Lynch Grant

Applications are currently closed.

View the 2023 Lynch Grant Winners Here

Applications for the 2022-23 Michael Lynch Grant in LGBTTQ Histories are now being sought. This $2000 grant is awarded by The Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies at the University of Toronto, and is open to individuals, groups, and organizations.

The grant is named for Michael Lynch, the late University of Toronto English professor, long-time LGBTQ and HIV/AIDS activist, and founder of the Toronto Centre for Lesbian and Gay Studies (the community predecessor to the Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies). For over ten years (starting in 1990), the TCLGS encouraged community-based and academic research on queer history. The Lynch grant is supported by the Lynch Fund at Sexual Diversity Studies to continue the legacy of this work. The Lynch grant encourages history research endeavours, and projects designed to transmit knowledge about queer and trans history to a broad audience.

Projects may take the form of workshops, conferences, oral history compilations, art exhibits, video presentations, performances, academic articles, archive collection, pamphlets, zines, or books. Alternative formats are encouraged and welcomed.

Projects must contribute to an understanding of the histories of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, two-spirit, and queer sexualities, identities, politics, practices, and communities in Canada. Priority will be given to projects that reflect the various intersections (along the lines of gender, race, culture, class, diaspora, indigeneity, and disability) that characterize queer and trans historical experience. Priority is given to individuals, groups, and organizations outside the University.

Grants are not awarded retroactively to work already completed.

Adjudication of Grant applications is the responsibility of the SDS Lynch Grant Committee. For more information, please contact the Sexual Diversity Studies office at sexual.diversity@utoronto.ca.

To apply, you are asked to submit:

1. An outline of the project (up to 750 words), describing its scope, objectives, and intended audience.
2. An overall budget, highlighting those expenditures for which the Grant would be used. Information on other grants applied for, expected, or received should also be included.
3. A résumé or cv (1-2 pages), highlighting the relevant qualifications and experience of the applicant(s) or (if applicable) the organization.

Please submit all materials as one PDF file. All applications should be submitted via email to sexual.diversity@utoronto.ca.

Past Winners:

2020 – Hannah Maitland

“OUT of the CLOSET presents: 25+ Years of Queer Activism”

2018 – Prabha Khosla
“Labour Pride: What Our Unions Have Done for Us”

The ArQuives
“Two-Spirit Collections Project”

2014 – Anna Malkin
“The Queer Story Archive”

2012 – William Craddock
“The Pin Button Project” — online exhibition of LGBTQ buttons from Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archive holdings.

2009 – Claire Robins
“Collective Biography with GLBT Seniors”

2007 – Lyle Dick
“Western Canada’s Frontier Era: A Same-Sex Golden Age?” — book on the history of same-sex dynamics in Western Canada from 1870 to 1945

2005 – Heather Bain
“Archiving Toronto’s Queer Performers” — zines, original artwork, and interviews on the history of Queer Toronto performance artists

2002 – Buddies in Bad Times Theatre