Queer WWW

While one’s community is often thought of in terms of where they grew up and where they now live, in the world now full of technology, community and kinship take on a digital origin. Whether it be as a platform for social activism, a place to plan social gatherings, a medium to share art made by LGBTQ+ artists, or just to look for possible flings, the internet has become a hub for LGBTQ+ life. We are happy to detail the multitude of ways this has taken shape with members of the Peel region community.

This exhibit displays five oral history interviews of several members of the LGBTQ+ community and their experiences as users of the internet.  We include images designed to both illuminate these experiences  as well as capture the experience of queer positions on the web. We hope that these interviews will be useful for understanding the unique landscape many LGBTQ+ communities have formed on different social media and sharing platforms. Our narrators discuss anonymity, activism, community, art, creativity, collaboration, and organization, and the ways that they hold signifcance to queer lives on the web.
 

Odalis Mairena, Zach Roberts, Anna Sheikh, L'Shei Brown, and Lucas Blower

Interviews

Oral History with Kayleigh Robinson

Kayleigh Robinson (she/her) grew up in Guelph, Ontario and is now a student at the University of Toront- Mississauga (UTM). Kayleigh speaks about her family relationships and growing up queer in a religious French Canadian and Dutch family. She discusses the enviroment for queer people at UTM, describing the absence of queerness on campus. Furthermore, Kayleigh shares how social media, particularly Tumblr fan fiction and Twitter, shaped how she came to explore and understand queerness. She discusses the impact of Tumblr's bans on queer culture. By making connections between capitalism and new social media policies, Kayleigh provides an insight into how she thinks social media has become commercialized and user policies have adapted to protect connections with corporations while censoring queer creators.

Oral History with T.B.

T.B. was born in Columbia and currently lives in Mississauga Ontario, Canada. T.B. identifies as a gender-critical lesbian activist with a longstanding involvement in lesbian communities both in person and online. She discusses her experience as a high school student at the Etobicoke School for the Arts, and her activism around many issues, such as marriage equality. She discusses the homophobia she encountered as an activist, and describes the importance of Toronto as a place to go when growing up. Seeing involvement from when the internet first came into popular public consciousness in the 1990s to recent distancing from the community, TB explains their initial involvement in online communities (LiveJournal, MySpace, etc), and the importance of transferring these talks to real landscapes along with the dangers of anonymity and how this influences peoples actions both online and even in person.

  Oral History with Daniyal Ahmad

Daniyal Ahmad is 25 years old; he grew up in a Syrian, Muslim household and he was born in Etobicoke. He identifies as a bisexual male and uses the pronouns he/him.  Daniyal moved to Mississauga during high school, and he completed his undergraduate degree at York University. In this interview, Daniyal discusses acceptance, stereotypes, and the challeges around freedom of expression in a religious family and community. This interview examines how social media and the web normalized queer experiences for Daniyal.

Oral History with Rachel Mesic

Rachel Mesic shares her experiences as a transwoman and how digital spaces have helped her navigate her way into finding a supportive community, as well as in her activism. She reveals the personal details of her high school life and the difficulties being a transwoman within the Peel Region. Rachel is an active participant in the Mississauga music scene and generously shares her compositions ,which further delve into her experiences as a transwoman. 

Oral History With Rochelle Nicholson

Rochelle is a 31 year old, cis-gender, Jamaican-Canadian lesbian, residing in Thorold, Ontario. She discusses her life in Peel during her early/mid 20's, and talks about the relationships she's forged through the internet. She also explains how her Jamaican-Canadian identity has impacted how she fits into LGBTQ+ spaces as well as how identifying as a lesbian has affected her family relations. As she struggled to find her place in the real world, she credits social networking sites (such as Down Link, Black Planet, Facebook, My Space) for her ability to create online connections that eventually translated into in-person relationships. Rochelle's experience proves that connections formed on the web can transcend their online essence and have profound impacts on one's personal life.

Articles

There’s Something Queer About Tumblr

Paul Byron and Brady Robards's article discusses their research project called, " Scrolling Beyond Binaries." The project explores "how young lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer, and asexual (LGBTIQA+) people use the network."

Beverly Bain details Blockorama's journey to celebrating it's 20th anniversary in 2017. Despite attempts to remove black people from Toronto's gay village, Blockorama has successfullt fought for it's existence and the integration of Black and Caribbean culture in the LGBTQ community.

Queer Art

Queers in Love at the End of the World

By: Anna Anthropy

A short game by a queer creator where players guide a queer couple spending their last moments together. Players explore through 10 second intervals all the options available for the lovers at the end of the world, showing the ways in which digital interactive media opens up new online platforms for queer artists.

Images

Screenshot of Instagram page @_lgbtq.safe.space_

Screenshot of Tumblr page @queerlection

Oral History with Rachel Mesic - Rachel Mesic performs her poetry and music. 

Transient Girl (Rachel Mesic Stage Name) Tag