Kevin Allen's Blog

We are happy to report that our application to the National Program of Historical Commemoration was rewarded. The Klippert Case recently got an official nod from the Government of Canada. It is now designated a historic event of national significance. Parks Canada, which administers the program, has an intensive screening and deliberation process—they conducted extensive research before reaching their decision.

Parks Canada wrote a detailed backgrounder on the designation, explaining, “The Klippert Case of 1967 was a pivotal moment in the fight for 2SLGBTQI+ rights in Canada.”

One of the goals of the Calgary Gay History Project is to make our history more visible in the City. With this designation, we will get a bronze plaque in Calgary (in a public location) to finalize the commemoration.

Learn more about the Klippert Case—watch our award-winning short film, directed by Laura O’Grady!

We would like to sincerely thank Mount Royal University history professor Joe Anderson for informing us about the application process to the National Program of Historical Commemoration.

Anyone can submit a nomination to this program!

We believe that there was no queer history represented in the Directory of Federal Heritage Designations before this, but we changed that! Now we need more…

{KA}

The 13th edition of CUFF.Docs runs from November 19th to 23rd, 2025, and their documentary presentation of The Librarians couldn’t be more timely. The award-winning film explores book banning in the United States, where Librarians have emerged as unexpected superheroes fighting against censorship and discrimination.

Still from The Librarians

Our provincial government banned four books this past summer on the flimsiest of grounds (please see my review of the banned & fantastic graphic novel, Fun Home). Notably, the local advocates of book banning and the titles they target are deeply influenced by this import of White Christian Nationalism. They also tried to influence the recent school board elections in Calgary; fortunately, they were unsuccessful.

The Alberta premiere of The Librarians screens Sunday, November 23rd at 11 AM at the Globe Cinema.

“Equal parts foreboding and inspiring, recently christened Oscar-nominee director Kim Snyder’s The Librarians, reaffirms why the vocation of librarians is a vital one, particularly in an age of rampant misinformation and censorship by the country’s most conservative and insecure. Spotlighting librarians who are at the center of book bans–in places like Texas and Florida–the film highlights how they join together and support each other while politicians are there to criminalize librarians’ work.” – Roger Ebert

Watch the trailer below! See you at the movies.

{KA}

We couldn’t be happier that the Edmonton Queer History Project has just launched its first book, Cruising the Downtown: Celebrating Edmonton’s Queer History. Edited by Kristopher Wells, it is a collaborative history that celebrates the people, places, and moments that have shaped and continue to shape the Capital City by moving through civic landmarks, sites of queer resistance, nightlife, celebration, and activist spaces.

Cover: Cruising the Downtown: Celebrating Edmonton’s Queer History

In Calgary, the book is currently in stock at Pages and Shelf Life. I have already picked up a copy; it is a colourful and lively read.

Calgary and Edmonton’s queer histories intersect and interact. Not only did the Alberta government historically impact our rights in both cities, but there has always been significant movement between the cities. For example, Calgary’s Club Carousel and Edmonton’s Club ’70 considered themselves sibling organizations, and early gay activists from both cities collaborated on provincial gay newspapers and magazines, and then later on community cable shows. The Alberta clubs built on their regional networks and helped initiate the first gay liberation activities on the Prairies in the early 70s.

Edmonton’s Club ’70 Newsletter, citing one of the first gay rights conventions in the Prairies. Source Edmonton Queer History Project

There are two book launches planned in Edmonton: November 1st at Evolution Wonderlounge and November 6th at Audreys Books. Read more queer history—pick up your own copy of Cruising the Downtown. Congratulations, Edmonton Queer History Project!

{KA}

It’s queer history month. The Day of Pink ECHO Tour is travelling across Canada, bringing together powerful storytellers, poets, activists, and community leaders to share the 2SLGBTQIA+ stories that once faced censorship—and still fight for space today.

The ECHO Tour lands in Calgary on Friday, October 17th, at 6:30 PM at the Central Library. Get your free tickets here.

