Brian Mossop
(1946 - living) Canada
Translator and activist
Born in London, UK, Mossop moved with his parents to Toronto in 1950. He joined the Communist Party in 1967 while a student at the University of Toronto, where he was deeply involved in the student movement. His life changed dramatically in the summer of 1974 when, in the space of two months, he quit the university to become a translator, came out, joined the gay movement and met Ken Popert.
Mossop's relationship with Popert has survived, but he was expelled from the Communist Party in 1976 "for advocating homosexuality". Mossop joined the Gay Alliance Toward Equality (Tornto) which Popert had helped found in 1973, Mossop was a founder of the Coalition for Gay Rights in Ontario (1975) and later its chairperson.
In 1985 Mossop, a translator and reviser at the Canadian Government's Translation Bureau and an instructor at York University School of Translation in Toronto, launched a grievance-at-work for not being granted bereavement leave to attend the funeral of his lover's father. He took the matter to the Canadian Human Rights Commission, citing discrimination based on family status. Seven years later, the Supreme Court of Canada agreed to hear the case. It found against him in a split decision but left the door open to other challenges.
Source: excerpts from: Aldrich R. & Wotherspoon G., Who's Who in Contemporary Gay and Lesbian History, from WWII to Present Day, Routledge, London, 2001 - et alii
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