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Trying things Chris Bearchell was a Canadian lesbian activist. She born Christine Bearchell in Edmonton on August 16 of 1953, and passed away on February 18, 2007, in Vancouver after a decade-long fight against breast cancer at the age of 53. She relocated to Toronto in the 1970's and moved to Lasqueti Island in 1995.

Activism

Bearchell was an activist throughout her life, beginning with her challenge of dress code policies prohibiting female students from wearing pants to her school, and continued to be an activist for causes related to women's, and LGBTQ+, rights and issues throughout her life. Bearchell gained increased notoriety when she began writing for the Body Politic in Toronto in 1975. Her ex-colleague Gerald Hannon of the Body Politics remarked after her death that Bearchell was seen as "the only lesbian on the planet" by gay men at the Body Politic during "a time when lesbian separatism was a significant force" within the LGBTQ+ movement. Bearchell saw the lesbian rights movement as part of the larger civil rights movement. Bearchell remained involved in the paper until 1987. In 1976 Bearchell co-founded the Lesbian Organization of Toronto (LOOT), the first on a long list of organizations that she would co-found, pioneer, or lead. Other notable groups she was involved with include Maggie's (a drop-in and rights centre for sex trade workers), the Committee to Defend John Damien, the Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Rights in Ontario, AIDS Action Now!, and the Canadian Committee Against Customs Censorship.

In 1977 Bearchell was involved in a television show called This Program May be Offensive to Heterosexuals, a program considered to be a rare on-air opportunity to organize and connect the queer community in Toronto at the time of showing.

Bearchell has been remembered as a dyke dynamo and rabblerouser. She is credited with coining the one of the major rally cries of the gay and lesbian movement in the early eighties, "No more shit!" on February 6th, 1981 at a demonstration protesting the February 5th police bathhouse raids in Toronto.

References Shanahan, Noreen (2007). "Passings". Herizons. 21.1: 8–9 – via EBSCO. "Activist Chris Bearchell dies at age 53 | Daily Xtra". Retrieved 2017-04-06. Bearchell and Smith, Chris and Miriam (2014). "Interview with Chris Bearchell, Lasquti Island, 1996". Journal of Canadian Studies. 48: 252–277 – via Project MUSE. "Chris Bearchell | CLGA Canadian Lesbian & Gay Archives". www.clga.ca. Retrieved 2017-04-06. McLeod, Donald W. (2014). Lesbian and Gay Liberation in Canada: A Selected Annotated Chronology, 1976-1981. Toronto: Homewood Books. pp. 617–625.