The right to vote

In Canada, women won the right to vote sporadically. For example, White women from the province of Manitoba became the first to vote provincially in 1916. Two years later, in 1918, White women and Métis women across Canada were granted the right to vote federally. However, it wasn’t until decades later that First Nations and Inuit peoples, as well as most Canadians of Asian descent could vote federally. First Nations peoples could not vote federally until 1960 because under the Indian Act, they were seen as incapable of managing their own affairs or voting. Inuit peoples were given the right to vote at the federal level ten years earlier in 1950, when the Canadian government decided that they were distinct from First Nations peoples. Asian Canadians weren’t given the right to vote until 1948.²⁵

In 1936, the year that Thérèse Casgrain recruited Auntie Léa to work for women’s suffrage, no women in Quebec were able to vote provincially. The provincial government made decisions about education and other family issues, and Casgrain believed it was imperative that women in Quebec had a say on them. She had become the president of La Ligue des droits de la femme / The League for Women’s Rights in 1928, eight years before she recruited Auntie Léa. Each year the League would find a member of the Quebec Parliament to sponsor a suffrage bill. Each year, the bill was rejected. In an interview with Ghila Bénesty-Sroka, Auntie Léa said this about her work with Thérèse Casgrain:

The dismissive remark demonstrates how difficult it was for the League to have their demand for the right to vote taken seriously. Gaining the right to vote took decades and, in the end, was the result of activism undertaken by a coalition of several groups particularly: La Ligue des droits de la femme / The League of Women’s Rights, led by Thérèse Casgrain; La Fédération Nationale Saint-Jean Baptiste, led by Marie Lacoste Gérin-Lajoie) L’Alliance canadienne pour le vote des femmes au Québec/ Canadian Alliance for Women’s Vote in Québec, led by Idola Saint-Jean, Anna Marks-Lyman and Carrie Derrick.²⁶

While Auntie Léa respected Thérèse Casgrain, she believed that the middle class and wealthy women involved in The League of Women’s Rights did not understand the everyday struggles of Quebec’s working-class women in the 1930s. They had never visited working-class neighbourhoods or homes. As Auntie Léa explained to interviewer Andrée Pomerleau:

Auntie Léa tried to build bridges between the feminist and union movements by bringing the issues of working-class women into the bourgeois feminist movement of the time. For example, during the ILGWU’s campaign to recruit workers and in the lead-up to the strike (from fall 1936 and through to the strike), the union forged strong ties with both Thérèse Casgrain and Idola Saint-Jean, inviting the women to come and speak to the workers at union meetings, rallies, and even speaking to the gathered workers during the Dressmakers’ Strike. This relationship was particularly valuable to advancing the suffrage movement, since it provided the movement with direct access to working-class French Catholic women. The Quebec suffrage movement had long faced the challenge of successfully reaching and including the francophone, Catholic working-class, and was often perceived as being a middle-class movement of the bourgeoisie.

The coalition of suffragist groups used a variety of strategies to mobilize Quebec women in the fight to win the right to vote. They organized demonstrations and marches, and urged women to sign petitions and write to the provincial government. Every year a delegation of women from a variety of suffrage groups, most predominantly from the League of Women’s Rights would go to Quebec City to demand that the National Assembly give women the right to vote. Thérèse Casgrain used her popular national radio show on Radio-Canada, which focused on women’s issues, to discuss the importance of winning the right to vote. In 1929, Idola Saint-Jean published a series of bilingual articles in The Montreal Herald.

The story of how women in Quebec finally won the right to vote in 1940 – four years after Auntie Léa joined the movement – began with the provincial election of 1939. After Maurice Duplessis [the Premier of Quebec at the time] called a surprise general election, Quebec suffragists immediately launched a new publicity campaign on the radio, in the press, and in letters to the candidates. The League of Women’s Rights and the Canadian Alliance for Women’s Vote in Québec resolutely supported the Liberal Party which had finally placed women’s suffrage on its program after much lobbying from the suffragists (Casgrain, 1972, p. 91).²⁷

