The Murder of Joe Rose
Canadian True Crime
Kristi Lee
4.7 • 5K Ratings
🗓️ 1 February 2021
⏱️ 65 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In 1989, 23-year-old Joe Rose and a friend boarded a Montreal bus home in the early morning hours. What happened next would be described as a turning point for the LGBTQ+ rights movement in Quebec.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Canadian True Crime is a completely independent production, funded through advertising and direct donations. |
| 0:05.0 | The podcast contains coarse language, adult themes, and content of a violent and disturbing nature. |
| 0:10.0 | Listener discretion is advised. |
| 0:13.0 | His name was Joe Rose. |
| 0:18.0 | You may not recognize it because his public memory has largely faded away with |
| 0:23.1 | a previous generation, but he was an important person in Quebec in the 80s, a person who |
| 0:29.2 | inspired a fight for change. Joe Rose was born in 1965 and he knew who he was from a young |
| 0:37.0 | age. |
| 0:38.1 | He was gay and proud of it, and even as a teenager in high school, he never tried to hide |
| 0:44.0 | it from anyone, a stance considered rare at the time, not to mention potentially dangerous. |
| 0:51.3 | This was the 1980s, a turbulent error for the gay community, as it was referred to back then, |
| 0:58.3 | years before the more inclusive LGBTQ plus acronym became the preferred term. |
| 1:05.2 | Across Canada, police were raiding gay bathhouses and issuing charges related to bawdy houses or brothels. |
| 1:13.5 | And while Canada would become one of the first countries to affirm same-sex marriage, |
| 1:18.6 | when Joe Rose was a teenager, that milestone was still 20 years away. |
| 1:24.4 | Even though Joe was friendly and likable, being openly gay came at a price, especially for a student in high school. |
| 1:33.0 | But Joe Rose didn't care. He was going to live life on his terms. |
| 1:38.9 | He was so open that he became a gay activist as a teenager, making a lot of friends in the Montreal |
| 1:45.7 | gay community and boldly advocating for their rights and treatment. |
| 1:51.2 | But things were different at school. |
| 1:53.7 | When Joe was 16, he was targeted in the locker room. |
| 1:58.0 | A few teenage boys cornered him, and one roughed him up against the wall and yelled slurs at him. |
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