Latest news with #queerhistory
CBC
2 days ago
- General
- CBC
Stamp set commemorates Calgary's first gay bar among other queer moments in Canadian history
A new stamp from Canada Post is commemorating the story of Calgary's first gay bar, Club Carousel, as part of a series of stamps featuring significant moments and places that shaped 2SLGBTQIA+ communities across the country. The series, called Places of Pride, also features the stories of Truxx, a bar in Montréal's gay village; the 1971 Gay Day Picnic in Toronto; and the 1990 North American Native Gay and Lesbian Gathering in Manitoba, where the term "Two-Spirit" was first introduced and adopted. Bronwyn Graves, the director of stamp services at Canada Post, said that while the selection process was tough, Club Carousel stood out as a unique female-led queer space. "When we're looking at queer history in Canada, very often the narrative tends to focus on men's experiences, especially in those early years," she said. "So it was a really wonderful opportunity for us to highlight queer women's role in terms of queer history and this ongoing fight for equality." The club opened March 20, 1970, less than a year since a bill had been passed in Ottawa decriminalizing homosexuality in Canada. Located on First Street southwest between 12th and 13th avenues, it quickly grew from about 20 members to a safe and inclusive haven for hundreds of folks in Calgary's queer community. Lois Szabo, the last surviving founder of Club Carousel, vividly remembers the joy on the faces of the young people who would frequent the club. "You know, these guys were out on the streets and then living their lives closeted seven days of the week — or at least six of them. And then one night of the week, they came to the club. They came down the stairs and the looks on their face, you know, they were just so happy. "It was just worth every minute." Enter Club Carousel Now at 89-years-old, Szabo is regarded as a pioneer in the 2SLGBTQIA+ community. In 2021, the city named a park after her, the Lois Szabo Commons in Calgary's Beltline neighbourhood. Szabo came out as gay in 1964, and soon after, teamed up with local activist Jack Loenen to establish the club. WATCH | Lois on coming out and opening Club Carousel: Watch Lois Szabo tell her story of coming out in 1960s Calgary 8 years ago Duration 3:44 Lois Szabo, 81, co-founded one of Calgary's first gay clubs in the '60s and will lead the 2017 Calgary Pride Parade as grand marshal. "There weren't very many places that gay people felt safe in and that was why the club was needed," she told CBC News in a previous interview. The club didn't have a liquor licence, so club-goers would bring their own drinks, and a private members-only policy was in place to ensure the community would feel safe from harassment. "I'd say it [was] sort of the dawn of the organized gay community in Calgary. This space was so important," said Kevin Allen, research lead for the Calgary Gay History Project. "It saved lives and brought community together in a way that had never happened in Calgary before." Allen said he was delighted and proud to see Calgary's Club Carousel included in Canada Post's collection of stamps. "I think it's a really important nod to our history and our role in the nation's history for LGBTQ+ rights," he said. While the club closed its doors in the late 1970s, its legacy lives on through the stories of those who found acceptance within its walls. Sbazo recalls that a man in his 70s once approached her and said, "I just have always wanted to thank you. You saved my life. You and that club saved my life… I've never forgotten it." "So I think maybe we did some good," Sbazo said. "I like to think we did, anyway." Szabo said sharing its story for Canada's Post's stamp series is a way to recognize not just her, but to honour the founders and volunteers who have passed. Stamping Canadian history Beginning May 30, the stamps will be available to purchase at and select postal outlets across Canada. While Canada Post stamps have featured queer people and themes before, Graves said this series is the first deep dive into queer history for the Crown corporation. "We pride ourselves as being one of Canada's storytellers and that's a heavy responsibility," Graves explained. "That means telling stories that everybody knows, but it also means looking at the voices in the histories and the stories that have not been told. And when we looked at the past 25, 50 years of stamp storytelling, there were a lot of really amazing queer stories out there that we wanted to tell as part of the stamp series."