Maurice Duplessis and Union Nationale had been in power since 1936 and were expected to win the 1939 election. Instead, the Liberal Party won, and Casgrain was hopeful that it wouldn’t be long before women would finally be given the right to vote. However, when the new Liberal Premier Adélard Godbout came into office, he didn’t immediately declare his intentions about women’s right to vote. To remind Godbout of the Liberal Party’s promise, Casgrain encouraged women to write to the Premier and demand he honour his commitment to suffrage. Letters, telegrams, and petitions poured in from all corners of the province (Casgrain, 1972, p. 91). On 20 February 1940, the women’s suffrage bill was included in Godbout’s Speech from the Throne. However, the next challenge was to ensure that the bill passed. Casgrain explains:

In the end, two decades of political struggle for the right to vote by several groups of committed women finally paid off. On 9 April 1940, Bill No. 18 was introduced in the Legislative Assembly. The bill was passed on 18 April 1940, and was adopted into law on 25 April 1940. The importance of women being granted the right to vote was never underestimated by the suffragists. As Auntie Léa told Nicole Lacelle, “It wasn’t only the right to vote that was at stake, but all the doors the vote would open for women” (Lacelle and Roback, 2005, p. 160).

La Voix des Femmes/Voice of Women (VOW) and peace activism

Established in 1960, not long after the beginning of the Cold War, La Voix des Femmes/Voice of Women (VOW) is Canada’s oldest national feminist peace group. Their mission is to build cultures of peace through education and advocacy (Macpherson and de Bruin, 2020). As discussed in Chapter 3, the Cold War took place between the end of the Second World War and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. During this time, the world was largely divided into two ideological camps — the United States-led capitalist “West” and the Soviet-dominated communist “East.” Canada aligned with the West (Herd, 2006). In 1960, increasing tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union led to fears of nuclear war. The American government had begun developing and testing atomic weapons (nearly 200 between 1945 and 1958), and many Canadians, who shared a border with the United States, became concerned about nuclear radiation (Strong-Boag, 2016). Their concerns led to the creation of groups devoted to peace and disarmament, including VOW. The Canadian government’s acceptance of the use of Bomarc missiles (with their potential nuclear warheads) also pushed women to join the organization. The CIM-10B Bomarc was the world’s first long-range, nuclear-capable, ground-to-air anti-aircraft missile. Two squadrons of the missile were purchased and deployed by the Canadian government in 1958 as part of Canada’s role during the Cold War (Boyko, 2021).

Thérèse Casgrain founded the Quebec chapter of VOW in 1961 (Strong-Boag, 2016). Auntie Léa joined that same year. During the 40 years Auntie Léa was part of VOW, the group not only campaigned and lobbied all levels of government against the proliferation of nuclear weapons and for disarmament, it also protested the Vietnam War, apartheid in South Africa, and demonstrated for environmental protection and access to abortion. VOW also fought against pornography which it believed was responsible for violence against women.

Over sixty years since its founding in 1960, VOW continues to organize extensive educational campaigns, lobby governments, hold meetings and conferences, and send representatives to other countries to address mutual concerns of women internationally and promote action. For example, in 2000, VOW was part of an international alliance that successfully pressed for adoption of Security Council Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security. The resolution called for the increased participation of women in peace and security efforts and measures to protect women and girls from gender-based violence during armed conflict (Macpherson and de Bruin, 2020).

Auntie Léa was a constant presence at Voice of Women meetings, demonstrations and events. In 1982, at the age of 79, she was interviewed by VOW for one of their publications. Auntie Léa took the opportunity to discuss an early project undertaken by Voice of Women: the 1962–1963 Milk Teeth Campaign, which examined the impact of nuclear weapons testing. She explained:

Strontium-90 is considered by medical researchers and doctors to be a cancer-causing substance because it damages the genetic material (DNA) in cells. Its increased presence in children’s teeth was cause for serious concern.

Like Auntie Léa, my cousin Judith Roback also attended protests against nuclear weapons testing and the dangers of Strontium-90. In one of our email exchanges, Judith shared a song she learned while marching at one of these protests. It was called Strontium-90, and it had three verses and a chorus (Judith Roback, personal communication, 24 November 2024).

