I suppose I should be delighted at the salute to LGBTQ alumni in The McGill Tribune‘s recent article “LGBTQ+ McGillians making history,” but it hardly makes up for the homophobic treatment I endured while at McGill in the early 70s. As a queer man writing a thesis about the queer Anglo-American writer Christopher Isherwood, I identified as queer in the preface to the thesis. This set off a year-long battle, during which the English department was fully committed to failing my thesis for that very reason. They only backed down after I hired a lawyer and with the help of many friends made their bigoted behavior an issue in the media.

I did finally receive my MA—I believe it was the first openly queer thesis written in Canada (but would certainly welcome evidence to the contrary). I never received an apology from the McGill English department or from the university itself.