ECHO Tour’s YYC poster

As someone who’s been telling queer stories in Calgary for years, I’m honoured to share the stage with Libby Davies, Adrienne Rosen, and Boban Stojanović to reflect on 25 years of resistance, recognition, and change in Canadian queer history.

From courtrooms to bookstores, family tables to federal law, queer and trans voices have always resisted silence. This tour honours that resistance, marking 25 years since two defining moments in Canadian queer history:

The Supreme Court case Little Sisters Bookstore v. CanadaThe passing of the Modernization of Benefits and Obligations Act

But this tour is not just about the past—it’s about the stories still echoing now. Stories that shape who we are and where we go next.

It’s more than an event — it’s a space to listen, connect, and celebrate voices that have shaped our communities.

Hope to see you there!  

—Kevin

{KA}

{October is Queer History Month! We are excited to share new research from our friend, historian and professor, William Bridel – Kevin.}

Out on the Rink: A Brief History of Queer Hockey in Calgary

Dr. William Bridel, University of Calgary

For the past few years, I’ve been working on a project that explores the role and meaning of sport in Calgary’s queer history, focusing on the 1960s through to the early 2000s. Along with a former student, Connor MacDonald, we’ve interviewed several folks and I’ve spent a lot of time exploring media and organizational documents found in various archives including the Calgary Gay History Project Collection, housed at the University of Calgary. I have been grateful to gather many incredible stories about friendships, community, achievements, belongingness, and empowerment, stories that come from a variety of sports and different decades. But given that in the fall many—certainly not all, but many—Canadians’ thoughts turn to the sport of ice hockey I thought I’d share here some of what I found in that regard. This is also particularly timely as there’s been a pretty significant change in Calgary’s queer hockey scene (yep, there is one!) in 2025. But more on that later.

One day early on in my research, I came across a short article in the July 1993 issue of Perceptions, a bimonthly then monthly publication that covered queer happenings in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. The story that caught my eye was simply titled “Queer Hockey” and was submitted by the International Gay Lesbian Hockey Association (IGLHA). Following a brief history of the organization, the article explained that the IGLHA were seeking to establish contacts with queer hockey players in Western Canada while also actively recruiting players and/or volunteers for Gay Games IV, which were held in New York in June 1994. Included on the sports-roster for those Games was ice hockey, with open, women’s, and men’s divisions offered. Calgary was very well represented at those Games in a variety of sports, but it is unclear from the materials I have found whether any Calgarians ended up connecting with IGLHA and/or played in the ice hockey tournament in New York.

Admittedly, after finding that article about the IGLHA, hockey slipped off my radar until I uncovered a series of articles in mainstream media related to a so-called “AIDS scare” in the National Hockey League (NHL) in 1991 as well as a number of stories including homophobic comments made by a well-known coach by the name of Pat Burns in 1992. The next time in my research that hockey showed up was in a media article published in 2000. Canadian national team star Nancy Drolet came out publicly when a local reporter showed up at her wedding looking for a “story.” As Drolet framed it in an interview with Xtra, a queer media outlet based in Toronto: “He acted like it was the scoop of the century, but I’ve always been open and honest about my relationship with my family and friends…. But this gave me an opportunity to clarify some false impressions” (Webb, 2000, p. 13). But none of this information was about Calgary specifically and I didn’t know there was much of a hockey story to tell, at least not within the time period in which I was most interested.

Then, during an interview with one of my research participants, hockey came up in the conversation. While the participant, Rob, spoke early on in our discussion of having played high-level competitive hockey growing up, I wasn’t anticipating learning from him that there was a primarily gay hockey team playing in a Calgary men’s league in the late-1990s, the type of league often referred to as “men’s beer league hockey.” Rob noted during the interview that while they didn’t explicitly refer to themselves as a gay hockey team and that there were straight players on the roster, they also didn’t hide who they were and were quite well known as “the gay hockey team” in Calgary’s queer sport community. In Rob’s own words on forming the team:

“I was particularly interested in playing and continuing with hockey. So that’s how I kind of started up the hockey group. I started putting feelers out. There were a couple other people, friends in Calgary that were hockey players. They hadn’t played at the same level as me, but they were gay hockey players that I could start, like, a nucleus with. So, there was three or four people that kind of joined up and we started gathering and finding other people to join so that we could enter a team into the league that played out of the Olympic Oval…. That was in 1998 to 2000. ’98-99 was our first year, ’99-2000 was our second year. I remember putting up posters in Grabba Java [a coffee shop in Calgary known to be welcoming to the 2SLGBTQIA+ community]…. I can’t remember if I explicitly said a gay hockey team or not. There was one guy I remember recruiting from that.” 

