17 minute read
Th e Life of Politics Girl
THE LIFE OF POLITICS GIRL
Leigh ELLIOTT McGowan’94 is immersed in U.S. aff airs as a vibrant online opinion maker—even as she fi ghts a debilitating health condition
BY BERTON WOODWARD
ou can’t keep Leigh McGowan down. Quite literally. She keeps popping up everywhere—on YouTube, on social media, on the web, on her podcast. And when s she pops, she’s very up. sh Based in Los Angeles, Leigh has been known as Politics B Girl since 2014. She’s on Twitter as @IAmPoliticsGirl with Girl sinc 240,000+ followers, and on TikTok and Instagram, with a total of over 400,000 followers, under the aptly named @BreakfastRant. Because, yes, she does get pretty intense as she delivers her short videos about current U.S. issues. She gestures a lot. She squints at the camera. She modulates her voice like the trained actress she is. And she gives you very forthright opinions, ticking every progressive Democrat box.
On TikTok recently, Leigh explained herself, from her kitchen as always, looking straight at the camera, aware her audience there trends young. “Th ose bigger issues like systemic racism or climate change or voting rights, they aff ect you, whether you think about them or not,” she told her followers. “So my pointing out what’s going on in the bigger picture might feel annoying or exhausting, but I’m doing it because it aff ects you and all of those people you claim to care about.”
It was that kind of explanatory approach that got Leigh online in the fi rst place, aft er the Democrats were given a drubbing in the 2014 Congressional midterms. Like a well-bred Branksome girl, she tried to get people involved
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Leigh, Sean and Lochlan at the second Women’s March held on January 20, 2018—a global protest following up on the massive 2017 Women’s March.
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by calmly outlining how the system works, why there are primaries, what a caucus is, and much else. But as the 2016 presidential election campaign got going with Donald Trump, she became more and more partisan. Seeing the rise of such a “contemptible man,” she told her audience, “I’m furious, and I am heartbroken at the same time.”
She was back for 2020 again, amping up support for the Democrats. She’s continued her infl uential commentaries all through 2021, about mask mandates, the January 6 insurrection, the Supreme Court, Texas abortions and much more. In November, after some state elections went badly for the Democrats, MSNBC late-evening host Brian Williams picked up her latest rant and remarked: “She makes a better case for the Democrats than the Democrats themselves.” Her Twitter following doubled overnight.
Leigh’s evident energy and dedication— she’d like to run for Congress one day—are especially impressive when you learn the other part of her story: the potentially terminal illness she constantly lives with.
“It really does crystallize what’s important and what is not,” she says. “It changed the course of my life and in many ways it changed who I am. Sometimes I get very angry because I don’t think people understand how much of me is missing. I look completely healthy, but I need help carrying groceries.”
It’s a tough daily regimen. “I sleep with oxygen, and when we go anywhere we take an entire suitcase fi lled with medical supplies. I take 10 zillion pills. Every three hours, I have an alarm go off to take meds, so I can’t do anything that isn’t interrupted, at some point, by a reminder that I’m sick.”
Sick perhaps, but very vibrant. Growing up in north Toronto as an only child, Leigh may have acquired her passion for politics, if not her views, from her lawyer father George Elliott, a Conservative Party stalwart. Her outgoing personality undoubtedly mirrors her beloved mother, Penny LOWNDES Elliott ’63, a former alumni coordinator at Branksome who died in 2018. “She really loved her time at Branksome, as did I,” says Leigh.
Arriving in Grade 6, Leigh threw herself into
hat side of her life is online too. She has a blog called “In Case I’m Gone,” which started as letters to her son Lochlan aft er the terrible diagnosis she received in 2008 when he was just six months old. She had become weak and short of breath, no longer able even to dance as she loved to do. Th at led to the surreal moment when a trio of doctors gravely informed her she had pulmonary arterial hypertension, a rare lung/heart disease.
“Th ey were all dead silent and I said, ‘Well, I’m not going to die from it, right?’ And there was silence in the room. And I said again, ‘I’m not going to die from it, right?’ And then one of the doctors said, ‘Well, everybody dies.’ I went, ‘What?’” In fact, they told her, the disease had a common life expectancy of two to three years.
