User:Kassandra Rivest/Lesbian Visibility Day in Canada

Lesbian Visibility Day is celebrated in several places around the world. This day aims to highlight lesbian visibility and above all wishes to highlight the issues of women of sexual diversity and who identify as LGBTQ2S+. This article is dedicated to its genesis, where the story dates back to the 1980s in Montreal.

History
In May 1981, the Bi-National Lesbian Conference took place in Vancouver, organized by the Lesbian Organization of Toronto (LOOT) and several other members of the Toronto International Women's Rights Day. Among the resolutions passed during this conference, two were essential to the establishment of Lesbian Visibility Day. The first one proposed to designate March 27, 1982 as a common day of action and lesbian awareness throughout Canada, and the second, to devote every first Saturday in October to the organization of a day of solidarity and exchange between lesbians.

Therefore, in the Canadian cities of Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal and Toronto, a day of action and lesbian awareness took place on March 27, 1982. In Montreal, this day was organized at the “Ateliers populaires” (community centre for popular education) on Boucher Street focusing on the theme Lesbians in solidarity. Furthermore, the group Amazones d'hier, lesbiennes d'aujourd'hui used this event as an opportunity to launch its eponymous magazine. During the day, nearly 150 lesbians participated in various workshops and activities, and nearly 250 attended the closing dance. This day also provided an opportunity for Montreal lesbians to discuss the organization of the meeting on the first Saturday of October, i.e. the "first" official lesbian visibility day, then called the Lesbians Inter-Actions Day.

Subsequent editions followed until 1992 almost every year, excluding the period from 1989-1991, when no lesbian visibility event will be organized except for the year 1991.

This will follow an absence for nearly 13 years of Lesbian Visibility Days. When revived in the 2000s, more specifically in 2005, it will mainly take place on March 8, on International Women's Day, when Gai Écoute (today Interligne) takes the initiative of creating a lesbian visibility committee, made up of various authorities and militant lesbians, with the aim of increasing the visibility of lesbians in society.

From 2019 to 2021, it will then be organized annually, the first weekend of June, by the Quebec Lesbian Network, to echo the other LGBT Prides in North America, including the Pride Week in Toronto and the New York's Pride March.

Finally, since 2022, the Quebec Lesbian Network has held the event in April, in keeping with the organization of Lesbian Visibility Day taking place in several countries, on April 26.

1982, October 2 - Lesbians Visible to One Another
In accordance with the resolution passed in 1981, i.e. to hold a Lesbian Visibility Day on the first Saturday of the following October, the association “Les Biennes du Québec,” formed in September of that year,, , assumed the task of organizing the event in less than six weeks. The first official Lesbian Visibility Day took place on October 2, 1982 at the YWCA on Dorchester Boulevard (now known as René Lévesque Boulevard). Its theme was “Lesbians Visible to One Another ", as a tribute to the 1978 Éditions des deux goudous publication by Ariane Brunet. Two lesbian events follow one another in less than a year.

This day also served as an opportunity for lesbian organizations to make themselves known via a Visibility Fair. This Fair was also marked by the launch of the monthly lesbian magazine Ça s’attrape !!.

In the end, the presence of 650 lesbians confirmed the success of and need for this event. This great enthusiasm gave rise to a second edition, scheduled for the first Saturday in October of the following year. In 1983, a contingent of lesbians formed for International Women's Rights Day, proudly assuming the name “Lesbians visible to each other”, in a nod to the theme of the first official Lesbians Inter-Actions Day. .

1983, October 1st - Lesbians Visible to Each Other, in Search of Harmony...
The second edition took place on October 1, 1983, at Cégep de Maisonneuve under the theme of “Lesbians Visible to Each Other, in Search of Harmony...”. Noting the success, and especially the number of lesbian organizations springing up since the first Inter-Actions Day in October 1982, the theme of the 1983 edition aimed to find harmony between the emerging groups from various backgrounds.

1984, October 6th - Visible to Get in Touch with Each Other
In 1984, the theme chosen was « Visibles pour se rejoindre » (“Visible to Get in Touch with Each Other”), and the event took place at Cégep de Maisonneuve. According to an article in the October 7, 1984 edition of the Dimanche-Matin newspaper, 600 women attended this event.

