Connecting Fragments:
Solidarity and Fragmentation in Montréal’s Lesbian and Gay Communities, 1960-1976

by Gregorio Pablo Rodríguez-Arbolay, Jr.

Pablo’s thesis explores the intersections between francophone and anglo­phone gay rights org­ani­zations in Montréal in the 1960s and 1970s. It draws on the larger context of Québec’s Quiet Revolution, a period of rapid social, economic, and political change that was marked by expanding public services, secularization, and sovereignist francophone nationalism. In the following excerpt, taken from his third chapter, “Shifting Liberation Spaces: Mixed Gay and Lesbian Organizations,” Pablo uses the literal spaces of the city as a window into figurative political spaces, mapping the evolution of alliances and tensions between the francophone and anglophone gay liberation movements.

3.1: Intersections

By 1972, it was undeniable that gay liberation began to make its mark upon members of the Montréal gay and lesbian community. Discussion of homosexuality, gay and women’s liberation, and the difficulty of dealing with anti-gay bias became a more regular occurrence in anglophone and francophone discursive spaces throughout the city. The formation of the Front de libération homosexuelle (FLH) certainly assisted in the forging of such spaces in which gays and lesbians began to speak their own voices, views, and experiences, but an organization whose members had nothing in common beyond same-sex desire offered little to unify and forge solidarity in a gay and lesbian community. Over the course of this chapter, I will present a history of the formation of the first anglophone gay and lesbian organization in Montréal, GAY, and the development of the first “officially” bilingual gay and lesbian organization, the Gay Montréal Association-Association homophile de Montréal. As these two groups organized, they implemented activist techniques typical of gay liberation politics in the United States and English Canada, which ultimately represented the groups’ distinctly anglophone orientation.

3.2: Anglophone Space

Jackie Manthorne was all too aware of the complexities involved in organizing gays and lesbians from divergent social backgrounds of gender, language, and class. In April 1972, Manthorne published a protracted analysis of the development of gay liberation in Montréal. In her article, Manthorne addressed the unique difficulties of gay liberation in Montreal she experienced as a member of the FLH, in particular the complications inherent in organizing anglophone and francophone gays and lesbians into a group that lacked a central mission beyond the aspiration to participate in gay liberation. Manthorne urged future organizations not only to be conscious of the specificity of their members in terms of social backgrounds and relevant needs and concerns, but also to address the local social and political climate. She suggested that one of the chief causes behind the lack of extensive organizing between anglophones and francophones is not simply rooted in the fact that anglophones have not organized in anglophone-specific social-political organizations in Montréal, but rather due to their position as a minority population in Québec during the height of the Quiet Revolution. Although anglophones did have a presence in the FLH, by early 1972, anglophone gays and lesbians had not yet organized independently. “One reason for [the lack of anglophone organizing] is that many English gays who are interested in liberation do not want to work in a group separate from the French organization because they feel that the French should run and control the political policies and activities of a gay organization in Québec.” This was certainly true for many anglophone gays and lesbians of the FLH, who formed the minority of the group and the city’s population. The impetus for anglophone gay liberation would arise from a safe anglophone space in Montréal, McGill University.

The social reforms of the Quiet Revolution directly affected the bastion of anglophone elitism in Québec, McGill University, and by the early 1970s, the university responded to the intense public transformations by liberalizing its policies and affording space for social and political organizing. By the early 1970s, the new left and women’s liberation movement flourished at McGill. This increasingly progressive atmosphere fostered classroom discussion of subjects that would have once been deemed taboo or inappropriate for the classroom. In the autumn of 1971, McGill University instructors Bruce Garside, Linda Page-Hollander, and John Southin initiated a course on “Biology and Social Change” that included the examination of gay liberation. This course was undoubtedly revolutionary for its period, and introduced students to the possibilities of living out their sexual desires outside the confines of the nearby gay and lesbian bars and nightclubs on Stanley Street.

By September 1972, in the wake of the fall of the FLH, a discussion group linked to “Biology and Social Change” had evolved into GAY, Montréal’s first anglophone gay and lesbian organization. Members of the new organization made full use of their association with McGill University and fully utilized its extensive resources to further the development of GAY. Initial meetings were held at the university’s Redpath Drop-in Center, and approximately 150 people from McGill and the surrounding urban community attended the founding meeting of GAY. During the first few meetings, an executive board was formed with James Young as president, Vicky Jacks as vice president, Ian McGregor as secretary, and Patrick Ormos as liaison officer. Within two months, the organization received official university charter and recognition and funding from the McGill Students’ Society.

Despite the initial acceptance of GAY from the university administration, others opposed gay organizing at McGill from the start. One of the organization’s first opponents came from within the university and was spearheaded by a student group known as the Society for the Repression of Homosexuality (SRH). While it is unknown whether the SRH existed before GAY or formed in direct response to GAY, it is certain that SRH sought to work against GAY’s effort toward gay liberation. The SRH distributed flyers throughout campus describing homosexuality as a “repugnant mental illness.” On the flyers, the SRH laid out its mission to “oppose (by peaceful means) the passive acceptance of homosexuality by today’s lax society, and to encourage psychiatric treatment as a viable alternative for homosexuals.” The reactionary efforts of the SRH did little to stall the progress of GAY, and by late 1972, GAY’s membership grew exponentially and established the organization as a social space for gay liberation.