Well over a decade later, she is still alive. But she still has the incurable disease. New drugs came along that extended her lifespan, but she knows her health could go south at any time. Even so, she can be an engaging storyteller about her debilitating condition, in her everintense style.
school activities, especially acting. “My parents used to call me Sarah Bernhardt,” she recalls. She did drama with legendary arts teacher Judith FRIEND’75, who only retired in mid-2021, she captained the swim team, sang in the choir, was a Clan Chieft ain in the Junior School (Bruce) and the Senior School (Douglas), and was Communications Prefect in her last year. “I was a real joiner,” she laughs.
She went on to McGill, where she did more stage work, and graduated with honours in English. Back in Toronto, she studied broadcasting at Ryerson, worked for a while in fi lm distribution, and then decided, “I’m going back to my original dream—I’m going to New York.” So in 2000, slipping into the Big Apple without telling anyone back home, she auditioned at the renowned Circle in the Square Th eatre School, got accepted and then told her surprised parents: “Please let me take this shot.” Th e school is set immediately below its associated Broadway theatre, “so when we did our shows, we did them on that Broadway stage. I got some amazing experience.”
n September 11, 2001, she happened to be back visiting Toronto. For Leigh, it was a huge turning point. “Living in New York felt like the fi rst time I was living the life that I had chosen for myself,” she says. “And when 9/11 happened, I just wanted to be in that city so badly and to be around the people that I’d made friends with, the life I created for myself.”
She has always been a proud Canadian, and still is. “But my love for America was solidifi ed that day. I knew I wanted to be a part of everything that America stood for on 9/11. And what happened post 9/11—when we went to war, lying about weapons of mass destruction, the way Americans treated the Muslim people— that sort of rooted me in Democratic politics. When George Bush was re-elected in 2004, I thought, I cannot live in this country for one more second and not vote.” Four years later, she became a citizen.
Th ere was another turning point in that period, when the theatre company took their
all-female comic stage show Pieces (of Ass) from New York to Los Angeles. It was kind of like Th e Vagina Monologues, with actresses delivering pieces about their characters’ lives and interacting with the audience at the end. Leigh found herself interacting with a good-looking fellow named Sean McGowan, who came back a second time and asked her out. He turned out to be an actor as well.
Th ey were married in 2005 in Toronto at the former Eglinton Theatre. Then came Lochlan in 2008—and that awful two-to-threeyear prognosis. It was at the three-year mark that Leigh started writing her letters to Lochlan at incaseimgone.com. Th e blog took off , with strong response from around the world. “I was writing it as a way to come to terms with my feelings about dying and leaving my son behind. I wanted him to know I was a real person and not just some perfect memory he had to live up to. And I think because it was so personal, it felt universal.”
At a major literary agent’s request, she spent two years turning the blog into a book manuscript, but the agent was unable to get it published. “Th ey basically said that it would have been a lot easier to sell it if I’d died—because if I’m not dead, then who cares, right?”
With Leigh’s health still diffi cult, Sean left acting to start a more fl exible career, fi rst in production and now with his own tech and entertainment business, which includes editing her Politics Girl posts. Leigh is also working on another book, outlining her solutions to society’s challenges. She’s pretty clear on many of today’s hot issues. She’d like to see the U.S. Supreme Court expanded, she embraces racial justice, and she backs the president, despite starting out as an Elizabeth Warren supporter. “I think Joe Biden was the right choice. He was what America needed in the moment to get past Trump.”
She hasn’t forgotten her native country. “Canada has a far greater sense of the common good than America. Canada is defi nitely on a better track than America.” But Politics Girl is immersed in U.S. aff airs, and thinks that if her health holds, she could run for Congress in 2024 or 2026 because Lochlan would be fully grown then. “If I’ve learned anything from being sick, it’s that I want to be present in his life when he’s around.”
So get ready for a new face in Washington. You can’t keep Leigh McGowan down. R
Berton Woodward is a Toronto-based writer, editor and communications consultant.
