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Jearld Moldenhauer, activist, administrator, book seller, photographer (born 9 August 1946 in Niagara Falls, New York). Jearld Moldenhauer is one of Canada’s most influential gay rights advocates and organizers. After founding one of the first gay rights groups at a US college in 1968, he spearheaded the first post-Stonewall gay organization in Canada and the first at a Canadian university. He was also a key figure in founding the Body Politic, Glad Day Bookshop, Toronto Gay Action and the Canadian Gay Liberation Movement Archives (now called the ArQuives). Moldenhauer became the first gay rights advocate to formally address a political party conference in Canada when he spoke at a session of the New Democratic Party Waffle convention in February 1972. An amateur photographer, he was also a key documenter of the early gay rights movement in Canada.
Early Life and Education
Jearld Moldenhauer was a sophomore at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, when, as he recalled, he “began to confront the psychological tortures related to my repressed homosexual feelings and desires.” He turned to various authors who, as he described it, “played a critical role in forming my own radical analysis of sexuality.”
Moldenhauer has singled out writer André Gide and his treatise on homosexuality, Corydon (1920), for providing him with an example of “an open self-affirming life.” He has also cited Herbert Marcuse and Norman O. Brown for helping him understand “the repercussions of sexual repression in relation to civilization.” He has credited all three with making him a gay political organizer. Given the prejudices of the time, as well as “the obvious need to initiate various projects related to creating a gay liberation movement,” he said, “the path seemed a logical one.”
University Activist
At Cornell, Jearld Moldenhauer participated in founding the Student Homophile League (SHL) in May 1968. It was only the second gay rights group at an American college campus.
After graduating in 1969, Moldenhauer moved to Canada. He was hired as a research assistant at the University of Toronto. On 15 October 1969, he placed a four-line advertisement in The Varsity, the university’s student newspaper. It asked people interested in starting a student homophile group to call him. Moldenhauer's ad was the spark for the first formal meeting of the University of Toronto Homophile Association (UTHA) on 24 October 1969. It was the first post-Stonewall gay organization in Canada as well as the first at a Canadian university.
Moldenhauer has credited his role in founding UTHA for his dismissal from his job at the university. “My response,” Moldenhauer said, “was to embark upon my first trip abroad, an event that would create in me a lifelong wanderlust to see the world.”
Pioneering Gay Organizations
Returning to Toronto after his travels, Jearld Moldenhauer was instrumental in founding several other pioneering Canadian gay organizations. These included the Body Politic in 1971, the leading mouthpiece for Canada’s gay liberation and lesbian feminist movements; Glad Day Bookshop in 1970, Canada's first bookstore targeted to the gay community; Toronto Gay Action in 1971 (and its successor, Gay Alliance Toward Equality, in 1973), which helped plan what would become the Body Politic and played a central role in We Demand and therefore the launch of the movements; and the Canadian Gay Liberation Movement Archives (now called the ArQuives), established in 1973 to aid in the recovery and preservation of 2SLGBTQ+ histories.
Writing about the We Demand rally in Ottawa on 28 August 1971, Moldenhauer stated that the gay liberation and lesbian feminist movements he helped launch represented a “Freedom to Love, to communicate your love in all ways, physically and intellectually, without fear crushing the spontaneity of your expression.”
On 13 February 1972, in Hamilton, Ontario, Moldenhauer addressed a session of the New Democratic Party Waffle convention. This was the first time a gay liberation representative had formally addressed a political party conference in Canada. In his address, he stated:
“The Canadian homosexual population… will no longer tolerate the denial of our basic civil liberties. Through education and political activism, we seek to change the sexist nature of Canadian society — including eliminating all legal inequalities and negative social attitudes. Because we are still in the process of uniting our minority, we have not represented a strong voting block in political elections… With ever increasing strength, the Canadian gay community will make its opinions felt through the support of politicians and political parties which show their solidarity with our democratic struggle.”
In 1974, Moldenhauer undertook a cross-country tour to consolidate and coordinate the activities of the National Gay Election Coalition (NGEC). It was formed in 1972 to intervene in Canada’s federal election held that year. It also sought to spark the formation of gay liberation groups in centres where there were none.
Photography
A keen photographer, Jearld Moldenhauer recorded many of the earliest events associated with the gay liberation movement. “My camera gave me a way of recording the history of the Movement that I was part of,” he has said. “Gradually, photography provided me with a way of responding to my lifelong fascination with nature, archeology, as well as the many cultures I explored over the decades.”
(See also Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights in Canada; Queer Culture.)
