Ottawa LGBTQ story part one

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Good morning!

This Pride Month feels a little different for me.

You may have noticed I was away on vacation last week. That’s because, on June 13, I married my husband, Jack.

It was one of the happiest days of my life. Our journey to the altar wasn’t always easy. We’ve endured situations that would have broken apart many couples. That made standing before our chosen family and friends all the more meaningful.

My parents walked us both down the aisle. Three of my former teachers were there, alongside friends, family and colleagues from nearly every chapter of my life. Looking around the room, we were reminded that family is about more than biology. It’s also the people who help you get to moments like this.

As we celebrated, I couldn’t help but think about those who made that moment possible. When we were born, same-sex marriage wasn’t a legal right in Canada. That didn’t come until 2005. The rights we enjoy today exist because countless LGBTQ+ Canadians fought for them, often at tremendous personal cost.

One of my closest friends, Hannah, captured that history beautifully in a reading during our ceremony. I’ve uploaded it to YouTube, and I’d love to share that moment with the Lookout community. If you have a few minutes, I hope you’ll give it a watch. Note the sound is often better if played through speakers and not headphones.

A few years ago, while researching another story, I came across the name Warren Zufelt. Growing up in Chesterton Towers, I’d heard whispers that someone had once jumped from the roof, but I never knew whether the story was true. Learning that he took his own life in 1975 after being publicly outed is something I’ve never forgotten.

This week, we’re beginning a special two-part series looking back at the people who built Ottawa’s LGBTQ+ community and the history that led us to today. 

Let’s get to it!

— Charlie Senack, Ottawa Lookout managing editor

Have a story idea or editorial questions? Contact me: [email protected]

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WEATHER

Friday: 23 🌡️ 14 | 🌧️

Saturday: 26 🌡️ 14 | ☀️ 

Sunday: 28 🌡️ 15 | ☀️

Monday: 30 🌡️ 17 | ☀️

By Charlie Senack  Read the story online.

Glenn Crawford spends much of his time looking into the past.

Over the past decade, the researcher and writer behind the Village Legacy Project has interviewed community elders, dug through newspaper archives and collected thousands of photographs documenting Ottawa’s LGBTQ+ history. 

The project began after the Bank Street BIA sought ways to recognize Ottawa’s Village's history better. Crawford proposed something more ambitious than a plaque or public artwork — a digital archive and walking tour that could preserve the stories of the people, organizations and businesses that shaped the city’s Queer community. 

But the work for Crawford was also deeply personal. 

Growing up in Kanata during the 1970s and ’80s, he knew he was different long before he had the words to explain why. He was bullied and often felt isolated, unaware that just a few kilometres away, an LGBTQ+ community already existed. 

“I was this sort of outcast young queer, not understanding who I was,” Crawford told the Lookout. “I didn’t recognize or understand what community was actually out there that could have supported me.”

Crawford came out at 28. Looking back, he believes years of bullying and the death of his mother when he was 20 delayed that journey.

Years later, he began wondering how much of Ottawa’s LGBTQ+ history had already been lost.

“The elders of our community were advancing in years,” he said. “Some people we had already lost, either due to age or the HIV/AIDS epidemic. It was really a critical time to speak to some of these early leaders to get their stories.”

Many of the people Crawford interviewed never expected to become part of history. They answered late-night hotline calls from strangers struggling with their sexuality, organized dances and sports leagues, cared for friends during the AIDS epidemic and, eventually, helped transform a modest community picnic into Ottawa’s first Pride celebration.

Today, Pride draws hundreds of thousands of people into Ottawa’s streets each summer. Some come for the celebration or free candy, others to feel accepted and know they are not alone. Rainbow flags hang from storefronts and flagpoles across the city — symbols of how far society has come.

But you only need to look a few decades back to find a very different world.

By the late 1960s, Canada’s LGBTQ+ rights movement was beginning to stir. Parliament partially decriminalized homosexuality in 1969, but for most gay and lesbian Canadians, daily life changed very little.

In Ottawa — a city where the federal government dominated the workforce — many public servants continued to hide their sexuality, fearing they could lose careers built over decades. During the Cold War, thousands were investigated through the federal government’s now-infamous “Fruit Machine” campaign, which sought to identify LGBTQ+ employees considered vulnerable to blackmail because of their sexuality.

Discrimination reached well beyond government offices. Gay bars operated discreetly. Landlords could refuse tenants. Parents risked losing custody of their children. Simply being known as gay could carry consequences in nearly every aspect of life.

Against that backdrop, roughly 100 people gathered on Parliament Hill on Aug. 28, 1971, for what became known as the We Demand demonstration — Canada’s first national public protest for gay rights. They arrived carrying handmade signs and a list of demands calling for equal treatment under the law, including protections against discrimination and reforms to Canada’s immigration and criminal laws.

The weather refused to cooperate. Rain began falling shortly after the demonstration started, soaking protesters and turning many of their cardboard signs into pulp. But they marched on anyway.