FOUR STRONG
Dilnoor’01 is a senior emergency management consultant with the Ontario government. Dilshaan’10 is a family physician currently working on a palliative care fellowship. Dilzayn’05 is a manager at a health technology company in Silicon Valley.
WOMEN The Panjwani sisters are united by their fi rst names, their high achievements in health care—and their dedication to each other BY PATRICIA HLUCHY
No one, except perhaps the authors of Freakonomics, would argue that the names given to children might aff ect how they get along with their siblings. But the way the four Panjwani sisters got their names does seem to dovetail with their deep love for each other and their shared commitment to helping others.
Th eir parents, Indian-born psychiatrist Dr. Dilkhush Panjwani and his wife, Shahnaz, a native of Pakistan who manages his practice, took an unusual route in deciding what to call each of their girls: they combined letters from their own fi rst and last names, as well as Shahnaz’s maiden name, Noor. “It was purely the creativity of my parents,” says daughter Dilnoor, who adds with a laugh, “and it can be a bit confusing.”
But lovely and resonant, too. Aft er all, explains sibling Dilzayn, “‘Dil’ means ‘heart’ across many South Asian and Middle Eastern languages, and that is the unifying word in all our names.” Th e sisters are Dilnaz’99, Dilnoor’01, Dilzayn’05 and Dilshaan’10. All four say Branksome had a huge impact on their lives and careers. And all four currently work in health care or a health-care related fi eld. “Th e common thread is the notion of helping people,” notes Dilnoor.
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MATTHEW LAVERE Dilnaz’99 is an emergency physician at a level-one trauma centre in Detroit.
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And while they have been mostly farfl ung in studies or work during their adult years, their constant contact by phone, video or text is indispensable and keeps them grounded. “I feel lucky to be the youngest,” says Dilshaan. “I have such strong role models in my sisters. They each have a great group of successful female friends, and being surrounded by so many strong women growing up had a profound impact on me.”
Her siblings return the compliment. “Dilshaan and I are 10 years apart,” observes Dilnoor, “so we’re at very diff erent periods of our lives. But when we are together, I learn so much from her in terms of her generation and her unique perspective on issues.” Th e eldest, Dilnaz, adds, “My sisters were defi nitely a lot cooler than me. I was always more the straightand-narrow, studious type.” Dilzayn in the middle observes, “Th e fact that Branksome is a shared experience among all of us has added to our bond as sisters.”
Have they ever been competitive with each other? All four, describing themselves as wideranging foodies and travellers, say they only squabble about trivial things such as where to get the best thin-crust pizza in New York City or what their itinerary should be when they’re travelling abroad together. “We all love celebrating each other’s successes,” says Dilnaz. “When Dilshaan and Dilzayn became prefects, it was as if we were all prefects.”
Th e sisters say their parents’ work in health care and eff orts to obliterate the stigma around mental illness have aff ected their career choices. So, too, has their ethnic community—in Timmins, Ont., where the family immigrated from the U.K. in 1985, and in Toronto, where they moved in 1994. “In the South Asian community,” says Dilshaan, “there’s a strong emphasis on helping and supporting each other and on living and working in a collective, collaborative space.”
This past Labour Day weekend, the Panjwanis were all united in Toronto aft er an 18-month, pandemic-related separation. Dilzayn recalls that it was a fun and heartwarming time, especially since being an aunt to Dilnaz’s three children and Dilnoor’s two is “one of the greatest joys of my life.” And it’s always a pleasure, she continues, for the sisters to communicate in person over homemade South Asian food.
Eldest sibling Dilnaz is an emergency physician at a level-one trauma centre in Detroit. She is also on the faculty of the local Wayne State University Medical School and an associate director of simulation for TeamHealth, a corporate medical group that staff s emergency departments throughout the U.S. She and her husband, intellectual property attorney Jason Tejani, have two sons and a daughter.
