Tag Archives: Calgary Outlink

Gay History is Popular!

Posted on August 14, 2014 by Kevin Allen | Leave a comment

As Calgary gears up for Pride, local media has been lining up at the Gay History Project’s door this week to get the skinny on Calgary’s past relations with the gay community! Phew, I am getting interviewed out…

Next week keep your eyes out for a website refresh, as well as the launch of our Kickstarter campaign in support of the Calgary Gay History Book!

And if that was not enough, we now have a facebook page and twitter account – which go live now. If you want to potentially win a newly printed Calgary Gay History T-shirt, we will randomly give one to a new facebook follower and one to a new twitter follower (sign up by September 1st).

Finally, don’t forget the new Downtown Gay History Walk we are doing in partnership with Calgary Outlink, on August 27th at 7 PM. The post-walk reception hosted by Outlink will be in the lovely back patio of CommunityWise 223, 12 Ave. SW.

{KA}

New Queer History Presentation @ Glitter Gala

Posted on June 6, 2014 by Kevin Allen | Leave a comment

This Saturday, June 7th make your way to the Glitter Gala: an event in celebration of Calgary Outlink’s 30th anniversary. Calgary Queer History Project researcher Tereasa Maillie, will be giving a 10-minute presentation at the gala surveying the association’s last 30 years. The non-profit community support organization has gone through a couple of name changes (Gay Lines and Gay and Lesbian Community Services Association (GLCSA)), and a number of personality changes as its circumstances, and society at large, changed. Since its inception though, Calgary Outlink has provided invaluable and life-saving peer support and education to the Calgary LGBTQ community. General admission tickets are $30.

Calgary Outlink Development Officer, Fleetwood Legare says, “the event promises to be a glamorous and uplifting event for community members of all stripes!” Please join us.

{KA}

Placard-Waving Homosexuals Picket City Hall

Posted on August 15, 2013 by Kevin Allen | 4 comments

The City of Calgary for the longest time did not like Pride Parades. One of the earliest confrontations between City Hall and the gay community happened in 1980. Gay Information & Resources Calgary (GIRC) was hosting a national gay rights conference at the University of Calgary. These conferences in the 70s and 80s moved around the country as the gay rights movement gathered a critical collective mass. Calgary’s conference was the 8th annual event: at each conference, the organizers would stage a human rights parade.

However, City of Calgary Police Chief, Brian Sawyer, refused the permit for the parade citing that “confrontation was a possibility.” Organizers decided to march anyway.

Photo: Calgary Herald, June 30, 1980

40 of the conference delegates, marched silently for half an hour, ending at City Hall with their placards of protest. Bob Harris, a member of the GIRC collective, and conference chair, spoke at the protest. He said, “We do know how to conduct ourselves – we’re not running through the streets screaming and yelling.”

The delegates later moved to a rally in Centenary Park on St. George’s Island. One of the speakers at the rally was Alberta Federation of Labor representative Ken Neal who expressed his disappointment that the parade permit was denied. “Gays are constantly harassed,” he said, “we object to such unfair and discriminatory treatment.”

Protests, rallies and marches were springing up all over North America in this period and became an important platform for the gay rights movement, creating visibility for a relatively unknown community. GIRC was located in the Old Y Centre for Community Organizations; Calgary Outlink today is a direct descendent of that 70’s incorporated non-profit society.

[KA]