Celebrating Queer History Month 2026
October 2026 marks Edmonton’s fourth Queer History Month, and Rainbow Story Hub is celebrating with new stories, new photo collections, and a city-wide lineup of partners bigger than ever before. With funding support from the Edmonton Heritage Council, our amazing team of community members have researched and written new stories giving insights into just a few of the organizations that make up Greater Edmonton’s 2SLGBTQIA+ community, and we’re adding new albums to our Gallery from the Jackie Meloche collection. See the release schedule below for dates and details.
From One Organization to a City-Wide Celebration
In 2023, Rainbow Story Hub launched Edmonton’s first local recognition of Queer History Month. In 2024, we joined forces with community partners to form the Edmonton Queer History Month Collaborative Group, bringing more awareness to our history than ever before.
Today, museums, archives, universities, libraries, community historians and arts organizations across Edmonton come together every October to share the stories of the city’s 2SLGBTQIA+ communities. Talks, screenings, exhibits, archive experiences and performances invite locals and visitors to discover how queer Edmontonians helped shape the city we know today.
The 2026 collaborating organizations include:
- Provincial: Royal Alberta Museum; Provincial Archives of Alberta
- Municipal: City of Edmonton Archives; City of Edmonton Beyond Belonging program (new for 2026); Edmonton Public Library; Edmonton Heritage Council and its Edmonton City as Museum Project
- Post-secondary: MacEwan University Centre for Sexual and Gender Diversity; University of Alberta Library
- Community heritage: Rainbow Story Hub Foundation; Edmonton Queer History Project
- Arts and culture: Nuova Vocal Arts (our newest member) and EVO
We’re especially pleased to welcome the City of Edmonton’s Beyond Belonging program this year. Beyond Belonging is the City’s 2SLGBTQIA+ Safe Spaces Action Plan, shaped by more than 900 2SLGBTQIA+ Edmontonians and over 40 community organizations, and it works toward safer, more inclusive City spaces and services.
More organizations may still be announced. The full 2026 program will be available from September 28 at Explore Edmonton. Many events are free.
Part of a Global Movement
LGBTQ+ History Month was founded in 1994 by Rodney Wilson, a Missouri high-school history teacher, and is observed each October in the United States and Canada. Today, the International Committee on LGBTQ+ History Months lists 22 established history months around the world, held at different times of year depending on local history: February in the UK, March in Hungary and the Netherlands, May in Hamburg and Cuba, July in Aotearoa New Zealand, and October in North America and Geneva.
Most of these are national frameworks. Only a handful are dedicated city-wide programs built by a local coalition, and Edmonton is one of them, alongside cities like Geneva and Hamburg. As far as we can find, no other Canadian city has a comparable cross-sector coalition; Canada’s national observance is largely campus-based.
What Makes Edmonton’s Queer History Month Different
Everyone is at the table. Provincial museums and archives, city archives and programs, universities, libraries, community historians and artists all work together in one coalition.
We make history, not just show it. Each year the program produces new video stories, written stories, community displays, activity events and social media posts that become part of the permanent record, including the stories we’re releasing this month.
The people who lived it tell it. Community elders and builders share their stories in their own words.
It belongs to everyone. Explore Edmonton publishes the program as a single city-wide guide, because queer history is Edmonton history, for everyone who lives here and everyone who visits.
Coalitions like ours matter. Berlin’s queer history month ended in 2025 when its public funding was cut. When a whole community owns a celebration, it’s much harder to lose.
Get Involved
- See the full 2026 program: exploreedmonton.com/articles/queer-history-month (from September 28)
- Explore our archive and new stories: yegqueerhistory.ca
- International Committee on LGBTQ+ History Months: internationallgbtqhm.com
Have a story, photo or memory to share? Contact us at [email protected].
New stories will be released at 7:00 AM on each of the dates below and will appear in our main feed as they go live. We’ll update this page as each one is published, so you can click a story’s title or use the link at the end of its synopsis to read it.
September 29, 2026
Tuesday
Edmonton Pride Parade and Trans March 2026 video
As Edmonton heads into Queer History Month this October, we’re taking a moment to look back at one of the biggest community moments of the summer. On Saturday, August 22, 2026, Edmonton’s 2SLGBTQ+ community and our allies filled the streets of downtown for the Edmonton Pride Parade and Trans March, a day of celebration, visibility, and resistance. The Rainbow Story Hub Foundation is grateful to Paula Kirman of Radical Citizen Media for allowing us to add her video of the event to our collection.
https://yegqueerhistory.ca/edmonton-pride-parade-and-trans-march-2026/
October 1, 2026
Thursday
The First Executive Director of the Edmonton 2 Spirit Society (E2S): A Collective Story Rooted in Identity, Ceremony, and Community
The First Executive Director of the Edmonton 2 Spirit Society (E2S) explores the organization’s origins in ceremony, community, and the reclamation of Two-Spirit identity, tracing its growth from a grassroots collective to an established organization. Through the story of Jeffery Chalifoux, E2S’s first Executive Director, the article examines the people, teachings, challenges, and collective efforts that shaped an important chapter in Edmonton’s Two-Spirit history.
https://yegqueerhistory.ca/e2s-jeff-chalifoux-executive-director
October 5, 2026
Monday
More Than a Game: The 25-Year History of Edmonton’s Curling with Pride
We explore the conception and history of Edmonton’s queer curling league – Curling With Pride – including the organization’s growth, memorable moments, challenges, and the community it helped create. Drawing on interviews with Lance Anderson Croft and Dean Carlson, the story captures the people, experiences, and spirit behind this unique part of Edmonton’s queer history.
