Ellen Woodsworth has been a member of Quirk-e since 2012 and is published in Quirk-e zines and books. She is a long-time activist, using an intersectional lens to fight for LGTBQIA+++, gender, social, economic, racial, indigenous, climate change, and peace issues. She has been out since 1969 speaking, writing, and organizing on queer issues. She chained herself in the House of Commons for a woman’s right to choose abortion, was one of the founders of the Wages for Housework Campaign, co-founder of The Other Woman, a lesbian feminist newspaper, and CORA, the Women’s Liberation Bookmobile. She was an organizer of the Toronto Gay Women’s Conference in 1972 and the Vancouver Lesbian Conference in 1981. Ellen played soccer in the first Out Games in San Francisco and was an organizer of the Canadian contingent to the games.
In 2002, Ellen was the first out lesbian elected to be a city councillor in Canada. She set up the City of Vancouver LGTBQ Advisory Committee, and fought for and read the first Trans Proclamation at the first march. She coordinated consultation on and co-wrote the Queer Declaration for United Nations Habitat III in Quito, Ecuador and was a keynote speaker on queer issues at the World Urban Forum in Abu Dhabi. Today Ellen sits on the advisory board of DIGNITY Network, a Canadian organization supporting queers around the world.