WIRED
3 days ago
- General
- WIRED
Trump's Administration Wants to Erase Queer History. An Unconventional Book Club Is Fighting Back
May 30, 2025 6:00 AM Drag Race star Miss Peppermint is coleading Queer History 101, a virtual book club merging stories of queer resistance with community. Photo-illustration: Jacqui VanLiew; Getty Images Hugh Ryan has two things to say. The first will be alarming, but the second might offer some comfort: 'The future is so much stupider than I expected, but the past is so much smarter.' Ryan would know. As a queer historian and author, he's used to talking about state of queer affairs, past and present, especially with actress, activist, and season 9 Ru Paul's Drag Race contestant, Miss Peppermint. Together, the two are currently running Queer History 101, a monthly book club that's taking a more expansive approach to history than simply reciting dates or names, at a time when their mission couldn't be more important. The queer community, especially transgender Americans, are under attack. The current administration is systematically wiping away trans people's health information, gender autonomy, history, and employment opportunities, even in the case of national monuments like Stonewall, which is considered the birthplace of the modern movement for LGBT rights. 'It's shameful because we're seeing the cover up in front of our eyes,' Peppermint says. Many companies are also backing off their initiatives that once celebrated queer pride as part of greater crackdown on DEI. But all is not lost, as long as queer communities are still able to preserve their own history. The answers might just not be directly in front of us, but behind. 'They were smart,' Peppermint says of queer communities in the past. 'Not because they had access to the tools or the science or the technology that we have access to. They're smart because they figured out how to navigate systems of oppression that are still here. 'We need those folks to teach us—and the only way we can do it now is to read their stories.' Queer History 101 is a fully virtual, monthly book club. The pair releases one video episode a month, as well as the occasional live chat; in April, the two hosted an interview with Harriet Tubman: Live in Concert author Bob the Drag Queen, also of Drag Race and Traitors fame. It's a read at your own pace club, though it also includes a discord, called Kiki, where readers can talk to each other or propose questions for authors. June's bookclub selection is Caro de Roberts' So Many Stars: An Oral History of Trans, Nonbinary, Genderqueer, and Two-Spirit People of Color. Queer History 101 is a revival of sorts, the reincarnation of a book club that began with an online indie store started by Eric Cervini and Adam Powell, built with the goal to pay and promote queer authors. In 2024, Cervini and Powell launched AllStora alongside Drag Race host and queer icon, RuPaul. The book club has been revamped to fit the new hosts' vision for queer history. '[Allstora] wanted to just really stick with scholarly non-fiction,' Ryan says. 'We knew that was not going to work for us.' The pair wanted to reach readers who weren't already interested, weren't already huge history buffs, so they expanded their selections to include young adult novels, memoirs, poetry, and many other genres. 'I don't care if you come to queer history through a comic book or through TV or any of the books in our book club,' Ryan says. 'Queer history, it's always a history of resistance, because that's what queerness is,' he adds. Whether it's sexual or gender identity, being queer is non-normative. 'Institutions, even well-meaning ones, even schools that try really hard, even great public schools, they're invested in a version of history that's from the top down. And queer history is never that way.' Ryan says that to 'meet this moment,' it was important to not just discuss histories of what it means to be queer and Black, or trans in the 19th century—they had to get people connecting to one another. 'We're bringing a history of revolution, but we're also trying to make community,' he says. The way people connect and build community has changed, thanks to social media and smart phones. Michael Bronski, a Harvard professor of the practice in media and activism, has been involved in LGBT politics and activism since 1969. He's authored several books on queer history and politics. His students today, he says, are often astounded at the work that was done without social media. 'All those new technologies are incredibly useful and efficient, but they often lack interpersonal relationships,' he says. Civil rights of all kinds began as community actions. 'It's really important to prioritize the reality of community,' Bronski says. 'We actually don't form communities by tweeting. That may be useful for contacting people for something, but that's not a community. Community means being together—physically, often, but virtually as well. 'Now people get together on Zoom, which is good too,' he says. Written histories do exist and are being added to every day. Our phones make it easier than ever to preserve the record; everyone's able to take photos, video, and record audio. But websites can be changed, media can be removed. 'What good is it gonna be if Amazon can just flick a switch everybody's watching a commercial at the same time,' says Peppermint. 'We are in this era of technology, but we clearly have to go back to an analog way of recording history as well.' She points to Marion Stokes, an civil rights activist and archivist who recorded 24-hour television broadcasts for over 30 years, and in doing so created an indispensable record between 1979 and 2012. 'We're gonna need that, and we're gonna need people to do things like that,' Peppermint says. Despite the changes being made now, the Trump administration will not be in power forever. It's possible that every step backwards for the queer community will be ground regained in the future. At the very least, says Bronski, Trump cannot truly erase trans or queer Americans. 'There's an interesting contradiction that every act of erasure admits that something was there before,' he says. 'The active erasure is actually an affirmation that it was existing to begin with.' At 76, Bronksi has a long memory of events like Pride before corporations swooped in, when they were protest marches, not parades. He says it's important for queer communities, however they're formed, 'to keep this knowledge alive within themselves'—whether that's publishing their own books and magazines, telling oral histories, or preserving other aspects of their culture. 'What the administration is doing is horrible and destructive, for the moment,' he says. 'We have to think of ways around that. The government has a lot of power, but it's just the government—it's not a community.'
