Daniel “Danny” Cockerline (30 September 1960 – 11 December 1995) was born to parents Jack Cockerline and Betty Lou Latimer in North Bay, Ontario, about 350 kilometers north of Toronto. The Cockerlines were a working-class Catholic family of mixed English and French descent in a small city of fewer than 25,000 people when he was born. His father worked as a car mechanic and his mother, just seventeen when he was born, stayed at home to take care of the kids.[1] Reflecting on his childhood with sex work activist Carol Leigh in a 1993 interview, Danny noted that his parents’ lack of formal education and his working-class background instilled in him a distrust of authority and rules for rules’ sake.[2] In a 1990 interview with culture critic and filmmaker Nik Sheehan, Danny recounted the difficulties of growing up a sissy in Canada in the 1960s and 1970s, mentioning the anti-gay bullying he faced once his teenage sexual liaisons with a friend of his older brother became public.[3] At this time, the age of consent for same-sex sexual activity in Canada was twenty-one.[4] Despite the challenges Danny faced growing up gay and effeminate in a small Canadian city, later in his life he was accepted and supported by his family, even after coming out as a successful porn performer and prostitute.[5]

Danny would later reflect on seeing an advertisement in the Globe and Mail newspaper for a Toronto club called Katrina’s that had “gay and straight” clientele. This advert was part of what drew him to Toronto as a university student.[6] According to Danny, it was the first time he had ever seen the word gay used as matter-of-fact description as opposed to as part of a judgment or insult. Like many small town gays and lesbians before him, Danny moved to the big city in search of community, acceptance, sex, and love.

[1] Carol Leigh, Interview with Danny Cockerline, Whore Culture, DVD, 1993.

[2] Carol Leigh, Interview with Danny Cockerline, Whore Culture, DVD, 1993.

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

[4] Tom Hooper, Gary Kinsman, and Karen Pearlston, “Anti-69 FAQ: What Law Related to Homosexuality Was Changed in 1969?,” Anti-69: Against the Mythologies of the 1969 Criminal Code Reform Conference, Feb. 14, 2019.

[5] Carol Leigh, Interview with Danny Cockerline, Whore Culture, DVD, 1993.

[6] Eleanor Brown, Dayne Ogilvie, Jessica Pegis, Alan Vernon, and David Walberg, “Living Pride: 25 Years of Pride,” Xtra, June 1994.