Members of the LGBTQIA2S+ community have been working for positive social change, in large and small ways, for many decades. This term we will gain insight into some key moments in that social change history, and gain understanding of the ways that oppressed communities work to alter systems and structures. Focusing on Canada and the US from the 1960s onward, we will take some time to study the Stonewall Rebellion of 1969, a central marker in the collective LGBTQIA2S+ movement. This three-day Rebellion in New York City’s Greenwich Village, in which queer folks fought back against police brutality, is a clear and identifiable moment in social change history.

We will consider questions of history, identity, social change, oppression, and conflict, as we attempt to understand the context during that time; we will examine the hatred and violence faced by LGBTQIA2S+ people, and the ways this violence was expressed through families, police brutality, the legal system, and homophobic/transphobic perpetrators. We will ask the question: What does it take to bring together an isolated, frightened community, which then organizes, mobilizes, and ends up changing the world?