Tag Archives: queer

Butch Bucks YYC

Posted on January 31, 2015 by Kevin Allen | 3 comments

It has been a busy couple of weeks for the Calgary Gay History Project. It seems like we’ve met with a tonne of people in Calgary recently, and on the West Coast this week. Thanks to: Gene, Joey, Tereasa, Lisa, Aaron, Lara, James, Melody, Mark, Geordie, Nigel, Jim and Ayanna for all of the feedback, memories, stories and positive regard.

However, I want to make a couple of special mentions. The Friday before last, Terry MacKenzie donated 4 bags of books to the history project – early gay readers, handbooks, social studies, and manifestos that will assist us as researchers in putting our local findings into a cultural context. Perhaps the most notable contribution though are the Butch Bucks that Terry uncovered. Sourced and retained from some fun event in Calgary in 1978 (Terry thinks the Parkside Continental perhaps), this alternative currency predates Calgary Dollars significantly! If reading this you remember more about Butch Bucks and their origins, please contact us at the project, to fill in the details.

This week I was twice at the BC Gay and Lesbian Archives to meet with archivist and historian Ron Dutton, who has been working on the project for 39 years! The archives, containing 750,000 items are amazingly in his home, but he maintains the collection as a publicly accessible archive. Ron is passionate about our community’s history and a real inspiration for the much younger Calgary Gay History Project. To get a sense of Ron and his mission check out this Vancouver Courier produced video about the archives.

Thank you Ron. Thank you Terry.

{KA}

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Posted in Gay history

Tagged Alberta Historical Resources Foundation, BC Gay and Lesbian Archives, bisexual, Butch Bucks, Calgary, gay, Gay history, lesbian, queer, Ron Dutton, Terry MacKenzie, transgender

YYC Gay History on the West Coast: Voices Carry

Posted on January 15, 2015 by Kevin Allen | Leave a comment

January is proving a busy month for the Calgary Gay History Project. We would like to introduce two new volunteers on the project: Ayanna Smart and Nolan Hill. Ayanna is sleuthing through old issues of the Body Politic, mining them for Calgary references and Nolan is focusing on the queer history at CJSW radio, 90.9 FM.

I (Kevin) will be on the West Coast during the last week of January, in Victoria on January 26th and Vancouver, January 27-30th. The intent of the trip is to visit queer archives on the coast, such as the Univeristy of Victoria’s Transgender Archives as well as meet with former Calgarians who have resettled to lotus land, who can recall Calgary’s gay community from yesteryear.

If you know someone we should be meeting in either city, please contact the project so we can get in touch with them.

Over the holidays, mining my own personal history I was delighted to learn a queer history tidbit in one of my favourite 1980s new wave music videos: ’til tuesday’s Voices Carry.

The video delighted me as a 14-year old. But it would have delighted me more if it had a same-sex storyline. Apparently record executives shut down the female-female relationship plot line and recast it in a heterosexual mold. The song seems to make more sense now, in retrospect, with this new revelation.

Finally, I am on holidays for the month of February, but the other Calgary Gay History Project researchers are stepping up to do the weekly posts on the website in my absence – give them lots of positive regard!

{KA}

Calgary Gay History Project for 15 Year Olds

Posted on December 18, 2014 by Kevin Allen | Leave a comment

Earlier this year we were contacted by textbook publisher Nelson Education Ltd. They were working on a Grade 10 history publication, History Uncovered. The textbook, designed for the Ontario public school curriculum wanted to cite our article “Invisible: Queer Immigrants in the 1940s and 1950s” written by Calgary Gay History Project researcher Tereasa Maillie.

We said, “yes please!”

A few weeks ago our copies of the textbooks came in the mail, and we were delighted to learn there was a presence with regard to gay rights throughout the publication. History Uncovered reports on Everett Klippert and the decriminalization of homosexuality in 1969, same-sex marriage in 2005, as well as and the Delwin Vriend, Supreme Court verdict in 1998, which ‘read in’ sexual orientation as a protected ground in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

I recall a much different Grade 10 Social Studies class in 1985; we had no presence in the textbooks to speak of! How thrilling to see our project become part of school curriculum.

On the subject of gratitude, the Calgary Gay History Project wishes all of our readers and supporters happy holidays. We look forward to connecting with you again in 2015!