Category: Events

The charity event titled “5 Days for the Homeless” is hosted at UBC by the Commerce Community Program at the Sauder School of Business, and its goal is to raise $10,000 for their chosen charity Covenant House Vancouver by staying outside as if homeless on the UBC campus. Some of their ‘conditions’ include, going without shelter, technology, basic amenities, or disposable income for five days, they must also be given any food they consume. This local charity event aims to address a wider problem of homelessness in Vancouver, but fails to address the wider non-local issues that disproportionately displace QTBIPOC folks and youth thus contributing to homelessness overall. On a broader scale in British Columbia Trans and gender non-conforming folks experience high levels of discrimination and harassment when looking for housing or accessing social services (BC Poverty Reduction 2014). Trans and queer folks of colour as well as aboriginal two-spirit persons experience even higher levels of discrimination due to the intersection of being racialized and queer (BC Poverty Reduction 2014). This event inappropriately mimics homelessness in Vancouver and the charity funds could be better utilized to aid LGBTQ2S* and QTBIPOC folks who suffer disproportionately from poverty and homelessness in BC.

The event itself has its front and center poster image of the Sauder student participants with cardboard signs strung around their neck, cups and hands held out, with faces of longing as if pretending or dressing up to be homeless (Sauder 2008). This image is unsettling as it dresses the participants up as homeless, when they are aiming to help the homeless. Mimicking tends to ‘Other’ people because it makes a character out of homelessness.

The circumstance of the ‘homeless’ experience this fundraiser aims to recreate is different to the unknown someone who is displaced and marginalized living on the streets goes through. There are intersections of oppression experienced by QTBIPOC persons who are forced to live on the street besides the physical suffering this event mimics. According to the BC Poverty Reduction fact sheet on LGBTQ issues, “29% of trans people often report being turned away when trying to access shelters, and 22% report being assaulted by residents and staff” (BC LGBQT Poverty Fact Sheet 2014).” Not to mention, one in four queer and trans youth in BC are forced out of their families’ homes due to identity-centered conflicts (BC LGBQT Poverty Fact Sheet 2014). These emotionally draining tribulations contribute to the overall suffering of being in poverty and homeless. Clean warm sleeping bags, curious peers on campus, and welcoming campus security all contribute to the ways this event cannot simulate homelessness in Vancouver. Homeless people cannot guarantee their safety or a welcoming response from the police sleeping on the streets. Under the picture is an article that continues on to describe the intention of the original “5 Days for Homelessness Campaign” as “…created by three University of Alberta business students as a way to support the disadvantaged and help change public perceptions of business students. (Sauder 2008).” This clearly defines their intention to improve public image and perception of business students on a general non-local level by hosting a charity event for the ‘disadvantaged.’

Their choice of charity, Covenant House, is the largest privately funded charity in the Americas for homeless and exploited youth as well as being a Christian affiliated organization (About Covenant House 2017). Despite toting a rainbow flag at the bottom of their webpage, Covenant House’s religious ties and separate gendered services could discourage Trans and Queer folks (Covenant House Vancouver 2017). Critics of Covenant House draw on opinions circulating among LGBTQ2S+ youth that describe the environment to be homophobic (Murphy 2005). Their split gender locations discourage gender non-conforming LGBTQ2S+ persons, and the high client to staff ratio makes it harder to protect the most vulnerable and targeted (Murphy 2005). An example of a homeless charity organization that focuses on the most marginalized among homeless youth and the root of the local problem is Rain City Housing. They offer housing specifically targeted towards Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Queer, Two-Spirit, Plus (LGBTQ2S*) youth and is the first of its kind of program in Canada (Raincity 2017). They address that 25-40% of the homeless population in Vancouver is LGBTQ2S* when only 10% of the total Vancouver population identify as LGBTQ2S* (RainCity 2017). This highlights the way the “5 Days for the Homeless” fundraiser could better affiliate with an organization that accounts for the QTBIPOC homeless youth in Vancouver and British Columbia overall.

The Sauder hosted charity event could more effectively support the local homeless population of Vancouver by affiliating with an organization that addresses and cares for LGBTQ2S* and homeless youth of colour on a grassroots local level. The Sauder Business School should address the intentions of the event and rethink whether they are doing it for a public relations image or for the benefit of the truly most marginalized and disadvantaged in Vancouver. The Covenant House being the biggest charity in the America’s reaffirms the way the money raised could make more of an impact going to a organization that cares for those forgotten about by the big charities. This event as it stands inappropriately mimics homelessness in Vancouver and the charity funds could be better utilized to support the most overlooked local homeless population whom are LGBTQ2S* and persons of colour.

 

 

Works Cited

“About Covenant House.” About Covenant House | The Homeless Hub, 2017. homelesshub.ca/toolkit/chapter/about-covenant-house.

Covenant House. “Welcome to Our Homepage.” Covenant House Vancouver, www.covenanthousebc.org/.

Habib, Sadia. “’Othering’ in Education.” The Sociological Imagination, sociologicalimagination.org/archives/18405.

