November 2017 – Page 2 – Queer and Trans Black, Indigenous and People of Colour Vancouver

2SQTILGBIPOC (Two-Spirit, Queer, Transgender, Intersex, Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual People of Colour) Pride Celebration

On August 7, 2017, the 2SQTILGBIPOC Alliance and the Anti-Oppression Network hosted the 2SQTILGBIPOC Pride Celebration in the Carnegie Community Centre Theater Room, located in the Downtown Eastside area of Vancouver. This celebration was organized as an alternative Pride event for Two-Spirit, Queer, Transgender, Intersex, Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual people of colour (2sqtilgbipoc Alliance, 2017), and for people who do not feel safe attending the Vancouver Pride Parade (due to police involvement; Newton, 2017). One attendee of the celebration, vanessa bui, pointed to the overrepresentation of white performers and participants at other Pride celebrations as part of their motivation to attend an alternative, more inclusive Pride event (in Newton, 2017).

Bailey (2014) theorizes space as a “cultural production” (p. 490), and people use behaviour to transform and reconfigure space. If Pride Parades actively create Queer streets rather than merely turn streets Queer (Bell and Valentine, 1995, in Begonya, 2009), then the overrepresentation of white people described by bui, as well as the police attendance at the Vancouver Pride Parade, can be examples of presence and behaviour that creates a space that socially excluded group members feel uncomfortable or unsafe in. These theories can be utilized to explain why groups, such as the 2SQTILGBIPOC Alliance and the Anti-Oppression Network, consider the need for celebrations to “reclaim Pride” (2sqtilgbipoc Alliance, 2017).

Furthermore, according to research and theory by Greensmith and Giwa (2013), Canadian Pride celebrations between 2009 and 2012 have neglected to acknowledge the diversity of Queer Canadians, and instead focus on White and colonized Queer activism, which “reinforce and normalize homonormativity” (p. 133). While heteronormativity is the normalization of heterosexuality in human society and its members (Warner, 1991), homonormativity is the creation of a “depoliticized gay culture anchored in domesticity and consumption” (Duggan, 2002, p. 179, in Greensmith & Giwa, 2013). Homonormativity is vital for the development of homonationalism (Puar, 2007), which reinforces white normativity and justifies violence against and exclusion of racialized and Indigenous people. Both homonormativity and homonationalism are why some Queer activist groups refused to participate in the 2017 Vancouver Pride Parade, such as Salaam, a Queer Muslim support group (Bedry, 2017).

For Imtiaz Popat, the founder of Salaam and a co-organizer of the 2SQTILGBIPOC Pride Celebration, locating the 2SQTILGBIPOC Pride event in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside is significant:

Because people [in the Downtown Eastside]–Two-Spirit, people who live down here, who are people of colour–don’t fit into the West End. They don’t fit into the East Side either, so [it’s important] to hold a space here as a safer space. (quoted in Newton, 2017)

Bailey (2014) argues that people use and alter space to escape “spatial marginalization,” a term that describes the supposedly public space that marginalized groups members are commonly refrained from accessing. For 2SQTILGBIPOC people, the 2SQTILGBIPOC Pride Celebration transformed the Carnegie Community Centre Theater Room to escape the spatial marginalization usually experienced in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.

References

2sqtilgbipoc Alliance. (2017). In Facebook. Retrieved November 5, 2017, from https://www.facebook.com/events/678129855707535/

Agathangelou, A. M., Bassichis, M. D., & Spira, T. L. (2008). Intimate investments: Homonormativity, global lockdown, and the seductions of empire. Radical History Review, 100, 120-43.

Anguksuar/Richard LaFortune. (1997). A postcolonial colonial perspective on western [mis]conceptions of the cosmos and the restoration of Indigenous taxonomies. Two-Spirit people: Native American gender identity, sexuality, and spirituality. S. Jacobs, W. Thomas, & S. Lang (Eds.). Chicago: University of Illinois Press.

Bailey, M. M. (2014). Engendering space: Ballroom culture and the spatial practice of possibility in Detroit. Gender, Place & Culture, 21(4), 489-507.

Bedry, D. (2017, May 18). Uniformed police will march in Vancouver’s Pride parade. Xtra. Retrieved November 7, 2017, from https://www.dailyxtra.com/uniformed-police-will-march-in-vancouvers-pride-parade-73525

Begonya, E. (2009). Identities, sexualities, and commemorations: Pride parades, public space and sexual dissidence. Anthropological Notebooks, 15(2), 15-33.

Bell, D. & Valentine, G. (1995). Mapping desire. New York: Routledge.

Driskill, Q-L. (2010). Doubleweaving Two-Spirit critiques: Building alliances between Native and Queer studies. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, 16(1-2), 69-92.

Duggan, L. (2002). The new homonormativity: The sexuality politics of neoliberalism. Materializing democracy: Toward a revitalized cultural politics. R. Castronovo & D. Nelson (Eds.). Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Greensmith, C. & Giwa, S. (2013). Challenging settler colonialism in contemporary Queer politics: Settler homonationalism, pride Toronto, and Two-Spirit subjectivities. American Indian Culture and Research Journal, 37(2), 129-48.

Newton, R. (2017, Aug 8). How this Pride event celebrated Queer and Trans people of colour in Vancouver. Xtra. Retrieved November 5, 2017, from https://www.dailyxtra.com/how-this-pride-event-celebrated-queer-and-trans-people-of-colour-in-vancouver-77796

Puar, J. K. (2007). Terrorist assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer times. I. Grewal, C. Kaplan, & R. Wiegman (Eds.). Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Warner, M. (1991). Introduction: Fear of a Queer planet. Social Text, 29, 3-17.