October 8, 2026
Thursday
AltView: A Brief History
This article will discuss how a couple of queer youth out of Sherwood Park built the organization that they needed so that other Sherwood Park queer youth — closeted and otherwise — wouldn’t have to convince their parents to drive them to Edmonton for queer youth events.
October 12, 2026
Monday
Queen Kash Bae: A RaricaNow Archival Narrative of Love, Loss, and Liberation
Rainbow Story Hub explores the life and legacy of Queen Kash Bae, the first Executive Director and a founding member of RaricaNow. The story follows Kash’s journey from Kenya to Edmonton, her leadership and advocacy for Black trans communities, and the profound impact her life and death had on her family, RaricaNow, and the communities she worked to support.
October 14, 2026
Wednesday
The City of Edmonton Archives along with the Edmonton Queer History Project and Rainbow Story Hub present this Queer History Month Free event!
Come for stories and memories (and maybe some scandalous gossip) from Edmonton’s own drag queens!
Join the City of Edmonton Archives as we celebrate Queer History Month with the Rainbow Story Hub and the Edmonton Queer History Project. We will bring archival photographs to life with stories and memories (and maybe some scandalous gossip) inspired by photographs from the Times.10 photograph collection.
Featuring Edmonton Drag Queens:
Ladonna Cree
GoDiva
Pepper
The event is FREE but we ask you register using this link:
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/drag-me-to-the-archives-tickets-2001404759512
October 15, 2026
Thursday
Loud & Queer: The Authorized Version
Rainbow Story Hub explores the history of Loud & Queer, Edmonton’s groundbreaking queer arts cabaret that began in 1991 and continued for more than two decades. Developed in collaboration with Darrin Hagen, this “Authorized Version” traces the cabaret’s origins, evolution, and the many artists who took to its stage, highlighting its importance as a space for queer voices, creativity, and community.
October 19, 2026
Monday
Preserving Our Past: The Jackie Meloche Photo Collection
Did you or your friends frequent Flashback back in the day? Thanks to Jackie Meloche—a dedicated clubgoer who always had her camera ready—we now have a stunning visual archive of those unforgettable years. We’ve scanned hundreds of her donated prints and built two special website galleries for you to explore: one covering Flashback from 1977 to 1983, and another featuring the ISCWR 26th Coronation Ball.
October 22, 2026
Thursday
A Health Collective That Grew With Its Community
Before it became the Queer & Trans Health Collective, QTHC began as the Edmonton Men’s Health Collective, a grassroots response to the health and harm reduction needs of gay, bisexual, and trans men, and other men who have sex with men. As Edmonton’s 2SLGBTQIA+ community’s needs grew, so did the organization, now with a new name and a broader mandate. This piece traces that evolution, from a targeted health collective to a community-run organization now shaping health equity, provider training, and policy advocacy across Alberta.
October 26, 2026
Monday
How Shades of Colour Found their Purpose
We explore the history of an Edmonton organization – Shades of Colour – created to provide mutual aid and support to trans and racialized communities. Though relatively recent, its work over the past 12 years has played an important role in strengthening community connections and addressing the needs of people who have often been underserved.
October 29, 2026
Thursday
Don’t Dream It, Be It: The Jackie Meloche Rocky Horror Photo Archive
Celebrate the end of Queer History Month and get into the Halloween spirit. Explore rare photos from a 1980s Rocky Horror stage performance at Flashback, courtesy of the Jackie Meloche collection.
Our stories draw on first-hand memory, the surviving archival record, or both. Some come from one voice, others from several — none is the whole account.
We want to hear yours. You don’t need to have run the organization, or have documents to hand, or know how to write it up — a single clear memory is a contribution, and so is a photograph in a shoebox. The people at the edges of a room often remember what the people at the front of it missed. Tell us your idea at yegqueerhistory.ca/contribute, where you’ll also find our Content Creator Guidelines, and we’ll work with you from there.
Funding for this story made possible by the Edmonton Heritage Council and the City of Edmonton
Rainbow Story Hub
Rainbow Story Hub brings the history of Edmonton's 2SLGBTQ+ community to life from the perspective of those who lived it. Through stories, videos and other media we hope to capture and preserve these stories from the people who lived them. These stories can then be used to inform, educate and enlighten not only our own community through GSA’s and hopefully one day school curriculum but also the greater community we live in today.
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Ron Byers