To round things out, we hosted gay history walks, a book signing at the Pride Festival, and Pride at Shelf Life Books, which featured history, poetry, and drag.
Pride at Shelf Life Books: Kevin Allen, Dogiichow, Osmo Cis, Skylar Kay and Bret Crowle on Sept 4, 2024.
If you missed the sold-out Involve: Stonewall & Carousel event last year, Lawrence Interior Design, just released a video which documents the conversation between Jason Brooks, Martin Boyce and Lois Szabo.
Martin Boyce and Lois Szabo in conversation at Involve: Stonewall & Carousel
Finally, until September 23rd, catch the pop-up exhibition about the LGBT Purge at the Central Library. The Canadian government investigated thousands of 2SLGBTQI+ employees, military personnel, and members of the RCMP during the Cold War. Many of these employees and personnel were forced to resign, ruining lives and careers. But they fought back, and survivors won a major class action lawsuit against the government in 2018. The exhibition “Love in a Dangerous Time” is an appetizer for the Canadian Museum of Human Rights’s large-scale museum show in Winnipeg next year.
David Robert Van Norman forced to resign from the RCMP after being labelled homosexual in 1964. Photo: Elenore Sturko.
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.
The “We Demand” demonstration on Parliament Hill, Aug.28, 1971. Photo source: The Arquives.
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.
2023 marks the 50th anniversary of the first queer peer support organization in Calgary: the People’s Liberation Coalition (PLC).
Started in January 1973, the People’s Liberation Coalition served the Calgary gay community by offering information and counselling using a peer support model. The PLC office was located at the Old Y (CommunityWise) in room 314, and they attempted to have office hours from 7-11 p.m., seven days a week.
The group was an evolution of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF), which had begun meeting in September 1972, spearheaded by University of Calgary grad student Rick Sullivan.
GLF Button from the early 1970s
Lesbian activist, My (Myra) Lipton attended these early GLF meetings. She and Rick would attend Human Sexuality classes at the U of C as guest speakers. According to a student journalist, My called for women’s freedom to control their bodies and “engage in whatever sexual activities they prefer.” She also stated that the “greatest threat to the male role is solidarity among women, and lesbianism epitomized that solidarity.”
Biweekly consciousness-raising meetings of the GLF were held in the Beltline. Doug Jameson, a university student then, remembered the meetings in rundown apartments. He said, “people talked about the place we were at and trying to get petitions going to give to the government. There were about a dozen of us, and we were known to the RCMP.”
In fact, the RCMP came to Rick Sullivan’s apartment one night to question him about his activities with the GLF and The Gauntlet, attempting to intimidate him. The RCMP even requisitioned his student record from the University of Calgary, but the Registrar refused to cooperate.
Meanwhile, the GLF brainstormed the idea of a peer support organization. My Lipton cheekily wanted to call it, “Does Your Mother Know?” a phrase she often asked those who were coming out. However, to the larger group, the name People’s Liberation Coalition stuck, and they found a space at the Old Y and a roster of volunteers to offer peer support. Shortly after its inception, the PLC announced their intention to sponsor “a mixed boogie” at a local community hall.
My remembered: “the PLC was breaking new ground in Calgary. The immediate need that we had to convey to people who were coming out was that they were OK—it was society that had the problem.”
Mount Royal College student Rex Leonard saw a poster for PLC at his on-campus guidance centre. He headed to the Old Y that night and surprised PLC volunteer Joanne, who was answering the phone that night—there were not many drop-in visits! Rex’s world expanded as he was introduced to more gays and lesbians. He appreciated that the organization was centred around social activism, not just a place to find a romantic partner. Rex became a dedicated PLC volunteer.
An Australian gay activist named Brian Lindberg, who travelled through Western Canada later in 1973, described the movement in Calgary as going through a difficult period. He wrote:
“The gay information centre was staffed by only a few people (one in particular) who continued to maintain the service even though little assistance could be obtained. Considering the population size of Calgary, I was surprised not to find a well-organized gay liberation movement.”
The PLC ran out of steam as key members moved away from the city, and no replacements were found. Keeping the office open seven days a week proved challenging, and after about a year of operating, the PLC faded away.
Queer peer support was resurrected in June 1975 as Gay Information and Resources Calgary (GIRC) by My Lipton and Windi Earthworm. There has been a more or less continuous peer support service at the Old Y for 50 years. This legacy is continued by the esteemed Calgary Outlink today.
Calgary Gay History 