We have been combing through the CLGA’s large collection for photographs, artwork, and artifacts to showcase in the publications we are developing. This process has felt, at times, like a hunt for buried treasure. As is the case for most archives, material comes in to the CLGA faster than it can be processed, creating a backlog of items to be fully catalogued. Often, when something arrives, only a generic description is logged in the database and the donation is stored for future processing. Details that indicate subject matter, context, or significance are sometimes absent from available records. The result can be a trove of hidden gems waiting to be rediscovered. A perfect case in point is a set of photographs we found of gay men attending a house party in 1956. Finding these photographs involved luck and serendipity. When we searched the CLGA database, there was a reference to some snapshots included in an unprocessed collection of material dating from the 1950s. We only thought to retrieve and review this accession because of a reference to another subject we were researching. In one of the prints, taken at Christmas, a young man with a then-stylish pompadour delights in opening his gift. Everyone is smiling and seems happy but one wonders what emotional hardships awaited these men when they stepped out the front door. Images from this era memorializing such private affairs are rare indeed and therefore valued. They are prized, however, for more than their scarcity. They provide a powerful visual testament to people’s courage and grace in the face of overwhelming oppression. At the time, stepping out in public simply to socialize with peers— a basic human need — was a risky business for gays and lesbians. Forced underground, they relied on domestic get-togethers as essential social outlets. House parties provided a safe haven from a disapproving public and a legal system that was eager to punish those who yearned for the company and affections of their own sex. Staying indoors, however, was no guarantee of safety. There are records of police raiding these events and demanding to know the names, addresses, and places of employment of all those in attendance. At times, constables assaulted and harassed the partiers and whenever possible laid charges. When the tabloid press caught wind of these events, they often had a field day. In one memorable account from 1964, readers were regaled with a recount of a police bust up of a large garden party, or as they referred to it, “an immense, gay jamboree.” Under the frightful title “Huge Army of Queers invade Hamilton!” we learn that the event, described as a “limp-wrist demonstration,” was shut down ostensibly due to concerns from neighbours about noise. Under the watchful eye of the men in blue, attendees are said to have “gathered up their figurative skirts and departed.” The fact that the photographs we found were essentially hidden from view provides an elegant metaphor of sorts for the concealed fashion in which gays and lesbians were forced to live their private lives. | |
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The following blogs provide vivid accounts of discrimination perpetrated against people in Canada whose sexual identities did not conform to standards of the day. In equal measure, they provide stirring anecdotes about brave individuals who — in the face of overwhelming oppression — challenged ignorance and injustice. Archives
March 2015
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