As the U.S. government removes symbolic gestures that honor 2SLGBTQI+ Americans, Canada’s government is recognizing 2SLGBTQI+ history with a series of Pride Month postage stamps. 2SLGBTQI+, or Two Spirit, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex+, is the designation for the community used by the Canadian government.
Canada’s postal service, Canada Post, issued the new stamps called “Places of Pride” earlier this month, including one that celebrates Hanlan’s Point Beach, a beach that has been a meeting point for 2SLGBTQI+ people for nearly 100 years. Located on Centre Island in the Toronto Islands (in Lake Ontario), the beach was known as a gay gathering place since the 1930s, since it was close enough to Toronto to be accessible to residents of that city but required taking a boat to get there, reducing but not eliminating police harassment.
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While in the 1950s and 60s, several cottages near the beach were torn down and trees removed in order to dissuade gay visitors, according to Friends of Hanllan’s website, the 2SLGBTQI+ community continued to visit the beach. In 1971, it hosted the Gay Day Picnic, billed as Canada’s first 2SLGBTQI+ Pride gathering.
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Police conducted undercover stings and mass arrests at the site in the following decades.
But now it’s going to be recognized for its place in queer history with a postage stam, designed by queer artist Tim Singleton. It shows two men, one shirtless, at the beach with pink balloons.
“Beyond the obvious, the shoreline and the skyline, the stamp had to depict something more intangible: community,” Travis Myers of Friends of Hanlan’s told CityNews. “As the drafts came along, Tim was able to bring that to life spectacularly. For anyone who has been to this place in the present or in decades past, you can feel your experience reflected in the vibrant look of the stamp.”
The stamp is one of four Pride Month stamps issued by Canada Post this year. The others celebrate Club Carousel in Calgary, the city’s first gay bar; Truxx in Montreal, a bar that was raided by police in 1977, leading to mass protests; and the 3rd North American Native Gay & Lesbian Gathering in Beausejour, Manitoba, where the term “Two Spirit” was introduced as a term for a gender variant or queer social role in Native American tribal life.
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