In The Middle: Being Portuguese And Gay In The Wake Of The Emanuel Jaques Murder In 1977 Toronto

This thesis revisits the murder of the 12-year-old Portuguese immigrant boy Emanuel Jaques in Toronto in 1977 and the cultural response it ignited through qualitative interviews with five Portuguese gay men who were coming of age around this moment. Homosexual men across the city were conflated with the men who murdered Jaques because of their sexualities and depicted as a threat to children by politicians, law officials, protestors, and members of the media. Young Portuguese gay men found themselves in between two sides of an intense moral panic yet their experiences had not previously been sought out and recorded. They recall facing a fear of self and of others following the murder, a questioning or rejection of their sexualities, and in one case, continuing guilt. These experiences are considered within a broader context of what it meant to be Portuguese and gay in the ‘70s and ‘80s in Toronto.