All posts filed under: Collaboratory News

“Transvestia had a spine”: Digital Exhibit Design and the Trans Activism Oral Histories

December 2, 2021
by Amelia Smith
Archiving Oral History / Collaboratory News / Trans Activism Project / Trans History

Image Caption: Some of the early issues of Transvestia were printed in this miniature format (left). This allowed a reader to conceal their copy within a shirt pocket. It was very important to show how the size differed for the exhibition. I’m Amelia Smith, and I’m the digital exhibit designer for the Trans Activism Oral History Project with the Transgender Archives at the University of Victoria and the LGBTQ Oral History Digital Collaboratory. The exhibit I’m creating is the culmination of a […]

Field Trip to the Palace

November 18, 2021
by Aisling Murphy
Collaboratory News / Photography / Pussy Palace Project

For the first time in-person since the Pussy Palace Oral History Project began in early 2021, the project team met to explore the grounds of Club Toronto (now Oasis Aqualounge), the former gay men’s bathhouse that once hosted the Pussy Palace — a series of exclusive bathhouse events for queer women and trans people.   Alisha Stranges and Elio Colavito (Co-Oral Historians), Ayo Tsalithaba (Creative Producer), and I (Aisling Murphy, the PPOHP’s Social Media Assistant) met, coffees and cameras in hand, to explore the grounds of […]

On the Record, On the Stand

September 10, 2021
by Elio Colavito
Collaboratory News / Pussy Palace Project

Pussy Palace Oral History Project narrator, Renee Racine, was a security volunteer at the September 14, 2000, bathhouse — the night the event was raided by Toronto police. She later testified in court in defense of two fellow security volunteers charged with contravening the Liquor License Act in Her Majesty the Queen v. Hornick and Aitcheson (OCJ, 2001). Both on the stand in 2001 and on the record 20 years later, Racine recalls vividly a troubling encounter between police […]

On the Record, On the Stand

September 3, 2021
by Elio Colavito
Collaboratory News / Pussy Palace Project

Pussy Palace Oral History Project narrator, Renee Racine, was a security volunteer at the September 14, 2000, bathhouse — the night the event was raided by Toronto police. She later testified in court in defense of two fellow security volunteers charged with contravening the Liquor License Act in Her Majesty the Queen v. Hornick and Aitcheson (OCJ, 2001). Both on the stand in 2001 and on the record 20 years later, Racine describes her on-the-ground observations while the raid was in progress. 

On the Record, On the Stand

August 27, 2021
by Elio Colavito
Collaboratory News / Pussy Palace Project

Pussy Palace Oral History Project narrator, Renee Racine, was a security volunteer at the September 14, 2000, bathhouse — the night the event was raided by Toronto police. She later testified in court in defense of two fellow security volunteers charged with contravening the Liquor License Act in Her Majesty the Queen v. Hornick and Aitcheson (OCJ, 2001). Both on the stand in 2001 and on the record 20 years later, Racine recalls what it was like to discover a police presence in the bathhouse.