Keeping our Memories Alive! Tracing Lesbian History in Montréal

In 1983, four friends created Archives Traces, Montréal’s first lesbian archives. The initiative was part of an international effort to build a collective memory for lesbians. The archives had several homes: Gilford School, private apartments, Montréal’s LGBTQ+ Community Centre and, finally, Cité-des-Hospitalières. Today, 42 years later, the Archives lesbiennes du Québec invite you to explore their collections and discover the rich, dynamic history of a Montréal lesbian community.  

The exhibition starts with the city’s golden age of lesbianism in the 1980s, which lasted until the mid-1990s. The francophone and rather bohemian Plateau-Mont-Royal neighbourhood was fertile ground for our lesbian activism. At the dawn of the new millennium, other activist and community perspectives emerged, at the intersection of the queer movement and the rise of the gay Village.