Research Resources
Currently, a small but lively literature examines Queer lives in Windsor, Detroit, and the surrounding regions. These works largely focus on gay men, with a smaller number considering lesbian experiences. There is much work for future researchers to recover and document the histories of other 2SLGBTQIA+ people in this region.
The lives and experiences of local 2SLGBTQIA+ people have unfolded in much larger sociocultural contexts. Here, we offer a lengthy bibliography of works that examine Queer lives across Canada, most of which focus on the mid-20th century to present day.
This list—a starting point, not a comprehensive list— suggests the richness of this ever-growing field. This bibliography includes works ranging from personal narratives and histories, to historical sociology and documentaries, and touching on many different Queer identities.
Bortolin, Sandra. “Exploring the Interplay of Masculinities and Homophobia in the High School Climate.” University of Windsor: Master’s thesis, 2008.
Brode, Patrick. The Slasher Killings: A Canadian Sex-Crime Panic, 1945-1946. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 2009.
Cassidy, Walter. “Canada’s First Gay Bathhouse Raid: Windsor, 1964.” ActiveHistory.ca (3 March 2021). https://activehistory.ca/blog/2021/03/03/29902/
Cassidy, Walter. “The 1946 Windsor Park Patrol Campaign Against Queer Men.” ActiveHistory.ca (17 June 2021). https://activehistory.ca/blog/2021/06/17/windsorparks/
Cassidy, Walter. “The History of Sexual Orientation Protections with Windsor Unions and Politics. Education Forum (December 18, 2024). https://education-forum.ca/2024/12/18/the-history-of-sexual-orientation-protections-with-windsor-unions-and-politics/
Karibo, Holly. “Detroit’s Border Brothel: Sex Tourism in Windsor, Ontario 1945-1960.” American Review of Canadian Studies 40, 3 (2010): 362-378.
Karibo, Holly. Sin City North: Sex, Drugs, and Citizenship in the Detroit-Windsor Borderlands. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2015.
Namespetra, Melanie E. “The Windsor Slasher: Homosexuality as a Changing Discourse in Media, Police, and Legal Records in Windsor, Ontario, 1945-1946.” University of Windsor: Major Research Paper, 2004.
Retzloff, Timothy Ford. “Cars and Bars: Assembling Gay Men in Postwar Flint, Michigan.” In Creating a Place for Ourselves: Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Community Histories, ed. Brett Beemyn, 227-252. New York: Routledge, 1997.
Retzloff, Timothy Ford. City, Suburb, and the Changing Bounds of Lesbian and Gay Life and Politics in Metropolitan Detroit, 1945-1985. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2014.
Ross, Margaret. “Canadian History Shows that Sex Workers Usually Get the Short End of the Stick.” ActiveHistory.ca (11 April 2023). https://activehistory.ca/blog/2023/04/11/canadian-history-shows-that-sex-workers-usually-get-the-short-end-of-the-stick/
Sylvestre, Graeme Silvio. “The Gay Commute: On the Development of queer community and Identity in the Windsor-Detroit Borderlands, 1945-1980.” University of Windsor: Major Research Paper, 2019.
Thorpe, Rochella. “A House Where Queers Go: African American Lesbian Nightlife in Detroit 1940-1975.” In Inventing Lesbian Cultures in America, ed. Ellen Lewin, 40-62. Boston: Beacon Press, 1996.
Thorpe, Roey. “The Changing Face of Lesbian Bars in Detroit, 1938-1965.” In Creating a Place for Ourselves: Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Community Histories, ed. Brett Beemyn, 165-182. New York: Routledge, 1997.
Zarzosa, Barbara, ed. Out and Aging: Our Stories. Windsor, ON: Windsor Pride Community, 2010.
GENERAL INTEREST WORKS
Batt, Meredith, and Dusty Green. Len & Cub: A Queer History. Fredericton: Goose Lane Editions, 2022.
Belcourt, Billy-Ray. A History of My Brief Body. Toronto: Penguin Canada, 2020.
Chacaby, Ma-Nee, with Mary Louisa Plummer. A Two-Spirit Journey: The Autobiography of a Lesbian Ojibwa-Cree Elder. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2016.
Chen, Jennifer, and Stephen Quinn, hosts. “Gay and Grey” podcast series. Toronto: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 2014.
Desjarlais, Sharon A., dir. “First Stories – Two Spirited.” Montreal: National Film Board of Canada, 2010.
DiNovo, Cheri. The Queer Evangelist: A Socialist Clergy’s Radically Honest Tale. Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2021.
Equality for Gays and Lesbians Everywhere. The First National Survey of Lesbians, Gay Men and Bisexuals in Canada. Vancouver: EGALE, 1997.
Fleming, Ann Marie, dir. “A Short Film about Tegan & Sara.” Montreal: National Film Board of Canada, 2018.
