Jelena Vermilion, founder and director of the Sex Worker Action Program-Hamilton, commissioned Robyn Lightwalker to paint a portrait of Danny in 2022 based on an image from a porn magazine spread that Danny had done in the 1980s. Danny is one of many sex worker activists featured in Vermilion’s Sex Worker Portrait Series. Image courtesy of Jelena Vermilion.

Danny’s name appears on the Toronto AIDS memorial in Barbara Hall Park behind the 519 Community Centre in Toronto’s gay village. Photograph by Ryan Conrad.

Danny’s last public appearance was at public panel featuring sex workers at Toronto’s Harbourfront in early December 1995, when he spoke for just under four minutes. He spoke about some of the internal conflicts within the sex workers’ rights movement, the mistreatment of sex workers in the press, and the conservative backlash in Ontario with the election of the Conservative Mike Harris government. Recording courtesy of Andrew Sorfleet.

Danny committed suicide at home by intentional drug overdose on December 11, 1995. He left a suicide note expressing worry about the livability of the near future. He was concerned about putting his family and friends through the difficulty of his own slow and painful AIDS-related death, despite being relatively healthy at the time of his suicide. Danny was quite concerned and anxious about the newly elected right-wing Ontario provincial government led by Mike Harris, which began implementing extreme austerity measures. These included cutting social assistance programs and cutting health care spending by closing hospitals and laying off hundreds of health care professionals. Danny was worried that funding for HIV medication, medication he would not be able to afford on his own, was next on the chopping block. The future for queer HIV-positive people living and working on the margins under these conditions was just too unbearable for him.[1]

Valerie Scott, an old friend of Danny’s and fellow CORP member for many years, noted that Danny’s death was completely unexpected:

He was supposed to be at a meeting. The day that he took his life, that night we were scheduled for a meeting. Sex worker rights meeting. I remember because [Toronto City Council member] Jack Layton was going to attend. And Jack called me to ask, “Is the meeting still happening? At what time? You know, just confirming.” And I said, “Fuck, Jack… Five minutes ago I got this call…” …And I couldn’t believe it. I didn't want to believe it. But I had to know for certain, so I called the hospital. And I lied. I said I was his sister. “My name is Valerie Cockerline and I just heard this, and I’m not sure if it’s true?” And they told me “Yes. He’s in the morgue.” So I’m on the phone — I’m in shock, you know — I’m on the phone with Jack, and Jack, being the politician that he was starts talking about Danny almost as if he were doing a eulogy. And I asked Jack, right then, would he speak at Danny’s funeral. Would he basically do Danny’s funeral. He agreed, he did it, and he did a very nice job.[2]

Obituaries for Danny were written by well-known gay and sex worker activists, including Rick Bébout (Xtra!), Gerald Hannon (Now Magazine), Chris Bearchell (Walnet.org), and Tracy Quan (Prostitutes of New York [PONY]). He was eulogized by the Jack Layton, whom Danny had known and worked with when Layton was a Toronto City Councillor. Shortly after Danny’s death, Layton also successfully proposed a resolution in Toronto City Council to honor Danny’s HIV-prevention work with sex workers.[3] A memorial webpage for Danny created by his friend and former Maggie’s colleague Andrew Sorfleet continues to exists on Walnet, a website dedicated to the hustle and bustle in and around the collective house once shared by Danny Cockerline, Chris Bearchell, and other queer activists at 97 Walnut Street in Toronto.[4]

Danny is remembered by his friends and by a handful of savvy Canadian sex worker activists that have come after him, but the work of keeping Danny’s life and legacy in queer, sex worker, and HIV/AIDS social movement histories has been challenging. Some memorialization projects continue to be thwarted by the respectability politics of mainstream LGBTQIA+ organizations. For example, celebrated gay Canadian playwright Sky Gilbert publicly called for a memorial to Danny Cockerline in 2018 as Toronto's gay village was facing a wave of gentrification and redevelopment, but nothing ever came of his demand.[5] More recently, in 2024 a member of Maggie’s staff attempted to set up a memorial scholarship in Danny’s name for queer sex workers pursuing higher education, but struggled to find any LGBTQIA+ partner organizations willing to be associated with sex work(ers).[6] These unfortunate incidents demonstrate that while queer and trans people have made much progress since the gay liberation movement of the 1970s, the sex workers’ rights movement, which includes a disproportionate number of queer and trans people working in the commercial sex trade, still has far to go.