Interviewer: I noticed on the table, of the collection you’d put out, there was some things about Pride parade? (Yeah.) Did you ever attend those, early, sort of what were they like?

Ellen: The first one was probably like, 1970, in front of the old courthouse which became the Art Gallery. The GATE organized, Gay Activists Towards Equality. Uh, and mostly men. And there was just like, maybe twenty people there. Yeah, very very very small. Very. Uhm, and when I was elected as first out lesbian city councillor in Canada, we, we had a council that was totally with us. There was a gay man, Tim Stevenson, who was the first out United church minister. So we, we hosted Stonewall in council chambers, we invited everybody. We kicked off Pride at City Hall, so we got the entire city. So, city, library, Parks Board, School Board, the police department, the fire department, like, any city employee all marching together in Pride march. So there was just this incredible, powerful force.

And then when the Olympics came, there was a Pride house there, and I wrote up a one-pager about LGBTQ2IS and put it in the international guest packages. We set up the first LGBTQ2IS advisory committee to city council, to speak directly to council. So, we were able to do a lot. That was 2002. And we just, we kept going ‘cause there was two of us. And at that point we talked about setting up a national committee of councillors, mayors and councillors. We couldn’t find anybody else who was out. I think there was one other, we found one guy, one man who’s now an MP. Randall Garrison. But aside from that we couldn’t even start it. And that was 2002. So it’s, y’know, even, so we moved things ahead quite considerably during that period. Just having two, a man and a woman, elected as out gay and lesbian, we changed a lot. And then from there, some members of the advisory committee started working with the Parks board and did the 77 trans recommendations. So all these things could happen because we had, we were out and we had the support of mayor and council, and then other people got strength from that. They could really advance significant changes that are now like role models that other cities are using.

Interviewer: I know that you’re an organizer, that you would create community sort of wherever you would go. (Mhmm.) But where were the places that you would sort of go to find that community? Y’know, if you didn’t create it… or even if you did, where would you? Would you host conferences, would you host events?

Ellen: Back then, we organized the first, we called it a Gay Women’s Conference, because we were told that if we used the word lesbian that lesbians wouldn’t feel safe to come. But most women were either not saying anything about what they were, or if they were a little bit out they would say gay. Very few people said they were lesbian in 1970, ‘71. But we decided we would hold this Gay Women’s Conference in 1972, I believe it was, at, uh, the YWCA at 21 McGill Street in Toronto. And women came wearing bags on, paper bags on their head, ‘cause it wasn’t safe for them to be seen. They would lose their job, lose their kids, might get thrown in a mental institution or even in jail.

So, that was a big deal to have that conference. And there was a lesbian conference in Montreal about the same time, and there was one in Vancouver, I think in the early 80s at Langara. So there, there was the Women’s Centre in Toronto, so those were safe… sort of safe places to go. There was still a lot of prejudice. And there was, uh, a few bars that were safe to go to as lesbians, and uh, mostly, overwhelmingly, because women didn’t have well-paying jobs, people’d just have parties in their own homes and invite people over. So it was very hard to meet other lesbians. Very difficult. And, uh, y’know, it made a big difference when we could open a lesbian drop-in at the Women’s Centre so there was a place that was free that people could come once a week or once a month.