Foster, Marion, and Kent Murray. A Not So Gay World: Homosexuality in Canada. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1972.
Ganev, Robin, and R.J. Gilmour, eds. Queers Were Here: Heroes and Icons of Queer Canada. Windsor, ON: Biblioasis, 2016.
Gay Guide Canada. Toronto: Gay Guide Canada, 1998.
Gosse, Douglas. Out Proud: Stories of Pride, Courage, and Social Justice. St. John’s, NL: Breakwater Books, 2014.
Guerra, Angel John, and Michael Rowe. Pride. Madeira Park, BC: Douglas & McIntyre, 2024.
Guly, Christopher. “The Purge.” Canada’s History 103, 6 (December 2023/January 2024): 20-27.
Hooper, Tom. “Trudeau Should Pardon Bath Raid Victims.” ActiveHistory.ca (9 March 2016). https://activehistory.ca/blog/2016/03/09/bath-raid-victims-should-also-be-pardoned/
Horlor, Sean, and Steve J. Adams, dirs. “Someone Like Me.” Montreal: National Film Board of Canada, 2022.
Jackson, Ed, and Stan Persky, eds. Flaunting It! A Decade of Gay Journalism from the Body Politic. Vancouver: Star Books, 1982.
Jennex, Craig and Nisha Eswaran. Out North: An Archive of Queer Activism and Kinship in Canada. Vancouver: Berkeley, 2020.
Knox, Jetté. Love Lives Here: A Story of Thriving in a Transgender Family. Toronto: Viking Canada, 2019.
Maynard, Steven. “To Forgive and Forget? Homonationalism, Hegemony, and History in the Gay Apology.” ActiveHistory.ca (28 November 2017). https://activehistory.ca/blog/2017/11/28/to-forgive-and-forget-homonationalism-hegemony-and-history-in-the-gay-apology/
Neigh, Scott. Gender & Sexuality: Canadian History through the Stories of Activists. Halifax, NS: Fernwood Publishing, 2012.
Pearce, Jeff. How to Make Love in a Canoe: Sex in Canada. Edmonton: Folklore Publishing, 2010.
Piepzna-Samarasinha, Leah Lakshmi. Dirty River: A Queer Femme of Color Dreaming Her Way Home. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2015.
Rose, Rebecca. Before the Parade: A History of Halifax’s Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Communities, 1972-1984. Halifax: Nimbus Publishing, 2020.
Silversides, Ann. AIDS Activist: Michael Lynch and the Politics of Community. Toronto: Between the Lines Press, 2003.
The Body Politic. Toronto: Pink Triangle Press, 1971-1987.
Valverde, Mariana. “Pride and Prejudice.” Canada’s History 99, 3 (2019): 48-53.
Whitehead, Joshua. Making Love with the Land: Essays. Toronto: Knopf Canada, 2022.
SCHOLARLY WORKS
Adam, Barry D. “The Construction of a Sociological ‘Homosexual’ in Canadian Textbooks.” Canadian Review of Sociology & Anthropology 23, 3 (1986): 399-412.
Anderson, Carolyn. “The Voices of Older Lesbian Women: An Oral History.” University of Calgary: PhD dissertation, 2001.
Brown, Andrew Ivan. “Discursive History of Screening Criteria for Blood Donation Affecting Gay, Bi, and Other Men Who Have Sex with Men in Canada: 1983-2013.” Canadian Journal of Communication 49, 2 (2024): 261-290.
Brown, Shannon. “Molly Wood’s Bush: Settler Colonialism, Queer Activism, and Commemoration in Toronto.” Journal of Canadian Studies 54, 2-3 (2020): 290-319.
Chapman, Terry. “‘An Oscar Wilde Type’: The Abominable Crime of Buggery in Western Canada, 1890-1920.” Criminal Justice History 4 (1983): 97-118.
Chapman, Terry. “Male Homosexuality: Legal Restraints and Social Attitudes in Western Canada, 1890-1920.” In Law and Justice in a New Land: Essays in Western Canadian Legal History, ed. Louise A. Knafla, 267-292. Toronto: Carswell, 1986.
Chenier, Elise. “Love-Politics: Lesbian Wedding Practices in Canada and the United States from the 1920s to the 1970s.” Journal of the History of Sexuality 27, 2 (2018): 294-321.
Chenier, Elise. “Rethinking Lesbian Bar Culture: Living ‘the Gay Life’ in Toronto, 1955-1965.” left history 9, 2 (sprint/summer 2004).
Churchill, David S. “Mother Goose’s Map: Tabloid Geographies and Gay Male Experience in 1950s Toronto.” Journal of Urban History 30, 6 (September 2004): 826-852.
