SFU Queer History: The Sixties

1964

April (Vancouver): The Association for Social Knowledge, the first homophile organization in Canada, is officially formed.1

1965

September 9: Simon Fraser University opens. Approximately 2,500 students are enrolled for the first semester.2

1966

December 31 (Vancouver): Opening of ASK Community Centre at 1929 Kingsway. It is the first such centre in Canada.3

1967

1968

1969

June 28 (New York City): Patrons and hundreds of street people fight back during a raid on the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in Greenwich Village. These protests are the symbolic birth of the modern Gay Liberation movement.4

August 26 (Ottawa): Amendments to the Criminal Code, decriminalizing homosexual acts in private between consenting adults twenty-one years of age and older, come into effect (having been passed in May). The bill was introduced by Justice Minister Pierre Trudeau in December of 1967.5

Notes

  1. Lesbian And Gay Liberation in Canada, p. 7. See the Canadian Lesbian & Gay Archives online for a bit more on ASK and gay happenings in the sixties.
    [back]
  2. From the SFU Web site. My previous source for this item, an essay that is no longer online, put the number at exactly 2,403.
    [back]
  3. Flaunting It!, p. 226
    [back]
  4. More on the Stonewall Riots
    [back]
  5. LGLC, pp. 34, 37, 41, 44
    [back]

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *