When Our Past Takes Centre Stage

When Our Past Takes Centre Stage

 
By Dennis Yeo, Niagara community member
 
If you’ve been hanging desperately on to summer, it’s time to let go. You may have been able to delude yourself for a week or more after the official date, but when you mentally flipped that calendar page this morning to find October, you knew it was time to face reality. The summer of 2019 is part of the past.

However, sometimes the past is not just…over. How lucky are you that as a member of OUTniagara and of the 2SLGBTQ+ community you have a month devoted to you? No, not Pride in June — LGBT History Month when our past takes centre stage. What’s even more special is that in 2019 we mark the 25th anniversary of the first LGBT History Month, now celebrated in the U.S.A. and Canada in October and in the U.K. which celebrates in February. Berlin celebrates “Queer History Month” at this time and other progressive countries acknowledge it too, although with shorter events.

However, sometimes the past is not just…over.

LGBT History Month was founded by Missouri high-school history teacher Rodney Wilson to encourage honesty and openness about being LGBT. Wilson originated the idea and found support from GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network), Chicago’s Gay Archives, educators, governors and mayors of major cities. Wilson served as founder on the first co-ordinating committee and chose October as the month of celebration because it coincides with National Coming Out Day on Oct. 11, which was already widely known and celebrated internationally. That date commemorates the first National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights in 1979 and also the second march in 1987.

Over the next months we’ll recall 2SLGBTQ+ history specific to Canada in this weekly blog. You may be surprised at just how extensive it is and how it forms the foundation of the rights, privileges and freedoms we have today and often take for granted. You may even be surprised by some of what you learn. For example, did you know that Pierre Trudeau, who is credited with the famous remark that, the government has no right in the bedrooms of the nation “borrowed” it from a column by an Ottawa Citizen journalist who had coined it just a few weeks before? Surprise!

Stay tuned for more…

Dennis Yeo

Dennis is a former teacher who was born and raised in St. Catharines. He came out as a gay man as an adult, was active in the 2SLGBTQ community in the city where he taught, and returned to St. Catharines when he retired. Dennis will be contributing a periodic blog throughout LGBT History Month (October).

His views do not necessarily represent those of OUTniagara.