Queer history is more than Pride and protests, and this Toronto archive is proving it

At a time when Queer histories are being challenged and erased around the world, one Toronto institution is making sure those stories aren’t lost.

When we talk about 2SLGBTQIA+ history, we tend to tell the same stories: The bathhouse raids, landmark court cases for equal rights, political victories, and Pride marches. We talk about the heavy hitters in the fight for liberation, those who made headlines and changed life for Queer people in Canada. Those stories matter, but they’re not the whole story. 

In fact, a local historian told Queer & Now that protecting all elements of 2SLGBTQIA+ history is crucial. Formerly the Canadian Gay and Lesbian Archives, The ArQuives is Canada’s home for all things Queer history, founded in 1973.

“When we were founded, there was not a single organization, a library, archive, or museum that was collecting [solely] Queer or Trans material; it was really just not important to government agencies,” Executive Director Raegan Swanson shared.

Instead, she explained, institutions largely documented 2SLGBTQIA+ people through surveillance and criminalization rather than through their own voices.

The ArQuives: A home for Queer stories

But preserving community stories is important, and so The ArQuives, the largest archive dedicated to 2SLGBTQIA+ communities, is a place where everything from event listings and posters to Polaroid photos, newspaper clippings, journals and other person affects from community members are documented and stored for safekeeping. That’s what makes it so remarkable.

The executive director shared that because the organization is privately funded, they are able to have more control over the narratives that are documented, and the stories that are told as a result.

“We’ve seen government interference in archival collections; we’ve seen the erasure of stories from monuments and spaces,” Swanson explained. 

“In other countries, governments control the narrative of what goes into a government organization, a government archive, a government museum,” she continued. ”So, if they don’t want you to hear about a group, they’ll make sure that those voices aren’t heard. So, community archives, like us, are a place where communities have the space and ability to really assert their own version of the narrative.”

In this context, community-controlled archives like the local 2SLGBTQIA+ one become something more than collections of personal effects. Much like the people who have created and donated the documents at the ArQuives, its existence becomes an act of resistance. 

Walking through the space and speaking with Swanson, what’s most staggering about The ArQuives isn’t the size of the collection, which fills an entire building in The Village and multiple off-site storage containers, but the dedication the organization has to Queer stories and storytelling. 

“My favourite thing is making sure that there’s space for everybody’s voice to come through and be a part of the history,” Swanson explained.

The archive itself houses thousands of unique artifacts, such as a donated diary documenting a British person experiencing Queer community in Southern Ontario in 1911, and a zine collection with editions on everything from deeply personal reflections to wonderfully absurd moments of Queer culture.

They also curate digital exhibitions online, like the National Portrait Collection. Started in 1998, the project gives community members the chance to nominate Queer people of significance to be inducted into the collection, putting the power of documenting who matters to 2SLGBTQ+ communities back into our hands.  

The Wild and the Weeds: Hanlan’s Point

The ArQuives is showcasing a new exhibit that focuses on Hanlan’s Point, an iconic spot for Queer people to hang out and unwind, and a historic venue for our community as the site of the city’s first Gay Pride Picnic. 

Curated by McKenna Gray and The ArQuives Curatorial Committee, The Wild and the Weeds encourages viewers to consider alternative ways of engaging with the beach, considering ecology and kinship, forging pathways for understanding Queer past and imagining Queer futures.

The exhibit features work from artists Morris Fox, Morgan Sears-Williams, and Patrick Stochmal, including large-scale quilts and a running loop of beach footage displayed on a television mounted to the wall. The exhibit also features archival material from The ArQuives’ collection, including photographs and advertisements for Queer events on the beach from decades past.

But The Wild and the Weeds also encourages visitors to consider the ecology of the island, including decay and the erosion of the beach, and how the natural environment intersects with the social and cultural meanings that have accumulated there over time.  It is an ambitious idea: to place erosion, geography, memory, and identity into the same conversation, but the exhibit does so seamlessly. The Wild and the Weeds also comes at a time when advocates are raising concerns that the city isn’t doing enough to implement measures to reverse the growing signs of significant erosion and increasing lack of shoreline space. 

According to Swanson, the exhibition grew out of ongoing research and conversations about the significance of Hanlan’s Point. Yet rather than focusing exclusively on its cultural significance, the project turns attention to what she describes as the “natural side” of the space. In doing so, it broadens the conversation about what makes a place meaningful.

“McKenna was really looking at the natural side of it,” she explained. “The island as a space, it’s a natural public space, and so McKenna was able to bring together the artists to kind of have conversations in a whole bunch of different ways about the different aspects of how we all see Hanlan’s.”

That perspective feels particularly relevant at a moment when climate change and environmental pressures are reshaping coastlines and public spaces around the world. While the social element of public spaces is often framed separately from the actual land they exist on, Hanlan’s challenges that assumption. The beach is not simply a backdrop for Queer community life and politics; it is an active participant in the story, with shifting shorelines and evolving ecosystems.

The exhibition suggests that preserving history is not only about protecting stories and artifacts. It is also about understanding the environments in which those stories unfolded. The physical landscape is constantly changing, even as people return year after year to create traditions, relationships, and collective memories.

The ArQuives is hosting an open-house event this Saturday, June 13, welcoming people from across Toronto to explore the space themselves from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m.