“Necessary and Visionary” – Queer People of Colour at the Vancouver Queer Film Festival (2017)

‘Diversity’ in media takes many forms, but a more visible effort at intersectionality (the idea that different oppressed social and group identities combine in important ways) has been made recently. When it comes to queer representation in film and television, the numbers can be discouraging; according to the GLAAD 2017 overview, there has been a notable drop in portrayals of queer people of colour in mainstream media. This lack of representation is one of the ways that QPoC (Queer People of Colour) experience alienation; too often, QPoC feel the need to ‘choose’ between queerness and their ethnicity. Ferguson (2003) describes some of the intersecting identities of QPoC as being those of “racial difference … gender eccentricity… class marginality,” as well as noting the fact that “[e]ach estrangement [secures] another” (p. 1.)

The Vancouver Queer Film Festival (VQFF) started as a small event among friends in 1988, and since then has undergone growth and change in order to offer a more diverse selection of films. The organizers of the 29^th Vancouver Queer Film Festival (2017) state one of their mandates as being the curation of films by and for QPoC, saying that “if ever there was a time to be together in love and resistance, it is now. It is dangerous to be a person of colour. It is dangerous to be queer. To be trans. To be poor. To be an immigrant. To be marginalized. It is dangerous because we are dangerous. Especially when we resist together” (p. 7.)

By acknowledging not only the current difficulties for people who fall under one or more marginalized identities, but also the fact that the stories of such people are often told by others, the Festival performs an important task. It creates a space specifically for queer writers and directors of colour; in an artistic medium that can seem dominated by those with privilege and power, “knowing that there is no one better equipped to tell our stories than ourselves” (p. 28) is more important now than ever. The 2017 VQFF lineup featured almost half of the films having been written and/or directed by queer people of colour. In 2018, its 30^th anniversary, it is hopeful that the Festival continues to promote the voices of those that are silenced the most, even within the already marginalized queer community.

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Works cited:

Ferguson, R. A. (2003). Queer of Color Critique, Historical Materialism, and Canonical Sociology. Aberrations in black: toward a queer of color critique (pp. 1-29). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

GLAAD. Overview of Findings. Retrieved from https://www.glaad.org/sri/2017/overview

Vancouver Queer Film Festival. (2017.) 29th Vancouver Queer Film Festival [Program]. Vancouver: Vancouver Queer Film Festival. Retrieved from http://queerfilmfestival.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/VQFFGUIDE_2017_Digital.pdf

“The Sweet Science of Boxing” – BIPoC Boxing 101

Located in what is described as “as one of ‘Canada’s next great neighbourhoods,’ [in a] large multicultural middle-class-mix,” Fox and Unicorn Boxing gym offers a weekly BIPoC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour) beginners’ boxing class. The class seeks to take an intersectional approach; Fox & Unicorn specializes in a Queer Boxing Class, but the BIPoC Boxing 101 class is “designed as a space for racialized folks/people who don’t access whiteness to learn the sweet science of boxing.” In Vancouver, the number of people with European origin is almost half of the city’s population; when it comes to LGBT+ spaces, however, people of colour are very often in the minority.

QPoC (Queer People of Colour) in Vancouver such as Mari Ramsawakh have experienced feelings of marginalization or ‘not fitting in’ while in queer spaces; or, indeed, that queerness itself is intrinsically tied to whiteness. Ramsawakh writes that “[the] culture, and the alternative culture that it seemed to be intrinsically intertwined with, was dominated by white figures,” a sentiment often echoed by other QPoC in majority white queer spaces. Bacchetta, El Tayeb and Haritaworn (2015) discuss both this outsider status, and the importance of spaces like the BIPoC Boxing 101 class: “[t]he experience of always being out of place – in nation, community, family, club or classroom – produces locally grounded space making as a necessary strategy of survival” (p. 773.)

BIPoC Boxing 101 provides a space structured to address the inaccessibility of boxing to many who are queer and/or BIPoC, in addition to providing the opportunity to learn self-defence – a skill which, for QPoC, is unfortunately becoming more and more important recently. Aside from learning how to properly “throw a punch,” however, BIPoC Boxing 101 and spaces like it provide an opportunity for QPoC to exist in a space crafted to address some of their unique needs. Scholars such as Bacchetta, El-Tayeb, and Haritaworn; writers such as Ramsawakh; and the success of the BIPoC Boxing 101 class in Vancouver (now in its second year) prove the necessity of being mindful of who is and isn’t included in queer spaces.

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Works Cited

Bacchetta, P., El-Tayeb, F. & Haritaworn, J. (2015). Queer of colour formations and translocal spaces in Europe. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space Vol. 33(5) 769–778.

Faith Wilson Realty Group. (n.d.) Renfrew, Vancouver Eastside: Neighbourhood Profile. Retrieved from http://faithwilsongroup.com/neighbourhoods/renfrew/

Ramsawakh, M. (Sept. 5, 2017). Why LGBT spaces can be uncomfortable for queer people of colour. Xtra. Retrieved from https://www.dailyxtra.com/why-lgbt-spaces-can-be-uncomfortable-for-queer-people-of-colour-79014

Statistics Canada. 2017. Vancouver [Census metropolitan area], British Columbia and British Columbia [Province] (table). Census Profile. 2016 Census. Ottawa. Released October 25, 2017. Retrieved from http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2016/dp-pd/prof/details/page.cfm?Lang=E&Geo1=CMACA&Code1=933&Geo2=PR&Code2=59&Data=Count&SearchText=Vancouver&SearchType=Begins&SearchPR=01&B1=Ethnic%20origin&TABID=1

