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Rick Bébout
Born(1950-01-11)January 11, 1950
Ayer, Massachusetts, United States
DiedJune 10, 2009(2009-06-10) (aged 59)
Occupations
Years active1972–2009
Known forLGBTQ rights activism
Notable workThe Body Politic (editor, contributor)
HonoursQ Hall of Fame
Websiterbebout.com

Richard Bébout (January 11, 1950 – June 10, 2009) was a Canadian editor, journalist, and LGBTQ rights and AIDS activist. He is most noted for his contributions to LGBTQ rights organizations and publications in Toronto, especially his work on The Body Politic.

Early life

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Bébout was born on January 11, 1950 in Ayer, Massachusetts, United States.[1] He was the second of nine children in his family.[2] In 1969, when he was 19 years old, he left the United States for Canada to avoid being drafted into the Vietnam War, and he ultimately settled in Toronto.[1][3]

Career

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In 1972, Bébout edited The Open Gate: Toronto Union Station, a book of essays that has been credited with helping to prevent the demolition of Union Station.[1] While working as a volunteer at the Canadian Gay Liberation Movement Archives (now known as the ArQuives), Bébout became acquainted with the editorial collective of the Toronto-based gay magazine The Body Politic, with whom the archives shared an office.[2][4]

1977–1986: The Body Politic and AIDS activism

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Bébout joined The Body Politic's editorial collective in 1977 and began to contribute to the magazine as an editor, writer, publisher, and staff member.[1][5] Fellow editor Gerald Hannon described Bébout in his memoirs as the collective's "most influential and powerful" member.[6] As a politically radical gay publication, The Body Politic faced several legal challenges,[1][7] and Bébout was one of ten Torontonians who faced obscenity charges after the magazine's offices were raided in December 1977.[1] (The charges against all ten were eventually dropped.)[1]

During the 1980s, Bébout helped organize and took part in a several demonstrations against the Operation Soap bathhouse raids and other police raids of gathering places for gay men.[6][7] He also wrote and published many articles in The Body Politic about HIV/AIDS prevention.[8] Like the rest of the magazine's editorial collective, he was critical of the mainstream media's AIDS coverage.[8] In one influential article, "Is There Safe Sex?", he summarized the available scientific knowledge about AIDS prevention and advocated for safe sex but acknowledged that mainstream medical advice about safe sex, such as using condoms and limiting sexual partners, did not always fit the realities of gay men's lives.[8][9]

In a letter written to Jane Rule in December 1986, after the editorial collective decided to close the magazine, Bébout wrote that The Body Politic "will probably remain the most important thing any of us has ever done."[1]

1986–2009: Non-profit work and memoirs

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From 1986 until 1993, Bébout worked for the AIDS Committee of Toronto (ACT) as a fundraiser and developer of educational content related to HIV/AIDS and safe sex.[5] After he retired from ACT, he began writing his memoirs,[1] which he self-published in 2003 as Promiscuous Affections: A Life in the Bar, 1969–2000.[10]

He received the Ontario AIDS Network Honour Roll award in 1999 for his AIDS-prevention work.[2] In 1998, he was inducted into the ArQuives' National Portrait Collection in recognition of his contributions to Canadian LGBTQ history and culture,[5] and in 2011, he was posthumously inducted into the Q Hall of Fame.[11]

Personal life

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Bébout was close friends with the prominent lesbian author Jane Rule, whom he first met through The Body Politic.[4][10] They kept up a decades-long correspondence about their lives and various issues facing the LGBTQ community, including policing, censorship, pornography, and the HIV/AIDS crisis.[2][7][10] Their letters were edited by Marilyn R. Schuster and published by UBC Press in 2017 as A Queer Love Story: The Letters of Jane Rule and Rick Bébout.[7][12] Later in his life, Bébout was also a friend of Norwegian musician Sondre Lerche.[4]

Bébout was diagnosed with HIV in 1988, several years into his work as an AIDS activist.[1][2] He died of complications from a stroke on June 10, 2009.[3]

Works

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  • The Open Gate: Toronto Union Station (1972), P. Martin Associates
  • Promiscuous Affections: A Life in the Bar, 1969-2000 (2003), self-published
  • A Queer Love Story: The Letters of Jane Rule and Rick Bébout (2017), UBC Press

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Hasselriis, Kaj (June 21, 2009). "Gay activist Rick Bébout helped produce a newspaper that challenged Canada's morality laws". The Globe and Mail. Archived from the original on April 8, 2025. Retrieved April 8, 2025.
  2. ^ a b c d e "Rick Bébout fonds" (finding aid). Prepared for the ArQuives, Toronto, ON. Retrieved April 14, 2025.
  3. ^ a b "Rick Bebout Obituary (2009)". Toronto Star. June 13, 2009. Archived from the original on April 8, 2025. Retrieved April 8, 2025 – via Legacy.
  4. ^ a b c Hannon, Gerald (July 1, 2009). "The gift of a life". Xtra Magazine. Archived from the original on March 19, 2024. Retrieved April 9, 2005.
  5. ^ a b c Hatton, Norman (2003) [1998]. "Rick Bébout (1950-2009)". The ArQuives Digital Exhibitions. Archived from the original on April 8, 2025. Retrieved April 8, 2025.
  6. ^ a b Hannon, Gerald (2022). Immoral, indecent, and scurrilous: A memoir. Ferndale, CA: Cormorant Books. ISBN 978-1-77086-602-7.
  7. ^ a b c d Gee, Dana (July 4, 2017). "Q&A: A Queer Love Story, inside the letters of Jane Rule and Rick Bébout". Vancouver Sun. Archived from the original on December 7, 2021. Retrieved April 8, 2025.
  8. ^ a b c Silversides, Ann (2004). AIDS Activist: Michael Lynch and the Politics of Community. Toronto: Between the Lines. ISBN 978-1-896357-73-7.
  9. ^ McKenzie, Cameron (May 20, 2016). "Love, Lust, and Loss in the Early Age of AIDS: The Discourse in the Body Politic From 1981 to 1987". Journal of Homosexuality. 63 (12): 1749–1763. doi:10.1080/00918369.2016.1172874. ISSN 0091-8369. PMID 27043855.
  10. ^ a b c Schuster, Marilyn R. (2010). "Jane Rule & Rick Bébout, Private Letters/Public Lives: A Queer Love Story" (PDF). Canadian Literature (205): 108–120.
  11. ^ Takeuchi, Craig (March 15, 2011). "Q Hall of Fame Canada 2011 inductees: k.d. lang, former Straight scribe Kevin Dale McKeown, and more". The Georgia Straight. Archived from the original on October 26, 2023. Retrieved April 17, 2025.
  12. ^ Wexelbaum, Rachel (April 13, 2017). "'A Queer Love Story: The Letters of Jane Rule and Rick Bébout' Edited by Marilyn R. Schuster". Lambda Literary Review. Archived from the original on April 8, 2025. Retrieved April 8, 2025.
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