Tag Archives: queer

Victoria: Trans History Recap

Posted on March 31, 2016 by Kevin Allen | Leave a comment

We had a stimulating three days of exploring trans identity and trans history at the University of Victoria’s Moving Trans History Forward 2016 conference, March 17-20. Screen Shot 2016-03-31 at 10.41.55 AM The conference was a grounding in important dates, personalties, and terminology in the transgender community. It also touched on current issues such as the need for preservation of trans histories and the status of trans materials in larger queer collections such as at the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives (CLGA).

Academics, community activists, artists and historians created a stimulating jam-packed event. And like at most conferences, some of the most interesting conversations were with the person you found yourself sitting beside at lunch. One highlight was learning about the Transvengers web comic. A collaborative project between trans youth and researchers at the University of Exeter, that saw the youth interact fantastically with sexologists from the past.

We were delighted to learn that there will be a trans history exhibition at the Nickle Galleries at the University of Calgary this June. Called Trans Trans, the show will explore the influence of Magnus Hirschfeld on Alfred Kinsey through images found in the Kinsey archive and others in popular culture. Trans Trans is curated by U of C history professor Annette Timm, and her academic partners, Michael Taylor (Portland, Oregon) and Rainer Herrn (Berlin, Germany).

We talked to trans activist, Rupert Raj, about his time in 1970’s Calgary, and his association with the Gender Identity clinic at the Foothills Hospital. Following the conference, we found sources in UVic’s Transgender Archives about the physicians who ran the clinic as well as more on the early days in Calgary of the Foundation for the Advancement of Canadian Transsexuals (FACT).

Researchers: Kevin, Carter, Demetrios and Son at the UVic Trans Archives post-conference

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Striking Back at the Bay in 1964

Posted on March 24, 2016 by Kevin Allen | Leave a comment

After World War II there was an ongoing domestic battle in Canada between gay men and the nation’s department stores that lasted for decades. The issue was public sex in department store washrooms. All across the country men seeking sexual contacts would meet up in little used washrooms while the nation’s shoppers went about their daily business.

Academics have written about the public washroom phenomenon extensively. Lavatories are a popular site among men seeking sex from each other: they are easy to get into and out of; their recognition as a site for sex is known and shared mainly by those who participate; and there is some assumption of privacy and concealment in regular washroom business, making other behaviour seem less noticeable.

Calgary was typical in this regard, and downtown department stores such as Eaton’s, Hudson’s Bay, and the store-linking Devonian Gardens all had men’s washrooms well known to frustrated facility operators and authorities. Police stings and/or entrapment were a definite threat and there was a societal culture of intimidation to try to prevent these acts. Men found in a washroom engaged in unsavoury business would be arrested on the charge of gross indecency. Often their name, occupation and home address would be published in the daily newspapers the next day. In the mid-20th Century this kind of public outing and ostracization was life altering, and in some cases ended in suicide.

In 1964, on Clarence John Young, a former Bay employee and washroom found-in, fought back, with his own lawsuit (see the attached article).

Calgary Herald, March 7, 1964, pg. 26.

We do not know how the lawsuit ended, but the article certainly gives us the tenor of the times. {Thanks to our colleague, historian Harry Saunders, who ran across this article and forwarded it to us}.

Intimidation as a tactic was not confined to the 50s and 60s. In 1980, one Calgary downtown department store operator, posted this notice on the men’s washroom, which viewed today is shocking.

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In today’s world, with both the internet and gay hook up phone apps like GrindR and Scruff, men who have sex with men have never had it easier to connect. However, we are fully confident that public washrooms, particularly in downtown Calgary, still get their fair share of all kinds of business.

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Trans History in YYC

Posted on March 17, 2016 by Kevin Allen | 1 comment

In June 1978, a national Trans publication was began in Calgary. Called Gender Review: A FACTual Journal, it was the publication of the Foundation for the Advancement of Canadian Transsexuals (FACT), which began in January of the same year. The non-profit organization focussed on public education of gender dysphoria.

Gender Review‘s premier issue had an article on “Transsexual Oppression” about Montrealer Inge Stephens; information about transsexual resources; news items such as trans woman Canary Conn’s appearance on the Phil Donahue show; and a listing of books and articles by and about trans people.

The founding president of FACT was Rupert Raj, who moved the organization and publication to Toronto in July 1979. Raj has gone on to be a leading Trans activist and educator in Ontario and Canada and in 2013 was inducted into the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives (CLGA) National Portrait Collection. His personal records are also housed at the CLGA as the Rupert Raj Trans* Collection.

The University of Victoria’s Moving Trans History Forward 2016 conference’s concluding event is a Founders Panel, on Sunday March 20th from 9:30 AM – noon. Raj will be one of five panellists. Unlike other conference events the Founders Panel is free and open to the public – we hope to see you there.

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