Churchill, David. “Personal Ad Politics: Race, Sexuality6, and Power at The Body Politic.” left history 8, 2 (spring 2003).
Cooper, Danielle. “Beyond Liberation: Conceptualization of History at the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives.” left history 19, 1 (Spring/summer 2015).
Dick, Lyle. “Same Sex intersections of the Prairie Settlement Era: The Case of Regina’s ‘Oscar Wilde,’” Histoire sociale/Social History 42, 83 (2009): 107-45.
Dick. Lyle. “The 1942 Same Sex Trials in Edmonton: On the State’s Repression of Sexual Minorities, Archives, and Human Rights in Canada.” Archivaria 68 (2009): 183-217.
Dick, Lyle. “The Queer Frontier: Male Same-sex Experience in Western Canada’s Settlement Era.” Journal of Canadian Studies 48, 1 (2014): 15-52.
Duder, Cameron. Awfully Devoted Women: Lesbian Lives in Canada, 1900-65. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2010.
Dyer, Hannah, Julia Sinclair-Palm, Chase Joynt, Miranda Yeo, and Calla Tait. “Aesthetic Expressions of Queer Kinship in Children’s Drawings.” Journal of Canadian Studies 54, 2-3 (2020): 526-543.
Egan, John. “Bi Now, Bi Tomorrow.” Journal of Bisexuality 5, 2/3 (2005): 203-211.
Giwa, Sulaimon, and C. Winter Han. Racism and Gay Men of Color: Living and Coping with Discrimination. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2022.
Gouliquer, Lynne, Carmen Poulin, and Jennifer Moore. “A Threat to Canadian National Security: A Lesbian Soldier’s Story.” Qualitative Research in Psychology 15, 2/3 (2018): 323-335.
Graydon, Michael E. “‘We Had Become a Community’: Gays of Ottawa (go) and the Birth of Community, 1971-7.” Canadian Historical Review 99, 4 (2018): 594-622.
Hébert, Billy. “‘Not Gay as in Happy but Queer as in Fuck You’: Examining Queer Activist Spaces of Montreal and Toronto.” Counterpoints 437 (2014): 155-170.
Heggie, Joan K.F., and Sarah Carter. “Miss Jack May, Lady Farmer in England and Canada.” Women’s History Review 32, 3 (2023): 358-388.
Henderson, Jarett. “Rex v. J.B. Smith (Calgary, 1902): Queer Carnal Acts and Heterosexual Settler Colonialism in Canada’s Prairie Empire.” Prairie History 5 (summer 2021): 82-86.
Higgins, Ross. “Baths, Bushes, and Belonging: Public Sex and Gay Community in Pre-Stonewall Montreal.” In Public Sex/Gay Space, ed. William L. Leap, 187-202. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999.
Jackson, Paul. One of the Boys: Homosexuality in the Military during World War II. Montreal: McGill University Press, 2004.
Johnston, Dawn Elizabeth. “Sites of Resistance, Sites of Strength: The Construction and Experience of Queer Space in Calgary.” University of Calgary: MA thesis, 1999.
Kinsman, Gary, and Patrizia Gentile. The Canadian War on Queers: National Security as Sexual Regulation. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2010.
Korfman, Geoffrey. “The Wilde West: Homosexual Behaviour in the Court records of Saskatchewan, 1895-1930.” Trent University: MA thesis, 2007.
Korinek, Valerie J. Prairie Fairies: A History of Queer Communities and People in Western Canada, 1930-1985. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018.
Korinek, Valerie J. “‘The most openly gay person for at least a thousand miles’: Doug Wilson and the Politicization of a Province, 1975-83.” Canadian Historical Review 84, 4 (2003): 517-550.
Korinek, Valerie J. “‘We’re the girls of the pansy parade’: Historicizing Winnipeg’s Queer Subcultures, 1930s-1970.” Histoire sociale/Social History 45, 89 (2012): 117-155.
Lahey, Kathleen Ann. Are We ‘Persons’ Yet? Law and Sexuality in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999.
Lévy, Joseph J., and Catherine de Pierrepont. “Homosexualités et reconnaissance sociale: Perspectives Canadiennes et Québécoises.” Revue Internationale d’Études Québécoises 12, 2 (2009): 159-167.
Li, Sijia. “LGBTQ Youth’s Development in Ontario Schools.” University of Windsor: Major Research Paper, 2018.
Lord, Cassandra R. “We Have Always Been Here: Pelau MasQUEERade Disturbing Toronto Pride History.” Journal of Canadian Studies 54, 2-3 (2020): 360-394.
Lucas, Noelle. “Womanspace: Building a Lesbian Community in Edmonton Alberta.” University of Saskatchewan: MA thesis, 2002.
MacLeod, Ema. “Ashley MacIsaac: Star Image, Queer Identity, and the Politics of Outing.” Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies 8, 19 (2002): 19-23.
