Rites (magazine)

Canadian LGBT magazine

Rites was a Canadian magazine, published for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender communities in Canada from 1984 to 1992.

The magazine was published in Toronto, Ontario, by Rites Publishing and was produced by a non profit collective. Founding members of the Rites collective were Peter Birt, Romaine Brooks, Lyn Freese, Gary Kinsman, Anne Nixon, Heather Ramsay, and Doug Wilson. Many of the founding members had previously been associated with Pink Ink, a monthly national publication for lesbians and gay men of which five issues were published between July 1983 and January 1984.

Over its almost eight years of operation, additional Rites collective members included (in the order in which they joined): Mary Louise Adams, Stuart Blackley, Susan Wilkes, Scott Ferguson, Celest Natale, Doug Stewart, Ruthann Tucker, Robert Champagne, Becki Ross, Michael Nicholson, Shawn Syms, Mark Michaud, Anne Vespry, Rebecca Frank, Regan McClure, Lynn Iding and Rachel Aitcheson.

A total of 76 issues of Rites were published – from Vol. 1 No. 1 (May 1984) to Vol. 8 No. 6 (January/February 1992). Rites was published 10 times a year, until Vol. 8 No. 4 (September/October 1991) when the frequency of publication changed to six times a year. Two thousand copies of each issue were printed and distributed through paid subscriptions and distribution to retail outlets across Canada and the United States. The readership of Rites was 60 per cent lesbian and lesbian/gay positive women, and 40 per cent gay and lesbian/gay positive men.

An expressly political magazine, Rites was published to further lesbian and gay liberation, feminism, and progressive social change. The Rites collective saw the magazine as part of building an active lesbian and gay liberation movement. Rites was committed to cross Canada coverage and the equal involvement of lesbians and gay men in all aspects of the magazine's production. Rites explored the interconnections between the lesbian and gay liberation movement, the women's movement, anti racist struggles, peace activism, the trade union movement, struggles related to class, age and disability, and other liberation struggles, including the fight to end apartheid in South Africa. Rites was also committed to developing a political response to the AIDS crisis, supporting persons living with AIDS (PLWAs), and eroticizing safe sex. Rites rejected the sexual libertarian politics commonly asserted by other lesbian and gay publications that it saw as failing to challenge sexist and racist forms of social power underlying the experiences of women, lesbians, and gays of colour.