AGQ-F0003

Fonds Comité anti-répression homosexuel (CHAR). – 1976-[after 1982]. – 1 cm of textual records.

 

 

 

Administrative history :

 

The Comité anti-répression homosexuel (CHAR) was formed in response to Mayor Jean Drapeau’s administration’s campaign to “clean up” the city of Montreal in the run-up to the 1976 Olympic Games, which resulted in the arrest and harassment of several men and women in February and May 1976. Ron Dayman is CHAR’s coordinator; Tom Greene, Stuart Russell, Lawrence Boyle and Ross Higgins (both of whom are involved in the L’Androgyne bookstore), as well as Conrad Reny, are members of the coordinating committee. Thérèse Faubert, a member of the Ligue socialiste ouvrière (LSO), was coordinator of CHAR’s Women’s Workshop. On 31 May 1976, CHAR organized a public meeting attended by over 200 gay men. On 19 June 1976, CHAR organized a demonstration in reaction to police repression, attended by nearly 300 gays and lesbians in Montreal. It was “the first large-scale gay demonstration in Quebec”. (Higgins 1999: 126). On 9 July 1976, Dayman, Green and Faubert took part in a colloquium on the response to anti-gay police repression in Montreal. After Faubert left CHAR, new members joined the coordinating committee: Gérard Pollender (a former member of GHAP), Mark Wilson (a former member of GHAP and the L’Androgyne bookstore collective), Tony Farebrother, Roger Bellemare, Guy Barette, John Southin (one of the founders of L’Androgyne), Paul Larue and Claude Beaulieu. At the 4th Canadian Gay Convention held in Toronto in early September 1976, a debate on Quebec’s right to self-determination divided the group, which held an orientation convention at the end of October 1976. CHAR was disbanded and the Association pour les droits des gai(e)s du Québec (ADGQ) was created.

 

Scope and content :

 

The fonds bears witness to CHAR’s activities: a call for solidarity against the repression of homosexuals, organization of the demonstration on 19 June 1976, participation in the symposium on the response to anti-gay police repression (9 July 1976) and the 4th Canadian Gay Congress (Toronto, early September 1976).

 

The fonds contains documents on the call for solidarity against the repression of homosexuals, minutes of meetings and documents relating to the Ligue socialiste ouvrière (LSO).

 

The fonds contains the following files:

 

  • AGQ-F0003/D1. CHAR. Call for solidarity
  • AGQ-F0003/D2. CHAR. Minutes
  • AGQ-F0003/D3. CHAR. Documents of the Ligue socialiste ouvrière

 

Notes :

 

Source of title proper: Title based on the contents of the fonds.

 

Immediate source of acquisition: The fonds was donated to AGQ in 1983 by Ross Higgins, co-founder of AGQ (acquisition 1983-05).

 

Arrangement: The classification is based on the grouping of documents into three bundles: Solidarity, Minutes, LSO..

 

Language: The documents are in French and English.

 

Restrictions on access: To be checked with the archivist responsible for the management the fonds.

 

Related groups of records in different fonds external to the unit being described:

Fonds AGQ-F0001 Groupe homosexuel d’action politique (GHAP) of the AGQ includes a GHAP-CHAR file (AGQ-F0001/S3/D2): press releases, leaflets, press clippings, discussion papers. The documents date from 1976.

 

Finding aids: Digital inventory of the fonds in Excel format.

 

Accruals : Further accruals are expected.

 

 

Bibliography :

 

Beaulieu, C. (1983). « 1960-1980, Notre “petite histoire” ». Le Petit Berdache, n° 5, p. 12.

 

Higgins, R. (1999). De la clandestinité à l’affirmation. Pour une histoire de la communauté gaie montréalaise. Montréal, Québec : Comeau & Nadeau, 125-127.

 

Sylvestre, P.-F. (1979). Les Homosexuels s’organisent au Québec et ailleurs. Montréal, Québec : Éditions Homeureux, p. 57, 141-144.

 

 

 

 

Last modification : 2024-07-02