Purpose
Member Gay Bell referred to the lesbian centre as a "crucial locus of (the lesbian community's) development ... in Toronto". One of the group's earliest public statements explains that it hopes to "serve as a bridge to unify various existing groups who can provide services to the lesbian community."
Organizers also believed that an available physical space for lesbians would "raise the profile of lesbians in the city, and make it possible for them to come out of the closet in the company of other lesbians without fear of reprisals." Collective member Nancy Adamson is quoted in Becki L. Ross' history of L.O.O.T., The House that Jill Built: Lesbian Nation in Formation, as saying that the organization gave lesbians in the city a much-needed "safe place in the world"".
L.O.O.T.'s first newsletter described its purpose as "an umbrella organization for lesbians. It serves social, recreational, personal, cultural, political and educational purposes for the lesbians involved. Mostly, it simply allows a lesbian to meet and get together with other lesbians who share her interests."
In Rites, a Toronto gay and lesbian newspaper, journalist Megan Davies emphasises some of L.O.O.T.'s social aspects, referring to the group as an important resource for countless lesbians in Toronto, offering a safe, lesbian-positive environment in which to come out and meet other lesbians.
L.O.O.T. was for womyn-born womyn only. A formal request to join the organization was made by a male-to-female transsexual lesbian in 1978. In response, the organization voted to exclude trans women. During informal discussion, members of L.O.O.T expressed their outrage that in their view a "sex-change he-creature...dared to identify himself as a woman and a lesbian." In their public response L.O.O.T. wrote -
A woman's voice was almost never heard as a woman's voice - it was always filtered through men's voices. So here a guy comes along saying, "I'm going to be a girl now and speak for girls." And we thought, "No you're not." A person cannot just joined the oppressed by fiat.
Read more about this topic: Lesbian Organization Of Toronto
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