Marking 45 Years of Pride: Preserving & Celebrating 2SLGBTQIA+ History at 2024 Vancouver Pride
Join the Transgender Archives and the BC Gay and Lesbian Archives in Filling the Gaps and Building a Legacy of Inclusion and Recognition this 2024 Pride.
Vancouver, BC – July 3, 2024
During this year’s 2024 Pride parade, the Transgender Archives is partnering with the BC Gay and Lesbian Archives to celebrate and document 45 years of Pride in Vancouver, and asking the public to contribute to the archives, highlighting their dedication to preserving the history of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community.
For decades 2SLGBTQIA+ members have been criminalised, marginalized, and persecuted, for their gender expression, identity, orientation, and attraction. This repression has led to under documentation of the community’s experiences, which has sparked passion in archival institutions to be part of the recording and documenting of history of those who are repressed. One important way to remember the past, and educate the future, is to document it. As a result, the Transgender Archives at the University of Victoria plan to fill in the gaps of history through your donated additions to the archives at Vancouver Pride 2024.
Archival education is important for future generation in not letting 2SLGBTQIA+ predecessors be forgotten so, Transgender Archives are launching the initiative to celebrate and continue to document the next 45 years of Pride celebrations. They are calling on the 2SLGBTQIA+ community, family and friends, and allies with a passion to preserve this history, to bring their images, recordings, and documentation of their own lives and the lives of their loved ones. By documenting the past, both Archives can better celebrate and bring people together.
“It’s the community stepping up and filling a gap,” says Magnus Berg archivist and member of the trans community, “the other archives should have been doing that.”
What do these archives mean for you?
Weather directly or indirectly, these archives are the fabric of the 2SLGBTQIA+ history. When 2SLGBTQIA+ people come out they become part of the history and take on the triumphs and pit fall of the generation before them. Without documentation, how would these people be remembered; would they go unnoticed? This archival collection means reconnecting with lost and forgotten loved ones, retrieval of memories of the past, and reclaiming and discovering new pieces of community history.
“One of the most effective ways of thinking about history is to think about silences. What is not collected by those in power, what is left out,” reflects Dr. Henry Yu Associate History Professor at UBC, “it makes it really difficult to tell these stories because you’re encouraging the missing.”
Bring your piece of history, recordings, newspaper clippings, flyers, and family photos, to the Archives’ booth at 2024 Vancouver Pride. Let’s celebrate the past and encouraging the rebuilding of the missing.
The Transgender Archives
The Transgender Archives is an academia-based archive that takes grassroot community archives from around B.C. to compile and safeguard the history of Trans+ and genderqueer people. As an archive within a Canadian public institution, our mission is to educate through research, collection, and preservation of history, ensuring ongoing research efforts.
For more information, contact Caroline Peterson, Lead Communications and Public Relations Specialist of The Transgender Archives at the University of Victoria, (petersonc21@mytru.ca)