Vancouver Pride: Gay bashing still unreported in Vancouver

by Carlito Pablo on July 29th, 2009 at 1:25 PM

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Ritchie Dowrey doesn’t have a clue about the strangers who visit him. But he seems glad that they call on him at the care facility in Langley where he now stays.

“He still doesn’t know who we are,” one of Dowrey’s regular visitors, Lindsay Wincherauk, told the Georgia Straight. “He knows we come to visit him, so he’s happy to see us. He recognizes us as somebody who’s visiting. But he has no idea what our names are or how he knows us. I don’t believe he knows where he is.”

Dowrey and Wincherauk have been friends for about three years. But things changed for the 62-year-old Dowrey on the night of March 13 at the Fountainhead Pub, a popular gay hangout in Vancouver’s Davie Village. A man punched him in the face and Dowrey fell so hard on his head that, according to Wincherauk, a thud could be heard across the bar.

Wincherauk was there and saw and heard it all. “That’s something that I’ll never get out of my head,” he said.

Dowrey’s attacker, Shawn Woodward, is due in court on July 30. Woodward is facing a charge of severe assault in one of the two high-profile gay-bashing cases that have happened in Vancouver in the past year. Last September, 27-year-old Jordan Smith was punched by another assailant while he was walking hand in hand with a man along Davie Street. Smith’s jaw was broken.

Although these two cases have generated intense media coverage, a lot more involving anything from verbal abuse to physical assault against members of the gay community are going unreported, according to Mette Bach, a Langara College instructor in creative writing.

These happen not only in gay neighbourhoods like Davie Village but in other areas like schools, Bach noted in a phone interview. Although the Vancouver Police Department under Chief Jim Chu has made significant progress in building a relationship with the queer community, she said that the historical distrust of cops has allowed a number of attacks against gays to remain unreported.

Bach is a member of Vancouver’s LGBTQ advisory committee. The 12-member panel is tasked with providing the city with input on a wide range of issues, from discrimination to culture and recreation.

“When gays are afraid for their safety, when they’re afraid to go to a certain place, that is certainly an issue,” Bach told the Straight.

Vancouver’s LGBTQ advisory committee is the only one of its kind in Canada, according to Vision Vancouver councillor Tim Stevenson. In his previous term on council, Stevenson, an openly gay politician, tried but failed to establish a similar committee.

The committee had its inaugural meeting on July 13. Members have decided to identify three to five priorities or goals by September. They also agreed to be part of the city’s “welcoming response” during the 2010 Olympics.

Like Bach, Stevenson believes that the threat of violence against members of the LGBTQ community is one of the primary concerns that need close attention from the city. “The gay community is always susceptible because within society, homophobia is still very strong,” Stevenson told the Straight.

Fatima Jaffer is a member of the advisory committee; she is also the spokesperson of the South Asian queer group Trikone Vancouver.

Jaffer, a resident of Vancouver’s gay-friendly West End, told the Straight that many gay minorities feel that they “tend to be quite invisible within the queer community and the city as a whole”.

“I really wanted to make sure that there is a voice at the table to represent those concerns,” Jaffer said about her decision to apply for a seat on the advisory committee.

Dowrey, meanwhile, has suffered severe brain damage and now speaks “in a code that only he can understand”, according to Wincherauk.

Before the incident, Wincherauk recalled, Dowrey didn’t talk about his sexuality. The matter became significant only when his friend’s attacker allegedly said immediately after striking Dowrey down that he deserved it because he was a “faggot”.

Gay or not, Wincherauk said, Dowrey “didn’t deserve what happened”.

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What issues or priorities should Vancouver’s LGBTQ advisory committee take on?

Ellen Woodsworth

Vancouver COPE city councillor, out lesbian, and long-time advocate for seniors, including those in the LGBTQ community

“One of the things raised by one of the members was to see if the committee could advocate for a gay-friendly centre as part of the [Vancouver 2010] Olympic events. People could go there and they could find out what resources are available, if there’s any discrimination or violent attacks, or if they want to know where a bar is.”

Beth Marston

Cofounder of transgender-rights group Femininjas

“One of the most important goals is the recognition and support of trans rights. Chicago has policies in the books that do prevent discrimination against trans people. There’s a private member’s bill being put forward in Parliament by [NDP MP] Bill Siksay that would support the recognition of trans rights at the federal level. There’s also, I believe, something similar at the provincial level. Some sort of support from Vancouver on either one of these would go a long way.”

Alan Herbert

Former Vancouver councillor and gay activist

“The number one institution there that needs attention is the creation of a gay community centre. We already have an institution [Qmunity, formerly known as the Centre], but the centre is limited in what it can provide. If you look at community centres around North America, you’ll find they include services for seniors and kids that are necessary. They also provide a gymnasium, coffee shop, theatre, library, almost all sorts of things. There has to be a number of reasons for a lot of different people to want to go there.”

Imtiaz Popat

General coordinator of Muslim LGBTQ group Salaam

People need to feel safe in our streets regardless of their gender, gender identity, sexuality, and sexual orientation. There was an attack on the East Side Pride parade last year by skinheads. There were no charges of hate crime or anything. If police are not taking crime seriously, then how can the community trust them? There are people who are getting away with hate crimes, who are not getting charged with hate crimes. Often the police would say, ”˜This is not a hate crime,’ when it’s clearly a hate crime.”

Jennifer Breakspear

Executive director of resource centre Qmunity

“We have a need for a victim-services worker specific to the queer community. It doesn’t fall under the city’s specific mandate, although it could be quite helpful to us when we lobby the provincial government”¦if the city is onside also lobbying on our behalf. The provincial government funds victim-services workers to other communities, whether they’re geographic neighbourhoods or population-specific communities. And yet we’ve been hearing repeatedly from solicitor general’s office that the queer community doesn’t need one.”