“Where am I going to go?” A Review of the Scholarly Discourse on Queer and Trans Youth Homelessness

In the case of homelessness, trans and queer youth compared to cisgender and straight youth disproportionately face homelessness because their identity has made living at home with their parents an unsafe or available option (Abramovich 2017, p.4). According to statistics drawn from the United States, LGBTQ2S identifying individuals make up 5-10% of the population, yet, make up 20-40% of homeless youth (Quintana 2010, p.6). Such statistics can be assumed as similar in the Canadian context. This website entry draws on the work of the recently published book of essays “Where am I going to go? Intersectional Approaches to Ending LGBTQ2S Youth Homelessness in Canada and the US” to articulate why shelter spaces developed solely for queer and trans youth are important. When I use the term queer and trans youth, I am referring to all queer and trans youth, with specific awareness of the two-fold marginalization of queer and trans of youth of colour. As articulated throughout “Where am I going to go?” and throughout the websites and newspaper articles dedicated to this topic, there is a recurring experience of youth homeless shelters and services being inaccessible and unsafe for queer and trans youth. Drawing on the work of Marlon Bailey, this entry argues that forging spaces of safety for queer and trans youth is necessary because these spaces are rarely available to them in existing cultural and social spaces (Bailey 2014, p.491).

As the publishers articulate, “the goal of this book is to take homelessness research and relevant policy findings to new audiences” (Abramovich 2017, p. III). While this book incorporates the research done across North America, due to the intention that dialogues introduced in this book will inform public and government funding and policy, it is relevant to future program development in Vancouver. This will in turn reflect the implementation of programs for queer and trans youth. With this understanding in mind, I provide an overview of the book’s strengths and limitations to illuminate how this research may influence and shape the government’s role in queer and trans homelessness services.

This book begins by arguing for the dismantling of the criminalization of homelessness (Abramovich 2017, p.X). In challenging discourses that frame homelessness as criminal behaviour, this book moves away from blaming individuals for their experience of homelessness, and fosters a critique of the structural factors that result in homelessness among queer and trans youth. To further destabilize power imbalances within mainstream discourses and program development around homelessness, the book works to center voices of homeless LGBTQ2S youth. For example, the scholars are informed by interviews and surveys with homeless LGBTQ2S youth.

Due to this website’s focus on queer and trans of colour events and services in Vancouver and the surrounding lower mainland, it is essential that this entry points to the lack of dialogue around the intersection of race. Within the books 22 essays, only 4 specifically focus on race; one on Indigenous youth in British Columbia and the other three on Black youth in the US.

This book was published in Toronto, but takes a translocal approach by presenting the role of scholars from across North America. Drawing on Bacchetta et al.’s work on the translocal (2015), this entry proposes that translocal networks between queer and trans youth dismantle normative frameworks for homelessness services. Furthermore, it is essential to acknowledge that homelessness is an experience of migration that occurs around the world. Many queer and trans youth that face homelessness have moved, be it from different countries or from a rural setting to the urban city of Vancouver. Therefore, while the homelessness situation in Vancouver is exacerbated by our current unaffordability, fentanyl crisis and socioeconomic inequalities, homelessness in Vancouver cannot be understood as simply a local issue. Ultimately, there are lessons to be learnt from the larger network of spaces researched in this book. As Bacchetta et al. (2015) argue, the interventions performed by queer and trans of colour foregrounds them as geographical subjects in local locations that are often open only to white cis/straight populations (p. 773). The work of providing shelter for queer and trans youth goes beyond providing physical safety. The act of giving youth permanent addresses opens the door for their ability to apply to jobs, school and social services. Further, these programs participate in “transformative placemaking” (Bacchetta et al. 2015, p. 773) whereby queer and trans youth of colour use their experience of “forced and voluntary (im)mobility, travels and translation” (p. 775) in their process of community (and) spaces making, and in doing so, ensure their presence in the city is not forgotten or pushed out by more privileged narratives or experiences.

Lastly, this entry acknowledges the complicated dynamic of homelessness services existing on unceded territory at the same time that the colonial project continues to dispossess Indigenous People’s from their land. Further, as the book states, Indigenous youth make up around 6% of Canada’s population, but statistics from surveys show they may be over half of all homeless youth (Saewyc 2017, p. 14). Contemporary homelessness and poverty amongst Indigenous bodies is a present day form of colonial dispossession and highlights that colonialism is an ongoing process.

References:

Abramovich, A., & Shelton, J. (2017). Letter to the reader. In. A. Abramovich & J. Shelton (Eds.), Where am I going to go? Intersectional Approaches to Ending LGBTQ2S Youth Homelessness in Canada & the U.S. (pp. 13-40). Toronto: Canadian Observatory on Homelessness. Retrieved 6 Nov. 2017.

Abramovich, A., & Shelton, J. (Eds.). (2017). Where Am I Going to Go? Intersectional Approaches to Ending LGBTQ2S Youth Homelessness in Canada & the U.S. Toronto: Canadian Observatory on Homelessness Press.

Bacchetta, P., El-Tayeb F., & Haritaworn, J. (2015). Queer of colour formations and translocal spaces in Europe. Environment and Planning D, 33(5): 769-778.

Bailey, Marlon. (2014). Engendering space: ballroom culture and the spatial practice of possibility in Detroit. Gender, Place and Culture, 21(4): 489-507.

