Tag Archives: CLAGPAG

Carousel Capers

Posted on March 28, 2024 by Kevin Allen | 3 comments

In keeping with Club Carousel’s birthday theme this month, let’s focus on the Society’s handcrafted monthly newsletter, Carousel Capers.

*Carousel Capers, the latest release (50 years ago)!*

This publication, which ran from 1969 to at least 1975, was a hand-typed and drawn affair. In its heyday, it grew to 24+ pages with columns such as Chatter Box, Gertrude’s Gossip, and Cecil’s Secrets. Club business, including attendance figures, budgets, and meeting minutes, was presented—keeping the Club leaders accountable to their membership.

Members of Club Carousel had significant fears of being outed; they did not want to run into anyone they might know in the straight world. Ensuring the Club remained a safe space was a common refrain in the pages of Carousel Capers, the Club’s monthly newsletter. In April 1973, Ruth Simkin wrote a strongly worded letter to the Club’s Executive Committee:

It is with great regret that I can no longer continue with my membership and support of Club Carousel. The reason for this is the Executive’s decision of hiring a straight band for the Anniversary Party. I feel this is merely a first step in the total demolition of an all-gay club…..

I personally feel that a consolidated gay community is more important than a well-played guitar, at the only place in Calgary we have. When policy changes back (if it ever does), I would be honoured to once more be associated with what could be the best gay club around.

{Ruth would go on to be one of the founders of the important Calgary Lesbian and Gay Political Action Guild (CLAGPAG).}

The Executive responded in the pages of Carousel Capers that the band had been a last-minute substitution when their previously booked gay talent had had to cancel, and emphatically confirmed their commitment to the no straights policy.

screen-shot-2016-11-17-at-10-56-09-am — *April 1973 Editorial in Carousel Capers*

Later that year, the Executive firmly noted that the newsletter itself should carefully be restricted from Straights.

screen-shot-2016-11-16-at-4-41-55-pm — *June 1973 Notice in Carousel Capers*

“Out of the closets and into the streets is a great battle cry for gays who don’t have too much to lose but then – there are the rest of us,” referencing the generational divide as young gay liberationists were agitating publicly for social change (particularly at the University of Calgary).

Carousel Capers was also a vehicle for connecting Western Canada’s emerging organized gay community. Articles were written about sister clubs, and the community listings in the magazine are an illuminating time capsule of their era.

*September 1973 listings in Carousel Capers*

We often say that Club Carousel was the dawn of the organized gay community in Calgary, and one of its primary communication vehicles was Carousel Capers.

{KA}

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Posted in Gay history

Tagged bisexual, Calgary, Carousel Capers, CLAGPAG, Club Carousel, gay, Gay history, lesbian, queer, Ruth Simkin, transgender

Calgary Pride & June—the History!

Posted on June 7, 2023 by Kevin Allen | 3 comments

Many ask why Calgary’s Pride Festival is on the Labour Day weekend when internationally Pride Month is in June. In fact, Calgary Pride used to be a June festival but moved to September in 2009 to take advantage of drier weather and the potential for long-weekend tourism.

June is the month of Pride because it honours the Stonewall Riots in New York City, which began on June 28, 1969—a galvanizing event in the modern gay liberation movement.

Back in 1987, delegates from many of Calgary’s gay and lesbian organizations came together to form an umbrella organization called Project Pride Calgary. Inspired by the Stonewall Riots, they produced a Pride festival locally to celebrate community. Their first festival in June 1988 included a concert, workshops, a dance, and a family picnic – but no public rally or protest.

In June 1990, that changed. The Calgary Lesbian and Gay Political Action Guild (CLAGPAG), one of the Project Pride partners, organized the first political rally, which they internally described as a media stunt. One hundred and forty people mustered at the Old Y to pick up lone ranger masks and then gather at the Boer War Statue in Central Memorial Park.

And then, in June 1991, CLAGPAG more ambitiously, held its first Pride Parade. Four hundred people at City Hall cheered gay Member of Parliament Svend Robinson, who gave an inspiring speech despite gloomy weather and even gloomier protesters, three of whom were arrested.

Over the next 18 years, Pride Calgary remained a June event. It was entirely volunteer-run, and the parade and festival waxed and waned based on the enthusiasm of that year’s steering committee.