Murphy, Jarrett. “Wounded Pride.” Village Voice, www.villagevoice.com/2005/04/19/wounded-pride/.

Rain City. “LGBTQ2S* Youth Housing.” Raincity Housing, www.raincityhousing.org/what-we-do/lgbtq2s-youth-housing/.

Sauder Business School. “Sauder Students Take Part in 5 Days for the Homeless Campaign.” Suader School of Business, 2008. www.sauder.ubc.ca/News/2008/Sauder_Students_Take_Part_in_5_Days_for_the_Homeless_Campaign.

“University of British Columbia.” 5 Days for the Homeless, 5days.ca/schools/ubc/.

Cris Derksen and Orchestral Powwow was one of the artist and art forms featured at the Queer Art Festival on June 24, 2017 (The Georgia Straight, March 6, 2017). The theme of the festival “Unsettled” required the presence of Two-Spirit performers like Derksen along with the Orchestral Powwow in order to highlight the absence of Two-Spirit people and art from popular culture (The Georgia Straight, March 6, 2017). Artists like Derksen will expose the issue of historical extermination of Two-Spirit individuals and the lack of alternative Aboriginal sexuality and gender in contemporary western culture/media. In addition, they will exhibit the Two-Spirit movement and future as a part of the reclaiming of Two-Spirit identity and practice (The Georgia Straight, March 6, 2017).

Orchestral Powwow is a creation of Two-Spirit Cree cellist and composter Cris Derksen (The Georgia Straight, June 20, 2017). It is a new genre of music and includes Indigenous artists and performers. This medium is a means of collaboration, empowerment and the reclaiming of gender and identity for Aboriginals including Two-Spirit persons. The artistry is being used as a mode of agency, an expression of queer politics of belonging, a disruption of heteronormativity and the performance of disidentification
The music is the weaving together of traditional powwow beats and classical music and a style that brings Indigenous music to the centre of the European model, as well as to the contemporary western culture/media (Unreserved, 2015). Derksen comments that the music is a representation of the two worlds as much as it is a signifier of her being a Two-Spirit woman in a primarily heterosexual world (The Georgia Straight, June 20, 2017). Furthermore, the association of the traditional powwow beats and the classical music and the affiliation between a Two-Spirit woman in a heterosexual sphere creates tension. This tension speaks to the broader implications regarding how colonization and decolonization impacts Indigenous bodies. Derksen discloses that she uses her identity of mixed heritage and Two-Spirit gender and sexual orientation to create a unique form of music that expresses her agency and indigeneity. This amalgamation can be interpreted as a means of decolonization and the disruption of heteronormativity.

In addition, Derksen declares that Orchestral Powwow is the mode that will create a space for Aboriginals to be heard, seen, and valued, as well as given a leading role. Chavez (2010) affirms Derksen’s notion of queer belonging and being valued as a citizen in the nation-state. Therefore utilising powwow music and the wearing of regalias in the performances of orchestra music is a demonstration of belonging and citizenship. This is also what Munoz (1999) refers to as a performance of disidentification. Performing disidentification is a vital survival strategy for Two-Spirit and Indigenous persons because of settler colonialism. Like Julia Salgado’s art, it is used as a tool of resistance. As such, Derksen and Orchestral Powwow is a declaration that Two-Spirit and Aboriginals through the beats of their ancestors will continue to resist the borders of second-class citizenship in which they are placed. “Being identified as two-spirit often meant carrying unique responsibilities and roles within the community, knowledge keepers being one of the most important” (Georgia Straight, Mar 6, 2017). Adrian Stimson’s (Georgia Straight, March 6, 2017)) expresses the unique role of Two-Spirit individuals as knowledge keepers; while Driskill (2004) states that, they are caretakers. Derksen is a good example of a knowledge keeper and caretaker of the Aboriginal community and culture through Orchestral Powwow.
Derken and Orchestral Powwow is a reminder that Two-Spirit and Indigenous Peoples will continue to celebrate their identity on their terms while transforming the psyche of the nation.

Work Cited:

CBC Radio. Unreserved. Retrieved November 24, 2017 fromhttp://www.cbc.ca/radio/unreserved/remembering-mmiw-iceis-rain-on-two-spirited-success-and-cellist-cris-derksen-s-unique-musical-genre-1.3254088/cellist-cris-derksen-creates-new-genre-with-orchestral-powwow-1.3254566

Chavez, Karma. (2010). Border (In)securities: Normative and Differential Belonging In LGBTQ and Immigrant Rights Discourse. Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, 7(2): 136-155.