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Before the word ‘transgender' existed, there was Bambi, the dazzling Parisian icon
PARIS (AP) — The moment that changed queer history occurred on a sweltering summer day in early 1950s Algeria. An effeminate teenage boy named Jean-Pierre Pruvot stood mesmerized as traffic halted and crowds swarmed around a scandalous spectacle unfolding in the conservative Algiers streets. All had stopped to look at Coccinelle, the flamboyant 'transvestite' star of Paris' legendary cabaret, the Carrousel de Paris, who strutted defiantly down the boulevard, impeccably dressed as a woman, sparking awe and outrage and literally stopping traffic. What Pruvot — who would become famous under the female stage name 'Bambi' — witnessed was more than mere performance. It was an act of resistance from the ashes of the Nazi persecution of the LGBTQ+ community in World War II. 'I didn't even know that (identity) existed,' Bambi told The Associated Press in a rare interview. 'I said to myself, 'I'm going to do the same.'' Decades before transgender became a household word and 'RuPaul's Drag Race' became a worldwide hit — before visibility brought rights and recognition — the Carrousel troupe in the late 1940s emerged as a glamorous, audacious resistance. Bambi soon joined Coccinelle, April Ashley, and Capucine to revive queer visibility in Europe for the first time since the Nazis had violently destroyed Berlin's thriving queer scene of the 1930s. The Nazis branded gay men with pink triangles, deported and murdered thousands, erasing queer culture overnight. Just a few years after the war, Carrousel performers strode onto the global stage, a glittering frontline against lingering prejudice. Remarkably, audiences at the Carrousel knew exactly who these performers were — women who, as Bambi puts it, 'would bare all.' Elvis Presley, Ava Gardner, Édith Piaf, Maria Callas and Marlene Dietrich all flocked to the cabaret, drawn to the allure of performers labeled 'travestis.' The stars sought out the Carrousel to flirt with postwar Paris's wild side. It was an intoxicating contradiction: cross-dressing was criminalized, yet the venue was packed with celebrities. The history of queer liberation shifted in this cabaret, one sequin at a time. The contrast was chilling: as Bambi arrived in Paris and found fame dancing naked for film stars, across the English Channel in early 1950s Britain the code-breaking genius Alan Turing was chemically castrated for being gay, leading to his suicide. Evenings spent with legends Today, nearing 90, Marie-Pierre Pruvot — as she has been known for decades by some — lives alone in an unassuming apartment in northeastern Paris. Her bookshelves spill over with volumes of literature and philosophy. A black feather boa, a lone whisper from her glamorous past, hangs loosely over a chair. Yet Bambi wasn't just part of the show; she was the show — with expressive almond-shaped eyes, pear-shaped face, and beauty indistinguishable from any desired Parisienne. Yet one key difference set her apart — a difference criminalized by French law. The depth of her history only becomes apparent as she points to striking and glamorous photographs and recounts evenings spent with legends. Such was their then-fame that the name of Bambi's housemate, Coccinelle, became slang for "trans" in Israel — often cruelly. Once Dietrich, the starry queer icon, arrived at the tiny Madame Arthur cabaret alongside Jean Marais, the actor and Jean Cocteau's gay lover. 'It was packed,' Bambi recalled. 'Jean Marais instantly said, 'Sit (me and Marlene) on stage' And so they were seated onstage, legs crossed, champagne by their side, watching us perform.' Another day, Dietrich swept in to a hair salon. 'Marlene always had this distant, untouchable air — except when late for the hairdresser,' Bambi says, smiling. 'She rushed in, kissed the hairdresser, settled beneath the dryer, stretched her long legs imperiously onto a stool, and lit a cigarette. Her gaunt pout as she smoked — I'll never forget it,' she says, her impression exaggerated as she sucked in her cheeks. Perhaps Dietrich wasn't her favorite star. Then there was Piaf, who, one evening, teasingly joked about her protégé, the French singing legend Charles Aznavour, performing nearby. 'She asked, 'What time does Aznavour start?'' Bambi recalled. 'Someone said, 'Midnight.' So she joked, 'Then it'll be finished by five past midnight.'" Reassignment surgery Behind the glamour lay constant danger. Living openly as a woman was illegal. 'There was a police decree,' Bambi recalls. 'It was a criminal offense for a man to dress as a woman. But if you wore pants and flat shoes, you weren't considered dressed as a woman.' The injustice was global. Homosexuality remained criminalized for decades: in Britain until 1967, in parts of the U.S. until 2003. Progress came slowly. In 1950s Paris, though, Bambi bought hormones casually over-the-counter, 'like salt and pepper at the grocery.' 