Rebecka Sheffield | |
---|---|
Born | 1976 |
Citizenship | Canadian |
Occupation(s) | archivist, scholar, records manager |
Academic background | |
Alma mater | |
Thesis | The Emergence, Development and Survival of Four Lesbian and Gay Archives (2015) |
Doctoral advisor | Patrick Keilty |
Academic work | |
Institutions | Archives of Ontario,Simmons University,University of British Columbia,University of Toronto |
Rebecka Sheffield is an archivist,scholar,and policy advisor. She is a Senior Policy Advisor of the Archives of Ontario and teaches information science in American and Canadian universities.
Rebecka Sheffield is a previous director of the ArQuives:Canada's LGBTQ2+ Archives and vice-president of the Association of Canadian Archivists (ACA). [1] [2] [3] She has a bachelor's degree in Women and Gender Studies from the University of Saskatchewan,a Master's Degree in archival studies from the University of Toronto and a PhD from the University of Toronto in collaboration with the Mark S. Bonham Center for Sexual Diversity Studies. [4] [5]
Sheffield is a scholar in archival science. She is the author of Documenting Rebellions:A Study of Four Lesbian and Gay Archives in Queer Times,which discusses the relationship between archives and social movements within the LGBTQ2+ community. [6] She has also worked as a public advocate about the preservation of queer cultural history in Toronto. [7] [8]
Rebecka Sheffield's archival contributions focuses on community archives,and historical and cultural heritage movements in LGBTQ2+ communities. [7]
Sheffield is the lead of an archival and artistic project The Bedside Table Archives,which documents objects found on the bedside tables of lesbian and queer women. [9] The project focuses on the home as a space for identity construction while questioning the heteronormativity of such spaces.
She has also published Documenting rebellions:A Study of Four Lesbian and Gay Archives in Queer Times,which focuses on four institutions that preserve the records of queer folk.
Michelle D. Douglas is a Canadian human rights activist who launched a landmark legal challenge in the Federal Court of Canada against the military's discriminatory policies against LGBTQ+ service members. Douglas herself served as an officer in the Canadian Armed Forces from 1986 to 1989. She was honourably discharged from the military in 1989 under the military's discriminating "LGBT Purge".
George Hislop was one of Canada's most influential gay activists. He was one of the earliest openly gay candidates for political office in Canada,and was a key figure in the early development of Toronto's gay community.
The ArQuives:Canada's LGBTQ2+ Archives,formerly known as the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives,is a Canadian non-profit organization,founded in 1973 as the Canadian Gay Liberation Movement Archives. The ArQuives acquires,preserves,and provides public access to material and information by and about lesbian,gay,bisexual,transgender,queer,and two-spirit communities primarily in Canada.
Supporting Our Youth (SOY) is an organization based in Toronto,Ontario,Canada,which runs programs and events geared to supporting the special needs of gay,lesbian,bisexual,transgender,transsexual and intersex youth. SOY gets support and involvement from local youth and adults that volunteer their time to help improve each other’s lives. SOY’s main focus points are helping the youth create healthy arts,recreational spaces,culture,supportive housing,and employment.
Douglas Wilson (1950–1992) was a Canadian gay activist,graduate student,publisher and writer born in Saskatchewan. In 1975,he gained prominence in a fight for gay rights with the University of Saskatchewan. The university's dean of the College of Education refused to allow Wilson into the school system to supervise practice teachers because of his public involvement with the gay liberation movement. Wilson was vice-president of the Gay Community Centre Saskatoon and had been trying to start a gay academic union at the university. The Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission failed to protect Wilson and his case was unsuccessful.
David Morton Rayside is a Canadian academic and activist. He was a professor of political science at the University of Toronto until his retirement in 2013,and was the founding director of the university's Mark S. Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies from 2004 to 2008.
The Lesbian Gay Bi Trans Youth Line,founded in 1994,is a peer support organization for LGBT youth across the province of Ontario. Although originally known for their phone support line,the organization also offers online chat,SMS and e-mail support services,as well as promoting and supporting other events and programs for 2SLGBTQ+ youth.
Lynne Fernie is a Canadian filmmaker and interdisciplinary artist. She spent fourteen years as the Canadian Spectrum programmer for the Hot Docs Festival from 2002 to 2016,and was described as having a passion as "deep as her knowledge," and it was said that her "championing of Canadian documentaries and the people who make them has never wavered."
