Rainbow Story Hub
Gaywire Archives: Kristy Harcourt and Dan Savage

In this Gaywire Fundrive Special from 1999, Kristy Harcourt interviews Dan Savage about his work – his sex ed advice column, then-recently published book, Savage Love, and how one can stretch Canadian radio profanity guidelines– all while having a tea party, live on air, in HUB Mall on the North Campus of the University of Alberta. Listen to this piece of Edmonton Queer History today! Thanks to CJSR FM88 for allowing us to bring this unique audio episode out of the vaults.

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A Dance-Hall of One’s Own: The Quietly Loud Queerness of Womonspace

Womonspace emerged as a response to the glaring lack of safe spaces where lesbians could socialize and participate in activities without facing judgment at best and outright discrimination at worst. Two women, Jeanne R. and Ann E., were inundated with complaints from the women they counseled at Gay Alliance Toward Equality (GATE) — concerns about the absence of a lesbian social scene — and decided to do something about it.

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You can stay at the YMCA: Edmonton’s Village People

From 1994 on, Edmonton’s own Village People Revue featured prominently in many shows, at bars all over Edmonton, and indeed, western Canada. The group started off as an ISCWR fundraiser but soon took on a life of its own. Below, find a link to a December 2000 article originally published in Times.10 Magazine that tells the origin story of this group of characters. Just like with the real troupe, non-Indigenous persons wearing a headdress was never appropriate. Pictures are included for the sake of historical accuracy, not to further perpetuate insensitivity. The last official show of Edmonton’s Impersonation Revue…

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FAB – The Early Years

Fifteen years ago, Aaron Granley and Daren Kavich were sitting at Boots, sharing a few pitchers of beer, and bitching how no one came out. Daren was recently back from Vancouver, where he’d attended one of the successful Bearracuda events that happened regularly there, and they lamented that nothing like this happened in Edmonton. There’d been bear groups before, but nothing was active. As Daren told Aaron stories about what the scene was like at Bearracuda, Aaron got more and more irritated that local bears and bear-admirers and bear-adjacents had to travel elsewhere for a party like that. Or…

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  • Ron ByersRon Byers
  • October 21, 2023
  • 0 Comments
  • 1 minute Read
ISCWR Website From 1998

In 1996 Ron Byers, a member of the Imperial Sovereign Court of the Wild Rose, built their very first website on the Geocities – a web hosting service that allowed users to create and publish websites for free. Recently the files used were found and so we have uploaded them to our website so you can check this “historic” part of our history. Click the pic below to access the website. Please note that it was NOT built to be mobile friendly (mobile internet did not exist then) and is best viewed on a desktop or larger tablet.

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ISCWR Ball Program Archive

This collection features digitized copies of the Imperial Sovereign Court of the Wild Rose Coronation Ball Programs. The Edmonton Queer History Project has been working with the University of Alberta Library & MacEwan University Library to support free and public access to important items of historical significance to Edmonton’s 2SLGBTQ+ communities.  The collection is preserved on Archive.org and is accessible to anyone. Please click the link below to access the ISCWR Collection. The Imperial Sovereign Court of the Wild Rose’s mission is to raise funds, through activities by the ISCWR, for charities and other organizations which either provides direct services to the…

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