In celebration of Calgary Pride 2025, we are giving away a copy of Our Past Matters (now a tradition)! Find the book in one of the inner city Little Free Libraries. {Maybe leave a book for someone else, while you are there!}
Thanks to everyone who came out to this week’s Gay History Walks (at capacity) and to last week’s lecture at The Confluence. It’s gratifying to learn so many people care about our City’s queer history—and hot dogs and hot takes!
Happy Pride Calgary!
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Posted in Gay history
Tagged bisexual, Calgary, Calgary Pride, gay, Gay history, Jennifer Thompson, lesbian, Little Free Libraries, Our Past Matters, queer, The Confluence, transgender
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!}
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.
{KA}
Posted in Gay history, Press Release
Tagged bisexual, Bret Crowle, Calgary, Calgary Pride, Dogiichow, gay, Gay history, lesbian, Little Free Libraries, Osmo Cis, Our Past Matters, queer, Shelf Life, Skylar Kay, transgender
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.
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
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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Calgary Gay History 