First a website, LSTW (Lez Spread the Word) is now a printed magazine, a TV series (Féminin / Féminin), a serie of events and above all, a platform for the lesbian community.
Founded by Florence Gagnon, the LSTW adventure began from scratch, simply because it was necessary to create a sharing environment in the name of the lesbian community. Due to lack of representation within reach, Florence chose to create her own space in order to make her point of view shine and those of all the women who carried this project and ensured its current success.
LSTW is a way to advocate for inclusion, to combat stereotypes and offer new positive role models. Big challenges were hiding behind this great initiative, as always when a project starts from the ground without institutional resources.
Florence Gagnon will share with us the details of the LSTW project, from the "why" to the "what's next?", the challenges she faced, the support she has received and her wish to perpetuate the adventure to promote more inclusion for the lesbian community.
Florence Gagnon holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Concordia University. In 2012, she created a platform to provide a resource to lesbian communities, Lez Spread The Word, the first bilingual site of its kind in Canada. In 2014, she launched the FÉMININ / FÉMININ fiction series, with director Chloé Robichaud (Sarah Préfère la Course and Boundaries), who won two Gemini Awards and several international prizes in 2015. In 2016, she published the first LSTW magazine, a 230-page bilingual Pan-canadian publication, that stands out in stores across Canadian provinces, European capitals and major US cities. From Yellowknife to Vancouver, Berlin and Stockholm, up to MoMA PS1 in New York.