The team dissipated when Rob relocated to the West Coast. The presence of this team in that league in the late 1990s and early 2000s is an important part of Calgary’s queer sport history, regardless of whether other teams were aware they were playing against a team of queer athletes and allies. It was, after all, only one year prior to the team’s first season together that Alberta was forced by the Supreme Court of Canada to recognize discrimination based on sexual orientation as a violation of human rights. And the team’s first year playing pre-dates the actual amendment of the Alberta Human Rights Act to include sexual orientation by 10 years. Representation and claiming space mattered then and continue to matter now.

Some 15 years following Rob’s team’s debut in the Olympic Oval men’s hockey league, the Calgary Pioneers formed under the umbrella of the Calgary Gay Hockey Association (CGHA). An article in Gay Calgary® published in October 2016 and written by Michael Nguyen, explained the origins of CGHA and Pioneers hockey:

“After coming out to his former teammates, Mike Bell found himself without a team to play with, going into his league’s playoff games. In a place like Alberta—with a typically conservative reputation—it’s not always easy to be a sexual minority; let alone trying to find an accepting place as a gay hockey player. The good ol’ hockey game can be a bit of a disappointment when it comes to conversations in the locker room and, to prevent others experiencing what he had, Bell decided to take action. When Bell followed up with league organizers following his ousting, he found there were no protection or equality policies in place for gender and sexual minorities.”

The CGHA and the Pioneers found allies in organizers of the men’s recreational hockey league operated out of WinSport, the multisport facility located in Calgary’s Olympic Park. In an interview with the CBC in November 2016, Pioneers co-founder, Bell (from the quote above), noted that the formation of CGHA and the Pioneers was a way to create a safe space to play hockey as well as to challenge homophobia and other forms of discrimination:

“You want to have people around you that are supportive of what you are trying to achieve in terms of an environment”, he said. “If you have a whole team trying to create that safe environment, that is a lot more effective than having one person trying to create that environment”. (Bell, 2016, paras. 23-24).

Justin Connelly, an original player on the Pioneers, welcomed the opportunity to play on a gay hockey team and offered the following reflection on its formation and evolution:

“The Calgary Pioneers started out of a need for gay men to play hockey within their own community. A founder of the Pioneers [Bell] was asked not to play on their former team when some teammates found out about his sexuality. The Pioneers became a safe place for LGTBQ+ individuals to play hockey and find a sense of community within the sport they loved. The Pioneers grew into the CIHA and grew into a safe place for all within the LGTBQ+ community and allies alike.”

Reflecting growing interest and numbers, the CGHA formed an additional team in 2017—the Calgary Villagers. This team played in an introductory league, welcoming folks new to the sport or perhaps returning to hockey having played when they were younger. With still more interest, a third team was added; initially called the Panoptics this team would eventually become a second Villagers team. These teams played at three different levels in two different leagues: The Pioneers remained part of WinSport’s league while the Villagers played in Calgary’s CCSL (Co-Ed Sports Leagues). As alluded to in Connelly’s quote above, during this same period of time—2019 to be precise—the CGHA was renamed to the Calgary Inclusive Hockey Association (CIHA) in a very specific effort to be more welcoming to more of Calgary’s 2SLGBTQIA+ population.

