park, and the main campus of U of T. It's set back between two towers that one might find in the central part of any large modern city, the sort Toronto regularly plays in American movies and TV. The exterior is streamlined black and gold; small replicas of the Duke's Coat of Arms appear on either side of the name. The interior simulates a large pub that might have some actual history.
About eighty or ninety people crowded into the back section for the launch of my sister's book, Just Gone: True Stories of Persecution for Love and Life. Jo DeLuzio, audiologist, professor, and writer interviewed queer refugees from around the world. A sample permitted her to record their stories. In many cases, key identifying details were omitted or changed.
Three of them were present at the launch, though they were not publicly identified.
During the social parts of the event I reconnected with a lot of family and friends, people I expected to be there. I met a quartet of my sister's university students. I also had some pleasant surprises, unexpected guests. I spent some time talking with Sharon, whose family was central to the notorious Canadian Jamaican Patty Wars of 1985.* I also reconnected with a childhood friend of my sister's whom I have not seen since, perhaps, before those Patty Wars.
Jo read from the book, as one might expect, but far less than is usual for a reading. The content is simply too disturbing and unsettling for a public space. I recommend the book. I cannot say that I enjoyed it.
The people profiled have experienced, variously, arrest, prosecution, threats, torture, intimidation, sexual assault, and attempts on their life. Some come from countries where homosexual acts are criminalized, with penalties ranging from imprisonment to death. Others come from countries where their acts or personal identities aren't illegal, but attacks against them are ignored by police, courts, and government. Some have been oppressed by family and religious groups; one was subject to a brutal exorcism.
The exorcism failed. He survived.
In many places, the kind of schoolyard taunts and bullying faced by people who do not fully and aggressively conform to gender expectations have official sanction, regardless of the person's actual sexual orientation. Imagine politics and policy predicating on schoolyard name-calling, false rumours, and personal discomfort.
One story struck me particularly hard, less because of the woman's struggles—others experienced far worse, though her lot remains frightful and challenging. I read hers with acute discomfort because she isn't a refugee, living in or now safely away from some far-off country that the colonial background noise of my upbringing had already trained me to regard as backward and barbaric. She came to Canada as a young child and has lived here nearly all of her life, a full citizen with full rights.
Growing up, she experienced abuse for failure to conform fully to the gendered expectations of her traditional parents. She believes, on excellent grounds, that she would be murdered by her family, by her brothers, if they knew she was a lesbian, killed in the name of family honour.
I will not write a conventional review and I will not pretend to be unbiased about the work of one of my two favourite sisters. I do encourage you to read the book, if you have the strength of will. Some of us like to think of progress as linear and inevitable. History does not have to go in any direction, however, much less one that we approve. We can, as individuals, however, make choices that may nudge future directions, and I recommend that they be in the direction of truth and justice.
*I'll do a write-up some day. Short version: the at times overly-bureaucratic Canadian government took issue with the name given to, specifically, Jamaican beef patties, because the popular Caribbean food does not match the traditional Can-Am definition of a "beef patty." The ensuing kerfuffle made international headlines, ensured that any Canadian who had never eaten a Jamaican patty discovered them and likely eats them to this day, and turned Sharon's tenacious family into hometown heroes.