The YYCGayHistory Collection Launches

It is with delight, wonderment, and gratitude that we announce the launch of the Calgary Gay History Project Collection at the University of Calgary Archives.

Image by Andy Nichols, 2024, University of Calgary Archives Photographs, Libraries and Cultural Resources.

This now publicly accessible collection consists of published material, photographs, audiovisual material, ephemera, and other material related to the Calgary Gay History Project. This includes magazines, business directories and informational brochures, material from sporting events such as Western Cup, Outgames, and gay rodeos, show logs and audio recordings of radio shows, material from theatrical events such as Fairy Tales Film Festival and Third Street Theatre performances, as well as other 2SLGBTQ+ issues and concerns.

Dr. William Bridel, Archivist Kim Geraldi, and the Calgary Gay History Project’s Kevin Allen exploring the collection. Image by Andy Nichols, 2024.

The collection has been gathered from many community organizations and donors, including: Calgary Outlink, Calgary Pride, Kevin Allen, Stevie Lee Anderson, Jonathan Brower, Kelly Ernst, Matt Gillespie, Richard Gregory, Robert Lawrence, Terry MacKenzie and Kenneth Peach, Neil McMullen, Nancy Miller, Judy Moore, Pam Rocker, Gene Rodman, Joey Sayer, Michael Wright, and several anonymous donors.

Pride Flag with historic buttons donated by Richard Gregory. Image by Andy Nichols, 2024.

We thank all the donors to the collection who entrusted us with their materials over the past decade. We are grateful to Dr. William Bridel, a professor at the U of C (and queer historian himself) who facilitated the transfer of materials from Kevin Allen’s overloaded condo to the University. Finally, we thank archivist Kim Geraldi, who handled our collection so enthusiastically and tenderly.

William, Kevin and Kim looking at early Fairy Tales Film Festival Posters. Image by Andy Nichols, 2024.

A launch party for the Calgary Gay History Project collection is tentatively being planned for October. Our Past Matters—now future generations of researchers can explore queer Calgary’s storied past!

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Our Past Matters at Calgary Pride

In celebration of Calgary Pride 2024, we’re giving away a copy of Our Past Matters. Find it, in one of the inner city Little Free Libraries. {Maybe leave a book for someone else, while you are there!}

Look for Our Past Matters this weekend!

Kevin will be doing a book signing from 2-3 PM at the Pride Festival in Prince’s Island Park on Sunday, September 1st, hosted by Calgary Pride at their marketplace booth. Come by and chat about queer history. Book sales support the festival and Calgary Pride.

Finally, Celebrate Pride 2024 at Shelf Life Books on September 4th with a fun-filled extravaganza of local talent including drag performances by Dogiichow & Osmo Cis, literary readings by Skylar Kay and Bret Crowle, hosted by Kevin Allen.

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Queer History Happenings @ YYCPRIDE

Here are two upcoming events at the Central Library of interest to queer history enthusiasts.

August 26th, 6:30-8:00 PM

Love in a Dangerous Time: Canada’s LGBT Purge

The Canadian government investigated thousands of 2SLGBTQI+ employees, military personnel, and members of the RCMP during the Cold War, forcing many to resign – ruining lives and careers. In 2018, survivors fought back, and won a major class action lawsuit against the government of Canada.

The “We Demand” demonstration on Parliament Hill, Aug.28, 1971. Photo source: The Arquives.

Join Exhibition Curator Scott de Groot (Canadian Museum for Human Rights) in conversation with Purge Survivor Nancy Miller (one of the founders of Calgary Pride)! The talk launches the LGBT Purge exhibition at the Library in partnership with the Canadian Museum for Human Rights and Calgary Pride.

Reserve your seat (free): here.

September 4th, 7:00-9:00 PM

The Calgary Institute for the Humanities 6th Annual LGBTQ2S+ Lecture: Ukraine, Russia, and the struggle for LGBTQ freedom.

Photograph by Maria Komarova (CC-BY-NC-ND 2.0)

President Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine may seem to have little relevance to LGBTQ politics. Yet Putin has declared that one aim of the February 2022 invasion is to prevent the spread to Russia and its neighbours of ‘Western’ forms of tolerance for LGBTQ ways of life. Anti-LGBTQ campaigns in Russia’s parliament and media amplify the anti-Western homophobia that builds popular support for the war against Ukrainian independence. Meanwhile, LGBTQ politics in Ukraine have evolved in ways few had imagined before 2022. How did Putin weaponize the Kremlin’s homophobia, and how have Ukrainian queers and queers across the region responded to this threat?

Dan Healey is an Emeritus Professor of Modern Russian History at the University of Oxford. He is a historian of sexualities and genders in modern Russia and the Soviet Union. His publications include Russian Homophobia from Stalin to Sochi (Bloomsbury, 2017), and the first full-length history of homosexuality in Russia, Homosexual Desire in Revolutionary Russia: The Regulation of Sexual and Gender Dissent (University of Chicago Press, 2001). He continues to study the development of LGBTQ histories and communities in the non-Russian republics of the former Soviet Union.

This event is hosted by the Calgary Institute for the Humanities in partnership with UCalgary Alumni and with support from the Calgary Public Library.

Reserve your seat (free): here.

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