The main project of GAY was not simply to establish a space for anglophone gay and lesbian McGill students, but also to provide an alternative to gays and lesbians who had felt alienated by the “radical” nature of the early FLH. The FLH had initially focused upon building alliances with leftist and nationalist groups in Montréal, as suggested by its participation in the 1971 anti-confederation demonstration. After leftists and Québec nationalists had rebuffed the FLH, its members had redirected themselves toward less radical, more social-oriented activity, and GAY continued in that same vein. It was conceived as a social organization for the university and local gay and lesbian community devoted to study groups, consciousness raising, and discussion. Shortly after its inception, GAY’s executive board described to the student newspaper, McGill Daily, the organization’s mission:

We want to give active and latent Gays the opportunity to recognise and accept their own sexuality instead of being fucked up by the cultural preconceptions imposed on them. We want them to have confidence in their own personalities.

The aim of GAY was to offer the chance for candid discussion of homosexuality and the ability to connect with other gays and lesbians throughout Montréal in a supportive community space. Community services became a focus, with the establishment of a gayline information service (active until November 1973), a women’s committee, a speaker’s bureau, a newsletter, drop-in nights, and community dances (until summer 1973). GAY was not officially interested in directly addressing homophobia and (hetero)sexism at McGill or Montréal proper. In essence, GAY focused on grassroots programs and activities that built community and solidarity among anglophone gays and lesbians in Montréal.

This grassroots social approach was shared by many other Canadian and American gay, lesbian, and homophile organizations of the early 1970s. In early November 1972, George Hislop, president of the Community Homophile Association of Toronto (CHAT), and Patricia Murphy, a member of CHAT, visited McGill to speak with over 60 members of GAY. During their talk, Hislop and Murphy described the early history of CHAT and the resources offered to the Toronto community including social services and a 24-hour hotline dispensing information on emergency drug counseling, and advice or referral for psychiatric or VD problems. Within the first few months of GAY, the membership attempted to virtually replicate the resources offered by CHAT, including an information hotline.

Six months later, Dr. Franklin Kameny, founder of the Mattachine Society of Washington, DC, spoke at McGill on gay liberation movements, as part of an event sponsored by GAY and the McGill Debating Union. Kameny described the tenets of Mattachine and thus no doubt influenced the course of action taken by the first members of GAY. In Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities, John D’Emilio chronicles the development of the Mattachine Society. He notes that after Mattachine established a statement of purpose in 1951, the mission of the organization called for a grassroots movement of gay people to challenge anti-gay discrimination and recognition of the importance of building a gay community. While GAY did not initially assume the task of combating anti-gay discrimination, it certainly did work toward building a gay community at the grassroots level through its social programs and events. This tendency toward grassroots social organizing exposes GAY’s affinity for, and solidarity with, activist techniques utilized by other English-speaking North American gay and homophile organizations. The late FLH also enacted similar social, community-building activities after the radical members departed from the organization. Arguably, since the FLH was the only pre-existing paradigm for gay liberation in Montréal, GAY would have also been no doubt influenced by the FLH’s social activities. In assuming a grassroots social activist approach, GAY further distinguished itself from the politicized direct action techniques employed by the francophone-dominant early FLH, and aligned itself with the social-oriented focus of the late FLH.

The first years of GAY exemplified to the Montréal community that gay liberation had a place in their city and that gays and lesbians had a place of their own beyond the dark, noisy margins of bars and baths. GAY instituted social programs and resources for the university and local community that were absolutely revolutionary for the period. GAY offered a set of services that benefited gays and lesbians by helping them become more comfortable with their sexual identity in a social climate that continued to keep numbers of gays and lesbians closeted. The group’s organizing techniques not only resembled the techniques employed by their contemporaries (English-speaking North American organizations), but also functioned along the lines of the organizational practices suggested by Jackie Manthorne in 1972. Manthorne advised that future gay liberation organizations offer a number of social services to their members including meetings, discussions, lectures, film screenings, and dances, and within its first year GAY offered all of these services in addition to the information hotline. Yet GAY was primarily a student organization subject to the university’s funding and calendar. GAY’s activities focused on the school year, and for most of 1975 it was not active at all. As student members of GAY graduated from McGill, some remained active as non-university members, but others conceivably left Montréal or joined other gay and lesbian organizations developing in the city. In the autumn of 1975, GAY attempted to revive its dances, which in the past have proved to be their biggest and most lucrative events, but the effort was ultimately unsuccessful. GAY later reorganized under a variety of other names such as Gays and Lesbians of McGill and Queer McGill, its current name. The end of the GAY McGill dances did not spell disaster for gay liberation in Montréal, which would continue to prosper and develop new gay liberation and lesbian-feminist organizations. Many of the community services and activities once offered by GAY were taken over by the Centre d’accueil homophile/Gay Community Centre and by the Gay Montréal Association-Association homophile de Montréal (GMA-AHM) after their formation in June 1973.

3.3: Common Ground

The immense success of GAY’s social programs and events inspired many gays and lesbians in Montréal to continue the fight for gay liberation and expand the parameters of GAY beyond the confines of downtown Montréal. By the early 1970s, many gays and lesbians had grown tired of always being oriented toward downtown, and despite the increased accessibility to the area after the construction of the métro; they sought to expand their public spaces beyond the downtown anglophone student ghettos.