Here's something you may not have known: Canada is home to the world's largest transgender archives collection.
The University of Victoria houses the Transgender Archives, a massive collection of books, art, photos, posters, newsletters, memorabilia, and more documenting transgender and gender nonconforming communities. If you were to the entire collection into boxes, they could sit on a shelf the length of a football field.
"It's just a whole range of interests and topics that are of interest to transgender people and their lives," said Aaron H. Devor, UVic's Chair in Transgender Studies and the archive's founder.
"If you're going to write history, you need to hear from the people who were there."
UVic also just hosted Moving Trans History Forward, the largest trans conference ever hosted in Canada.
Here's a peek inside the impressive and fascinating collection.
1. Teacher and activist Ariadne "Ari" Kane, 1978.
2. Model Caroline "Tula" Cossey.
3. Racing driver and World War II fighter pilot Roberta Cowell, 1954. She's know as the first British trans woman to undergo sex-reassignment surgery.
4. Philanthropist Reed Erickson, circa the 1970s.
5. Stephanie Castle from her 1992 book Feelings: A Transexual's Explanation of a Baffling Condition.
6. Diahana Pulido on the cover of Tapestry, 1988.
7. American transgender activist Virginia Prince, 1955.
8. Prince founded Transvestia magazine in 1960.
9. A movie lobby card advertising the 1970 movie "The Christine Jorgensen Story."
10. Three unidentified participants in Fantasia Fair in the mid-1980s
11. A poster and portrait of a Fantasia Fair attendee.