Saewyc, E., Mounsey, B., Tourand, J., Brunanski, D., Kirk, D., McNeil-Seymour, J., Shaughnessy, K., Tsuruda, S., & Clark, N. (2017). Homeless & Street-Involved Indigenous LGBTQ2S Youth in British Columbia: Intersectionality, Challenges, Resilience & Cues for Action. In. A. Abramovich & J. Shelton (Eds.), Where am I going to go? Intersectional Approaches to Ending LGBTQ2S Youth Homelessness in Canada & the U.S. (pp. 13-40). Toronto: Canadian Observatory on Homelessness. Retrieved 6 Nov. 2017.

Quintana, N., Rosenthal, J, & Krehley, J. (2010). On the Streets The Federal Response to Gay and Transgender Homeless Youth. Retrieved from https://cdn.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/issues/2010/06/pdf/lgbtyouthhomelessness.pdf

Canada’s First LGBTQ2S Youth Homelessness Program: A Look at RainCity Housing

In January 2015, RainCity Housing in Vancouver B.C., opened Canada’s first shelter program aimed to support LGBTQ2S youth experiencing homelessness. While I agree with frustration surrounding the lack of resources for LGBTQ2S youth, in this entry I outline some of the positive steps taken by RainCity Housing. First, utilizing Housing First practices, the program recognizes that homelessness is not only an economic phenomenon, but is a social issue (Munro 2017, p.144). Following the Housing First framework, RainCity moves away from neoliberal frameworks of shelter programs by reducing the barriers LGBTQ2S youth face in accessing their services. For example, Munro et al. explain that the youth are not required to be substance free (2017, p.146), abstinent, on medication for mental-health diagnosis (2017, p.147) or working towards reunification with their families (Hyslop 2015). These tactics are seldomly used in shelter organizations, and are even more rare amongst work with youth (Munro 2017, p.148).

Secondly, while RainCity itself is not a queer oriented organization, the hiring tactics used by RainCity’s LGBTQ2S youth program is commendable. The staff for the LGBTQ2S youth services all identify as Indigenous, two-spirit, trans and/or queer (Munro 2017, p.149). Furthermore, in RainCity’s efforts at space making for LGBTQ2S youth, the presence of mutual support between staff and clients who have gone through similar experiences destabilizes power differentials within shelter services. Drawing on Bailey’s scholarship on space making by and for Black and Latina/o LGBT people in Detroit, the significance of space making processes by RainCity Housing is evident. Trans and queer youth often experience homelessness because living at home with their parents has become an unsafe or unavailable due to their identities (Abramovich 2017, p.4). One of the fundamental ways RainCity promotes safe space making is by fostering youth relationships with adults who have shared experiences with the youth. Though located in different cities, Bailey’s discourse on space making highlights that through the process of forging spaces of safety, in the Vancouver context, RainCity Housing does the groundwork for producing spaces that have not been accessible to these youth previously (Bailey 2013, p.491).

While there are many positives of RainCity’s work, this entry calls for a critical approach, arguing that RainCity’s practices are can be critiqued, and have room for improvement. The youth program is open to youth aged 18-24. The Vancouver Courier and Tyee articles highlight three youth stories. These youth tell narratives of leaving home or facing homelessness for the first time between the ages of 14-16. In a 2014 BC Homeless and Street-Involved Youth survey on Indigenous homeless youth in BC, most participants had first become homeless or street-involved around age 12 or 13 (Saewyc 2017, p.22). RainCity’s structural barrier of age restrictions goes against the framework of Housing First, and simultaneously against the practices of creating spaces of safety for queer and trans people. By narrowing the accessibility of the services to youth 18 years of age or older, younger youth, who are ultimately more vulnerable, are forced into unsafe conditions based solely on structural barriers. Drawing on Cohen’s (2012) articulation of the difference between structural transformation and structural assimilation (p. 21) can be helpful in unpacking RainCity’s age restriction. In enforcing age restrictions, RainCity is failing to be accountable to queer and trans youth’s needs, and subsequently the organization’s commitment to structural transformation is weakened. The reason behind such restrictions needs also to be addressed. RainCity Housing receives a larger portion of its funding from Vancouver Coastal Health and BC Housing, both of which receive government funding. The agenda and services of RainCity Housing are ultimately shaped by the politics of these organizations. While the reasons for age restrictions can only be inferred, I suggest that they are implemented due to the complexity of housing minors under 18. Housing minors and adults together would present possible legal issues, and the age restriction ensures that RainCity Housing prevents illegal interactions between minors and adults.

Statistics show that in the first year 50% of the youth using the programs services identified as Indigenous (Munro 2017, p.137). Yet, neither the website, nor the newspaper articles, nor the scholarly article by Munro et al., provide an intersectional approach that incorporates racialized youth, beyond those that identify as Indigenous. By not developing their mandate and services to address the vulnerability of racialized queer and trans youth, RainCity subsequently inhabits exclusions, whereby gender and sexual normativities result in certain queer and trans bodies being viewed as worth supporting, while others are made more precarious. As Bacchetta et al. explain, “racial and colonial violence is often legitimized in the name of protecting [LGBT] spaces from dangerous and degenerate hateful others” (770). In the case of RainCity racial and colonial violence takes the form of a lack of racial dialogue that addresses the specific needs of different communities.

Additionally, discourses that lack proper interaction with an intersectional analysis, leaving out the intersecting oppressions of race, gender and sexuality, can participate in problematic dialogues that label racialized subjects to be uniformly straight and cis (Bacchetta et al. 2015, p. 769). In order to address the needs of Canada’s queer and trans youth, the organization needs to participate in racial discourses within the larger queer and trans dialogue. This website entry argues for future research that examines the unique ways that racialized youth experience lack of support from their family based on their sexual or gender identity.

References:

Bacchetta, P., El-Tayeb F., & Haritaworn, J. (2015). Queer of colour formations and translocal spaces in Europe. Environment and Planning D, 33(5): 769-778.