In 2008, the organization was in debt and nearly collapsed, with most of the committee abandoning ship. Sam Casselman stepped up at that autumn’s AGM as President but was shocked to learn that Pride Calgary was not an incorporated society—just a group of volunteers with a bank account. By March 2009, the new board was actively fundraising to retire its debt and incorporated a non-profit society.

They also decided to move the festival to September. The 2009 theme was “Your Rights, Our Rights, Human Rights.” There was pushback from the community, who said they were not adequately consulted about the date change, and a handful of gay businesses refused to participate. However, on Sunday, September 6, 2009, Pride had its best attendance ever.

Quirkily, I used to be a freelance reporter for Xtra.ca and reported about Pride that year.

I wrote: “The day began at noon with the Pride Parade travelling east on Calgary’s historic Stephen Ave Mall. The event was 25 percent larger than in 2008, with 40 parade entrants and 400 people participating, but there were some noticeable changes in the lineup: mainstays such as Priape Calgary and Twisted Element were absent. However, there was more participation from the Calgary community at large, including a local financial institution, a local daily newspaper and a handful of politicians.

By 1 pm the parade spilled into Olympic Plaza as people took in the Pride street gala, which included a dance stage, beer garden, food, vendors and kids zone. Speeches were kept to a minimum by organizers and community leaders, while people checked out the vendor booths where they could enter contests, buy rainbow and cowboy swag, or learn about local queer community groups. The beer garden lineup was long, there were dogs and kids everywhere, and the dance stage was packed. Tourists took photos of themselves in front of the throngs. There seemed to be more young people than ever before at Pride.

As the afternoon progressed, people retreated to the lawns surrounding the Plaza or moved on to community events and fundraisers that were happening throughout the city. The sun broke through by late afternoon, rewarding the hundreds who stayed to dance in the Plaza. By this time the Pride Calgary organizers looked pleased, albeit a little tired, as the day had been seemingly executed flawlessly.”

The decision to move to September proved decidedly successful. Calgary’s Pride Festival was the fastest-growing Pride in Canada for much of the 2010s, with attendance growing to 100,000+.

{KA}

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Posted in Gay history

Tagged bisexual, Calgary, Calgary Pride, CLAGPAG, gay, Gay history, human-rights, lesbian, Lois Szabo, Pride Calgary, queer, Sam Casselman, transgender

Corporate Bigotry & Silver Linings

Posted on August 4, 2022 by Kevin Allen | 2 comments

Valbella Gourmet Foods’ self-immolating email got us thinking about corporate cultures and their historical impacts on the LGBTQ2 community. In the short-term, flammable corporate moments—like Valbella’s—lead to concerted damage control and reputation management. On the other hand, the Canmore Pride society, the scorched recipient of the email, has felt an outspoken (but perhaps transitory) lift in community support.

Occasionally, corporate homophobia and transphobia can lead to significant organizational change and have positive after-effects.

*The *Family of Man* statue in front of the Delta Bow Valley Hotel in Calgary*

In this vein, the catalyst for the formation of the Calgary Lesbian and Gay Political Action Guild (CLAGPAG) came out of an act of discrimination. In 1988, the Delta Bow Valley Hotel cancelled a gay community fundraising dinner when they realized the booking was for a gay group. A similar media firestorm ensued: but before the internet, this meant sensational newspaper and television coverage. The apology from Delta corporate headquarters in Toronto included a cash donation. This payoff became seed money for CLAGPAG, who later started Calgary’s annual Pride Parade and did critical social justice work in our city.

At Imperial Oil, a gay chemical engineer named David Mitges, who had been working for the company since 1980, started attending his company’s annual shareholders’ meeting in 1993. For eight sequential years, he asked Imperial to offer same-sex benefits, despite the booing and harassment from the audience present. The national press described Mitges’ protracted tussle as “David vs. the Energy Goliath.” Finally, in 2000, Imperial capitulated and began offering same-sex benefits, which by that time had become more normative in corporate culture.

For historians, it will be useful to revisit Valbella Gourmet Foods and the Canmore Pride Society in 2032 to record what happened in the intervening decade.

{KA}