A new exhibit at the Manitoba Museum is showcasing five decades of LGBTQ2 history in Winnipeg.
“If These Walls Could Talk,” which opens Friday and runs until early December, is produced in partnership with the Rainbow Resource Centre, and examines major issues and activist campaigns in the city from the 1970s to the present, including marriage and adoption rights, the HIV/AIDS crisis, and legal protections for gender diversity.
Ashley Smith, who is with the Rainbow Resource Centre, told Global Winnipeg that the exhibit reflects on the individuals, many of whom are still members of the community today and who, as pioneering activists, took on challenges that led to the rights that LGBTQ2 Manitobans enjoy today.
“It was just individuals standing up and trying to make a difference to live authentically back in 1973,” Smith said.
“A wave of activism swept the country in the early ’70s and here in Manitoba, a group called Gays for Equality formed at the University of Manitoba, and that began a sequence of events of protest and activism that led to the winning of rights in ’87, … but then further challenges such as the legalization of adoption and marriage into the early 2000s.”
While the exhibit looks back on the history of the community, Smith said it’s important for Manitobans to recognize that many of these battles are still being fought in 2023, as evidenced by the recent push by some Brandon residents to ban books.
“The story of gay activism and queer activism and trans activism is still happening. It’s still a major issue, as we just saw in Brandon and with the rise of anti-queer rhetoric all around us,” Smith said.
“Though we’re celebrating the last 50 years of queer activism in Winnipeg and in Manitoba, queer activism is still alive and well.”
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