2025 brought even more changes to queer and inclusive hockey in Calgary, with all three CIHA teams being rebranded under a unifying name: The Calgary Flare. The three different teams are named Sol, Luna, and Terra. With a soft launch of the new name and look during Pride Cup Alberta—an annual ball hockey tournament held during Edmonton’s Pride Fest—the Flare officially launched the rebrand during Calgary’s Pride Week with social media announcements including professional photos and videos and walking in the Pride Parade sporting their new jerseys…on a very sunny and hot Labour Day Weekend, I might add.

Mike Haska played a key role in the rebrand to Calgary Flare.
Photo credit: CIHA/Matt Daniels. Photography funded by Freddie.

A member of CIHA for a number of years and current Director of Sponsorships, Mike Haska was a key figure in the rebrand. When asked about the reasoning behind the change to name and look, Haska commented that,

“the most powerful aspect of our rebranding project was the fact that the push to change arose from CIHA’s increasingly diverse membership. As we added players to our roster who are trans, lesbian, bisexual and queer identifying, our members posed questions to us on the Board about whether the name and logo on the jerseys was something that all our players could feel a sense of alignment to. The fact that we evolved our identity in order to encompass and embrace a more inclusive representation of hockey players is something that this association and all its members and leaders, past and present, can be very proud of because it shows their efforts have effected meaningful change.”

CIHA members in their new Flare gear, the outcome of a rebrand officially launched during Calgary Pride 2025. Photo credit: CIHA/Matt Daniels. Photography funded by Freddie.

Continuing the mission to create safe and inclusive hockey spaces for 2SLGBTQIA+ hockey players who may have left the sport or felt isolated within it, the Flare also, quoting from their website, serves as “a beacon to these players, signaling they belong” and reflects that the queer and trans communities are “bold, colourful, and full of character,” living and leading lives, well, “with flair”. In addition to the three Flare teams, a team started in 2024 by Bell and other former Pioneers—the Renegades—plays in the WinSport league. While not connected to CIHA, the Renegades provide another space for members of Calgary’s queer community to participate in a sport they enjoy, and in a sport that—like so many others—has been terribly unwelcoming and unsafe for trans and queer folks.

Queer sporting spaces, such as these hockey teams and associations, are part of Calgary’s queer history and have played a role in challenging the norms of sport that told so many of us that we didn’t belong. That said, there remains much more work to be done. We can learn from our past as we forge ahead to our future.

References

Bell, D. (2016, November). Gay recreational hockey team breaks new ground in Calgary. CBC. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/calgary-gay-hockey-team-1.3844819#:~:text=A%20Calgary%20man%20felt%20he,the%20team%2C%22%20he%20said

Brennan, H. (2025, April). Calgary’s first gay hockey team looks a lot different 10 years later. Yahoo! News. https://ca.news.yahoo.com/calgary-first-gay-hockey-team-180208734.html

Nguyen, M. (2016, October). Pioneers on the ice: Calgary “Cs” new era of gay friendly puck handling. Gay Calgary Magazine. https://www.gaycalgary.com/Magazine.aspx?id=154&article=5330

Webb, M. (2000, September 5). Team Canada athlete comes out: High-scoring Nancy Drolet’s high-profile marriage. XTRA!, 13.

{WB}

October is queer history month! Join the Calgary Gay History Project’s Kevin Allen and poet Skylar Kay on a history walk through the Beltline. We will highlight significant political and social events that affected the 2SLGBTQ+ community—with poetry! The walk on Thursday, October 2, at 5 PM, begins and ends at the Memorial Park Library (1221 2nd St. SW).

Registration is free through the Calgary Public Library: here (spaces limited).

Kevin Allen is a fourth-generation Calgarian who has been documenting and profiling queer people and events for 30+ years. Kevin started the Calgary Gay History Project in 2012 to uncover and preserve stories from Calgary’s 2SLGBTQ+ past. The Project has achieved national recognition and led to the award-winning documentary film Gross Indecency: The Everett Klippert Story and the best-selling book Our Past Matters: Stories of Gay Calgary.

