By Carson Murphy, Archivist
June is LGTBQ Pride month, and is also the time the LGBTQ
community looks back on its heritage. The topic has been getting increasing
academic attention lately which is excellent! Much like the history of women,
minorities and people of lower social-economic status, lesbians, gays and other
members of the LGBTQ community have been largely silent in Canada’s historical
narrative. Its silence however should by no means be taken as a sign it didn’t
exist, or that these individuals did not play major roles in our history.
Indeed, the true scope of how many historical persons may or may not be ‘closeted’
makes for an interesting discussion, although one for another time. Because homosexuality
was not supposed to exist and was often practiced covertly, it becomes a
challenge to piece together the different historical narratives of this
community.
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| A group of men on a boat, from the Peace River Museum, Archives and Mackenzie Centre collection, PRMA1981.1194.221. |
It is a history that comes with a lot of reading between the
lines to piece it together. For example. When you think about the narrative of
the settlement of Alberta, the story speaks of all the men that moved out here
to claim their homestead, and start their farm. The narrative relates how, at
least in the early days, men drastically outnumbered women. Now when you read
between the lines, you see a land of opportunity – of adventure with fewer
rules, fewer people, fewer parsons, and mostly other young, single men. You can’t
tell me that what held the appeal for many ‘straight’ men couldn’t have had the
same for ‘gay’ ones.
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| Two unidentified women, from the Peace River Museum, Archives and Mackenzie Centre's new collection. |
Homosexuality was something that happened at the fringes, in
the background, that might cross tongues, but seldom made it to paper, and
would never come up in polite
conversation. When you look for it, you
find it occasionally amongst the plainly stated “good friends”, “companion” or “lodger”,
as if that was all it ever was, and perhaps it was. It seems, whether it was naivety or some form
of tolerance, sometimes, in some places, LGBTQ peoples could find some relationships
and companionship, provided there was no spectacle and the outward appearance
of social decency wasn’t marred.
I like to focus on those glimmers in the LGBTQ history,
because the bulk of it tends to be pretty sad. When you consider the number of
people who had to live unhappy lives, who faced ostracism, discrimination, and
incarceration for things they couldn’t change or help. Living alone fearing
they were the only ones. The past certainly was not the ‘good ol days’ for
everyone. It’s an interesting thing to keep in mind the next time you look at
your family history – who did and didn’t get married, if they moved away, their
dreams and aspirations, you never know what might emerge.
Sometimes it’s really tempting to want to time travel, and
somedays it really feels like I would be more at home in another time, but then
I think how my life would change. And I’m not talking about modern medicine,
and hot water (although those are usually two of many reality checks which keep
me happy to be here), but more personally I think of how I wouldn’t be able to
go out with my significant other, or get married, or likely have family and
friends who would love and support me for who I am. And that’s what keeps me
happy to be in the 21st century, although there is much left to
accomplish on the road to equality, acceptance and even tolerance as the recent
tragedy in Orlando has shown us.
This post is dedicated to the anonymous men, women and
everyone in between; who in the past, have faced discrimination, hatred, abuse,
anxiety, fear and loneliness because of who they were and who they loved.
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| Two photographs of unknown people - as normal looking as you or I. Who knows what their stories were. From a collection of photographs recently donated to the Peace River Museum, Archives and Mackenzie Centre. |
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