From Visibility to Victimization: The Murder of Joe Rose

From Visibility to Victimization: The Murder of Joe Rose
By Noah Markis-Morrison

It has been 29 years since Joseph Rose was murdered, and while some things have changed, some have remained eerily similar. In this post, I will discuss a news article that I retrieved from the Archives gais du Québec which covers the murder of Joe Rose. Joe Rose was targeted because of his pink hair and specifically being visibly queer or not passing as straight, but particularly because he was unapologetic and oppositional to what a ‘good gay’ should be. Rose was oppositional; through his gender expression and presentation Rose challenged traditional notions of masculinity, projected his sexual identity through his hair, and challenged the social systems that kept gay men silent at this time.

The artifact I selected from a miscellaneous box of the Archives Gai du Québec was the newspaper article about the murder of Joe Rose, a young gay man who was murdered on a bus in Montreal in 1989.¹ The article, titled “The Killing of Joe Rose” by Albert Nerenberg and Max Harrold, was published on March 21^st, 1989 in the Montreal Daily News.

Joe Rose was a 23-year-old white gay man with dyed pink hair who was a student at Dawson College and the founder of Dawson’s Etcetera Club (a safe space for LGBT students). The article also revealed that Rose had AIDS and was a vocal advocate for increasing awareness and addressing poverty of people living with AIDS at the time. Joe Rose was murdered on March 19^th, 1989 while riding a Montreal bus in the East-End near Frontenac Metro. Rose was brutally beaten and stabbed by a group of teenagers who targeted him because of his pink hair and because, as Rose’s friend and fellow gay activist David Shannon explained, “Joe was proud of what he was, and he would show it. That's why they killed him”. The opening image of the article is a large black and white photo of Shannon looking down at a picture of Rose.

An accompanying article by Robert Quintal, “Grieving father considers suing transit system” followed Rose’s father contemplating suing the transit system for their inaction at the beginning of the attack. ² Joe Rose’s lover who was with him at the time of the attack stated that Rose was kicked at least 50 times. In this article Rose’s father explains that the emergency 911 flashers on the outside of the bus could have been turned on long before his son was stabbed but that they were not.

The context of Montreal at the time of Rose’s murder was still very anti-gay. The murder happened in 1989 towards the end of the AIDS crisis. While homophobia had always been rampant, it was heightened during the 80’s because of the panic caused by the AIDS crisis.

A news reporting broadcast on December 1^st, 1988 on CBC’s The National reported for the first World AIDS Day.³ The theme of the day was ‘More information, less discrimination’. This came at a time when AIDS was becoming recognized not only as a gay problem, but as a threat to anyone who was sexually active. The segment opened up with stating that the population next at risk was kids and proceeded to discuss concerns about sexually active heterosexual teenagers who were not taking precautions in their sex lives. The segment continued by warning about the dangers of anal sex, and with one legislator stating, ‘It is clear that anal intercourse is very dangerous and we recommend that it be discouraged as a sexual behaviour” (03:02). The report also revealed that most of the students at the school that was featured still thought AIDS was a ‘homosexual disease’ which is why they were not taking precautions.

While the newscast was for the first World AIDS Day, they did not discuss the gay community, but instead continued to focus on the dangers of anal sex (not-so-indirectly blaming gay men for contracting the virus because of their sexual behaviours). What is evident is that the larger society was beginning to care about AIDS, but only because they now perceived it as a threat to themselves as it was no longer ‘a gay problem’. This is crucial because it speaks to the level of acceptance of gay folks and the climate of homophobia towards the end of the AIDS crisis.

Another way to gauge the political climate towards gays at the time is to account for the raids on gay bars that were still pervasive in Montreal. One example of this was the raid of Sex Garage on July 15^th, 1990. Michael Hendricks, an LGBT activist who was present at Sex Garage said that, “We were used to being harassed by the police, but the violence at Sex Garage was exceptional”.⁴ In the end, police arrested eight people, and many partygoers reported injuries from brutal physical force used by the police officers.

