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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.…

Born in 1920, Lois Stewart is a political activist and retired schoolteacher who grew up in Victoria, British Columbia. After teaching in Victoria during World War 2, Lois moved to Southern Ontario, where she taught in a number of cities and towns…

Pat Murphy was born in 1941 to an Irish-Catholic working-class family in Toronto, Canada. Murphy trained as a nurse and worked initially at Lakeshore Psychiatric Hospital in 1964, where she had her first lesbian relationship with a co-worker. The…

Shyam Selvadurai is the author of the brilliant, ground-breaking and internationally acclaimed novel Funny Boy, a story of growing up gay in Sri Lanka amidst the long-standing conflict between the Tamil and Sinhalese communities. "It is difficult to…

Writer, editor, political activist and mother of two wonderful daughters, Jamaican born Makeda Silvera is a visionary who has revolutionized Canadian literature. In 1985, she and partner Stephanie Martin co-founded Sister Vision Press, the first and…

Mary-Woo Sims has worked to further lesbian and gay and same-sex spousal rights for many years. She was co-chair of the Campaign for Equal Families, and took great joy in witnessing the determination and cohesion of the lesbian and gay community…

The mix of spirituality, politics, and social justice are what makes Tim Stevenson such an important trailblazer for the LGBT community on Canada's west coast. Tim was the first openly gay person ordained by a mainstream Christian denomination in…

Douglas Stewart is a gay rights activist who has focused much of his energy on working with the Black community, especially as project co-ordinator with the Black Coalition for AIDS Prevention (Black CAP). For Stewart, "Finding language between the…

Barbara Thornborrow came out in 1977, when she was threatened with dismissal from the Canadian Armed Forces, where she was a Private in the photographic department. Following a search of her barracks room, questioning of her roommate and confiscation…

"Because disabled people are assumed to be asexual, and lesbian identities are sexual identities, disabled lesbians have been rendered non-existent. Much of the work I have done has derived from an urgent desire to wrestle sole ownership of lesbian…