• Strontium 90
• Verse 1
• Last night I went to a party.
• Danced and I just about passed out!
• But just when the party was at its gayest
• Some crazy guy began to shout:
• Chorus
• Strontium, strontium, strontium 90
• Fall out will get you even underground
• Strontium, strontium, strontium 90
• Now if you want some strontium, strontium 90
• There’s enough to go around.
• Verse 2
• What will we get from radiation?
• No neck, two necks, maybe three.
• Each one will have his own mutation.
• Nobody else will look like me.
• Chorus
• Verse 3
• So drink to the course of evolution
• The next one may very well be you
• Keep clouding the air with pollution and
• We’ll see you next year at the zoo.
• Chorus (Cleary and Clearly, 1959)²⁹

The risks and dangers around nuclear armament continue to this day. While during the 1990s there were positive moves towards nuclear disarmament among the major nuclear power states, mainly due to the end of the Cold War following the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, a reverse trend has emerged within some smaller nations. For example, after the Gulf War in 1991, in which Iraq was defeated by the coalition forces led by the United States military, North Korea and Iran began developing nuclear weapons as a deterrent to the US. In 1993 North Korea withdrew from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (the NPT) and tested its first intermediate-range missile, Nodon 1. In 2009, it produced an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).

Similarly, after the Gulf War, Iran strengthened its desire to produce weapons-grade plutonium and has pursued this goal ever since (Nasu and Nishimura, 2019). It is important to note that during the Gulf War, the coalition forces led by the United States (US) used 950,000 depleted uranium bullets (about 300 tons), which later caused symptoms similar to those caused by radiation among American soldiers (Nasu and Nishimura, 2019).

I learned about the impact of radiation exposure, as well as the horrifying and devastating impact of the Atomic Bomb dropped by the US military on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, when I visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. At the museum gift shop, I bought a book called Hiroshima: A Tragedy Never to Be Repeated written by Masamoto Nasu and illustrated by Shigeo Nishimura. The book describes the historical background of the production of the A-bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima and the effects of the bomb. In the book Nasu writes about the bombing this way:

After the explosion, Nasu writes, the temperature of the area immediately around the hypocenter soared to 3,000–4,000 degrees Celsius due to the heat of the thermal rays emitted by the fireball created by the explosion. The radiation caused by the explosion was not just the initial radiation emitted at the time of the blast. The soil on the ground, building materials and many other substances exposed to the blast absorbed the radiation and continued to emit it over a long period of time. The damage caused by the bomb was the result of a combination of thermal rays, the actual blast, and radioactivity (Nasu and Nishimura, 2019).

Nasu estimates that there were approximately 350,000 people in Hiroshima on the morning of the blast on 6 August 1945. However, the number of radiation victims was far greater because after the bomb was dropped, people from outside the city came to Hiroshima to look for relatives and friends who were injured or killed by the blast. Medical teams came to help the victims and others came to arrange mass cremations. Still others began the task of cleaning up the city. Many of these people were also affected by radiation. People who remained outside the city were affected by radioactive “black rain” which came down after the blast.

Altogether, Nasu estimates an additional 100,000 people were irradiated by the A-bomb, for a total of 450,000 people (Nasu and Nishimura, 2019, p. 48). The first symptoms of radiation included the loss of hair, bloody faeces, intense nausea and vomiting, accompanied by general lethargy. These were followed by a lack of appetite, fever, violent diarrhoea with bloody faeces and bleeding into the skin. Most of the people who had these symptoms died within ten days. People who survived the first symptoms subsequently suffered from keloids (thick raised, often painful, scars that occur in places where skin has been injured), cataracts, aplastic anaemia, acute leukaemia, miscarriage, birth defects and many types of cancer (Nasu and Nishimura, 2019).

Nasu and Nishimura conclude their book about the devastating death toll and horrific and long-lasting effects of the A-bomb with just one sentence: “It is the duty of everyone alive today to ensure that what happened in Hiroshima on that fateful day is not forgotten and is never repeated” (p. 69). It is a thought that became the foundation of the anti-nuclear movement post-World War Two, and the foundation of the work undertaken by Voice of Women in Canada. Unfortunately, as discussed earlier, since the 1990s there has been less political commitment to nuclear disarmament. However, as I write this chapter in November 2024, the American-Russian nuclear arms control treaty, known as the New START treaty, has been extended until 5 February 2026. As well, civil movements against nuclear weapons continue to be active. If Auntie Léa were alive today, she would no doubt be involved in the anti-nuclear movement in Canada through Voice of Women. She would be working hard to create a world where people would be protected from the dangers of irradiation and mass destruction.

