an incomplete timeline of sexual diversity - part 5 (the final entries)
Here’s the last (ever-incomplete) instalment in the timeline, this time with a fair degree of focus on Canada, Quebec and Montreal. Next step: I’m going to seriously put some thought into creating a trans timeline. This will make for an interesting project! In the meantime, I give you the 1990s and the turn of the millennium.
1993 Anne Fausto-Sterling published an article entitled "The Five Sexes: Why Male and Female Are Not Enough." Her later work discusses over 42 known intersex conditions, from hormonal to DNA to physical/genital. The Intersex Society of North America was founded that same year. ISNA is devoted to systemic change to end shame, secrecy, and unwanted genital surgeries for people born with an anatomy that someone decided is not standard for male or female. They maintain that intersexuality is primarily a problem of stigma and trauma, not gender, and that parents’ distress must not be treated by surgery on the child.
1997 Pat Califia published Sex Changes: Transgender Politics, a seminal book in trans history and gender theory. Two years later, he announced he was transsexual and is now known as Patrick.
1998 Concordia’s Sexuality Minor was founded on October 9. According to the press release, “In less than 10 years, work in the field of queer studies has become highly sophisticated, and attracted academic attention that in many cases has evolved into a broader exploration of sexuality. Concordia officially launched its new interdisciplinary minor in sexuality, at the start of a three-day conference that was called Sex on the Edge and was organized by Cinema Professor Thomas Waugh and Communications Professor Chantal Nadeau.” The burgeoning field of interdisciplinary sexuality studies is in some ways an offshoot, in some was an opposition, in some ways a complement to women’s studies; the Sexuality Minor program includes a number of courses given at the Simone de Beauvoir Institute.
2002 Civil unions were legalized in Quebec. The National Assembly of Quebec voted unanimously to create a status of civil union, available to both opposite-sex and same-sex couples and largely having the same rights as marriage, by modifying the Civil Code of Quebec. The law was enacted on June 24, 2002. The idea of a civil union, considered separate but almost equal to marriage, was not good enough for Michael Hendricks.
2004 Same-sex marriage was legalized in Quebec. On March 19, the Quebec Court of Appeals ruled similarly to Ontario and B.C. courts, upholding Hendricks and Leboeuf v. Quebec and ordering that it take effect immediately. The couple who brought the suit, Michael Hendricks and René Leboeuf, immediately sought a marriage licence; they were wed on April 1 at the Palais de justice de Montreal.
2005 Same-sex marriage was legalized across Canada by the Civil Marriage Act enacted on July 20. Court decisions, starting in 2003, had already legalized same-sex marriage in eight out of ten provinces and one of three territories, whose residents comprised about 90% of Canada’s population. Before passage of the Act, more than 3,000 same-sex couples had already married in these areas. Most legal benefits commonly associated with marriage had been extended to cohabiting same-sex couples since 1999.
2005 STELLA, Montreal’s major sex-workers’ rights association, hosted a historic international sex workers’ rights conference in Montreal aiming to help create strategy around legal policy affecting sex workers’ rights to practice their chosen career. The group was supported by… Michael Hendricks.
2006 The first World OutGames were held in Montreal, bringing 16,000+ people to our city for sporting events, cultural events and a human rights conference. On the bright side, thousands of people were brought together in a never-before-seen gathering of the international queer community. However… the Games ousted sex workers from their usual territory in order to use the space for their events, attracting criticism from STELLA; the events were so expensive that they attracted a majority of gay men, less than 50% women, and only 150 or so trans people; the three-day human rights conference included only one workshop on the topic of bisexuality and three on the topic of transsexuality, and was far too expensive for many grassroots human rights activists to attend; and the Canadian government barred a number of HIV-positive people from entering the country to take part in the Games.
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Though there have been a few mild shifts toward respectability among the middle tier (monogamous gay couples) and additions of new categories at the bottom tier (HIV-positive people, intersex folks) Gayle Rubin’s pyramid of acceptable sexuality still stands…
