Great post, Bluesurfer!
I spent the 80's and 90's in Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and France. Urban areas of Canada were less threatening than Bluesurfer described, but still in Ottawa in the 80's it was definitely something I had to keep hidden from my employers. But the downtown core areas of Toronto, Ottawa and especially Montreal were pretty tolerant outside of the office.
Had a few issues in France, but outside of the usual haunts. Back in the Marais district of Paris people were pretty open and accepting. You just didn't have to move too far out of there to find lots that weren't.
In the late 90's, my partner and I left France and moved to Toronto, and within a year my new employer voluntarily introduced same-sex benefits and signed up my partner for full coverage. After that, our attitudes changed to "people are just going to have to deal with us". My job was secure, our benefits were secure, and now HR had our back. Again, this is in downtown Toronto, and things were certainly different in other regions of Canada. And clearly Canada as a whole was a bit ahead of most of the world at the time, save northern Europe.