Bailey, Marlon. (2014). Engendering space: ballroom culture and the spatial practice of possibility in Detroit. Gender, Place and Culture, 21(4): 489-507.

Housing First – Principles into Practice. (n.d.). Retrieved November 03, 2017, from http://www.raincityhousing.org/hf-p-into-p/

Hyslop, K. (2015, June 24). A Foot in the Door: Homeless Youth in and out of the Closet. The Tyee. Retrieved November 03, 2017, from https://thetyee.ca/News/2015/06/24/Homeless-Youth/

LGBTQ2S* Youth Housing. (n.d.). Retrieved November 03, 2017, from http://www.raincityhousing.org/what-we-do/lgbtq2s-youth-housing/

LGBTQ2S* Youth Housing – more info. (n.d.). Retrieved November 03, 2017, from http://www.raincityhousing.org/lgbtq2s-youth-housing-more-info/

Munro, A., Reynolds, V., & Townsend, M. (2017). Youth Wisdom, Harm Reduction & Housing First: RainCity Housing’s Queer & Trans Youth Housing Project. In A. Abramovich & J. Shelton (Eds.), Where am I going to go? Intersectional Approaches to Ending LGBTQ2S Youth Homelessness in Canada and the US (pp. 135-154). Toronto: Canadian Observatory on Homelessness. Retrieved November 03, 2017.

Rossi, C. (2015, July 14). RainCity housing youth program provides more than shelter. Vancouver Courier. Retrieved November 3, 2017, from http://www.vancourier.com/news/raincity-housing-youth-program-provides-more-than-shelter-1.2000462

Wahab, A. (2016). Calling ‘Homophobia’ into Place (Jamaica). Interventions, 18(6), 908-928. doi:10.1080/1369801X.2015.1130641

Positive Living Society of BC

The Positive Living Society BC is a non-profit organization in Downtown Vancouver that provides services for people with HIV/AIDS. Its founding purpose is to “provide a forum for people living with HIV/AIDS to advocate for their rights and their health issues” (as stated on their website) (Positive Living BC 2017). The board consists of members only, meaning an individual with HIV/AIDS. This illustrates the importance of whose voices are involved: it is a space consisting of and providing services for people with HIV/AIDS. It is necessary to create a space for oneself and mobilizing because of shared identities and goals (Combahee River Collective 1982). Positive Living created the project History Alive, documenting the history of the organization since its inception in 1986 by founder Kevin Brown.

HIV/AIDS has been predominantly framed in media as an issue concerning specifically white gay men, though it affects a variety of people. In 2015, Women made up 24.1% of HIV cases. Most common exposure is men who have sex with men (45.1%), heterosexual contact (31.9%), and injection drug use (16.3%). Divided racially, white individuals made up the largest category (45.6%), then Black (18.7%), and Indigenous (17.5%) (Government of Canada). There is a lack of representation of queer, transgender, Black, and Indigenous people of colour (QTBIPOC) (despite making up a substantial amount of cases of HIV in Canada) in this framing, and even in the beginnings of the organization’s history. The History Alive section of the website refers to individuals affected by HIV as gay men in posts describing the earlier years of the organization, emphasizing who is represented in the struggle with HIV. Many of the photos also depict these men as either white or white-passing. Kevin Brown, Positive Living’s founder, became the face of the organization, further reproducing the image of the white gay male. We must think intersectionally and to include the voices of those who have been marginalized. The whiteness prevalent in the history of the struggle with HIV/AIDS evidences who is given more representation. Currently and historically, however, QTBIPOC have been and continue to be a significant part of the organization and of communities of people with HIV/AIDS. To give recognition, however, should not be confused with giving a voice. Giving recognition is listening to the voices that are already present yet have been ignored or repressed. Doing so recognizes the
agency of those who have been marginalized. There is importance in naming and identifying oneself; “[n]aming is how [one] make[s] [one’s] presence known” (Anzaldua, 1994 p.164). The use of “person with HIV/AIDS” is part of that naming. In an interview with Kevin Brown, he states that this is preferred over using the term “HIV/AIDS victim” (Positive Living BC 2017). This naming reflects the agency of the organization’s members and the community that has been built. Those who have this commonality within Vancouver are able to connect with each other through Positive Living.

The timeline that documents the organization’s history on the Positive Living website shows videos of interviews with some members, which noticeably lack racial diversity. Due to the stigma that surrounds HIV/AIDS, this lack can be attributed to the fact that publicly sharing one’s status as a person with HIV/AIDS. We must understand the salience of survival. Not all members have the same privileges as others (which is why thinking intersectionally is crucial). Because one must be a member living with HIV/AIDS in order to join the organization, this puts individuals in a position of vulnerability and may choose not to make themselves so visible within the organization and rather, choose to be part of Positive Living (or rather publicly represented) without having to be so easily targeted in the public eye. In addition, some individuals may not be “out” (to use a Western concept) to all others in their lives and choose to keep that private. This is a method of survival that is necessary in order to navigate society while minimizing risk.

History Alive in its current state aims to display more of its diversity by incorporating more QTBIPOC members in interviews and photographs. This is the goal set for future posts (i.e. photos and videos) that will be available on the website in the near future, as confirmed by the project’s communications assistant. These interviews illustrate the individual stories of the members, placing faces and stories to each one. It is important to recognize the stories of the members that have not been heard or have been able to tell their stories in the past. Doing so adds to the process of creating a space – a QTBIPOC space. What makes a space QTBIPOC is not inherent nor is it within the location itself – rather, it is the individuals that make the space QTBIPOC.

