Timeline of Montréal Queer Activism and
its Stonewalls!

1648 – First incidence of queer injustice. A gay military drummer, stationed in Montreal, is sentenced to death for having sex with another solider. Instead of a death sentence, he is given the choice to become New France’s first executioner. He takes the executioner job.

1969 – Quebec Politician passes a bill in Quebec to decriminalize homosexuality. Three to six months later, Prime Minister Trudeau passes the equivalent federal Omnibus Bill C-150 to outlaw decriminalization of homosexuality all over Canada.

1977 – Montreal police raid Truxx and Le Mystique, gay bars on Stanley Street. Outraged, Gay Montrealers protest in the streets and pressure the Parti Québécois government to amend the Quebec Charter of Rights and Freedoms to outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation. This event is remembered by some as Montreal’s first Stonewall.

1989 – Montreal hosts the International AIDS Conference, enabling the arrival of HIV/AIDS-related rights organisation ACT UP.  On March 20, Dawson student and gay activist Joe Rose is stabbed to death on a Montreal bus.

1990 – On July 15, police raid the Sex Garage loft party in Old Montreal that is attended by over 400 Montrealers. People then rally on the streets to protest the injustice. They are again interrupted by the cops, but this time Montreal media documents and releases images of cops who brutally beat the activists. The event is seen as an outrage by the general population and people’s attitudes towards gay Monrealers begin to change. Protesters continue to rally and eventually they form the Lesbian and Gays against Violence group. Around the same time, the Montreal chapter of Queer Nation is formed to revive queer rights activism. Eventually, with pressure from various activist groups, the government passes the Omnibus Bill 32, giving some rights to same-sex couples. These events become known as the second or “real” Montreal Stonewall.

1994 – Police raid the clubs Katacombs and KOX, and arrest over one hundred gay men. This event leads to more protesting.

2004 – After a decade-long legal battle, gay activist Michael Hendricks and his longtime partner René Lebeouf are the first gay men to legally marry in Quebec.