Danny Cockerline (centre) and Chris Bearchell (right) at a Body Politic editorial collective meeting in 1983. From the Gerald Hannon Fonds, courtesy of The ArQuives.

Danny Cockerline (right) and members of The Body Politic editorial collective at a meeting in 1983. From the Gerald Hannon Fonds, courtesy of The ArQuives.

Danny Cockerline and friend fooling around in the Canadian Gay Archives (now The ArQuives) in 1990. Photograph by Gerald Hannon. From The Body Politic Fonds, courtesy of The ArQuives.

Danny Cockerline and friend fooling around in the Canadian Gay Archives (now The ArQuives) in 1990. Photograph by Gerald Hannon. From The Body Politic Fonds, courtesy of The ArQuives.

Danny was able to leverage his good grades for a university scholarship and ended up at the University of Toronto in the late 1970s.[1] Unsatisfied with his academic program, he transferred to Ryerson (now Toronto Metropolitan University), where he soon became the spokesman for the university’s unimaginatively named student group, Ryerson Lesbians and Gay Men. It was through activities with this group that he met his life-long friend and celebrated lesbian activist Chris Bearchell. According to Rick Bébout, it was through Danny’s connection to Chris that he began to “hang around [at the The Body Politic (TBP)] like a little puppy dog,” soaking up everything he could.[2] Eventually he went on to write for and join the editorial collective that ran TBP, Toronto’s gay liberation newspaper. Danny’s first writing appeared in the April 1982 edition and by 1983 he was listed as a member of the editorial collective. He went on to write for the paper off and on, often covering the prostitution and police beat, until January 1985. He also appeared on the cover of TBP three times: September 1982, July/August 1983, and November 1984.

The Canadian Gay Liberation Movement Archives (CGLMA), now known as The ArQuives, was founded in the early 1970s.[3] What began as a side project of a few members of the TBP collective to document the burgeoning gay liberation movement’s existence in Canada beyond the newspaper itself quickly turned into its own full-scale project. What once fit in a few drawers at the TBP office has become one of the largest collections of LGBTQIA+ historical materials in the world. In 1979, Danny was photographed by fellow TBP collective member Gerald Hannon working in the growing archives alongside his friend and future housemate Chris Bearchell.[4] The photos appear staged for promotional use. Danny would again appear in a set of Hannon’s promotional photographs taken in the archives in 1990, though they are much more salacious than the ones from the late 1970s and speak more to Danny’s humor and politics mixing with his robust sexual appetites.

[1] Nik Sheehan, “Hard Sell,” Xtra, Sept. 28, 1990.

[2] Rick Bébout, “Danny Cockerline, 1960-1995,” Xtra!, Jan. 4, 1996.

[3] Craig Jennex and Nisha Eswaran, Out North: An Archive of Queer Activism and Kinship in Canada (Victoria, BC: Figure 1, 2023), 22.

[4] Jennex and Eswaran, Out North, 30-31.