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.
[1] 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.
[citation needed] An expressly political magazine, Rites was published to further lesbian and gay liberation, feminism, and progressive social change.
Rites' news group – an extensive network of volunteer news correspondents across Canada – produced news articles and shorter news briefs covering, amongst other issues: the rights of sex workers, feminist struggles related to pornography, anti-censorship struggles (including the legal case brought by Toronto's Glad Day Bookshop and the Canadian Committee against Customs Censorship challenging Canada Customs' censorship of The Joy of Gay Sex), police harassment of lesbians and gays, International Women's Day, abortion rights, Take Back the Night marches, lesbian and gay pride marches across Canada, lesbian motherhood, anti-apartheid struggles (including those of Simon Nkoli, then South Africa's leading black gay activist), and the formation and operation of AIDS Action Now!
Writers published in Rites included: Michael Riordan, Ian Young, Mariana Valverde, Sara Diamond, Makeda Silvera, Robin Metcalfe, Sky Gilbert, Michael Achtman, Thomas Waugh, Marusya Bociurkiw, Anne Cameron, Steven Maynard, Audrey Butler, Doug Stewart, and François Lachance.
Amongst others, Rites also published the poetry of Brenda Brooks and Ian Iqbal Rashid, the photography of Cyndra MacDowall, the visual art of Persimmon Blackbridge and Sheila Gilhooly, the graphic illustrations of Alanna Marohnic, and The Chosen Family cartoons of Noreen Stevens.
Rites Publishing ceased operation in April 1992, citing a shrinking volunteer workforce and growing debts caused by escalating costs and declining revenues.