She concedes that she ended up in emergency medicine partly because of the popular television series ER. “When I was an undergraduate, I remember watching the show and
– DILNAZ
DILNOOR HAS BEEN DEEPLY INVOLVED WITH ONTARIO’S RESPONSE TO COVID-19. “IT’S BEEN NON-STOP. BUT IT’S ALSO BEEN A TIME WHEN WE’VE BEEN ABLE TO QUICKLY IMPLEMENT QUALITY PROGRAMS AND POLICIES TO FIGHT THIS PANDEMIC.”
joking that I was going to be an ER doctor at an inner-city hospital.” Dilnaz got a taste of a real ER when doing a rotation in New York City during a pediatric month, realizing, “Th is is it, this is where I belong.”
For Dilnaz, Branksome instilled in her the resilience and grit that females sometimes need in male-dominated careers. “I was given the knowledge that I can do anything that I want to do, despite my gender. Th e teachers certainly cultivated a love of learning. So, defi nitely, the sky was the limit.”
Second eldest Dilnoor came to Branksome in Grade 7 and says the school was “a stepping stone in shaping who we wanted to become, really igniting the drive towards success. Th e sense of community and the encouragement from faculty also really resonated with us.”
Dilnoor, who has two daughters with husband Akber Samji, a forensic accountant, has been a senior consultant for the Health System Emergency Management Branch of the Ontario Ministry of Health since 2017.
Which means she’s been deeply involved with the province’s response to COVID-19. “It’s been non-stop. But it’s also been a time when we’ve been able to quickly implement quality programs and policies to fi ght this pandemic.”
Dilnoor has an MSc in development management from the London School of Economics and a PhD in planning from the University of British Columbia, where most of her research was on disaster recovery in the aft ermath of the tsunami in Indonesia. Prior to joining the Ministry of Health, she was a research consultant for the United Nations Development Programme for more than four years, specializing in disasters and resilience, and evaluating the UNDP’s support across more than 50 countries.
“We were trying to understand what worked and what didn’t work, and how things could be done better the next time,” she says. “I’ve been able to bring my experience from other disasters and with other communities to degree in health policy from the London School of Economics.
At Branksome, Dilzayn was elected community service prefect. “The school helped build a strong foundation for my life as I explored many opportunities, from sports to music to sharing my passion for my culture with friends through Indian dance at Branksome’s Infusion Night.”
Dilshaan, the youngest sister, is currently working on a palliative care fellowship at the University of Calgary, having completed her family medicine residency at Queen’s University in Kingston earlier this year.
She intends to practise both. “Palliative care is a fi eld of medicine that’s patient-centred,” says Dilshaan, who is engaged to rheumatologist Dr. Adam Amlani. “You fi nd out what’s important to a person and help them achieve their wishes with a goal of improving their quality of life. You get to know them well and you see fi rst-hand how families and communities show strength by coming together at the end of someone’s life. Th at is incredible.”
At Branksome, Dilshaan was elected head prefect in 2009. “Mrs. Weinstock called me to give me the the news,” she recalls. “And during that conversation, I learned I was the fi rst South Asian head prefect in the history of the school. Th at gave me confi dence through university, and empowered me to take on leadership roles and represent people of colour.”
It’s an inspiring story of achievement. Beyond doubt, the values of their parents and their community, along with their experience at Branksome—and maybe, even, how they got their names—all combined to lead the Panjwani sisters to help make the world a better place. R
– DILSHAAN
the COVID response and recovery, and that has been exciting.”
For her sense of community and good work, the Branksome Hall Alumnae Association gave Dilnoor the Young Alum Achievement Award in 2013.
Th ird eldest Dilzayn had been employed in London, where, for two years, she worked for the U.K.’s National Health Service. Th ere, one of her tasks was to help reduce the number of forensic mental health patients living in hospitals and safely resettle them in communities.
“During COVID,” she says, “we ensured that vulnerable mental health patients across London hospitals were still getting treatment and that their needs weren’t forgotten.” She recognizes that growing up in a household where your father is a psychiatrist, “you quickly pick up on why mental health is so important. I wanted to play a role and contribute within this space.”
Recently, Dilzayn became a product manager at a health technology company in California’s Silicon Valley. She has a master’s Patricia Hluchy is a Toronto freelance writer and editor who has worked for Maclean’s, the Toronto Star and other publications.
