AGQ-F0146

Fonds Claudine Metcalfe. – 1980-2002, mainly 1987-2002. – 15.5 cm of textual records and other records.

 

 

Biographical sketch:

 

Claudine Metcalfe is a Quebec activist and journalist committed to fighting discrimination and violence against LGBTQ2S+ people. Born on 16 December 1962 in Saint-Eustache, her involvement in LGBTQ2S+ movements began in college in 1981. While studying art history, she joined the Association communautaire homosexuelle de l’Université de Montréal (ACHUM) alongside journalist André Passiour. She then served on the boards of numerous LGBTQ2S+ organizations between the 1990s and 2000s.

 

While working as a facilitator at the Centre communautaire des gais et lesbiennes de Montréal in the 1990s, Claudine Metcalfe was a member of the Table de concertation des gais et lesbiennes du Grand Montréal, founded in 1992. During this period, she often acted as an advocate for gay and lesbian rights with the police and co-founded the Comité sur la violence following a series of homicides in the gay community in the early 1990s. Claudine Metcalfe was director of the Centre communautaire des gais et lesbiennes de Montréal from 1989 to 1992. She was also executive director of Dire enfin la violence, an organization dedicated to helping LGBTQ2S+ victims of violence. As a member of the Caucus lesbien, she advocated for lesbian rights during public hearings at the Commission des droits de la personne du Québec in November 1993.

 

In addition, Claudine Metcalfe had a career in media as an editor for Fugues magazine starting in 1987, working with founder and owner Martin Hamel. She was also managing director and journalist for Gazelle magazine, which targeted lesbians, from 1993 to 1998. She worked as a journalist for several showbiz magazines, including Le Lundi and Échos Vedettes. She has also hosted several radio and television programs. On community radio station CIBL, she co-hosted the show Et cupidon s’en fout, created and hosted by Dany Gravel, with Benoit Migneault from 1990 to 1998. Between 1995 and 1998, she co-hosted the community television show C’est comme ça with Richard Lapierre, which focused on LGBTQ2S+ services and activities. Her work to raise the visibility of the gay and lesbian community in the media continued when she became a columnist on the program Sortie gaie, broadcast to the general public on Canal Vie between 1998 and 2001 and hosted by André Montmorency.

 

Claudine Metcalfe’s involvement in LGBTQ2S+ organizations and media outlets brought her a certain degree of socio-cultural and political visibility. In 1994, she ran for municipal office in the Sainte-Marie–Saint-Jacques riding as a member of the Rassemblement des citoyens et citoyennes de Montréal (RCM), led at the time by Mayor Jean Doré. Her opponent, Sammy Forcillo, won the election that year. She continued her career at the provincial level as a political attaché for Line Beauchamp from 2003 to 2012. Today, Claudine Metcalfe is a civil servant at the Office de la langue française and has been married to her partner since 2019.

 

 

Scope and content:

 

The fonds reflects Claudine Metcalfe’s involvement in Montreal’s LGBTQ2S+ community in the 1990s in various capacities: activism, community and political engagement, and entertainment. The fonds also reflects the involvement of a lesbian woman in what was at the time a predominantly gay male community.

 

The fonds contains 15.5 cm of textual records in the form of correspondence, public hearing reports, briefs, and magazine articles. The fonds also contains a framed Arc-en-ciel award, two personal diaries, scripts from a television programme entitled Au-delà du quotidien, approximately 235 audiovisual records, and approximately 300 photographs.

 

    The fonds contains the following series:

     

  • AGQ-F0146/S01. Vie personnelle
  • AGQ-F0146/S02. Vie profesionnelle
  • AGQ-F0146/S03. Militantisme
  • AGQ-F0146/S04. Actualité
  • AGQ-F0146/S05. Documents audiovisuels
  • AGQ-F0146/S06. Photographies

 

 

Notes:

 

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

 

Physical description: The collection also contains approximately 66 DVDs, 166 VHS videotapes, 1 Beta videotape, and approximately 300 photographs.

 

Immediate source of acquisition: The fonds was donated to the AGQ in 2013 and 2019 by the fonds’ creator, Claudine Metcalfe (acquisitions 2013-009, 2019-018 and 2019-019).

 

Arrangement: The original arrangement was generally retained, but changes were made in order to bring together the documents of the various organizations represented in the fonds.

 

Language: The documents are mostly in French.

 

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

 

Associated material: The Archives lesbiennes hold documents concerning the Caucus lesbien during the public consultation of the Commission des droits de la personne du Québec on the Table de concertation des gais et lesbiennes du Grand Montréal.

 

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

  • The fonds AGQ-F0077 Douglas Buckley-Couvrette contains files on the Table de concertation des lesbiennes et des gais du Grand Montréal and the Comité sur la violence (S1, SS3). The files date from 1992 to 1997.
  • The AGQ-F0162 Irène Demczuk fonds contains files on the Caucus lesbien, the public consultation of the Commission des droits de la personne du Québec, and the Table de concertation des gais et lesbiennes du Grand Montréal (S5 and S6). The files date from 1992 to 1995.
  • The AGQ-F0107 Michael Hendricks/René LeBoeuf fonds contains files on the Table de concertation des lesbiennes et des gais du Grand Montréal, the Comité sur la violence, the public consultation of the Commission des droits de la personne du Québec, and the corporation Dire enfin la Violence (S7, S8 and S9). The documents date from 1993 to 2001.
  • The AGQ holds fonds from organizations in which Claudine Metcalfe was involved: AGQ-F0044 Fonds Association communautaire homosexuelle à l’Université de Montréal (ACHUM), AGQ-F0115 La Corporation Dire enfin la violence and AGQ-F0047 Centre communautaire des gais et lesbiennes de Montréal (CCGLM).
  • The AGQ also holds periodicals for which Claudine Metcalfe worked, notably Gazelle and Fugues.

 

General note: The information contained in this notice was gathered during an interview with the donor. This information was supplemented by research and the contents of the fonds and related fonds held at the AGQ.

 

 

Bibliography:

 

À propos de CIBL. (n. d.). CIBL 101.5. https://www.cibl1015.ca/a-propos

 

CIBL-FM. (2025, 11 March). In Wikipedia. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIBL-FM

 

Corriveau, J. (2013, 31 August). Le vétéran Sammy Forcillo quitte la politique. Le Devoir. https://www.ledevoir.com/politique/montreal/386439/le-veteran-sammy-forcillo-quitte-la-politique?

 

Échos Vedettes. (2023, 8 April). In Wikipedia. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89chos_Vedettes

 

Gazelle (revue). (2024, 21 April). In Wikipedia. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gazelle_(revue)

 

Line Beauchamp. (2025, 8 May). In Wikipedia. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_Beauchamp

 

Sammy Forcillo. (2025, 27 July). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sammy_Forcillo

 

Simard, H. et Brunelle, R. (n. d.). Les années RCM — Un site de documentation sur le Rassemblement des citoyens et citoyennes de Montréal et sur la Ville de Montréal sous l’administration du maire Jean Doré. RCM Montréal 1974-2001. https://lesanneesrcm.ca/

 

Sortie Gaie. (2023, 9 August). In Wikipedia. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortie_gaie

 

 

 

 

 

            Dernière modification : 2025-11-25