Building the Hamilton 2SLGBTQ+ Community Archives is a community-based research and teaching project working alongside the creation of the Hamilton 2SLGBTQ+ Community Archives at Hamilton Public Library. We collect oral histories, create digital stories, and organize community events about Hamilton’s queer pasts.
Amber Dean
Co-organizer
Amber Dean is a professor in the Department of English and Cultural Studies at McMaster. Over the years she’s been involved in several Hamilton queer / sex positive groups, including the Well (Hamilton’s former LGBTQ+ wellness centre) and Big Susie’s sex worker advocacy group. She teaches a class on queer archives at McMaster and students in the course are contributing to building the Hamilton 2SLGBTQ+ Community Archives.
Cole Gately
Co-organizer
Cole Gately (he/they) came out of the closet in 1991, the first year of Hamilton Pride. Since then he has been active in organizing within Hamilton’s 2SLGBTQ+ communities. He spent the 1990s managing the Women’s Bookstop, Hamilton’s feminist bookstore, and moved into social services by providing outreach to men who have sex with men through Hamilton AIDS Network, as it was known then. In 2000 he started his career in street outreach, connecting people experiencing homelessness to housing, health care and social services. In 2008, while he was working on completing an MA in Adult Education, Cole, who was assigned female at birth, transitioned and lives full-time as a genderqueer man. He focuses much of his energy providing education to adults about trans inclusion and positive space. He has the privilege and responsibility of being one of two community stewards of the Michael Johnstone Collection, which was donated to HPL in 2018.
Simon Lebrun
Co-organizer
Simon has worked in Hamilton providing information technology support to not-for-profit organizations since 1999. He is a graduate of the Computer Engineering program at McMaster University and has worked with youth education, public health, undergraduate medical education, social service, and national advocacy groups.