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Now
we are 10
>> Divers/Cité, the festival many said would never work, celebrates a decade
by
MATTHEW HAYS
Back then it felt like we were definitely moving in the right direction, but were also clearly still in the underdog camp. It wasn’t just about gay men becoming volunteer prostitutes for a day, or lesbians complaining about being underrepresented-though there’s nothing wrong with either of those things-it was about our rights being recognized and realized.
“For me, the parade just gets better and better every year,” says Suzanne Girard, one of Divers/Cité’s cofounders and the event’s Queen Bee. “Much of it grew out of Image&Nation [the city’s gay and lesbian film fest]. There was a much greater sense of the city’s community coming together in a way they hadn’t before. There were the ACT UP demos. We were all working together: French, English, east, west, boy, girl, artists, the underground-prior to that, too often people would retreat into their camps. Instead, we wanted to show the strength in our unity.” In fact, the mission statement for Divers/Cité was quite clear. About 10 queer activists met in the apartment of John Custodio, where they mapped out a philosophy heavily indebted to feminism. “It was about acknowledging our minority status,” he says now, “and about struggling against oppression.” And the name itself? Artist Elizabeth Hobart, who goes by the moniker Zab and who now resides in Winnipeg, came up with the title Divers/Cité, something the group felt accurately reflected the new spirit of participation in the Montreal scene and their hopes for the future.
Now that we’re in celebration mode and happily looking back at the overwhelming success of the event, it might also be worth asking: what took so long? Other cities had been holding gay pride events for years, in some cases even decades, before Divers/Cité established itself here. Girard points out that there were a number of upstart efforts, but none that took hold. “Gays would often have their own Gay St-Jean-Baptiste,” she recalls. “They would simply hold their own national party in the Village.” As well, several years before the first Divers/Cité, one local activist tried to begin the tradition, but made the unbelievably boneheaded move of asking drag and leather queens not to attend, out of fear of frightening the horses. Understandably pissed off, ACT UP types sensibly held an alternate parade, effectively dividing the numbers. (Thus part of Divers/Cité’s mandate has always been about inclusion.) But Girard thinks part of the delay was due to Quebec’s obvious distinct cultural makeup. “We’re more tied into French culture, for sure,” she says. “Look, Paris just managed to have their fifth this year. They were handed a great boon because of their new mayor, who’s gay. They faced many of the same barriers we did. People asked, ‘Why do we need this?’ Most people told us it would never work. As well, many didn’t know us in the activist community, where we were all a bit new. They were like, ‘Who are you?’” And Quebec was feeling different strains of social movements over the decades. “Stonewall was in ’69,” notes Girard. “But we felt [the French riots and strikes] of May ’68 far, far more deeply here. That was a huge intellectual movement. As well, many of us were tied into the sovereignist movement, where most of our energies went.” In effect, Girard opines, sexual identity often took a backseat to linguistic identity-an intriguing irony, considering the number of famous Quebec queers who are also diehard sovereignists, including Michel Tremblay, Robert Lepage and the late author Pierre Valières, one of the grandfathers of the separatist movement.
As well as facing a daunting organizational nightmare every year, Divers/Cité types have also met with growing criticism. Some have argued-and this goes for gay pride festivities around the globe, not just Montreal-that the entire nature of gay pride has become way, way too commercial and veered too far in the direction of crass commercialism. “I guess that would depend on who you talk to,” says Girard, clearly a tad weary of the point I’m bringing up. “I would argue the lesbian moms group is pretty political. For people with AIDS it remains pretty political, doesn’t it? Yes, we have some high-profile corporate sponsors, but no more than before. Look at it proportionately: in our first year, we had three corporate sponsors, now we have five. Meanwhile, in our first year we had five community groups involved-now we have 75. We’ve hardly abandoned the community as we’ve grown.” Girard says if anything she’d like to see the organization gain a bit more sponsorship, allowing Divers/Cité to grow and pay actual salaries (something it doesn’t do now), effectively creating jobs in the community. “We’ve come a long way since our first year, when each of us were taking money out on our Canadian Tire cards to pay for the thing,” she laughs, “but anyone who thinks we’re in the clear should talk to some corporations.” Girard says many are still very reluctant to come on board and have their names attached to the event. And that, says Girard, who’s just been elected co-president of Interpride, the global umbrella group for pride events, is a problem very distinct to Montreal. “It’s funny, with the latest civil union bill passing into law, we have some of the most progressive legislation in the world. The Americans seem to have the sponsorships, while we have more rights.” As for the event simply getting too big, Girard pauses, and then basically agrees. “What do you say? I think my limit would be now. It’s very hard to organize with these numbers-the crowd control, thinking of safety. But how can you predict? The first year we thought we’d be lucky if we got 500 and we ended up with 1,800. Who can tell? “The real celebration comes with the changes these events have brought here and around the world. Gay pride has led to huge political and cultural changes. We’re now embedded in the popular culture. Which is exceptional, when you think about it.”
>> More photos by MICHEL BAZINET |
My
memories of the first Divers/Cité parade, held in August of ’93,
are so vivid they feel like those of last year. About 1,800 of us marched
from Jeanne-Mance Park to Lafontaine Park, where we settled in for a
few speeches and some performances by local bands. It was a humble little
event, but there was something about its very smallness that made it
endearing.
Now
in its 10th year, Divers/Cité, the name given Montreal’s
annual gay pride festival and parade, has morphed into something which,
looking back on that initial year, seems virtually beyond recognition.
Despite early naysayers, Divers/Cité has grown by leaps and bounds,
jumping from an estimated 1,800 participants and spectators in its first
year to 75,000 in ’96 to 500,000 in ’99 and then a whopping
750,000 last year. Floats and marchers have expanded, from what seemed
like very basic gay groups in year one to marchers that have included
politicians and police chiefs, and community groups as varied as the
city’s gay bridge club and lesbian moms. Diverse, indeed.
Though
our city’s gay parade has met with little external resistance
(the U.S. wingnut Fred Phelps threatened to visit a few years back,
but his brood picketed after the actual day of the parade), it has occasionally
found itself in hot water within the community. A gay man and lesbian
sued the organizers in the mid-’90s after a photo of them appeared
on Divers/Cité posters and publicity material; it seems they’d
marched in the previous year’s parade, but hadn’t been consulted
by Divers/Cité types about whether or not they’d agree
to be featured quite so publicly. The pair settled out of court with
Divers/Cité and the sum they were paid has never been revealed.
The
parade has also changed route with time. Some argued the original stopping
point, Lafontaine Park, served the community well, as it meant the concluding
party was a non-alcohol event (a welcome respite from the usual club-
and bar-related overindulgence). The city managed to get organizers
to move the parade from St-Denis to René-Lévesque, also
a highly controversial move, but organizers insisted safety must come
first, and the latter thoroughfare allows for greater emergency vehicle
access.
Better
late than never