A glimpse into the Transgender Archives in UVic’s Special Collections
Photo by Kiera Clark.
Hidden in the McPherson Library is a treasure trove of queer and Trans+ culture and history. Unknown to many students, Special Collections is home to the Transgender Archives, the largest Trans+ archive in the world, with materials from 23 countries in 15 different languages.
They officially launched the archive in Fall 2011, but Dr. Aaron Devor, founder and subject matter expert, had been collecting documents, publications, memorabilia, and other Trans+ materials since 2007.
In a statement to the Martlet, Devor explained that the Transgender Archives started after a lunch with Rikki Swin in 2005. Swin is the founder of the Rikki Swin Institute: Gender Education, Research, Library and Archives (2001-2004) in Chicago.
“When she said she was considering relocating it to Victoria, I asked if she would consider moving her collections to the UVic Libraries. She said yes, and the extensive Rikki Swin collections became the beginnings of the Transgender Archives.”
The second major collection was donated by the daughter of transgender activist and philanthropist Reed Erickson, founder of the Erickson Educational Foundation. In 2007, Erickson’s daughter donated over 50 bankers’ boxes of vital Trans+ history.
Following their opening in 2011, more donations began to pour in. Today, the archives span over 160 meters, which is the length of one-and-a-half a football fields.
The third significant collection was donated by Richard Ekins, Emeritus Professor at the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland. Ekins founded the University of Ulster Trans-Gender Archive (TGA) in 1986, which later became The Transgender Archive, and was the first archive of its kind to be held by a university. Following its closure in 2010, Ekins donated his collection to the University of Victoria in 2013.
There are also various legal documents in the Transgender Archives, including materials from the activist and lawyer barbara findlay, who defended Kimberly Nixon when she challenged the trans-exclusionary policies of Vancouver Rape Relief through the Canadian court system, until they were denied a Supreme Court of Canada hearing.
Sky Dragushan, a fourth year Art History and English student and 2023/24 recipient of a Peter and Ana Lowens-Special Collections Fellowship, has perhaps the most extensive knowledge about the Transgender Archives of all UVic students. Dragushan spent several months reading every issue of the newsletter and researching the publication history of the FTM newsletters.
“I knew I wanted to do something with the trans archives because it’s just too incredible of a resource to pass up,” Dragushan said in an interview with the Martlet.
FTM was created in San Francisco by Lou Sullivan in 1987 and was published quarterly from 1987 to 2008. Following Sullivan’s passing from AIDS-related complications in 1991, Jamison Green took over the newsletter, expanding it to nearly 1,500 members across 17 countries.
“The newsletter was such a phenomenal way [for transmasculine folks] to talk about exciting things, sad things, the nitty gritty. There are so many issues with feature articles about how to have sex as a trans man, which is something you need to know as a trans man, or surgery tips and how to recover, tips for presenting more masculine, [finding] specialty shoe stores… things you wouldn’t have access to as a trans masculine person if you can’t talk about being trans,” Dragushan explained.
Before the internet, homemade newsletters and other publications were the principal means of communication for queer and Trans+ people. Included in the archives are all 111 issues of Transvestia (1960-1986), which was the “first widely distributed magazine focused on the cross-dressing community.” Transvestia offered trans people a place to share their experiences and connect with one another.
Archives are integral for recording history, preserving documents and cultural artifacts, and strengthening collective memory. “What you as an archivist choose to save or not save actively shapes the perspective of future scholars and future community members looking back on history,” Dragushan said. They continued to explain that if archivists choose not to save queer and Trans+ artifacts and documents, it erases queer and Trans+ people from history.
The Transgender Archives demonstrate that “trans people are worthy of celebration and conservation,” Dragushan told the Martlet. “Our cultural objects are not something that should be swept under the rug. They should be cherished and cared for, documented and appreciated.”
Despite their significance, the Transgender Archives are an underutilized resource. When they applied to UVic, Dragushan had no idea it was home to the world’s largest Trans+ archive. Had they known about the archive, Dragushan says, “it would’ve been a draw for me [to UVic] as a young trans person.”
“Success at the Transgender Archives looks like even more people accessing Trans+ history and continually building greater diversity in the content of the collections,” Devor told the Martlet.
“Archives are a huge part of what historians use to write history, and very little of Trans+ history has been written yet,” Devor wrote. “Everyone needs to know their history so that they can better understand what is happening today and so that they can build a better future by learning from the successes and missteps of the past.”
The Transgender Archives are free for the public and open Monday to Friday, excluding statutory holidays.