Sources

Anzaldua, Gloria. (Originally 1991). To(o) queer the writer: loca, escritora y Chicana. In Keating, Ana Louise, The Gloria Anzaldua Reader, pp. 163-175.

Combahee River Collective. (1982). The Combahee River Collective statement. In Smith, Barbara (ed.), Home girls: a Black feminist anthology, pp. 264-274.

Positive Living BC. (2017). History. Retrieved from https://positivelivingbc.org/about/history/

AIDS Walk Vancouver 2017

During the 32^nd annual AIDS Walk this year on September 16^th, along the route of the walk, were Neo-Nazi posters by Lost Lagoon in Stanley Park. One poster in particular said “you deserve AIDS” (Nassar, H. M., & Brown, J. 2017). This is important concerning necropolitics. There are lives that are valued more than others and ones that are devalued to the point that they are viewed as not worthy of life. Snorton, Riley, and Haritaworn write about how specifically Trans people of colour are often targeted and are at constant risk of death: “violated bodies are continually reinscribed as degenerate and killable” (2013 p.67). Due to the history of HIV/AIDS and its ties to QTBIPOC communities, these communities are the ones that are targeted in an event such as the posters at the AIDS Walk. For example, Indigenous Canadians are more likely to contract HIV/AIDS than people of other ethnicities by 2.7 times. In 2014, they also make up about 11% of new HIV cases. The living conditions of Indigenous communities, though these conditions and populations vary, experience a disproportionate amount of social, economic, and cultural influences that put these communities at risk for HIV infection. One of these factors is injection drug use, which increases the likelihood of HIV transmission. Indigenous individuals also comprise 9% of all Canadians with HIV in 2014 (Canadian AIDS Treatment Information Exchange 2015). These statistics show that there is a disproportionate impact on communities that struggle economically, in conjunction with other social, political and cultural factors. In many instances, these disadvantaged populations are QTBIPOC.

Specific groups are at more risk than others, and though the posters target all of the people who have HIV/AIDS, the death threats are added onto those who are QTBIPOC in comparison to gay men. Canada’s reputation as a progressive country denies the state’s complicity “in facilitating the exclusion and regulation of gendered and sexual others” (Kinsman, 1996 p.183, as cited in Nash, C., & Catungal, J. (2015). The overrepresentation of white gay men as the demographic that is affected by HIV/AIDS simultaneously normalizes white gay men as activists for sexual health issues while rendering those of different sexualities and genders invisible. This results in the inclusion of certain sexualities and genders that have been previously excluded, while further pushing away others who do not fit this representation. There becomes a division of who can more safely protest or fundraise and who cannot. There are social, economic, and cultural factors that affect one’s ability to do so, and much like the rates of HIV infection, these factors affect QTBIPOC. When violence, such as in the form of hateful posters, are introduced in a space meant to fundraise for HIV health and wellness while also to counter HIV stigma, those who are more excluded become more vulnerable. To state that one deserves AIDS and therefore deserves to die exemplifies the power that dominant discourses have over QTBIPOC lives (and deaths). The message reinforces the structure of deciding who is worthy of life and who is not.

It is also important to put this year’s walk into perspective with current events. Trump’s 2016 election has allowed the conditions of racist, sexist, and violent bigotry. These feelings have always existed, and many political events have continually oppressed QTBIPOC through the state, but to elect a person who reinforces these ideals as acceptable make them tolerable outwardly rather than subliminally. This has been documented through a moment on Twitter entitled “Day 1 in Trump’s America”. The violent and direct outbursts that are similar to the Neo-Nazi posters at the AIDS Walk are a result of what Christian Fuchs has dubbed Trumpology – the ideology that currently leads the Trump administration. It is “not the ideology of a single person, but rather a whole way of thought and life that consists of elements such as hyper-individualism, hard labour, leadership, the friend/enemy scheme, and Social Darwinism” (p.48). This ideology focuses on meritocracy – the hard work of the individual leads to the making of their own success and those who are unsuccessful are not working hard enough. It creates a sense of entitlement of who belongs and who deserves to succeed (as well as who does not).

Though this may seem like a separate phenomenon due to its location to the US, it is crucial to understand that ideology transcends borders and that we must further analyze the connections between the local and the global. It is also not to say, however, that the structural devaluation of people with HIV/AIDS is an occurrence that has emerged with Trump’s presidency. There have been decades of history during which these groups of individuals have been neglected or systematically oppressed though it is crucial to acknowledge the political overtones that influence hostile behaviours such as those exhibited at the AIDS walk. It is essential as well to analyze who is devalued, and to understand the gender, racial, sexual, and class intersections of the communities that are repeatedly devalued.

Sources

Canadian AIDS Treatment Information Exchange. (2015). Indigenous People. Retrieved from http://www.catie.ca/en/hiv-canada/2/2-3/2-3-4

Day 1 in Trump’s America. (n.d.). Retrieved November 08, 2017, from https://twitter.com/i/moments/796417517157830656?lang=en

Government of Canada. (2016). HIV in Canada: Surveillance summary tables, 2014-2015. Retrieved from https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/publications/diseases-conditions/hiv-in-canada-surveillance-summary-tables-2014-2015.html

Nassar, H. M., & Brown, J. (2017, September 17). Hateful flyers target annual AIDS walk. Retrieved November 08, 2017, from http://www.news1130.com/2017/09/16/hateful-flyers-target-annual-aids-walk/

Nash, C., & Catungal, J. (2015). Introduction: Sexual Landscapes, Lives and Livelihoods in Canada. ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies, 12(2), 181-192. Retrieved from https://www.acme-journal.org/index.php/acme/article/view/959/813

Snorton, C. Riley and Jin Haritaworn. (2013). Trans necropolitics: a transnational reflection on violence, death and a trans of color afterlife. In Transgender Studies Reader 2, pp. 66-75.