It is important to consider the history of gay bar raids in Montreal before Sex Garage as well; Ross Higgins, Concordia University professor explained that during the 1960s in Montreal, vice squads routinely raided gay clubs to fill their arrest quotas. When the 1970s rolled around, police raided gay establishments and threatened to call employers of the men and women they arrested, and publish their names in Montreal’s daily newspapers. Two of the most notorious raids were on Truxx in 1977 when 50 police officers arrested about 150 people, mostly for being found in a bawdy house. The 1970s, “when there was a wave of repression, especially around the 1976 Olympics,” saw a lot of raids on gay nightclubs, said Concordia University professor Ross Higgins. “By the 1980s, police raids (on gay establishments) became more sporadic.”⁴

Following the raid, Hendricks claimed that, “Sex Garage changed public attitudes toward us, before the Sex Garage party, we were a bunch of perverts in an illegal boozecan. After the kiss-in, [protest following the raid at Sex Garage] we were suddenly the victims of vicious police repression.”⁴ It is important to recognize that this shift, and what has been described as Montreal’s Stonewall moment, began to cause a shift towards the beginning the 90’s. At the time of Joe Rose’s murder, and even after Sex Garage, anti-gay perspectives were popular among police as well as the general population.

Considering the political climate at the time of Joe Rose’s murder and considering his ‘out and proud’ presentation, is it useful to consider the concept of identity politics and the role it played in Rose’s life and death. In Kimberlé Crenshaw’s Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color, she discusses the concept of identity politics.⁵ Crenshaw argues that the politicization of identities (in her work she discusses women and violence against women) can transform the ways we understand violence against specific groups. Crenshaw argues that this transformation occurs through what is thought to be personal and isolated problems and recognize these forces as social and systemic. In a sense, identity politics are a useful tool to achieve greater social change; this approach engages similarly affected people and provides them with a cause to unite for and a goal to strive towards. Rose was an activist within the community as seen by his involvement with transforming his college into a more gay-friendly environment, and on a personal level by refusing to ascribe to a normative gender presentation.

Rose’s politicized identity is directly related to perceptions of him by the public, and to his safety. Joshi poses a few important questions about the politics of inclusion: “what is acceptance, at what cost, for whom, and at whose expense” (p. 53).⁶ Further into the discussion, Joshi states that lesbians and gays are increasingly included in the social and legal status quo, but that their inclusion is dependent on their respectability and palatability. Respectability in this context depends upon conformity to heterosexist social norms and a rejection of queerness and oppositional attitudes. The cost then, of conformity to gain respectability, is at the expense of one’s connection with their community and of one’s own self-esteem and self-concept as a proud queer person.

The concept of being visibly queer and the concept of passing are incredibly important to understanding the targeting of Joe Rose. Amy Robinson discusses the concept of passing as a member of an ‘in-group’ rather than being perceived by others as part of a racial or sexual minority.⁷ Passing brings with it certain privileges, most notably safety; if one is perceived as part of the in-group, they are unlikely to be targeted for their difference. Robinson also encourages us to consider that in-group recognition has benefits but also comes at a cost, similar to the costs described by Yoshi of sacrificing one’s political values for personal safety and comfort. As told by David Shannon, Joe Rose refused to conform. He refused to be quiet and he was proud of who he was. Making his identity public, as Rose consciously did with his presentation, was a statement of who he was and a statement of what he believed. While this fulfilled Rose’s need to be seen and heard, it also cost him his life.

Joe Rose’s murder was a tragedy. It was a political statement, and became one of many turning points in the history of the LGBT+ community in Montreal. Due to the politicized nature of Rose’s identity as a gay man, the context of Montreal at the time, and his ‘visible queerness’, Rose’s murder symbolized a continued fear and hatred of gays. Rose’s pink hair put him in a precarious position, but ultimately served his desire to be proud of who he was and show that to the world. Ultimately, Rose’s legacy will not be forgotten as it continues to live with the Etcetera club at Rose’s college, and as it continues to live in history as an important event in the Montreal LGBT+ community’s history.

¹ “The Killing of Joe Rose - Montreal Daily News”. Quebec Gay Archives, Miscellaneous box.

² “Grieving father considers suing transit system - Montreal Daily News”. Quebec Gay Archives, Miscellaneous box

³ Savoury, Eve, “First World AIDS Day”. CBC The National, Broadcast 01/12/1988 CBC, Television. Retrieved from: http://www.cbc.ca/archives/entry/1988-first-world-aids-day

⁴ Burnett, Richard, "Sex Garage Raid a Turning Point in Montreal's LGBT Activism". Montreal Gazette, June 27, 2015. Retrieved from: http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/sex-garage-raid-a-turning-point-in-montreals-lgbt-activism

⁵Crenshaw, Kimberle, "Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color". Stanford Law Review. 43 (6): 1241. (1994).

⁶Joshi, Yuvraj, "Respectable Queerness". Columbia Human Rights Law Review. 43 (2): 415-468. (2011)

⁷Robinson, Amy, "It Takes One to Know One: Passing and Communities of Common Interest". Critical Inquiry. 20 (4): 715-736. (1994).