Inspired by the demonstration, local activists soon formed Gays of Ottawa, the city’s first gay rights organization. It served as an advocate, social network, and lifeline, operating a telephone hotline, publishing newsletters, and creating opportunities for people — many of whom had spent years believing they were alone — to find one another finally.

Other organizations also emerged to meet different needs. Lambda brought together gay professionals for monthly dinners and guest speakers, while Club Moustache united athletes through bowling, volleyball and other recreational sports. 

When being outed turned deadly

In March 1975, news headlines began reporting on the Vice Ring investigation. Police alleged a local modelling agency was operating as a front for male prostitution and began charging dozens of men with offences including gross indecency.

Before many of those cases ever reached the courts, newspapers published the names, ages, occupations and home addresses of those accused, effectively outing them at a time when being identified as gay could destroy a person’s life.

Among them was 34-year-old Warren Zufelt.

The public servant was settling into his Chesterton Drive apartment for the night when he called the Gays of Ottawa hotline, saying that if his name made newspaper headlines the next morning, he would take his own life.

The next day, his fears became reality.

Zufelt, a Sudbury native, was among four men listed in the Ottawa Citizen on March 17, 1975, charged with gross indecency. His full address, including apartment number 1201, was published.

Zufelt left a note, took the elevator one floor to the roof, lit a cigarette, and jumped. He was later pronounced dead in the hospital.

Speaking with the Ottawa Journal, Zufelt’s lawyer Leonard Shore said he had spoken with him the previous day. “He was very upset and nervous and didn’t know what to do,” he said. 

What followed were protests outside police headquarters and newspaper offices. In a press release, organizers condemned what they called a “homosexual witch hunt.”

Today, very few traces of Zufelt remain. No publicly available photographs of him are known to exist, and little has been documented about the life he led before being outed. His story now lives on through a memorial bench on Bank Street.

When George Hartsgrove arrived in Ottawa, he found more than a city. He found a community.

Raised in Deep River, a town of about 4,000 people, Hartsgrove spent years trying to fit into the life he believed he was supposed to live. He dated a woman and nearly got married before moving to the capital for work. It wasn’t until another gay man — someone he knew through his sister’s wedding party — visited him that he finally recognized something he had spent years trying to ignore.

He soon discovered Ottawa’s small network of gay bars and organizations, where he quickly immersed himself in the city’s LGBTQ+ community.

“Being gay was still partially illegal. You learned just to keep a very low profile,” Hartsgrove told the Lookout. “You would notice people — it was that one-second stare thing. If they stared for more than two seconds, you sort of thought maybe they were like you.”

It was an era before dating and hookup apps, when meeting another gay person often relied on chance encounters and quiet signals. Hartsgrove recalled two moments when men noticed him.

“There was one time I had a little rainbow flag on the back of my car,” he said. “Someone followed me back to my place after I’d finished my shopping because they noticed the rainbow flag.”

Another afternoon, he was lying on the beach at Mooney’s Bay when an attractive man caught his eye.

“I walked back to my home along Springland Drive,” he said. “He followed me back.”

Over the decades, Hartsgrove volunteered with the AIDS Committee of Ottawa, Pink Triangle Services, Ottawa Senior Pride Network and Capital Xtra, the city’s LGBTQ+ newspaper. He never considered himself the face of the movement, but when the AIDS crisis arrived, he watched friends step up for one another in ways he never forgot.

The first reports of what would become known as AIDS surfaced in the early 1980s. At first, little was understood about the virus. There were no effective treatments, misinformation spread quickly, and fear became commonplace. Ottawa’s first known case came in August 1983. Peter Evans, a bisexual actor in his 30s who had recently returned from England, died six months later.

Volunteers with Gays of Ottawa organized public education efforts as medical understanding slowly evolved. Community members later founded the AIDS Committee of Ottawa to provide education and support, while Bruce House opened to offer housing and compassionate care for people living with HIV/AIDS.

Hartsgrove remembers gathering with friends at a cottage one summer, only to attend their funerals months later.

“I would say about 100 people I knew passed away,” he said. “At the beginning, there weren’t any medications at all. Then there was AZT, which was very toxic. It kept some people alive longer, but that was a very difficult time.”

He also remembers churches refusing to allow the casket of someone who had died of AIDS to be brought to the altar, and hospital staff so fearful of the virus that food trays were left outside patients’ rooms because nurses would not enter.

Crawford said nearly everyone he interviewed described the epidemic as a defining chapter in Ottawa’s LGBTQ+ history because of how the community responded.

“There was no support from the government. There was no support from the medical system,” he said. “The lesbian community particularly stepped up to the plate and took care of their friends and community members who were in dire straits, whose families abandoned them, who were not getting proper medical treatment, or just basic support.”

As treatments gradually improved through the 1990s, HIV became a manageable condition for many people who had once expected it to be a death sentence. But the epidemic permanently reshaped Ottawa’s LGBTQ+ community.

“We don’t have a large peer group like other 70- and 80-year-old men,” Hartsgrove said. “A lot of them are gone.”

