Moments in History

Each year, around the spring equinox, communities across Canada celebrate and raise awareness of 2SLGBTQIA+ Indigenous and Two-Spirit People. Observed on or near March 20, this day highlights the leadership, resilience, and cultural significance of Indigenous people who identify as Two-Spirit, as well as their place within the broader 2SLGBTQIA+ community.

The We Demand Rally, in Ottawa, was the country’s first large-scale demonstration for gay rights. While the crowd numbered fewer than 200, the event marked the beginning of a national conversation about equality for gay, bisexual, and lesbian Canadians, and what we now call the wider 2SLGBTQIA+ community.

In August 1973, something quietly remarkable happened across Canada. For the first time, LGBT communities in cities like Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal organized a coordinated week of events that would later be known as Canada’s first Pride Week. It didn’t look like the large, colourful parades we often see today. There were no floats, no […]

On May 30th this year, we commemorate the forty-fourth anniversary of the Pisces Bathhouse Raid, a planned operation by Edmonton’s legal system to arrest Gay men in what was previously a safe space to gather and connect. The legacy of the raids has had an enduring and long-lasting effect on Edmonton’s 2SLGBTQIA+ community, and we […]

May 22nd was Harvey Milk’s birthday, and every year we mark that occasion by taking time to remember him. Harvey Milk was a tireless fighter and advocate for 2SLGBTQIA+ rights in a time when Stonewall was still a fresh memory, and the results of his work still echo throughout the continuing fight for equal rights. […]

Every year, on January 27, the world pauses to honour the lives lost during one of history’s darkest chapters: the Holocaust. This day is not just about remembering Jewish victims but also about reflecting on the persecution of other marginalized groups, including 2SLGBTQIA+ individuals. By revisiting these shared histories of suffering, we uncover lessons that […]

In 1990, at the Third North American Gathering of Native Gays and Lesbians in Sandy Saulteaux Spiritual Centre north of Winnipeg the term two-spirit was adopted. The two-spirit term was used to describe Indigenous individuals who possess both masculine and feminine spirits and attributes. This term originated from the need to develop a unique identity […]

This June 28th marks the fifty-fifth anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, an event that forever changed activism for the Gender, Sexual, and Relationship (GSRD) community and has become an enduring story and symbol of when the fight for equal rights truly emerged into the open. On the night of June 25th, a police raid took […]

September 14 marks the day the The Pussy Palace, Toronto’s first women and transgender bathhouse, opened in 1998. However, two years later in 2000 it also marked the first – and last – police raid of a bathhouse in Toronto. The Pussy Palace was the first of its kind in Toronto, as it not only […]

Four women were enjoying a night out on January 5, 1974, when an uninvited man approached them and became aggressive and insulting. Following the incident, the women were verbally harassed while in police custody and were not allowed to call a lawyer.