50 years of queering Concordia

“There was a lot of societal debate about IQ tests and Black intellect, so it was more important for me back then to be Black than to be gay,” Thomas explains. “And there wasn’t a gay student club at Concordia at that time, so I attended parties organized by Gay McGill.”

But queer life at Concordia would flourish after the historic merger of Loyola College and Sir George Williams University in 1974.

In the decades since, 2SLGBTQIA+ generational issues — from sexual freedom in the 1970s to gender identity in the 2020s — have profoundly shaped the lives of queer students, and influenced how the university has adapted and changed over the past 50 years.

New beginnings

The establishment of Concordia and its fresh approach to academic and personal freedom nurtured and strengthened queer rights and life on campus.

Institutional 2SLGBTQIA+ milestones include the founding in 1978 of the student association Lesbian and Gay Friends of Concordia, which changed its name to the gender-neutral Concordia Queer Collective in 1992 (now Queer Concordia).

The first lesbian studies course in Canada was taught by Yvonne Klein, BA 71, during the 1985 summer session at the Simone de Beauvoir Institute (SdBI). Three years later, the historic SdBI building on downtown Bishop Street — which had housed the mythic lesbian bar Madame Arthur’s from 1973 to 1975 — hosted regular meetings of the trailblazing Lesbian Studies Coalition of Concordia.

Then, in 1988, Concordia became the fourth university in Canada to introduce an HIV/AIDS policy. A pioneering course — “HIV/AIDS: Culture, Social and Scientific Aspects of the Pandemic” — was developed by film studies professor Thomas Waugh six years later.

Campus activism, a hallmark at Concordia, has also effected societal change outside the walls of the university.

In January 2021, Concordia’s Centre for Gender Advocacy won a landmark constitutional legal challenge when Quebec Superior Court Justice Gregory Moore ruled parts of the Quebec Civil Code unconstitutional with regard to the civil rights of trans, non-binary and intersex people.

Despite these and other wins, coming out on and off-campus still remains an arduous journey for many who seek to authentically live their lives.

For Mo (Maureen) Bradley, BA 90, MA 95 — an independent filmmaker, media artist and writing professor at the University of Victoria — one event was pivotal to her journey.

On July 16, 1990, protestors gathered outside a police station in downtown Montreal to protest a violent raid on the underground Sex Garage queer loft party.

The raid ignited 36 hours of clashes between the queer community and police. Now widely considered to be “Montreal’s Stonewall,” the event has become a symbol of defiance and a reminder of the continued struggle for equality.

“I was outside Station 25 on my lunch break with a camera when the police started beating up protesters — so I filmed it all!” recalls Bradley, who with Danielle Comeau, BA 90, co-directed the acclaimed documentary We’re Here, We’re Queer, We’re Fabulous (1990) about Sex Garage.

Montreal and Concordia’s burgeoning 2SLGBTQIA+ movements also inspired Bradley to live out and proud.

“When I started at Concordia in 1987, I began meeting other queer students and teachers. I was in school with brilliant thinkers who changed my life.”

Doug Janoff, MA 90, a senior foreign service officer with the Government of Canada and author of Pink Blood: Homophobic Violence in Canada (2005), joined Lesbian and Gay Friends of Concordia in 1985 when, he remarks, “being gay was becoming more fashionable and gay people were becoming more visible.”

When tensions began to surface during the AIDS crisis, Janoff learned the benefits of true diversity.

“I thought there was just one monolithic gay community at the time, dominated by gay white clones who set the agenda,” he reflects.

“If you didn’t follow that vision, you were no longer in the inner circle. That experience toughened me up and made me understand there are a diversity of opinions and experiences in our community.”

Pride and prejudice

Kat Setzer, MA 00, serves as programming director of image+nation, Montreal’s influential 2SLGBTQIA+ film festival, the first of its kind in Canada.

Setzer moved to Montreal from Vancouver to study at Concordia in the 1990s. During that turbulent era for queer rights, they became involved with important local 2SLGBTQIA+ organizations, notably the city’s original Pride organization, Divers/Cité, as well as image+nation.

Setzer’s real-life queer activism complemented their education at Concordia.

“I focused on queer cinema in my studies which fused theory with practice. I strongly believe in the power of representation, and believe we have to give back and be political in this world to try to make it a better place.”

While the lifelong work of queer Concordians like Thomas, Bradley, Janoff and Setzer continues to reverberate and influence, new generations of 2SLGBTQIA+ students and alumni are also figuring out how to come out and be in the world — a process that truly never ends.

Trans comedian and television personality Tranna Wintour, BA 10, says affirming her identity took many years.

“Everything I learned at Concordia has genuinely served me well, but I also feel like I did not get the full university experience because I wasn’t out as trans at the time and was not involved with any student groups,” says Wintour.

“I think before coming to an understanding of my identity, I definitely had a lack of confidence from really understanding who I was.”

Out in the world

Learning about 2SLGBTQIA+ realities and being encouraged to explore them at Concordia has positively affected the lives of the university’s graduates.

After completing his studies at Concordia and later at McGill University and Université de Montréal, H. Nigel Thomas became a professor of American literature at Université Laval in Quebec City.

The celebrated writer has also authored 13 books. Praised by critics and readers alike, his 1993 debut, Spirits in the Dark, made an important and timely contribution to the representation of the 2SLGBTQIA+ and Caribbean-Canadian experience.

Thomas has duly become a role model for younger Black gay men, with his impact on literature and representation most recently culminating in his receipt of a prestigious Molson Prize from the Canada Council for the Arts in 2022.

“I am happy my writing has opened up a new world in Canada and the Caribbean,” remarks Thomas.

For their part, Kat Setzer is proud Concordia continues to teach queer culture to new generations of students. The Simone de Beauvoir Institute, for instance, launched a major in Interdisciplinary Studies in Sexuality in 2019.

Setzer — whose own MA thesis at Concordia was titled Playing on-line: Sexual subjectivity, gender play and the construction of the dyke SM fantasy — observes, “We all need to see and read stories about ourselves, stories that reflect our lives.”

After directing more than 50 short films and videos, as well as the award-winning feature film Two 4 One, Mo Bradley says their Concordia experience informs the way they teach their own students today.

“Understanding the intersectional nature of everything was important to me as a student,” Bradley says. “Feminism, queerness, understanding race, class and disability. Today I cover all the bases when building a good syllabus.”

When he was a student at Concordia, Doug Janoff — whose long and accomplished career has included diplomatic postings in Afghanistan and Pakistan — used to wear a pinback button with the slogan, “Out of the closet and into the street.”

“I really believed it,” remarks the author of Queer Diplomacy: Homophobia, International Relations and LGBT Human Rights (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022). “I just wanted everyone to come out. And I was judgmental of people who didn’t.

“But age has mellowed me. And this has given me a more humane approach to human sexuality and identity, and made me understand that there are some people who, unfortunately, will never be able to come out.”

For Tranna Wintour, emceeing Concordia’s Queer Homecoming in September offered an opportunity to reconnect with the Concordia community, especially as the university celebrates its 50th anniversary.

“Queer life has improved but we are still living in a precarious and scary time for 2SLGBTQIA+ people around the world,” Wintour observes.

“For that reason alone, we can’t take celebrations for queer alumni for granted.”