UnSettled – a Two-Spirit Art Exhibition that Disrupts Queer Hegemonies

In another work from Driskill, “Doubleweaving Two-Spirit Critiques: Building Alliances between Native and Queer Studies,” they ascribe one crucial aspect of Two-Spirit critiques as being “created and maintained through the activist and artistic resistance of Two-Spirit people” (Driskill, 2010, 81). Various forms of art that are referenced, such as poetry, dance, and visual art, represent how Two-Spirit critiques are realized and reach out to broader audiences. They exist as media to further demonstrate the material realities, histories and spiritualities that continue to be extinguished by the settler colonial status quo. More particularly, the use of visual art will be the locus of the following example of Two-Spirit artistic resistance.

The Vancouver Queer Arts Festival, which was recently held from June 17-29, included a curated Two-Spirit exhibition, named “UnSettled.” 18 artists participated and showcased their work in the exhibition. The head curator was Adrian Stimson, a visual artist from the Siksika Nation in Alberta. Stimson obtained a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Saskatchewan, and two of his paintings were recently given to the British Museum for its North American Indigenous collection. The purpose of the exhibition was exactly what Driskill mentioned—it provided a series of critiques that deal with the histories of colonialism, as well as alternative narratives to the LGBTQ mainstream. You can find the full curatorial statement on the event web page.

Most of the artists’ work was in the form of intersectional, vibrant, polychromatic paintings. In George Littlechild’s piece, Nanekawasis, he contends that sexuality should not be an experience with foundations of shame, but one that is rooted in humanity above all else. He elaborates in an interview that “Christianity has done such a number on us that there’s so much shame that gets placed on us, as human beings…especially as being a Two-Spirited person” (Dailyxtra, 2017). This gave Littlechild the impetus to paint a man who is completely naked—with the intention to “just bare it all” (Dailyxtra, 2017). In this case, “baring it all” entails providing an exposé of the grievances of growing up being shameful of Two-Spiritedness, and to reclaim sexuality from settler colonial dogma.

George Littlechild and his piece, “*Nanekawasis” (taken from the video file)*

Driskill additionally highlights that “…Two-Spirit critiques remain accountable to both academic and nonacademic audiences” (Driskill, 2010, 82). The academic aspect of this art is to incorporate theory and textured nuance to the experience of Two-Spirit individuals, as indicated within the topics of the art exhibition, such as gender policing via residential schools and settler colonial violence. The nonacademic aspect is the accessibility of this art to those who may not possess the vocabularies of academic language, as well as to translate theory into thought-provoking, interpretable, visual forms. These efforts uphold the role of broader organizing—to amalgamate knowledge, and thus power, to the community, with the long term goal of resistance and reclaiming decolonized ways of being.

Dailyxtra. (2017, June 23). How two-spirit artists unsettle the Vancouver Queer Arts Festival [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jj180bgH4jg

Driskill, Q. (2010). Doubleweaving Two-Spirit Critiques: Building Alliances between Native and Queer Studies. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, 16(1-2), 69-92.

Dancing to Eagle Spirit Society – a Vital Alternative to Settler Colonial ‘LGBTQ’ Spaces

“Our Elders tell us of people who were gifted among all beings because they carried two spirits—that of male and female” (dancingtoeaglespiritsociety.org, 2008). Within the span of queer and trans theorizing, the perspectives of people of colour are often times sidelined. Yet, within queer and trans of colour theorizing itself, Indigenous folks also experience being sidelined—mainly because the concept of Two-Spirit stands contrary to the idea of North America being ‘postcolonial.’ As a response to the intersection of Indigeneity and queer, Two-Spirit bodies employ agencies that have resulted in the formation of a variety of groups and organizations.

Because of the socio-economic predicaments and traumas the Two-Spirit community faces on a daily basis, such as the discrimination and criminalization of sex work, the Dancing to Eagle Spirit Society was created by founder Sandra Laframboise as a local resource group in Vancouver in the early 1990s. This was the time period where the term “Two-Spirit” began to be recognized by tribal nations across (so-called) North America, in accordance with the quote used above. It was a particularly troubling time in Vancouver, especially as Downtown Eastside’s public health epidemics reached crisis levels. Its key mission is “dedicated to the healing and empowerment of aboriginal and non-aboriginal two-spirit individuals, their friends, and their allies” (dancingtoeaglespiritsociety.org, 2008). The organization utilizes traditional Indigenous lessons and rituals as a means to cultivate an emotional and spiritual wellbeing for its members. Some of these traditions include: sweat lodge ceremonies, monthly smudging circles with other groups, annual “vision quests/spiritual fasts,” as well as the Eagle’s Nest Market, where Indigenous folks can sell regalia, art, and medicines.

Groups like the Dancing to Eagle Spirit Society exist, in part, as an ongoing reworking of both the cis/heteronormative leadership of Indigenous rights groups and the homonormative/settler colonial leadership of LGBTQ rights groups. Two-Spirit scholar Qwo-Li Driskill, as well as other Indigenous scholars, emphasize that Two-Spirit narratives pose as alternatives to the systems of heteropatriarchy and heteronormativity into which mainstream LGBTQ groups seek assimilation (Driskill et. al, 2011, 33). These systems have historically been utilized to oppress and eradicate non-normative sexual and gender identities, throughout the span of the settler colonial project. Settler colonialism necessitates the disappearance of Indigenous bodies to pave the way for land to be to “inherited,” and bodies that are queered via the Eurocentric gaze demand that disappearance even more so (Driskill et. al, 2011, 36).