Fighting for the right to abortion

In addition to contributing to anti-nuclear activist work, Auntie Léa was also involved in efforts to legalize abortion in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. Her activism around the right to abortion actually began decades earlier when she supported women workers with unwanted pregnancies. In the 1930s and 1940s pregnancies outside of marriage were socially condemned in Quebec and Canada. At the time, the Canadian Criminal Code prohibited the distribution of contraceptive information or materials and the performance of abortions. Under these conditions, when single Catholic women became pregnant, they had two choices: give birth secretly at the Miséricorde Hospital, a hospital run by the Miséricorde nuns or have an illegal abortion. Abortions were mostly done by either an untrained abortionist or by rare doctors who agreed to perform them at the risk of being arrested and prosecuted. Some of the doctors who would perform abortions were English-speaking Jewish doctors that Auntie Léa knew. Sitting on the border between English, French, Jewish, and Catholic communities in Montreal, Auntie Léa was able to provide care that otherwise would not have been available to the women she worked with.

Babies delivered at the Miséricorde hospital were placed in orphanages temporarily until their mothers took them back or put them up for adoption. However, as historian Denyse Baillairgeon writes, “a staggering number of them died from a lack of adequate care” (Unwanted Pregnancies, 2023). In an interview with Sophie Bissonnette, Auntie Léa shared a story about a worker named Céline who needed support.

Céline worked for the Salvation Army, cleaning, sweeping, dusting until she went into labour. The delivery went well, and after the babies were born, Céline and Auntie Léa needed to find a place for the twins. Because Céline was Catholic, she wanted a Catholic place. Auntie Léa found one.

To clarify, Bissonnette asked Auntie Léa if the babies had died. Auntie Léa replied:

Auntie Léa’s story of how she helped Céline leave La Miséricorde hospital, find a doctor who could deliver her babies safely, and then find a Catholic place to care for her twin babies demonstrates the broad range of ways in which her activism was characterized by care. Auntie Léa cared for Céline without the shame or judgement Céline experienced at La Miséricorde hospital. Auntie Léa also cared for the women workers who wanted an illegal abortion.

When she was working on the lines at the RCA Victor plant, Auntie Léa tried to support young women who came to her needing abortions. But she wasn’t always successful. In an interview with writer Susan Schwartz about why, at the age of 85, she was participating in a right to abortion march Auntie Léa talked about two young women she knew who had died from botched abortions.

As a witness to two deaths from abortion, the right to abortion by making it legal was an issue close to Auntie Léa’s heart. She told Schwartz:

In Canada, abortion was illegal until 1969 when following pressure from the feminist movement (in Quebec women mobilized under several different coalitions which fought for access to free abortions) an amendment to the Criminal Law Act legalized therapeutic abortions, as long as they were only performed in accredited hospitals with proper approval from the hospital’s Therapeutic Abortion Committee (TAC). Each TAC would consist of a committee of doctors who could certify that continuing a pregnancy would likely endanger a woman’s life or health. Abortions performed outside accredited hospitals without the approval of a Therapeutic Abortion Committee were still illegal (Long, 2006).

The interpretation of the 1969 law varied widely among doctors and hospitals, leading to uneven access to abortion. The criteria for abortion were the physical or mental well-being of the woman, which was decided by each hospital’s TAC. However, there was no requirement for a hospital to establish a TAC. In the early 1980s, only about one-third of hospitals across the country had one. Some committees took a liberal stance and allowed most requests, while others blocked almost all requests. Access to legal abortions was easier in major metropolitan areas, but much harder outside large cities. For example, in the province of Prince Edward Island, when the sole Therapeutic Abortion Committee shut down in 1982, legal abortions were no longer available in the province.³⁰

In Quebec, a 1977 report by the Comité de lutte pour l’avortement et la contraception libres et gratuities (the Committee for the Fight for Free and Accessible Abortion and Contraception) estimated between 10,000 and 25,000 women in Quebec would have an illegal abortion that year. This statistic reflects the continued lack of access to abortions in hospitals in Quebec at the time (Melanie Leavitt, personal communication, 25 March 2025).

The TACs often took days or weeks to make their decisions, pushing a pregnancy further along than it would have been otherwise. If a TAC chose not to see a woman who wanted an abortion, she did not have the right to appeal the TAC’s decision. Advocates for access to abortion rights like Auntie Léa believed that the choice should be made by women themselves, rather than a panel of doctors.

