Editorial note: This story is an introduction to an audio track provided to us by CJSR Radio dated November 4, 1999 which we have formatted to a YouTube video file. Author and recent GayWire host – Terrence Adams also interviewed former GayWire host – Kristy Harcourt in a new video recorded April 11, 2025 – 25 years and about 6 months after the interview to chat about her experiences as the host. We have combined both interviews into one YouTube file and the link follows this story.
Please note: there is significant use of swear words in the audio story.

The bustle of HUB Mall can be heard behind Kristy Harcourt as she welcomes listeners to Gaywire. For the special Fundrive show, there’s a special guest, Dan Savage and Kristy has set up a tea party for him.

Dan Savage is a multifaceted man. His love and sex advice column, “Savage Love,” began in 1991, and offered comprehensive sexual advice with a raunchy and friendly tone – the way you talk to your friends about sex. In 2001, he and his readership popularized the term “pegging,” and Savage Love is still being produced, now as a podcast. In 2010, Dan Savage and his husband, Terry Miller, founded the It Gets Better Project – a project that aims to reduce queer suicide rates by providing testimony from queer adults about living fulfilling lives. It has grown into a multinational organization that fosters community building and storytelling amongst 2SLGBTQIA+ community. I, like many other queer youth, am alive today in part because of Dan Savage’s work.

This interview is from the 1999 Gaywire Fundrive show. They talk sex advice, slur reclamation, and how to write in ways that are accessible to the communities you write for, rather than general acceptability of a piece. This interview is a great introduction to Dan Savage and his work at the time, and it is also a time capsule of queer radio at the turn of the millennium.

Gaywire is a longstanding show about 2SLGBTQIA+ lives on CJSR 88.5 FM. CJSR is the University of Alberta’s campus radio station, a beloved community station with eclectic programming that is always weird, but almost never bad. Fundrive is the main fundraiser for the station – it occurs annually, in the fall. The goal is to raise money for the station by offering a tiered series of prizes that correspond to donation amounts – most donations phoned in. This Dan Savage interview is amidst the loving chaos of Fundrive – The calls for folks to phone in for donations punctuate the interview, firmly situating this interview within the time it was made – before area codes, and before digital cameras were widely accessible.

Kristy Harcourt was the host of Gaywire for over a decade – her voice accompanies hours of radio programming concerned with queer and trans lives in Alberta, and her three decades of queer liberation work has positively impacted countless lives. Kristy has been a major factor in giving access to the information, skills, and support needed to sustain the queer community in Edmonton, and continues this work today.

When I was learning the ins and outs of radio production, the kind of language permitted on air is a tricky rule to understand. From the CJSR production guide, in the news ethics section: “Be thoughtful about swearing and other strong language. It is acceptable in some cases if it is critical to telling your story, but you must insert a strong language warning before the explicit content.” Essentially, strong language is permitted on Canadian radio, but it has to be a justified usage. If a concerned listener calls in about obscenity on the radio, the station needs to be able to back up why those words were said. Given the ability to swear on air, Canadian radio is expected to use that ability wisely; Understand the power of the language being used, and avoid excessive cursing.

This advice works when the content is pre recorded, but while live, the situation is different. Strong language warnings prior to the strong language being said are a key component to contextualize the language, but live, those warnings are difficult to make. As such, Kristy and Dan spend some time discussing what those laws are – you can say shit on the radio, so long as it is in context. You can say blowjob on the radio, if that is an objective part of the information you are relaying. Dan was giddy to learn the allowances of Canadian radio language, and interpreted the guidelines liberally. As a result, the Gaywire Fundrive prize tier gained a new tier due to Dan Savage – a blowjob in exchange for $1000 donated to the station.

This was an unofficial offer, of course, but still said on air! Soliciting sex acts for money is harder to contextualize and justify – while a hilarious gag listening, as a producer, I felt myself begin to sweat when Savage made the offer. It was clearly a joke, but also, no one donated $1000 within that hour on air, so it remains a mystery as to whether a blowjob could be acquired through donation (it can’t, but please send $1000 to Gaywire and CJSR now to double check!).

Even though the interview is loads of fun to listen to unfiltered now, there was a very real risk of consequences at the time- if someone made a complaint about the use of language, Gaywire would have been in trouble – the show could have been cancelled altogether. It’s important to remember the risks involved in making queer media accessible, alongside the generative impact. The way we speak about ourselves has a lot of power, in-community and beyond.

Overall, this is a great piece of Edmonton queer history – radio is intimate, and Dan Savage has played (and continues to play) a very important role in shaping access to sex education.

Watch the video interview between GayWire Host Kristy Harcourt and the most recent Host, Terrence Adams then listen to the audio track following. It’s all on our YouTube channel. (Click below)

Additional Resources:

Darrin Hagen wrote a story on Dan Savage’s visit to Edmonton for Outlooks Magazine December 1999 issue. In the story he covers Savage: On Tour, Savage: On Radio, Savage: On TV, and even Savage: On Stage at that years “Loud and Queer Cabaret”.
https://archive.org/details/outlooks-1999-12/page/8/mode/2up

This is the first issue of SEE Magazine that featured Savage Love. It includes the column as well as the introduction article below the column done by SEE Staff.

https://archive.org/details/seemagazine237/page/32/mode/2up

Terrence Adams

Terrence Adams (they/them) is a writer and undergraduate at the University of Alberta. They are the current host of Gaywire, and actively working to create art and workshops for queer and trans joy to be felt. Terrence is passionate about making information accessible, and creating spaces for queer and trans lives to be celebrated and protected. We keep each other alive. You can connect with Terrence at teadams@ualberta.ca, or on Instagram @greenbowdispatch.

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