Where did all of Montreal's lesbian bars go?

Montreal's Plateau Mont-Royal borough was once a haven for lesbians, where Kim Brien remembers nights feeling "like being in a movie" as women danced, made eyes at each other and flirted.

"We felt alive. We truly had the freedom to be ourselves," said Brien, now in her 40s, while reminiscing about her youth spent in bars where she could live her lesbianism without strange looks thrown her way.

She said the staff knew its clientele and there was a real community connection.

Brien is part of a handful of generations of women who have known Montreal's lesbian bars — a bygone era, much to the dismay of many young sapphic women.

The 1990s saw the beginning of the end of such spaces, and in 2013 the Drugstore — Montreal's very last lesbian bar — shut down for good.

Its iconic sign is still up on Ste-Catherine Street in the Village, but its front is boarded up and decrepit. Brien remembers the space as bustling and lively, with its terrasses always full.

Tara Chanady, head of the Réseau des lesbiennes du Québec, says to understand why lesbian bars disappeared, it's important to understand their origins.

Sanctuary amid criminalization

Passersby might notice a seemingly innocuous pizza place on Ste-Catherine Street without knowing its locale was once home to one of Montreal's very first lesbian bars in the 1950s called Le Zanzibar. Just a block away, on St-André Street, was Les Ponts de Paris, which opened in 1955. It's now a residential building.

These spaces were once the only places where lesbians could gather at a time where homosexuality was still criminalized.

"In the 1950s, in bars, people got together illegally so that they could exist, so that they could be intimate, because that wasn't possible anywhere else," said Chanady.

The bars were also safe spaces for gay men and sex workers, according to Line Chamberland, a retired sociologist and the former director of the Research Chair on Sexual Diversity and Gender Plurality at the Université du Québec à Montréal. She says their main clientele was working-class lesbians.

But she said they were also the targets of brutal police raids and deemed "unsavoury."

In the 1970s and '80s — after the Stonewall uprising in New York City that kickstarted the gay rights movement — more bars exclusively reserved for lesbians started to open.

While spaces for gay men were found all over the Village, lesbian bars were concentrated just to the north in the Plateau-Mont-Royal. But as the borough was subject to more gentrification and rent increases, many couldn't stay afloat.

To this day, rent prices remain the main hurdle to opening new spaces, said Chamberland.

Rise of mixed spaces

This is in stark contrast to the Village which is still home to plenty of spaces for gay men, including leather bars, dance clubs and male strip clubs.

Alexandra Ketchum, a gender, sexuality and feminism professor at McGill University, says the economic disparity and pay gap between men and women is largely to blame. As a result, it's harder for lesbian bars to maintain a steady clientele and make a profit.

Chamberland also says that, generally speaking, women tend to value their personal and private lives while cruising culture is prominent among gay men.

"Women are more likely to find a sociability that relies on their network of friends. Men, on the other hand, take public life and the presence of bars more for granted," she said.

She also pointed to a common stereotype that lesbians tend to get in long-term relationships and prefer to stay home with their partner than hit the bars. She stresses that there is no data to corroborate this, but believes the cliché has some truth to it.

The loss of lesbian bars isn't unique to Montreal by any means. According to Radio-Canada data, there are none left in Canada and there are fewer than 20 in the U.S. — a quarter of which are in New York City.

The rise of a queer culture, rather than a gay culture, also gave birth to more mixed spaces that welcomed everyone under the 2SLGBTQ+ umbrella.

Nearly 20 years after she stopped going to lesbian bars and now a mother of two, Brien says she feels totally comfortable going out with her partner.

"Today, lesbians are everywhere. It's so much more accessible. We can go to any bar and it's gay-friendly," she said.

But she acknowledges that sapphic spaces are lacking and it would be fun to have more pop up.

New collectives

To fill that gap, sapphic and lesbian collectives or sapphic-oriented events have been popping up in recent years. Most collectives change venues for each event, but some establishments are hosting recurring events.

For example, Champs — a bar on St-Laurent Boulevard — made every Monday "Dyke Night" with massive success. The bar is full of Pride flags and even features a sign that reads "Lesbians" in neon red cursive. It has a strict no-hate and no-harassment policy to keep the vibe friendly and relaxed.

Champs was previously known as a sports bar with a primarily masculine clientele, but that has since changed.

"Champs is the closest thing we have to a lesbian bar in Montreal these days. Queer people come to hang out at the bar every day of the week, not just on Monday nights," says Saz Zenetzis, who co-founded the Dyke Night initiative.

L'idéal on Ontario Street has also gained a reputation as being queer-friendly as it often hosts events by sapphic collectives, though it doesn't label itself as a gay bar.

DJ Charlie Mado regularly spins at L'idéal and says it fosters a deep sense of belonging.

"As a DJ, I find it so satisfying and beautiful to see lots of lesbians dancing freely, without always thinking: Is anyone watching me?" she said.

"I'd like all lesbians to experience that."

She says the experience isn't the same in bars or clubs for gay men, where she and her group of friends often feel out of place.

A lack of dedicated spaces for lesbians can also make it hard for those who are just coming out to find their place in the community, said Chanady.

She says there have often been talks of a new group of lesbians wanting to buy back and revive The Drugstore, but it doesn't seem financially viable and plans have fallen through.

Its sign with large red lettering, left intact, is a reminder of what has been lost. The Réseau des lesbiennes du Québec is hoping to get its value as a piece of Montreal's heritage recognized and secure its preservation.