Ottawa’s Gender Mosaic Inc. – Mosaique de Genres Inc. (GM) is Canada’s oldest transgender social and support group which started out in 1988 as a small, informal group of cross-dressers and transsexuals and a safe phone line. At that time, membership could be counted on the fingers of two hands. During those early years, GM was a member of the Tri-Ess Society for the Second Self – – a U.S. based organization.

When the community started to grow, and because of the diversity within the transgender community itself, GM Members needed to organize themselves. GM members elected an executive and created bylaws for self-regulation. The growing group met in a church hall and community centres for several years.

For the first few years, meetings took place in members’ homes and members occasionally ventured out to “verified safe” restaurants for special events such as Christmas dinner and occasionally for marches such as Capital Pride in 1994. As its membership increased, GM began to reach out and become more visible in the community and outreached to the GLB community finding an ally to defend the civil rights. In 1994, GM was present during the launch of the Ottawa Police Service Hate Crimes Unit, the first of its kind in Canada, and has maintained a presence ever since.