In 1983, to advocate for the legalization of abortion outside accredited hospitals three doctors, Drs. Henry Morgentaler, Leslie Frank Smoling and Robert Scott, set up an abortion clinic in Toronto to perform abortions on women who had not received certification from a TAC. The clinic brought public attention to the reality that abortion was still illegal and frequently inaccessible unless it was performed in an accredited hospital with the approval of a TAC. The doctors argued that women should have complete control over the decision on whether to have an abortion (Long, 2006).

Before his work in Toronto, in the 1970s, Dr. Morgentaler and other women’s health groups in the Quebec feminist movement, such as Le Centre de santé des femmes were defying the law and performing safe abortions in their clinics in Montreal. Their work both addressed women’s needs for an abortion and advocated for women’s right to choose.

The political advocacy of Drs. Morgentaler, Smoling and Scott was supported by feminist organizations including the Voice of Women. It was also supported by several national organizations such as the Canadian Abortion Rights Action League (CARAL), Canadians for Choice, and the Pro-Choice Action Network. When CARAL folded it was replaced by the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada.

In 1988, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in R. v. Morgentaler that the existing 1969 law was unconstitutional and struck it down. The ruling found that the law violated a woman’s right to “life, liberty and security of the person” guaranteed under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms established in 1982. Since the 1988 ruling, there have been no criminal laws regulating abortion in Canada. However, some provinces restrict access to abortion in various ways that do not criminalize it (Long, 2006).

In Quebec, there was another legal case related to abortion that was important to Voice of Women. In 1989, a year after the 1988 ruling that decriminalized abortion, a Quebec woman named Chantale Daigle was prevented from having an abortion, by her former boyfriend Jean-Guy Tremblay who obtained a restraining order against her doing so. Tremblay argued that he was protecting the rights of the foetus. The case went to the Supreme Court of Canada, which found a foetus has no legal status in Canada as a person, either in Canada or Quebec. This meant that men who state they are protecting fetal rights cannot acquire injunctions to stop their partners from obtaining abortions in Canada. In other words, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that only a woman could make the choice to have an abortion; a man had no legal say in a woman’s choice to terminate a pregnancy or carry it to completion (Long, 2006).³¹

Sixteen years later, in July 2015, after a lengthy review process, the Canadian government permitted doctors to begin prescribing Mifegymiso, a drug regimen that allows women to end an early pregnancy (within 49 days of becoming pregnant) at home. Designed in part to improve women’s access to abortion, the drugs act by inducing a miscarriage. While in some provinces, the government requires doctors to dispense Mifegymiso directly to patients, rather than giving them a prescription they can fill at a pharmacy, in Quebec, women can get the drug at a pharmacy, and it is now covered by the Quebec health plan (Long, 2006). Auntie Léa would be delighted.

Fighting against pornography and violence against women

Another issue Auntie Léa was involved in as a member of Voice of Women was the fight against pornography. In her VOW interview, Auntie Léa explained that she understood pornography to be a form of violence against both women and men. She was also concerned about the women who were exploited in the pornography industry. As discussed in Chapter 4, Auntie Léa spent years fighting sexual harassment and abuse in the factories she helped unionize. She told her VOW interviewer:

In the last 50 years, a multitude of views on pornography have emerged in feminist writing. These views range from total condemnation of pornography as an act of violence against women to an embracing of (some) pornography as a means of feminist expression. Often these views have been connected to the authors’ perspectives on sexuality, sex work, and BDSM (bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, and sadomasochism).

In 1981, Canadian filmmaker Bonnie Sherr Klein (writer Naomi Klein’s mother) directed a documentary called Not a Love Story which shared many of the perspectives on pornography that were circulating at the time (Klein, 1981). In the film, produced by the National Film Board of Canada, Klein and journalist Lindalee Tracey talked to porn actors and sex workers about their work. They also spoke to several anti-pornography and sex-positive feminists. Reflecting the political differences and tensions in feminist thinking about pornography at the time, the National Film Board of Canada was publicly criticized for making a film on the subject. And the Ontario Board of Censors, because of the film’s pornographic content, banned it (Wise, 2014).