'It was much freer then,' but stakes were high, she said. Sisters were jailed, raped, driven into sex work. One comrade died after botched gender reassignment surgery in Casablanca. 'There was only Casablanca,' she emphasized, with one doctor performing the high-risk surgeries. Bambi waited cautiously until her best friends, Coccinelle and April Ashley, had safely undergone procedures from the late 50s before doing the same herself. Each night required extraordinary courage. Post-war Paris was scarred, haunted. The Carrousel wasn't mere entertainment — but a fingers' up to the past in heels and eyeliner. 'There was this after-the-war feeling — people wanted to have fun,' Bambi recalled. With no television, the cabarets were packed every night. 'You could feel it — people demanded to laugh, to enjoy themselves, to be happy. They wanted to live again … to forget the miseries of the war.' In 1974, sensing a shift, Bambi quietly stepped away from celebrity, unwilling to become 'an aging showgirl.' Swiftly obtaining legal female identity in Algeria, she became a respected teacher and Sorbonne scholar, hiding her dazzling past beneath Marcel Proust and careful anonymity for decades. 'I never wore a mask' Given what she's witnessed, or because of it, she's remarkably serene about recent controversies around gender. This transgender pioneer feels wokeism has moved too quickly, fueling a backlash. She sees U.S. President Donald Trump as part of 'a global reaction against wokeism… families aren't ready… we need to pause and breathe a little before moving forward again.' Inclusive pronouns and language 'complicate the language,' she insists. Asked about Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling's anti-trans stance, her response is calmly dismissive: 'Her opinion counts no more than a baker's or a cleaning lady's.' Bambi has outlived her Carrousel sisters — April Ashley, Capucine, and Coccinelle. Still elegant, she stands quietly proud. When she first stepped onstage, the world lacked the language to describe her. She danced anyway. Now, words exist. Rights exist. Movements exist. And Bambi, still standing serenely, quietly reaffirms her truth: 'I never wore a mask,' she says softly, but firmly. 'Except when I was a boy.'
The Independent
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Before the word ‘transgender' existed, there was Bambi, the dazzling Parisian icon
The moment that changed queer history occurred on a sweltering summer day in early 1950s Algeria. An effeminate teenage boy named Jean-Pierre Pruvot stood mesmerized as traffic halted and crowds swarmed around a scandalous spectacle unfolding in the conservative Algiers streets. All had stopped to look at Coccinelle, the flamboyant 'transvestite' star of Paris' legendary cabaret, the Carrousel de Paris, who strutted defiantly down the boulevard, impeccably dressed as a woman, sparking awe and outrage and literally stopping traffic. What Pruvot — who would become famous under the female stage name 'Bambi' — witnessed was more than mere performance. It was an act of resistance from the ashes of the Nazi persecution of the LGBTQ+ community in World War II. 'I didn't even know that (identity) existed,' Bambi told The Associated Press in a rare interview. 'I said to myself, 'I'm going to do the same.'' Decades before transgender became a household word and 'RuPaul's Drag Race' became a worldwide hit — before visibility brought rights and recognition — the Carrousel troupe in the late 1940s emerged as a glamorous, audacious resistance. Bambi soon joined Coccinelle, April Ashley, and Capucine to revive queer visibility in Europe for the first time since the Nazis had violently destroyed Berlin's thriving queer scene of the 1930s. The Nazis branded gay men with pink triangles, deported and murdered thousands, erasing queer culture overnight. Just a few years after the war, Carrousel performers strode onto the global stage, a glittering frontline against lingering prejudice. Remarkably, audiences at the Carrousel knew exactly who these performers were — women who, as Bambi puts it, 'would bare all.' Elvis Presley, Ava Gardner, Édith Piaf, Maria Callas and Marlene Dietrich all flocked to the cabaret, drawn to the allure of performers labeled 'travestis.' The stars sought out the Carrousel to flirt with postwar Paris's wild side. It was an intoxicating contradiction: cross-dressing was criminalized, yet the venue was packed with celebrities. The history of queer liberation shifted in this cabaret, one sequin at a time. The contrast was chilling: as Bambi arrived in Paris and found fame dancing naked for film stars, across the English Channel in early 