Bruce A. McKinney was born December 13, 1953 in Coffeyville, Kansas to Gilbert "Dean" McKinney (1926-2007) and Velma Louise Bates (born 1930), who married on November 2, 1950. McKinney graduated from Coffeyville High School in 1971 and went on to attend college at Wichita State University (WSU) from 1971-1975.

McKinney began his career in activism while a youth by joining the Tulsa Organization for Human Rights, paying for the membership with his paper route money. At college he became involved in WSU's Student Homophile Association. After leaving college in 1975, he continued his activism, working to help found the Metropolitan Community Church of Wichita and the Homophile Association of Sedgwick County. In 1977, the Homophile Association of Sedgwick County proposed an amendment to the city council of Wichita, prohibiting discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation. The ordinance was initially passed, but then overturned after being placed on the ballot in 1978.

During the 1980s, McKinney took a sabbatical from activism until he determined it was time for Kansas to have its first Gay Pride parade. McKinney joined Wichita's Gay Pride planning committee in 1988 and was instrumental in Kansas' first Gay Pride Parade in 1990. He has remained involved in the community since that time and is an active member of the Wichita Pride Committee, Kansas Equality Coalition, and the Gay and Lesbian Awards (G.A.L.A).

McKinney began collecting items related to the gay community in his youth after purchasing the Little Blue Book 1,000 Famous Homosexuals by E. Haldeman-Julius at a garage sale. His collecting continued through the 1970s and 1980s. By the mid-1990s, his archive was housed at the Wichita Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Community Center. After The Center, as it was known, closed, McKinney retained most of the items from the collection and continued adding to it through the years. Papers by Rob Gutzman and Steve Wheeler were donated to McKinney's archive posthumously.

In August 2008, McKinney donated his archive to the Kenneth Spencer Research Library at the University of Kansas and has made some additional donations since.