Skylar Kay is an Albertan poet and grad school dropout. Her debut collection, Transcribing Moonlight (Frontenac House 2022), earned a shortlist nod for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award for Poetry and won the BPAA’s Robert Kroetsch Award for Poetry. Her second collection of poetry will come out in fall 2025. She received a 2024 Lieutenant Governor Emerging Artist Award. These days, she likes baking muffins, tolerating her cat, and reading as much poetry as possible.

Kevin and Skylar thank the Calgary Public Library for hosting this event! Please join us.

{KA}

At Calgary Pride a few weeks ago, I attended the Calgary Institute for the Humanities’ 7th Annual LGBTQ2S+ Lecture, presented by Dr. Kenneth Kidd, about government book bans. Shelf Life Books was on-site, selling the four graphic novels that are currently in the crosshairs of the Government of Alberta. So, I bought one.

The Cover of Fun Home

Sit down—this is one of the best books I have ever read—and the best graphic novel to date! Alison Bechdel’s autobiographical story about discovering her lesbianism as well as her father’s closeted homosexuality blew me away. The novel’s title is the nickname for the family’s multi-generational funeral home business in the claustrophobic small town of Beech Creek, Pennsylvania.

I can’t overstate how much I loved this smart, smart book. But I was late to the party…

Fun Home came out in 2006 to rave reviews in many places. Time Magazine called it a masterpiece and the #1 book of that year. The New York Times Book Review stated: “Fun Home must be the most ingeniously compact, hyperverbose, example of autobiography to have been produced..A pioneering work.”

In the ensuing years, Fun Home became a target of U.S. social conservatives, who determined that it was pornographic and offensive. However, some critics admitted that their main critique was that it “promoted a gay and lesbian lifestyle.”

Now I have a quibble. The lesbian sex that is present in the comic is very tame, not arousing. The skin shown in Bechdel’s drawing is much less than what one sees on mainstream television. In my memory, high school locker room graffiti typically features more explicit, hand-drawn content. So, from my perspective, the movement to ban Fun Home is homophobic at its core, hiding behind a fig leaf of pornography.

However, I am grateful for the controversy, because Fun Home wasn’t on my radar before this. Read it! Fun Home is a literary, courageous, and profound work—highly recommended by Kevin Allen and the Calgary Gay History Project.

Note: Fun Home has become a bestseller again, and there is a long wait for it at the Calgary Public Library…

{KA}

In celebration of Calgary Pride 2025, we are giving away a copy of Our Past Matters (now a tradition)! Find the book in one of the inner city Little Free Libraries. {Maybe leave a book for someone else, while you are there!}

Look for Our Past Matters this weekend!

Thanks to everyone who came out to this week’s Gay History Walks (at capacity) and to last week’s lecture at The Confluence. It’s gratifying to learn so many people care about our City’s queer history—and hot dogs and hot takes!

Kevin Allen & The Confluence’s Jennifer Thompson. Source: Facebook A full house at The Confluence. Source: Facebook

Happy Pride Calgary!

{KA}

Calgary Pride’s 2025 season starts this Friday with a flag-raising ceremony at City Hall and concludes with the Parade and Festival on Sunday, August 31st. Here are the queer history events we are involved with or are looking out for {click the links for more information and to register}.

August 21, 7 PM — Hot Dogs and Hot Takes on History at the Confluence: Colonial Calgary Was So Gay! (sold out).

August 25, 6 PM — Beltline Gay History Walk sponsored by Calgary Outlink. Register online: spaces limited. Free, but donations to support Outlink are welcome.

August 27, 7 PM — We Say Gay: Queer Kid Lit and Censorship in the Sunshine State.

Topical lecture for Alberta in 2025!

The Calgary Institute for the Humanities presents Dr. Kenneth Kidd for the 7th Annual LGBTQ2S+ Lecture, in partnership with UCalgary Alumni and Calgary Central Library. In person AND online: register here.

August 28, 5 PM — Downtown Gay History Walk sponsored by Calgary Public Library. Register online: spaces limited. Free event!

August 30, 6 PM — Fake Moustache’s 20th Anniversary Party and Zine Launch!

