Book Review: Challenging the Conspiracy of Silence: My Life As A Canadian Gay Activist by Jim Egan

The year is 1949. World War II was as recent as the start of the Covid-19 pandemic is to us in 2025. Gay relationships were illegal in Canada, and would be for another two decades. Gay civil servants were being purged as threats to national security.
 
Jim Egan starts writing letters to newspapers protesting their degrading portrayal of homosexuals. He does so under his own name.

​Jim Egan was Canada’s first gay activist.

It is a shame that there are not more books on Jim Egan’s life. Luckily, there is Jim’s 1998 autobiography, Challenging the Conspiracy of Silence, written by Jim and edited by Donald McLeod. Despite its short length at only just over 100 pages, it provides a first hand glimpse into a gay world the predates gay rights. Filled with anecdotes and recollections, Jim tells his life from a kid growing up in working class Toronto in the 1920s and 30s to being gay in the Merchant Navy during and after WWII, and finally his activism in the 1950s and 60s. Stories litter each page, from discovering Piccadilly Circus while stationed in London during the war to the fabulous friends within Toronto’s nascent gay world.
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Jim was unique for his time. Even from an early age, he knew he was gay, but he never had any qualms about that. He never felt ashamed, instead imagining that if he felt that way, there must be others that were similar. For him, harkening the slogan of the post-Stonewall era, Gay was Good. That prescience comes through in the writing, sounding more in place with gay liberation rather than post-war Toronto. 

I never spent so much as ten seconds agonizing over the fact that I was attracted to other males.

​It was that mentality that pushed Jim to start being more active. At the time, gay people were being written about in the newspapers and the tabloids, but their voices were often excluded from these stories. Headlines like “Pansies bloom in cocktail bar” and “Toronto man described as abnormal love mate” were common, peddling sensational stories about the gay community. In response, Jim started writing letters to the editors of these papers, decrying how they demonized the gay community. In the early 1950s, he had dozens of letters printed in the likes of the Globe & Mail and True News Times before writing a column for Justice Weekly in 1953.
 
He would put his activism on hiatus between 1954 and 1959, during which time Jim and his long-time partner Jack Nesbitt focused on other activities. This hiatus would not last, as Jim returned to writing letters as the decade came to a close. During this time, Jim worked with the famed journalist Sidney Katz for his landmark article on homosexuality in 1964. 

Jim’s energy and enthusiasm never quite caught on with the rest of the gay community, however. People appreciated the work he did defending homosexuals, but they would shun the idea of writing that same support to the newspaper editors. They liked the work, but never found the inspiration to continue it. Gay liberation would not catch on in Toronto for a few more years, but by that point, Jim and Jack had moved away.

Challenging the Conspiracy of Silence is mostly concerned with this period of Jim’s activism, when he was writing letters to stand up for homosexuals in Canada. This is felt most strongly in the prose; while much of the book is written from Jim’s perspective with stories told in the first person, everything after their move in 1964 in the afterword was written by Don McLeod. This is perhaps for the best, as it includes one of the most complicated and nuanced part of Jim and Jack’s story; their Supreme Court challenge.

In the late 1980s, Jim and Jack claimed that they were being discriminated against because they were being refused spousal benefits under the old age pension scheme. Despite the fact that they would eventually lose their case before the Supreme Court of Canada, it would still prove to be a watershed moment for gay activism in Canada. As a result of the case, sexual orientation was read into the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, opening the door for future challenges including the one that led to the legalization of gay marriage in the 2000s. By reflecting on the court case through the omniscient voice of the historian, McLeod is able to emphasize the Jim and Jack’s impact on future gay rights in Canada.

My biggest issue with the book is not really with anything on its pages, but instead its availability. Sure, there are moments that could be more cognizant of his privilege, but I think that largely misses the forest for the trees. Instead, I am more concerned with the fact that the only seemingly legitimate books on Jim’s activism are this one, long since out of print, and a picture book intended for ages 6-10. The Toronto Public Library, where Jim’s activism was felt most strongly, only has the latter in their collection. I was fortunate to find my copy at Glad Day Bookshop for only $15; used copies go for over $50 on Thriftbooks and over $100 on Amazon. While Jim has been immortalized in a Heritage Minute, it is a tragedy that the Canadian public does not have more access to his story. He was Canada’s first gay activist, and yet he is not celebrated as much. I can only hope for more in the future.