Lavender Shadows: An Analysis of the Role of Lesbian Feminism in the British Columbia Federation of Women

Abstract

This thesis examines the Rights of Lesbians Subcommittee (ROLSC) of the British Columbia Federation of Women (BCFW), an umbrella organization that brought together diverse feminist groups from 1974 to the late 1980s. The ROLSC provides a lens through which to analyze the paradox of lesbian feminist politics in Canada: how could a feminist movement claim to fight for all women while continually marginalizing women who loved women? Through archival research at Simon Fraser University, the University of Ottawa, and other collections, this study reconstructs how lesbian feminists negotiated inclusion, contested heteronormativity, and reshaped the Federation from within. This thesis challenges historiographical narratives that portray lesbian feminism as separate from, or oppositional to, the broader women’s movement. Instead, the experience of the ROLSC demonstrates an alternative trajectory of integration, in which lesbian feminists strategically leveraged their position inside the Federation to achieve systemic change. By situating the ROLSC within Canadian feminist and queer historiography, this thesis shows that lesbian feminists did not merely occupy the shadows of the women’s movement. Their activism reconfigured its very terms, ensuring that feminism in Canada could not remain solely about gender but had to grapple with sexuality, heteronormativity, and the politics of self-determination.