Gary Kinsman

Who is Gary Kinsman?

Gary Kinsman is a Canadian sociologist. He is one of Canada's leading academics on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues. In 1987, he wrote one of the key Canadian texts on LGBT social history, Regulation of Desire, reprinted in 1995. In 2000, he edited and co-authored a second work, on Canadian federal government surveillance of marginal and dissident political and social groups, Whose National Security? In 2010, Kinsman's newest book, The Canadian War on Queers: National Security as Sexual Regulation, co-written with Patrizia Gentile, was published by University of British Columbia Press and released on March 1.

A professor of sociology at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario, Kinsman's research and publication focuses primarily on the sociological perspectives of LGBT issues. Kinsman is also a social activist on feminist, labor union, social justice and anti-poverty issues.

Kinsman was a writer for The Body Politic and a central figure in the publication of the successor magazine Rites. He helped found Gays and Lesbians Against the Right Everywhere and the Lesbian and Gay Pride Day Committee of Toronto.