Title
Oral History with Jeanne Healy, Lois Stuart, and Jackie, 1985
Description
This interview begins as a conversation between Lois, a retired schoolteacher and activist in Southern Ontario, and Jeanne, a retired secretarial worker and activist. Partway through the interview, Jackie enters and dominates much of the discussion. Jackie was born in 1934 in Sudbury, Ontario to a large French and Native family. As a teenager, she ran away to Toronto multiple times. Following a marriage at 16, she moved to Toronto for a number of years, where she became part of the lesbian bar scene at The Continental Hotel. Jackie would have been considered a downtowner and a rounder, having spent time in and out of the Don Jail throughout her life. The majority of the interview concerns her coming out process as a butch; her work as a pickpocket and later a heroin dealer; her experiences of violence in the Lesbian bar scene; as well as her relationships with women, one of which was with an aspiring Hollywood starlet. The interview is framed by a larger conversation about police harassment, books published in the fifties featuring gay and lesbian characters, and Jeanne and Lois’ involvement in the Women’s Movement.