Project Profile:

LGBTQ Oral History Digital Collaboratory

Website: http://lgbtqdigitalcollaboratory.org/

Twitter: @LGBTQHistory

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1469889706633854/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lgbtqcollaboratory/

Description: Founded in 2014, the LGBQT+ Oral History Digital Collaboratory is the largest LGBTQ oral history project in North American history, connecting over 200 life stories with new methodologies in digital history, collaborative research, and archival practice. Our earlier work included collecting and digitizing two community-based oral history projects from the 1980s—Lesbians Making History (8 interviews) and the Foolscap Gay Oral History Project (125 interviews)–and preserving these oral histories at The ArQuives: Canada’s LGBQT2+ Archives. We have also conducted an original oral history project on trans health activism in 1990s Ontario and created a 70 page guide to trans collections at The ArQuives, launched in 2020. In 2017, we spearheaded the processing and cataloguing of transsexual activist and performance artist Mirha-Soleil Ross, whose papers are held at The ArQuives. In 2021, we are focusing on the public engagement phase of our Trans Activism Oral History Project and beginning the collecting on our Pussy Palace Police Raid Oral History Project.

Contributors:

  • Elspeth Brown, Associate Professor, Department of Historical Studies, University of Toronto Mississauga
  • Raegan Swanson, Executive Director, The ArQuives: Canada’s LGBTQ2S+ Archive
  • Aaron H Devor, Chair in Transgender Studies, University of Victoria and Founder and Academic Director, Transgender Archives at University of Victoria
  • Chase Joynt, Assistant Professor, Gender Studies, University of Victoria and Moving-Image Artist and Writer
  • K. J. Rawson, Associate Professor of English and Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies, Northeastern University and Director of the Digital Transgender Archive
  • El Chenier, Professor, Department of History, Simon Fraser University and Director, Archive of Lesbian Oral Testimony
  • Evan T. Taylor, Assistant Professor, School of Social Work and Human Services, University of the Fraser Valley
  • Lara Wilson, Director of Special Collections and University Archives, University of Victoria
  • Alisha Stranges, Project Oral Historian
  • Jordan Saroya, Administrative Assistant
  • Eli Holliday, Research Assistant
  • Andy Huynh, Communications Assistant
  • Tomasz Glod, Queer View Mirror Oral History Project Assistant
  • Caleigh Inman, Undergraduate Researcher
  • Alisha Krishna, Undergraduate Researcher
  • Mackenzie (Mac) Stewart, Undergraduate Researcher
  • Zohar Freeman, Undergraduate Researcher
  • Amal Khurram, Undergraduate Researcher

Funders: SSHRC

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