By Kayla Costello-Hearn
As we near the end of Pride Week in St. John’s, I have been thinking a lot about what Pride means to me. Turns out I have many answers, but the one thing that stuck out in my mind the most was the word “family.” For me, this has two meanings: my chosen LGBTQ2S+ family and one biological family member in particular — my Uncle Paul.
I wanted to remember the most influential gay person in my life for this year’s Pride. Paul taught me so much and through his lifetime of hard work he also opened so many doors for me and other people around him. Paul Hearn not only paved the way with our family but he also showed me what it meant to be proud. After I came out (thanks to him), I had a whole new world in front of me that I was finally free to live in.
My Uncle Paul, like me, was raised in Petty Harbour. But unlike me, his experience growing up gay in a small town was quite different than mine. I’ve always felt free to be who I am and that’s thanks to the path he paved for me.
Paul left home in the ’70s, and like many Newfoundlanders, landed in Toronto. It was after this move when he came out to our family, perhaps a much easier task from far away. While my Catholic family couldn’t wrap their heads around this news at first, Paul reminded them that he was still just Paul.
I’ve always felt free to be who I am and that’s thanks to the path he paved for me.
Paul was always encouraging and supportive, and taught me so much about our LGBTQ2S+ history. We often talked for hours about what it was like growing up gay in a small town or what it was like fighting so hard for our rights. His stories and knowledge shaped who I am as a gay person and made me strive to be the best version of myself that I could be.
Anyone who ever met Paul would probably have described him as kind, unassuming, and pretty chill. He seemed to have lived his life so effortlessly, just taking things as they came. Up until I started spending more time with Paul and his husband John, I had no idea just how active they had both been in their community and just how much they helped fight for. That was them — they didn’t always talk about all of the things they did, because to them it was just what they needed to do to survive and live the life they wanted.
During Paul’s 40+ years in Toronto he carved a place for himself in the LGBTQ2S+ community. He lived through so many big events in his community — the bath house raids of 1981, the HIV and AIDS epidemic, fighting for so many different rights, from being able to have a joint bank account with his partner to being able to get married. I remember when Canada finally legalized same-sex marriage, Paul said, “Well, you know, we fought for this so I might as well do it.”
One of the most special activist things Paul did happened in 1987, the year I was born. He and John were working on the Toronto Pride committee and they were trying to come up with that year’s theme. They came up with “rightfully proud” because that year the Ontario Human Rights Code was amended to include sexual orientation as a protected class. The design was simple but the message was very profound. They had the original poster hanging on their wall and it was always a reminder to me about not only how far we have come, but a reminder of the people that helped us get here.
In February of this year Paul’s husband John passed away. After being together for over 30 years, Paul felt lost without his loving partner and he himself passed away in June. I’ve not only lost members of my own family but also members of my LGBTQ2S+ family.
Thank you to Paul and John and everyone else who worked so hard to fight for everything we have today. I will forever be grateful for my family, in whatever definition they fall under.
Kayla Costello-Hearn
St. John’s