Auntie Léa believed pornography encouraged violence against women. The writings of anti-pornography feminists such as Andrea Dworkin (e.g., Dworkin, 1981), Catharine McKinnon (e.g., Dworkin and MacKinnon, 1988), and Robin Morgan (e.g., 1978) would have resonated with her. More recent writings by journalist Robert Jensen around the ways pornography and militarization are linked (Jensen, 2010) would also have resonated with her.

Robert Jensen writes that pornography and militarization can be linked through the idea that in the patriarchal world we live in, men are socialized to pursue dominance through aggression and violence. In his public talks with young men, including young men in the military, Jensen explains that sex in pornography is often violent and based on domination and submission — male domination and female submission. Pornography sexualizes domination and submission. It makes male dominance sexy. Serving in the military is also based on domination through aggression and violence, in the service of deepening and extending elite control over the resources and markets in the world (Jensen, 2010).

While I believe Dworkin, MacKinnon, and Morgan’s work, along with Jensen, would have been aligned with Auntie Léa’s ideas about pornography, it is important to point out that many feminist writers at the time – regardless of their views on pornography – were opposed to the censorship of pornography. They argued that censorship had never reduced violence against women, but it had been used to silence women and derail efforts for social change. For example, the American organization Feminists for Free Expression, founded by Marcia Pally in 1992, pointed to several instances of censorship that had done exactly that (Wikipedia, n.d.). The censorship of the writing on birth control by Margaret Sanger, the feminist plays of Holly Hughes, the women’s health book Our Bodies Ourselves by the Boston Health Collective (a book that I consulted frequently in my twenties), and the lesbian novel The Well of Loneliness by Radcliffe Hall all silenced women writers on issues that were important to women: contraception, abortion, and sexuality.

Around the same time in Canada, Little Sister’s Book and Art Emporium, an independent bookstore in Vancouver which sold gay and lesbian books, also experienced the consequences of censorship when they began having difficulty receiving books they had ordered from the United States. Many of the books they had ordered were classified as “obscene” by Canada Customs and were refused entry into the country. Little Sister’s went to court to challenge the provision of the Customs Act which prohibited the importation of obscene material. They also challenged the section of the Act that put the onus on the importer (the bookstore) to disprove obscenity.

The court challenge went all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. The Court ruled that Canadian Customs had indeed targeted shipments to the bookstore and attempted to prevent their entry into Canada. Consequently, the government was found to have violated section 2 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. However, the violation was justified under section 1 of the Charter. While the law itself was saved, the Supreme Court concluded that the way the law was implemented by customs officials was discriminatory and should be remedied. The Supreme Court also struck down part of the law that put the responsibility on an importer (importers like Little Sister’s) to prove material was not obscene. While the ruling upheld Canada Customs’ right to prevent the importation of material that had already been banned as obscene by the courts, it curtailed the agency’s right to pre-emptively or punitively detain material that had not been banned (Fuller and Black, 2000).

A documentary film about Little Sister’s legal struggle, called Little Sister’s vs. Big Brother was released in 2002 (Homeboys Productions Ltd., 2018). Directed by filmmaker Aerlyn Weissman the film documented the 15-year legal battle between Little Sister’s and the courts. Weissman was able to capture the moment when Canadian policymakers were told they had to rewrite the country’s policy on the classification of obscene material. She was also able to demonstrate how discrimination against gay rights, gay literature, and the suppression of free speech remain issues in the twenty-first century. Indeed, contemporary bans on queer and trans books in many American schools have silenced teachers from educating their students on queer and trans lives and queer and trans human rights. For example, between July 2021 and June 2023, PEN America recorded nearly 10,000 instances of book bans in the United States. These bans spread to 41 out of 52 states in the United States with Florida and Texas having the highest number of bans in the country (PEN America, 2024).

In Canada, to mark the International Transgender Day of Visibility, PEN Canada asked writer S. Bear Bergman address the recent wave of book bans in the United States and the growing threat these bans posed to queer and trans writers. In their response to PEN Canada’s request, Bear had this to say:

Like Bear Bergman, I am a writer and publisher of queer and trans books and plays. The argument that queer and trans books and plays are important resonates deeply with me. Unfortunately, I never had the opportunity to talk to Auntie Léa about my queer and trans activism – she died just as I was beginning to bring that work into my teaching, research, and writing. I also never had the opportunity to talk to her about the politics of censoring pornography. However, I believe that if she were alive today, Auntie Léa would fight against book bans, and be a strong ally for queer and trans activists.

