LGBT Purge

Introduction

The mass expulsion of queer individuals from the military and the federal public service was a matter of policy for nearly half a century. The LGBT Purge spanned the 1940s and did not end until the 1990s. The governmental records in this exhibit were released as a result of a settlement of a class action lawsuit filed against the federal government and made public by the LGBT Purge Fund. The class-action lawsuit was filed in 2016 on behalf of survivors of the LGBT Purge, specifically those who were fired, pressured into resignation, demoted, lost opportunities, or suffered material loss or distress at the hand of the discriminatory policies of the federal government. The lawsuit has since resulted in multiple settlement agreements, some of which ordered the federal government to declassify and release all Purge-related documents through the Access to Information Act.[1]

This collection includes historical government records from the LGBT Purge Historical Document Collection, newspaper articles from ProQuest Historical Newspapers Database, items from the ArQuives collections, and photographs from various sources such as photographer Jearld Moldenhauer’s collection, CBC Archives, and City of Ottawa Archives.

This exhibition covers the history of the LGBT Purge, with a focus on the decades of the 60s and 70s. The 1960s and 1970s were the height of the purge, as well as a transformative period within the gay liberation movement, especially regarding the policing and criminalization of LGBTQ+ individuals.

References

[1]“Document Library: Historical Document Collection,” Purge LGBT, June 1, 2022. https://lgbtpurgefund.com/document-library/.