Lesbian Organization of Toronto

Last updated
Lesbian Organization of Toronto
AbbreviationLOOT
Formation1976
Dissolved1984
TypeLesbian organization
Legal statusinactive
Purposeadvocate and public voice, educator and network
Headquarters Toronto, Ontario, Canada

The Lesbian Organization of Toronto (L.O.O.T. or LOOT) [1] was a lesbian organization founded in 1976 and disbanded in 1980. [2] The group was Toronto's first openly lesbian feminist group, and its members elected to open Canada's first Lesbian Centre.

Contents

History

L.O.O.T. grew out of an October 1976 meeting convened in the C.H.A.T. (Community Homophile Association of Toronto) offices on Church Street. Fiona Rattray, an original member, estimates the meeting was attended by 30–60 lesbians. [3] Members present at this meeting decided to rent part of a house (342 Jarvis St), to develop a multi-use lesbian centre. [4] The collective also included Eve Zaremba, who would later become one of Canada's first notable openly lesbian writers, [5] and Lynne Fernie, a noted documentary filmmaker. [6]

The Lesbian Organization of Toronto shared the building with two other compatible organizations; The Other Woman, one of Toronto's longest lasting feminist newsmagazines, and the Three of Cups Women's Coffeehouse. L.O.O.T. moved into the house on February 1, 1977. [3]

Purpose

Member Gay Bell referred to the lesbian centre as a "crucial locus of (the lesbian community's) development ... in Toronto". [7] One of the group's earliest public statements explains that it hopes to "serve as a bridge to unify various existing groups who can provide services to the lesbian community." [8]

Organizers also believed that an available physical space for lesbians would "raise the profile of lesbians in the city, and make it possible for them to come out of the closet in the company of other lesbians without fear of reprisals." [3] Collective member Nancy Adamson is quoted in Becki L. Ross' history of L.O.O.T., The House that Jill Built: Lesbian Nation in Formation, as saying that the organization gave lesbians in the city a much-needed "safe place in the world"". [3]

L.O.O.T.'s first newsletter described its purpose as "an umbrella organization for lesbians. It serves social, recreational, personal, cultural, political and educational purposes for the lesbians involved. Mostly, it simply allows a lesbian to meet and get together with other lesbians who share her interests." [9]

In Rites , a Toronto gay and lesbian newspaper, journalist Megan Davies emphasises some of L.O.O.T.'s social aspects, referring to the group as an important resource for countless lesbians in Toronto, offering a safe, lesbian-positive environment in which to come out and meet other lesbians. [10]

L.O.O.T. was for womyn-born womyn only. A formal request to join the organization was made by a male-to-female transsexual lesbian in 1978. In response, the organization voted to exclude trans women. During informal discussion, members of L.O.O.T expressed their outrage that in their view a "sex-change he-creature... dared to identify himself as a woman and a lesbian." In their public response L.O.O.T. wrote:

A woman's voice was almost never heard as a woman's voice – it was always filtered through men's voices. So here a guy comes along saying, "I'm going to be a girl now and speak for girls." And we thought, "No you're not." A person cannot just join the colonized by fiat. [11]

Activities

The organization regularly provided peer support, telephone counselling, dances, social and political activities, a lending library, a newsletter, potluck socials, brunches, concerts and performances by well-known feminist and lesbian musicians like Ferron, Alix Dobkin, Mama Quilla II, and Beverley Glenn Copeland. [12]

In 1979, L.O.O.T. members, in collaboration with the International Women's Day Committee, organized that year's Bi-National Lesbian Conference on the University of Toronto campus. [13]

Closure

The Lesbian Centre at 342 Jarvis closed May 1, 1980. [14] Historian Becki Ross refers to the factors leading to the organization's closure as "multiple and complex" and notes that they included political differences, fragmented membership, volunteer burn-out, inflated expectations, lost organizational focus and changing political climate. [15]

After the closure of the centre, L.O.O.T.'s telephone peer counselling functions were taken over by the Lesbian Phone Line, who continued to offer this service in the city until 1984. [16]

Other Information

The L.O.O.T. Oral History Project collection is held at the University of Ottawa Archives and Special Collections.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Transfeminism</span> Branch of feminism

Transfeminism, or trans feminism, is a branch of feminism focused on transgender women and informed by transgender studies. Transfeminism focuses on the effects of transmisogyny and patriarchy on trans women. It is related to the broader field of queer theory. The term was popularized by Emi Koyama in The Transfeminist Manifesto.

Feminist separatism is the theory that feminist opposition to patriarchy can be achieved through women's separation from men. Much of the theorizing is based in lesbian feminism.

Women's music is a type of music base on the ideas of feminist separatism and lesbian-separatism, designed to inspire feminist consciousness, chiefly in Western popular music, to promote music "by women, for women, and about women".

Rites was a Canadian magazine, published for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender communities in Canada from 1984 to 1992.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Faith Nolan</span> Musical artist

Faith Nolan is a Canadian social activist, folk and jazz singer-songwriter and guitarist of mixed African, Mi'kmaq, and Irish heritage. She currently resides in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

<i>Forbidden Love: The Unashamed Stories of Lesbian Lives</i> 1992 Canadian documentary film directed by Lynne Fernie

Forbidden Love: The Unashamed Stories of Lesbian Lives is a 1992 Canadian hybrid drama-documentary film about Canadian lesbians navigating their sexuality while homosexuality was still criminalized. Interviews with lesbian elders are juxtaposed with a fictional story, shot in fifties melodrama style, of a small-town girl's first night with another woman. It also inserts covers of lesbian pulp fiction. The film presents the stories of lesbians whose desire for community led them on a search for the few public beer parlours or bars that would tolerate openly queer women in the 1950s and 60s in Canada. It was written and directed by Lynne Fernie and Aerlyn Weissman and featured author Ann Bannon. It premiered at the 1992 Toronto Festival of Festivals and was released in the United States on 4 August 1993. It was produced by Studio D, the women's studio of the National Film Board of Canada.

The Salsa Soul Sisters, today known as the African Ancestral Lesbians United for Societal Change, is the oldest black lesbian organization in the United States.Operating from 1974 to 1993, the Salsa Soul Sisters identified as lesbians, womanists and women of color, based in New York City Arguments within the Salsa Soul Sisters resulted in the disbanding of the Salsa Soul Sisters into two groups, Las Buenas Amigas made for Latinas, and African Ancestral Lesbians United for Societal Change made for African-diaspora lesbians.

Radical lesbianism is a lesbian movement that challenges the status quo of heterosexuality and mainstream feminism. It arose in part because mainstream feminism did not actively include or fight for lesbian rights. The movement was started by lesbian feminist groups in the United States in the 1950s and 1960s. A Canadian movement followed in the 1970s, which added momentum. As it continued to gain popularity, radical lesbianism spread throughout Canada, the United States, and France. The French-based movement, Front des Lesbiennes Radicales, or FLR, organized in 1981 under the name Front des Lesbiennes Radicales. Other movements, such as Radicalesbians, have also stemmed off of the larger radical lesbianism movement. In addition to being associated with social movements, radical lesbianism also offers its own ideology, similar to how feminism functions in both capacities.

Mama Quilla II was a Canadian rock band that first performed together in 1977 in Toronto and dissolved in 1982. Although the band recorded only a single EP as Mama Quilla II, after 1982 a revised lineup evolved into the influential pop band Parachute Club.

The first annual Bi-National Lesbian Conference happened in Toronto in May 1979.

Womyn-born womyn (WBW) is a term developed during second-wave feminism to designate women who were assigned female at birth, were raised as girls, and identify as women. The policy is noted for exclusion of trans women. Third-wave feminism and fourth-wave feminism have generally done away with the idea of WBW.

Susan G. Cole is a Canadian feminist author, activist, editor, speaker and playwright. She has spoken out on a number of issues, including free speech, pornography, race and religion. As a lesbian activist and mother, she speaks out on sexuality and family issues and is a columnist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mountain Moving Coffeehouse</span> Lesbian feminist music venue

The Mountain Moving Coffeehouse for Womyn and Children was a lesbian feminist music venue, located in Chicago and known across the United States. It operated for thirty-one years, from 1974 until 2005. The name of the organization evokes the political task that feminists must "move the mountains" of institutional sexism and homophobia. The alternative spelling of "womyn" represented an expression of female independence and a repudiation of traditions that define women by reference to a male norm.

Lynne Fernie is a Canadian filmmaker and interdisciplinary artist. She spent fourteen years as the Canadian Spectrum programmer for the Hot Docs Festival from 2002 to 2016, and was described as having a passion as "deep as her knowledge," and it was said that her "championing of Canadian documentaries and the people who make them has never wavered."

Aerlyn Weissman is a two-time Genie Award-winning Canadian documentary filmmaker and political activist on behalf of the lesbian community.

Shamakami was an early organization of South Asian lesbians and bisexual women based in the United States. They published a newsletter of the same name between June 1990 and February 1997.

Womyn's land is an intentional community organised by lesbian separatists to establish counter-cultural, women-centred space, without the presence of men. These lands were the result of a social movement of the same name that developed in the 1970s in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and western Europe. Many still exist today. Womyn's land-based communities and residents are loosely networked through social media; print publications such as newsletters; Maize: A Lesbian Country Magazine; Lesbian Natural Resources, a not-for-profit organisation that offers grants and resources; and regional and local gatherings.

Ruth Dworin is a feminist, women's activist, sound engineer, music producer and concert organizer based in Toronto, Canada. She is the owner of music production company Womynly Way Productions, an important contributor to the women's music scene in Toronto during the 1980s.

References

  1. ↑ Ross, Becki L. (1995) The House that Jill Built: Lesbian Nation in Formation, University of Toronto Press, ISBN   0-8020-7479-0 passim for the abbreviation without periods
  2. ↑ Ross (1995), p. 11
  3. 1 2 3 4 Ross (1995), p. 64
  4. ↑ Ross (1995), p. 162
  5. ↑ Robert Aldrich and Garry Votherspoon, Who's Who in Contemporary Gay and Lesbian History Vol. 2: From World War II to the Present Day. p. 460. Taylor & Francis, 2001. ISBN   0203994086.
  6. ↑ Lynne Fernie Archived December 30, 2008, at the Wayback Machine at glbtq.com
  7. ↑ Ross (1995), p. 203
  8. ↑ LOOT Organizing Collective, Statement The Other Woman, Nov./Dec. 1976
  9. ↑ First LOOT Newsletter, Canadian Women's Movement Archives, Toronto
  10. ↑ Davies, Megan. Culture is politics is unity: LOOT and the growth of lesbian feminist consciousness, Rites 1988, 4 (9 Mar) pp12-18, quoted in Stone, Sharon D. Lesbians Against the Right, in Women and Social Change: Feminist Activism in Canada, eds: Wine & Ristock, Lorimer and Co. Publishing, 1991, ISBN   1-55028-356-1
  11. ↑ Ross (1995), p. 135
  12. ↑ Ross (1995), pp. 142–147
  13. ↑ Ross (1995), p. 152
  14. ↑ Ross (1995), p. 198
  15. ↑ Ross (1995), p. 199-200
  16. ↑ Warner, Tom. Never Going Back: A History of Queer Activism in Canada, 2002, University of Toronto Press, ISBN   0-8020-8460-5, p179
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.