Growing up in north Scarborough, he was bullied and called names such as “art fag” and “gay boy.”
He came to lead a double life, with one group of straight friends and another of gay friends. The two never mixed. When he broached the topic of his sexual orientation with his mother, she cried and expressed worry for his future in an intolerant society.
David Furnish came of age in Toronto at a time when homophobia was rampant and homosexuality repressed. It took a move across the pond to England for him to come out of the closet.
Today, as chair of the Elton John AIDS Foundation and husband of the famed musician, Furnish, 52, couldn’t be more comfortable in his own skin.
This weekend he returns to his hometown — which has since evolved into one of the most gay-friendly jurisdictions in the world — to lead the Pride Parade as grand marshal.
FURNISH HAS MIXED memories of growing up in Scarborough. His elementary school years were tough, his high school years exceptional.
“I was definitely teased and bullied in my junior school,” he says in a phone interview from London, England, referring to North Bridlewood Junior Public School in Scarborough. “I was neeeever a cool kid. I’m still not a cool kid. I still feel like a nerd,” he says with a laugh.
Furnish wasn’t big into sports; he preferred the arts, particularly theatre and music. He found his “tribe,” he says, at Sir John A. McDonald Collegiate, specifically in drama class. He participated in productions of Godspell and Pippin, and some former classmates remain close friends, including Eric McCormack, who starred in Will and Grace. Those days at McDonald, McCormack has said, were like a real-life version of Glee.
Furnish credits a handful of teachers, including drama teacher Mort Paul, for helping him thrive and feel connected.
“Dave was clever and full of fun,” Paul exclaims, remembering Furnish as a teen. “He was a student I could reliably turn to for a smart and funny answer, and one who would take risks on stage — and obviously in life.”
Furnish questioned his sexuality back then, but was far from figuring it out.
No one at school was openly gay, though three of the Godspell performers, including Furnish, would eventually come out. There was still an undercurrent of homophobia.
“We used to get teased. We were sort of the ‘art fags,’” he recounts. “Nobody ever said, ‘Hey it’s OK to be gay.’ It was always, ‘Oh, they are gay,’ as though it was like the worst thing in the world that could happen to them.”
The late ’70s and early ’80s were not easy times to be gay in the city. It was the era of the infamous bathhouse raids. The St. Charles Tavern on Yonge St. was the focus of homophobic attacks, especially egg-hurling at the annual Halloween drag show.
“I just remember all that stuff being frighteningly oppressive,” Furnish says. “It all came back to this sense that it was wrong and it was punishable.”