This summer, Fake Mustache turns 20 years old, and they are celebrating with a once-in-a-lifetime show. More than 32 cast members will take the stage to bring to life dozens of true stories from two decades of gender-bending, boundary-breaking performance art. It’s a night of defiance, community, and unapologetic queer joy. Tickets: here.

The evening also marks the launch of Fake Mustache: A Graphic Community Memoir. This limited-run comic book captures our outrageous, heartfelt, and defiant legacy. Pre-sales run August 16–26 (pickup at the show), with only small-batch printing available.

Copies limited!

“This is more than an anniversary — it’s a living archive of Calgary’s queer history, and we want you there with us to celebrate. With love and glitter,” — James Dean

Fake Mustache’s Kait Hatch also let me know about this queer community calendar for Calgarians, which they are involved in—so many events!

Finally, don’t forget the Arquives National Survey closes at the end of August. Your feedback matters!

This survey will take about 10 minutes to complete, and you have a chance to WIN one of FIVE ArQuives tote bag prize packs (merchandise valued at $150)!

Happy Pride Calgary!

{KA}

The Calgary Gay History Project’s Kevin Allen is popping up at The Confluence on Thursday, August 21, in their Hot Dogs & Hot Takes on History series.

{Next week, we will profile history programming at Calgary Pride Week 2025—shout out to The Scene Magazine’s recent YYC queer history article: WHERE’S THE GAYBOURHOOD? by Alicia L’Archevêque.}

Hot Dogs & Hot Takes on History

The Confluence writes: “Did queerness exist on the Prairies before Pride flags lined downtown streets? Absolutely. But colonial records rarely captured it. When they did, it was usually through a distorted lens of shame, scandal, or silence. Yet behind the Victorian façades of early Calgary, members of the 2SLGBTQ+ community were integral to the rapidly growing community, even as they faced significant disdain and persecution from the dominant (non-Indigenous) culture. 

This August at Hot Dogs & Hot Takes on History, join local author and historian Kevin Allen from the Calgary Gay History Project for an eye-opening look at Calgary’s colonial era through a 2SLGBTQ+ lens. Kevin will take you through the intriguing story of Jean L’Heureux, a 19th-century Catholic linguist who was adopted into a Blackfoot community that accepted his queerness that faced rejection from settler society. Kevin will also discuss the coded language of queerness in the absence of words to name it, and how queer immigrants, outcasts, and ranchers helped form an underground network in the West.

Queerness isn’t new, and neither is the attempt to erase it. This conversation will uncover how queer identities, though policed and hidden, have always been present, and how reclaiming these stories builds bridges between marginalized communities today. Come for the hot dogs, stay for the radical rethinking of Calgary’s past.”

Get your tickets here, and buy a hot dog with sea salt chips for $5 at the event {yum!}

About the Guests

Kevin Allen (Panelist)

Kevin Allen is a fourth-generation Calgarian who has been documenting and profiling queer people and events for over 30 years. Kevin started the Calgary Gay History Project in 2012 to uncover and preserve stories from Calgary’s 2SLGBTQ+ past (www.calgarygayhistory.ca). The Project has achieved national recognition, leading to the award-winning documentary film “Gross Indecency: The Everett Klippert Story” and the best-selling book “Our Past Matters: Stories of Gay Calgary.” Additionally, Kevin works as a senior election administrator for both Elections Canada and Elections Alberta.

Jennifer Thompson (Moderator)

With a passion for supporting social justice causes, equity-seeking communities and Calgary’s arts scene, Jennifer Thompson is transforming The Confluence into an arts and culture hub that makes space for diverse voices and perspectives.

Thompson has worked across the public, not-for-profit sector in both the United States and Canada. She has led complex corporate initiatives in multiple roles with The City of Calgary, most notably as head of the Arts and Culture Division.

Thompson currently sits on the board of directors for Music Mile. She has previously served as a board member for Student Legal Assistance and Sled Island, and she was a long-standing volunteer for the Calgary Folk Music Festival. She has a Bachelor of Science from Wilmington University, a Master of Business from the University of Calgary and a professional designation in Governance and Public Policy from the University of Victoria.

{KA}