Maynard, Steven. “‘Hell Witches in Toronto’: Notes on Lesbian Visibility in Early 20th Century Canada.” left history 9, 2 (spring/summer 2004): 191-205.
Maynard, Steven. “‘Horrible Temptations’: Sex, Men, and Working-Class Male Youth in Urban Ontario, 1890-1935.” Canadian Historical Review 78, 2 (June 1997).
Maynard, Steven. “Through a Hole in the Lavatory Wall: Homosexual Subcultures, Police Surveillance, and the Dialectics of Discovery, Toronto 1890-1930.” In Gender and History in Canada. Eds. Joy Parr and Mark Rosenfeld. Toronto: Copp Clark, 1996.
McCaskell, Tim. Queer Progress: From Homophobia to Homonationalism. Toronto, ON: Between the Lines Press, 2016.
McLeod, Donald W. Lesbian and Gay Liberation in Canada: A Selected Chronology, 1964-1975. Toronto: ECW Press/Homewood Books, 1996.
Meyer, Elizabeth J., Anika Tilland-Stafford, and Lee Airton. “Transgender and Gender-creative Students in PK-12 Schools: What We Can Learn from their Teachers.” Teachers College Record 118, 8 (2016): 1-50.
Millward, Liz. Making a Scene: Lesbians and Community across Canada, 1964-1984. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2015.
Murray, Catherine. “Queering Vancouver: The Work of the LGBTQ Civic Advisory Committee, 2009-14.” BC Studies 188 (Winter 2015): 55-80.
Pearson, Wendy. “Interrogating the Epistemology of the Bedroom: Same-Sex Marriage and Sexual Citizenship in Canada.” Discourse 26, 3 (Fall 2004): 136-165.
Perry, Taylor. “From West End to Eastside: The Vancouver HIS/AIDS Epidemic, 1983-2013.” Canadian Bulletin of Medical History 33, 1 (2016): 103-130.
Podmore, Julie A. “Lesbians as Village ‘Queers’: The Transformation of Montreal’s Lesbian Nightlife in the 1990s.” ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies 12, 2 (2013): 220-249.
Rankin, L. Pauline. “Sexualities and National Identities: Re-imagining Queer Nationalism.” Journal of Canadian Studies 35, 2 (2000): 176-197.
Rayter, Scott, and Laine Halpern Zisman, eds. Queerly Canadian: An Introductory Reader in Sexuality Studies. Toronto: Women’s Press, 2022.
Riordan, Michael. Out Our Way: Gay and Lesbian Life in the Country. Toronto: Between the Lines Press, 1996.
Robertson, Mark L. “AIDS Coverage in The Body Politic, 1981-1987: An Annotated Bibliography.” American Review of Canadian Studies 32, 3 (2002): 415-432.
Robinson, Daniel J. and David Kimmel. “The Queer Career of Homosexual Security Vetting in Cold War Canada.” Canadian Historical Review 75, 3 (1994): 319-326.
Sairan, Sarena. “Queer Kinships: A Quandary of Love Without Borders.” Toronto Metropolitan University [formerly Ryerson University]: MA thesis, 2008.
Schuster, Marilyn. A Queer Love Story: The Letters of Jane Rule and Rick Bébout. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2017.
Setterington, Ken. The LGBT Purge and the Fight for Equal Rights in Canada. Toronto: James Lorimer & Co., 2021.
Sheffield, Rebecka Taves. Documenting Rebellions: A Study of Four Lesbian and Gay Archives in Queer Times. Sacramento, CA: Litwin Books, 2020.
Smith, Miriam. Lesbian and Gay Rights in Canada: Social Movements and Equality-Seeking. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999.
Spence, Alex. Perceptions: The First Fifteen Years, 1983-1997: An Index to the Canadian Gay and Lesbian Newsmagazine. Saskatoon: Perceptions Publications, 2003.
Sykes, Heather. “Gay Pride on Stolen Land: Homonationalism and Settler Colonialism at the Vancouver Winter Olympics.” Sociology of Sport Journal 33, 1 (2016): 54-65.
Taylor, Catherine G., and Tracey Peter. Every Class in Every School: Final Report on the First National Climate Survey on Homophobia, Biphobia, and Transphobia in Canadian Schools. Toronto: Egale Canada Human Rights Trust, 2011.
Tremblay, Manon. “Mouvements sociaux et opportunités politiques: les lesbiennes et les gais e l’ajout de l’orientation sexuelle à la Charte Québécoise des droits et libertés. Canadian Journal of Political Science 46, 2 (2013): 295-322.
Tremblay, Manon, ed. Queering Representation: LGBTQ People and Electoral Politics in Canada. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2019.
Warner, Tom. Never Going Back: A History of Queer Activism in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002.