1950s Britain the code-breaking genius Alan Turing was chemically castrated for being gay, leading to his suicide. Evenings spent with legends Today, nearing 90, Marie-Pierre Pruvot — as she has been known for decades by some — lives alone in an unassuming apartment in northeastern Paris. Her bookshelves spill over with volumes of literature and philosophy. A black feather boa, a lone whisper from her glamorous past, hangs loosely over a chair. Yet Bambi wasn't just part of the show; she was the show — with expressive almond-shaped eyes, pear-shaped face, and beauty indistinguishable from any desired Parisienne. Yet one key difference set her apart — a difference criminalized by French law. The depth of her history only becomes apparent as she points to striking and glamorous photographs and recounts evenings spent with legends. Such was their then-fame that the name of Bambi's housemate, Coccinelle, became slang for "trans" in Israel — often cruelly. Once Dietrich, the starry queer icon, arrived at the tiny Madame Arthur cabaret alongside Jean Marais, the actor and Jean Cocteau's gay lover. 'It was packed,' Bambi recalled. 'Jean Marais instantly said, 'Sit (me and Marlene) on stage' And so they were seated onstage, legs crossed, champagne by their side, watching us perform.' Another day, Dietrich swept in to a hair salon. 'Marlene always had this distant, untouchable air — except when late for the hairdresser,' Bambi says, smiling. 'She rushed in, kissed the hairdresser, settled beneath the dryer, stretched her long legs imperiously onto a stool, and lit a cigarette. Her gaunt pout as she smoked — I'll never forget it,' she says, her impression exaggerated as she sucked in her cheeks. Perhaps Dietrich wasn't her favorite star. Then there was Piaf, who, one evening, teasingly joked about her protégé, the French singing legend Charles Aznavour, performing nearby. 'She asked, 'What time does Aznavour start?'' Bambi recalled. 'Someone said, 'Midnight.' So she joked, 'Then it'll be finished by five past midnight.'" Reassignment surgery Behind the glamour lay constant danger. Living openly as a woman was illegal. 'There was a police decree,' Bambi recalls. 'It was a criminal offense for a man to dress as a woman. But if you wore pants and flat shoes, you weren't considered dressed as a woman.' The injustice was global. Homosexuality remained criminalized for decades: in Britain until 1967, in parts of the U.S. until 2003. Progress came slowly. In 1950s Paris, though, Bambi bought hormones casually over-the-counter, 'like salt and pepper at the grocery.' 'It was much freer then,' but stakes were high, she said. Sisters were jailed, raped, driven into sex work. One comrade died after botched gender reassignment surgery in Casablanca. 'There was only Casablanca,' she emphasized, with one doctor performing the high-risk surgeries. Bambi waited cautiously until her best friends, Coccinelle and April Ashley, had safely undergone procedures from the late 50s before doing the same herself. Each night required extraordinary courage. Post-war Paris was scarred, haunted. The Carrousel wasn't mere entertainment — but a fingers' up to the past in heels and eyeliner. 'There was this after-the-war feeling — people wanted to have fun,' Bambi recalled. With no television, the cabarets were packed every night. 'You could feel it — people demanded to laugh, to enjoy themselves, to be happy. They wanted to live again … to forget the miseries of the war.' In 1974, sensing a shift, Bambi quietly stepped away from celebrity, unwilling to become 'an aging showgirl.' Swiftly obtaining legal female identity in Algeria, she became a respected teacher and Sorbonne scholar, hiding her dazzling past beneath Marcel Proust and careful anonymity for decades. 'I never wore a mask' Given what she's witnessed, or because of it, she's remarkably serene about recent controversies around gender. This transgender pioneer feels wokeism has moved too quickly, fueling a backlash. She sees U.S. President Donald Trump as part of 'a global reaction against wokeism… families aren't ready… we need to pause and breathe a little before moving forward again.' Inclusive pronouns and language 'complicate the language,' she insists. Asked about Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling's anti-trans stance, her response is calmly dismissive: 'Her opinion counts no more than a baker's or a cleaning lady's.' Bambi has outlived her Carrousel sisters — April Ashley, Capucine, and Coccinelle. Still elegant, she stands quietly proud. When she first stepped onstage, the world lacked the language to describe her. She danced anyway. Now, words exist. Rights exist. Movements exist. And Bambi, still standing serenely, quietly reaffirms her truth: 'I never wore a mask,' she says softly, but firmly. 'Except when I was a boy.'