Reconciling these oppressions synthesizes into ways that traditional storytelling and rituals, along with the dimensions of the Two-Spirit subject itself, can produce novel ways of imagining identity and belonging, as well as organizing as a whole. Often times religions or spiritualities are demonized by LGBTQ groups because of the traditions they made pertain towards queer and trans bodies, but the Dancing to Eagle Spirit Society shows that not all belief systems function that way.

dancingtoeaglespiritsociety.org. (2008). Retrieved November 08, 2017

Driskill, Q., et. al (2011). Queer indigenous studies critical interventions in theory, politics, and literature. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.

Place-making of QTBIPOC at VanCAF 2017 and Beyond

The Vancouver Comic Arts Festival (better known as VanCAF) was launched in 2012, as a two-day celebration centered on comics and the illustrative / visual and literary arts more broadly (Demonakos, 2016). While VanCAF does not specifically focus on QTBIPOC issues and activism, the space itself has been made a
translocal and transnational space through artistic disidentifactory practices that rewrite common narratives of comic storytelling and the mainstream comic art environment. As described by Bachetta et al. (2015), placemaking is the actual reconceptualization and materialized production of space for QTBIPOC and by QTBIPOC subjects (p. 775). By highlighting the interconnections between the emergence of imagined worlds, material spaces and cyber spaces, the placemaking of QTBIPOC at VanCAF shows the importance of difference and moves us beyond Vancouver (Bachetta et al., 2015, p. 773). While the festival takes place in Vancouver, the festival ultimately brings together indigenous artists as well as settlers of colour from various diasporic communities across spaces, exceeding the limited notion of the ‘local’ as removed from globality.

One of the workshops featured at VanCAF 2017 was “Queer Witches of Colour: How Fantasy Can Empower Us All.” Panelists included Joamette Gil, Der-Shing Helmer, Judy Jong, Jayd Aid-Kaci and Jade Feng Lee—all of whom have explored the possibilities of reimagining fantasy in their work despite and as a result of the genre’s Eurocentric reputation (Young, 2015, p. 1). The event’s description states: “[f]antasy is a genre that lets us escape into worlds of magic and supernatural possibility” (Hamada, 2017). Disidentification from the norms of fantasy storytelling (e.g. centering of whiteness and cisheteronormativity) is ultimately descriptive of the survival practices that are taken up in navigating the constraints presented by dominant interrelated systems of oppression (Munoz, 1999, p. 4). As pointed out by scholar Helen Young, the racial, as well as sexual and gendered discourses that circulate in fantasy works often invisibilize whiteness as a racial position, as it is constructed as the default or norm (2015, p. 1). Through queering, the escapist tendencies of fantasy are used as a means of imagining alternate spaces, futures and ways of being in the world for QTBIPOC as a site of ‘re-humanization’ including through realms of the non-human or less-than-human.

Cover of Eidoughlons, featuring an East Asian (Chinese) dumplingmancer, smiling at the new dumpling friend they have made.

Debuting at VanCAF 2017, Feng Lee’s zine Eidoughlons: A Field Guide for the Aspiring Dumplingmancer catalogues various types of dumplings, simultaneously disidentifying with quest fantasy or heroic fantasy and ethnic storytelling (i.e. the centering of food and mythologies in storytelling) by the joining of the two into one form. Eidoughlons highlights the significance of the intergenerational transmission of knowledge in a fantastical manner, imagining other ways of being in the world and presenting alternate spaces for processes of identity recovery for QTBIPOC that do not necessitate rejecting our families and cultural backgrounds.

Cover of Power & Magic, featuring art by Ashe Samuels. Three brown and black witches surround what appears to be a cauldron or vessel of some sort.

The creation of cyberspaces by and for artists of colour—particularly QTBIPOC—have created spaces for collaboration and community-building. In an interview, editor, artist, owner of Power & Magic Press—a QPOC-operated publishing house—Joamette Gill (one of the panelists) points to the formation of online groups for women and non-binary people of colour to collaborate that led to the production of Power and Magic (Moondaughter, 2016). The formation of cyber spaces invokes the queering of space by and for QTBIPOC, particularly through the navigation between queer and trans of colour imaginaries, cyberspaces and lived reality. The retooling of space across different mediums—cyber, fantastical and material spaces—as the non-human and more-than-human (both tending to be racialized sites) are invoked as routes of rehumanization.

The presence, projects and work of QTBIPOC that has emphasized placemaking that moves beyond hegemonically defined notions of space, as the place of QTBIPOC at VanCAF 2017 is entangled in a broader web of diasporic and colonial formations that operate across a multitude of spaces.

References:

Demonakos, A. (2016, November 1). VanCAF returns with a new festival director and advisory board. Vancouver Comic Arts Festival. Retrieved from http://www.vancaf.com/2016/11/01/vancaf-returns-with-a-new-festival-director-and-advisory-board/

Hamada, J. (2017, May 11). Vancouver comic arts festival 2017. BOOOOOOOM. Retrieved from https://www.booooooom.com/2017/05/11/vancouver-comic-arts-festival-2017/

Bacchetta, P., El-Tayeb, F., & Haritaworn, J. (2015). Queer of colour formations and translocal spaces in Europe. Environment and Planning D, 33(5), 769-778.

Munoz, J. E. (1999). Performing disidentifications. In Disidentifications, 1-34.

Moondaughter, W. (2016, February 1). Creating queer and POC-centric comics: Joamette Gil. Sequential Tart. Retrieved from http://www.sequentialtart.com/article.php?id=2877

Young, H. (2016). Race and popular fantasy literature: Habits of whiteness. New York: Routledge.