Editor’s note: We don’t often split stories into multiple parts, but this one deserved the space. In Part 2, we’ll look at one of the darkest chapters in Ottawa’s queer history — a wave of murders and attacks that shook the community — before exploring the birth of the city’s Pride parade and why, decades later, Pride remains as important as ever. Stay tuned!

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Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean sails into the National Arts Centre for a live concert experience featuring the NAC Orchestra and chorus performing the film’s iconic score alongside the movie.
Watch Captain Jack Sparrow’s unforgettable adventure unfold on the big screen while the music of Hans Zimmer and Klaus Badelt is performed live in real time.
Learn more: https://nac-cna.ca/en/event/38422?promo=1817

From sword fights and ship battles to sweeping cinematic themes, this immersive performance brings new energy to one of Disney’s most beloved adventure films.
A perfect night out for movie lovers, families, soundtrack fans, and anyone ready for a fun summer event in downtown Ottawa.

July 9–11, 2026
National Arts Centre, Ottawa

Tickets: https://nac-cna.ca/en/event/38422?promo=1817

$200,000

🌷 That’s how much funding the annual Tulip Festival was down this year after losing 50 per cent of its government support. As a result, regular attractions such as the fireworks and big bug boardwalk were cancelled. Now, the organization is wondering how it will fund next year's activities. [Kitchissippi Times]

🚄 Ottawa city council is calling for increased transparency from Alto about the impacts of the proposed high-speed rail project on private land. The motion requests more information and consultation throughout the process. Read more. [CTV]

🚗 Speed limits will be increasing on sections of Highways 7, 416 and 417 this summer as the Ontario government looks to change speed limits on several provincial highways. Read more. [CTV]

📚 OC Transpo will be cutting some of its school routes in the fall, leaving school bus authorities to plan transportation for an estimated 3,600 students who will no longer be able to take city buses. Read more. [CTV]

🏗️ A parking structure has been torn down at Carlingwood Shopping Centre, but the mall’s owners say there are no plans for future development. Instead, they are replacing the aging facility with a surface parking lot. Despite the front of the mall being rezoned for housing, tenant leases prohibit large-scale development from occurring. Read more. [Kitchissippi Times]

🏫 The Ottawa Catholic School Board has reversed its decision to remove bus attendants after parents and advocates shared concerns. The bus attendants ride the school bus with students, including those who are non-verbal or have medical needs. Read more. [Ottawa Citizen]

⚡ The CEO of Hydro Ottawa says the company is facing requests to connect large-scale customers to Ottawa’s power grid. About 60 per cent of the requests are coming from data centres. Read more. [CTV]

🚑 Ottawa paramedics say a woman was taken to the hospital overnight on Wednesday after she fell approximately six metres from the Rockcliffe Lookout. Read more. [CTV]

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Noche Latina Block Party | Metcalfe Plaza | June 26 at 5 p.m. | Come out for Amashowza Fridays, with block party energy featuring DJ REYES, DJ FABIAN, and DJ O-ZEY for a night of Reggaeton, Dembow, Bachata and Latin sounds | Free

Sunset Party: Karaoke at the Beach | Britannia Beach | June 26 at 5:30 p.m. | Come to the beach for a party in the sunset and try your hand at karaoke with friends | Free, tickets recommended

A Knight at the Symphony | Carleton Dominion Chalmers Centre | June 26-27 | Ottawa Pops Orchestra plays music from the age of kings, including How to Train Your Dragon and Shrek | Tickets $25+

Le Petit Chef | Tulip Restaurant and Bar | June 26-27 | Imagintive dining experience with 3D projection | Tickets $129+

Beechwood Market | 203 Stanley Avenue | June 27 | Local products, produce and more | Free

Small Pet Rescue Craft Show | 170 Castlefrank Rd. | June 27 at 9 a.m. | Participate or come out to shop jewelry, crochet, crafts, pet gifts and products, and more in support of the Wish You Were Home Small Pet Rescue | Free admission 

Immersive Summerween Night Market – Cirque De Bizaar | Walter Baker Park | June 27 at 4 p.m. | Step into a new world where spooky season lasts year-round with creators, oddities and live performances | Free admission

The Original Navan Market | 1279 Colonial Road, Navan | June 28 | Local vendors selling produce, meat and more | Free

Bytowne Oysterfest | Beyond the Pale Brewing Company | June 28 | Fresh oyster, craft beer, and music, what’s not to like! | Tickets $10

Want to see your event here? Submit them to our event calendar.

Over the past few decades, the community has changed dramatically. Former longtime councillor Jan Harder often joked there was a time when you couldn’t even buy a pair of socks in Barrhaven. Today, residents have dozens of places to shop.

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Carleton University students watch the World Cup between Canada and Switzerland in the Nicol building. Unfortunately, Canada lost 2-1. The team now heads to Los Angeles for a game on Sunday against South Africa.

Think you can guess today’s Ottawa Wordle? Play it here.