Rupert Raj is a Canadian trans activist and a transgender man. His work since his own gender transition in 1971 has been recognized by several awards,as well as his inclusion in the National Portrait Collection of The ArQuives:Canada's LGBTQ2+ Archives.
James Egan was a Canadian LGBT rights activist known for his role in the landmark Supreme Court of Canada case Egan v. Canada. He is considered Canada's first prominent LGBT activist,due to his initial period of activism from 1949 to 1964.
John Alan Lee was a Canadian writer,academic and political activist,best known as an early advocate for LGBT rights in Canada,for his academic research into sociological and psychological aspects of love and sexuality,and for his later-life advocacy of assisted suicide and the right to die.
Khush:South Asian Lesbian and Gay Association was a queer collective activist organization in Canada geared towards South Asian men and women whose goal was to promote a better understanding of South Asian culture and values within the gay and lesbian community.
Mirha-Soleil Ross is a transgender videographer,performance artist,sex worker and activist. Her work since the early 1990s in Montreal and Toronto has focused on transsexual rights,access to resources,advocacy for sex workers and animal rights.
Tom Warner is an author,gay rights activist,and former Human Rights Commissioner. He was born in Saskatchewan and lives in Toronto,Ontario. He was one of the founding members of Gay Students' Alliance at the University of Saskatchewan,and of the Zodiac Friendship Society. In Toronto,he helped found the Gay Alliance Toward Equality and has been involved with the Right to Privacy Committee. From 1993 to 1996 he served as an Ontario Human Rights Commissioner.
Jearld Frederick Moldenhauer was born in Niagara Falls,New York on August 9,1946. He has been a gay activist from his college years onward,and was the founder of the Cornell Student Homophile League,the University of Toronto Homophile Association (UTHA),and The Body Politic gay liberation journal,Canada's most significant gay periodical. He was a founding member of Toronto Gay Action (TGA),and the Toronto Gay Alliance toward Equality (GATE). On February 13,1972 he became the first gay liberation representative to address a political party conference in Canada when he addressed a session of the New Democratic Party Waffle convention. In 1973 he began collecting the books,newspapers and ephemera that seeded and grew into the Canadian Lesbian &Gay Archives. He opened Glad Day Bookshop,the first gay and lesbian bookstore in Canada,in 1970 and operated it until 1991 when he sold the store John Scythes. In 1979 he opened a second Glad Day Bookshop in Boston,Mass. Glad Day Bookshop Toronto is now considered the oldest gay/lesbian bookshop in the world. Glad Day Bookshop Boston closed its doors in the summer of 2000,when its lease expired and its building was sold.
Michael Lynch was an American-born Canadian professor,journalist,and activist,most noted as a pioneer of gay studies in Canadian academia and as an important builder of many significant LGBT rights and HIV/AIDS organizations in Toronto.
Marie Robertson is a Canadian LGBT rights activist. Robertson was a co-founder of multiple LGBT agencies and worked as a counsellor for the AIDS Committee of Toronto. Robertson's portrait was inducted into The ArQuives:Canada's LGBTQ2+ Archives in 2002 and she was inducted into the Q Hall of Fame Canada in 2013.
Queer community archives are a subset of the larger body of community archives,which are archives and personal collections maintained by community groups who desire to document their cultural heritage based on shared experiences,interests,and/or identities. As such,queer community archives are collections that exist to maintain the historical record of the LGBT community and broader queer community. The term queer community archives,also called gay and lesbian archives,refers to a diverse array of community projects,organizations,and public institutions that maintain these histories.
Amy Gottlieb is a Canadian queer activist,artist and educator. She was one of the organizers of the first Pride Toronto in 1981. She was also an organizer of the Dykes on the Street March,organized by Lesbians Against the Right,which occurred in October of the same year.
The We Demand Rally was the first large scale gay rights demonstration in Canada. The rally occurred on August 28,1971 in Ottawa,and was organized by the gay rights activist groups Toronto Gay Action (TGA) and Community Homophile Association of Toronto (CHAT). There was a parallel rally in Vancouver that was organized in solidarity with the rally by the Vancouver group Gay Alliance Toward Equality (GATE). The rally plays an important part in the history of queer equity-seeking and gay rights in Canada,as well as the history of feminism in Canada,and has had a lasting legacy in Canadian gay rights activism.