All posts filed under: Activist Histories

“Bisexual History is Queer History”: A Conversation with Gabryelle Iaconetti

August 28, 2024
by Alisha Stranges
Academia / Activist Histories / Bisexual History / Collaboratory News / Queer History

Meet Gabryelle Iaconetti, a passionate historian dedicated to preserving the rich and often overlooked narratives of bisexual activism in Canada. From their journey into queer history during the pandemic to her doctoral research on bisexual support groups in smaller Ontario cities, Gabryelle's work reveals the powerful connection between bisexual history and queer history. Explore the unexpected joys of oral history and discover how tangible pieces of Toronto’s past have deepened her research.

Nancy Irwin At Home: An Interview with an Icon

July 31, 2024
by Atticus Hawk
Activist Histories / Community-based Oral History / Kink Cultures / Lesbian History / Oral History / Queer History / The Gays Did What Now?

Nancy Irwin is the dyke you read about in queer history classes and the woman you always wished had a hand in raising you. World traveller, biker, writer, raconteur extraordinaire; Nancy sits down with The Gays Did What Now? for a tender reminiscence of dyke life in 1980s Toronto and her first girlfriend, the “very experienced lesbian,” Shirley. Listen to the audio or read the transcript for a riveting story of Nancy before she was the international dyke icon she is today.

Crip Orgies: cum’on everybody! 

May 29, 2024
by Atticus Hawk
Activist Histories / Disability / Kink Cultures / Queer History / The Gays Did What Now?

You ever seen a wheelchair user fuck harder than the best porn stars in Vegas? How about the hardcore harness fetishists losing it over the straps of a hydraulic sling lift? Ever considered the implications of the condom catheter X leg bag situation as the ultimate power move in watersports? In 2015, disability activists Andrew Gurza and Stella Palikarova embraced it all with Deliciously Disabled, an accessible, sex-positive party held at the iconic Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, right in the heart of Toronto’s Gay Village. But why there and when can we get tickets for the next one?

Queer & Disabled Activisms in Tkaronto Project: An interview with Creative Scholar Megan Ingram

April 5, 2024
by Alisha Stranges
Academia / Activist Histories / Archiving Oral History / Collaboratory News / Community-based Oral History / Disability / Oral History / Public Humanities / Queer History / Trans History

Welcoming Megan Ingram, our inaugural “Creative Scholar in Virtual Residence.” Part scholarship and part cultural production, Megan is developing a new documentary project, using oral history interviews conducted with community activists working at the intersections of disability, queerness, healthcare access, housing, and poverty.

John Weiss Was Here

March 28, 2024
by Atticus Hawk
Activist Histories / Gay History / Kink Cultures / Photography / Queer History / The Gays Did What Now?

Artist, teacher, bon vivant, “The Best Gay Dad Ever”, dog's best friend; John Wiess (1946-2017) was many things to many people. John was an artist and middle-school art teacher up in North Bay, a spirited host who adamantly refused to cook a single thing and such a gregarious misanthrope that he actively sprinted away from people he didn’t want to talk to in public. Kirk Cederwahl spent years sprinting after a bolting John; and with good reason. Kirk was John’s boy and John was Kirk’s daddy.

Trans Misogyny in the Colonial Archive: An Interview with Jamey Jesperson

February 27, 2024
by Atticus Hawk
Academia / Activist Histories / The Gays Did What Now? / Trans History

For this edition of “The Gays Did What Now?” we’re hyping up the crowd for Jamey Jesperson’s March 5, 2024, guest lecture Trans Misogyny in the Colonial Archive: A Sex Worker’s Counter-History at the University of Toronto. This talk promises to transport you (yes, YOU) through three choice stories of intrigue, passion and protest from colonial Mexico City and fur traders in Oregon County to the salacious media campaign against Black brothel worker Mary Jones in antebellum New York.