A few months back, the three of us decided to attend a film and panel discussion, held at one of the local universities in our city. The film, entitled The Politics of the Heart (click for video) documents the fight for recognition of their familes by queer parents in Québec. When we attended the film, we didn’t realize that we were going to be on the national news and that my partner would be interviewed (in French no less!) for the program.

I can’t explain how exciting it was to see the program a few weeks later and to see my partner and our son on TV. In that instant we felt so normal and quite proud to be representing one example of queer families in Canada. But even more exciting? That we were a part of national history, we were THERE. The story may fade from the memories of those who saw it (it was in reaction to the decision allowing three parents for a child, something I wrote about earlier) but it may live on in the CBC archives. :)

I began to think of this as I did a search for media about the rights of lesbians in Canada. This search brought me to this documentary, filmed 27 years ago in 1980. Entitled “Three Women”, this short documentary profiled three lesbian mothers and their experiences. The film discusses how some of these women live outside of the closet, the reactions of their children and other parents, and the very real and scary issue of custody (where a lawyer advised lesbian women to “keep their mouths shut” about their sexuality when it came to fighting the father of their children for custody).

A great quote from the film came from a daughter of one of the women. She was asked if having a lesbian mom has changed her:

I can’t say its changed me, because I don’t know how it would be not to have a mother as a lesbian. So I don’t think I could say that it’s changed me because I’ve had her all my life.

So I offer for you this week the short docuemntary from 1980, to show us where we’ve been and to realize how far we’ve come in Canada (see here for more audio and video clips).