Fighting against apartheid

As an intersectional feminist and activist, Auntie Léa had a strong commitment against racism and joined the political struggle against apartheid in South Africa. As mentioned in Chapter 4, apartheid was the name given to the racial segregation that was established under the all-White government in South Africa between 1948 and 1994. Apartheid dictated that non-White South Africans – the majority of the population – were required to live in separate areas from Whites. They were also required to use separate public facilities.

One of the leaders of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa was Nelson Mandela (1918–2013). Mandela was imprisoned for 24 years for his activist work and became a symbol of the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. When he was finally released in 1990, anti-apartheid activists worldwide rejoiced. Four years later, Mandela became South Africa’s first Black president. He served as president until 1999, and his government took on the responsibility of both dismantling the legacy of apartheid and working towards racial reconciliation (Nelson Mandela Foundation, 2024).

When Auntie Léa died in August 2000, I received several of her books. One of these books was an anthology called For Nelson Mandela (Derrida and Tlili, 1987). The book, published before Mandela was released from prison, contained 23 pieces of writing in honour of Mandela. Like some of the other books I inherited from Auntie Léa, there were newspaper articles folded up and tucked inside the book. The articles were about Nelson Mandela and his struggle against apartheid in South Africa. In several of the articles, Auntie Léa had underlined particular sentences, and written comments in the margins. Her underlining and comments gave me an understanding of what Auntie Léa believed about the system of apartheid in South Africa, and the extent of her support for Mandela’s activism. For example, in July 1988, Auntie Léa annotated two articles about Nelson Mandela published in The Gazette, an English-language paper published in Montreal. The first article was about Nelson Mandela’s upcoming 70^th birthday. The headlines read: “Anti-apartheid fighter turns 70 tomorrow – still behind bars” and “Mandela: Age hasn’t dimmed his dream” (Nagle, 1988). Underneath the second headline about age not dimming Mandela’s dream, Auntie Léa had written, “Bravo Nelson Mandela!” Within the article itself she had underlined and circled several paragraphs. The first underlined paragraph spoke about the crime that had led to Mandela’s imprisonment in a South African prison called Pollsmoor. Pollsmoor was one of the many prisons Mandela had been incarcerated in over a period of 25 years. The paragraph read:

The last four paragraphs that were underlined and circled in the article spoke about Mandela’s daughters Zindziswa and Zenani and his wife Winnie Mandela.

Auntie Léa’s annotations show us she admired the way Nelson Mandela’s commitment to his cause had not wavered despite over 25 years of incarceration. She also admired Winnie Mandela and her daughters’ commitment to the cause during their husband and father’s years of incarceration.

The second article in The Gazette’s 1988 coverage of Mandela’s 70^th birthday had the headline “South Africa clamps lid on black areas.” The first two paragraphs said this:

At the top of the article, just above the headline “South Africa clamps lid on black areas.” Auntie Léa had written “Afraid of what?” and “cowards!”

Several years later, Auntie Léa saved an article from The Gazette that carried the headline “No longer ‘skunk of the world’ South Africa joins family of nations.” It was also tucked inside the For Nelson Mandela book. The article reported on the moment that Nelson Mandela took power over South Africa’s army, treasury, and courts as the first Black president in the country’s history.

This time, there were no annotations, no underlining, and no circles written on the article. There was no need. Nelson Mandela had said it all: “Let freedom reign.”

On 10 May 1994, the day Nelson Mandela became the president of South Africa, Auntie Léa was 91 years old. She was one of the oldest activists who had marched in Montreal’s anti-apartheid marches, rallies and protests. Auntie Léa believed it was important for older activists to participate in public demonstrations. “As long as I can, as long as I can talk and think,” she told the Voice of Women interviewer in 1982, at the age of 79, “I will be at the protests.” She continued,

Auntie Léa kept fighting for social causes right up until the end of her life. In the next chapter, the last chapter of her biography, I write about the ways Auntie Léa lived out the last years of her life. I also discuss the public recognition she has received for her work, and the way her legacy of activism has influenced the educators and activists who have followed her.