1985, October 5th - Creating Perspective
In 1985, the day focused on the theme "Creating Perspective" and took place at Gilford School, a location of historical importance to lesbian culture, where several organizations used to gather, i.e. the Lesbian Choir, the Arts et Gestes (“Art and Action”) collective, the Salon des Tribades (which later became Les Tribades) and Traces (now known as the Quebec Lesbian Archives).

In fact, the Gilford School was a former elementary school, rented in the summer of 1984 and used as a community space by lesbian groups. This establishment was the preferred location for the organization of future Lesbians Inter-Actions Days until its closure in 1993, which dealt a hard blow to the Montreal lesbian community, depriving women of a significant place, aside from bars, where they felt a sense of belonging.

1986, 3-4 October - Creating Perspective II
The 1986 edition focused on a reprise of the previous theme: “Creating Perspective II ”. Continuing to pursue the goal of forging links between the lesbian groups that had emerged since the inception of the Inter-Actions Days, a directory containing contact information and resources offered by 24 lesbian groups, was created by Marie-Michèle Cholette and entitled Let’s spin a web!/Tissons un réseau !

That year’s event was all the more significant since a plenary reflecting on the desire to create a lesbian network was the focus of the day, a desire that will be fulfilled 10 years later, with the creation of the Quebec Lesbian Network (QLN) in September 1996.

1987, 2-3 October - Lesbian Movements in Quebec: Past, Present, and Future
In 1987, the sixth annual Lesbians Inter-Actions Day took place under the theme "Lesbian Movements in Quebec: Past, Present, and Future ".

This theme was chosen to express the desire of the organizers to discover and relive lesbian history, in order to reflect on the present, and then assume the power to coordinate future actions. The idea was to look back on the past, in an attempt to propel ourselves forward.

1988, September 30th and October 1st - Lesbian Culture, Politics, and Resources: where do we stand?
The focus of the 1988 Inter-Actions Day was “Lesbian Culture, Politics, and Resources: where do we stand?” at the Gilford school. As the theme indicates, the main goals of the working group were to reflect: “The concerns of the lesbian community based on our past and present herstory [sic], and to make these days form a logical whole, in relation to our theme .” Yet: “ [To] make a political assessment, that is to say, an observation, an analysis of the interests of lesbians in relation to lesbian networks (local, national and international) [...] would be in a way to take an X-ray of lesbian reality in order to evaluate its importance and the willingness for lesbians to gather together as lesbians in order to consolidate our lesbian networks (resources, culture and political struggles ).

The workshops given during this event focused on two central themes, namely identity and belonging.

1989, October 21-22 - 8th Lesbians Inter-Actions Day
The 1989 Inter-Actions Day took place at the Cégep of Rosemont, it did not focus on a particular theme, but did attempt to follow the main thread between the history of lesbians in the past and the history that was being written at the time, in order to define the visibility of lesbians in society.

1992, 22, 24 & 25 October - Different but united
The beginning of the 1990s was marked by the dissolution of groups and lesbian spaces. As a result, there were no Inter-Actions Days in 1990 and 1991. The Gilford School was in financial distress and closed its doors for good in 1993; the building was later converted into housing units by the City of Montreal."“Why no lesbian visibility days for two years? The main reason is the difficulty in finding organizers with enough energy to invest in the development of an event of this scale. Should we question ourselves? [...] Why have former organizers become so burnt out at the end of their mandate that no one remains to organize our events. [...] Perhaps it is in acting that we will find the solutions... at the risk of seeing Visibilité [sic] withdraw for good.”"In 1992, a slight revival of the lesbian community was seen on the horizon, with the organization of a few events within the Inter-Actions Day framework, spread out over three days. Conversely, everyone walked on eggshells and the few attempts to form an association of some kind failed, taking with them the hopes and energy of a number of lesbians. The final activities within the original Lesbians Inter-Actions Day model took place on October 22, 24 and 25, divided into three locations: Gilford School, Lilith Bar and St. Pierre Claver School.