Driskill, Qwo-Li. (2004). Stolen From Our Bodies: First Nations Two-Spirit/Queers and The Journey To A Sovereign Erotic. Studies in American Indian Literature, 16(2): 50-64

Munoz, Jose Esteban. (1999). Performing Disidentifications. In His Disidentification, pp. 1-34

The Georgia Straight. Vancouver’s Queer Arts Festival to highlight two-spirit and indigenous perspectives this year. Retrieved November 7, 2017 from https://www.straight.com/life/877746/vancouvers-queer-arts-festival-highlight-two-spirit-and-indigenous-perspectives-year

The Georgia Straight. Orchestral Powwow blends indigenous and classical forms at Queer Arts Festival. Retrieved November 24, 2017 from https://www.straight.com/arts/926716/orchestral-powwow-blends-indigenous-and-classical-forms-queer-arts-festival

Killjoy is an organization that organizes events specifically for black / indigenous / mixed race / people of colour who are also queer / trans / two-spirit / intersex. Killjoy has held numerous QTBIPOC dance parties and on August 8th, 2016 Killjoy organized a week long series of events called Killjoy Fest which “both celebrates difference as well as empowers the queer community to actively address the harm perpetuated by racism & colonization (Killjoy n.d.).” Events during the week invited “BIPOC”, “QTBIPOC”, and “Everyone” to attend, depending on the event in question. These appellations were a deliberate move to create QTBIPOC only spaces where members of the community could meet one another and build connections. As Marlon Bailey (2014) writes, “space is as much a social entity as it is a material one (p. 494)”. Killjoy offers a model of “for us, by us” organizing that is attentive to the value of intentionally creating QTBIPOC spaces and places.

QTBIPOC occupy identities that are multiply marginalized in what Gopinath (2005) calls “spaces of impossibility (p. 18)”. While Gopinath is talking specifically about the impossibility of nonheterosexual South Asian women, I find her term to be valuable to QTBIPOC as a whole because of the historic entanglements of queerness and whiteness as well as heteronormativity and racialization. Because of the ways in which racialized people are othered in white settler colonial states, the desire for belonging to the space of the nation state may manifest in the performance of respectability (Jafri 2013). By performing heterosexuality and binary gender rigorously the racialized other avoids further marginalization in the forms of sexual and gender deviancy. The specific creation of QTBIPOC space works to undo the impossible notion of QTBIPOC existence. We exist. Finding one another and sharing joy and crafting relationships is an act of tremendous healing.

One aspect of Killjoy’s organizing that I love is their explicit welcoming to trans/non-binary/two-spirit/third-gender people; an acknowledgement of genders that exist beyond the binary and that they are an essential part of the community Killjoy seeks to grow. With the rise of Jordan Peterson’s infamous disavowal of non-binary genders under the banner of “free speech” coinciding with the essentialist discourse of radical feminists, transphobia abounds.

Following the transphobic, anti-sex work ideologies espoused by groups within Vancouver including the Vancouver Women’s Library (Flegg 2017), Killjoy added it’s name among scores of others in a note titled “Open letter against transmisogyny and anti-sex work rhetoric in Vancouver.” They address performative inclusion, a tactic that is utilized by groups in order to avoid criticism and obscure lurking transphobia. Part of the letter reads: “We denounce hypocritical and opportunistic uses of the term inclusivity. Genuinely inclusive initiatives must demonstrate accountability and actively give power back to marginalized people. We will not be misled by fraudulent claims while transmisogyny and sex worker phobia proliferate unchecked (2017).” What Killjoy is doing runs along the vein of Bailey’s (2014) discussion of geographies of exclusion that necessitate QTBIPOC to form their own spaces of “inclusion, affirmation, and celebration (p. 494).” Creating space for non-white beyond-binary genders is a radical statement of love and care in a hostile world.

REFERENCES:

Bailey, Marlon. (2014). Engendering space: ballroom culture and the spatial practice of

possibility in Detroit. Gender, Place and Culture, 21(4): 489-507.

Flegg, Erin. (2017). New Space, Old Politics. Maisonneuve. October 10. https://maisonneuve.org/article/2017/10/10/new-space-old-politics/

Gopinath, Gayatri. (2005). Impossible desires. In Impossible desires, 1-28

Killjoy. (2016). About us. http://killjoyfest.tumblr.com/about

Open letter against transmisogyny and anti-sex work rhetoric in Vancouver. (2017). The Talon. http://thetalon.ca/open-letter-against-transmisogyny-and-anti-sex-work-rhetoric-in-vancouver/

The WagonBurners Two-SpiritConvention is annual holiday dinner and show organized by the Greater Vancouver Native Cultural Society (GVNCS). The 2017 convention, titled “Winter Masquerade,” is scheduled for December 17, at the Penthouse on Seymour Street in Vancouver (GVNCS Two-Spirit, 2017; follow this link to RSVP: https://www.facebook.com/events/126504628059982/).

The GVNCS Two-Spirit society was established 40 years ago to accept and represent people who identify as Two-Spirit (Takeuchi, 2016). One result of American and Canadian colonialism was the denunciation of the Two-Spirit identity, as well as the establishment of the binary gender system (Walters, Evans-Campbell, Simoni, Ronquillo, & Bhuyan, 2006). This binary gender system exists today due to the Western emphasis on gender differences based on biology (Blackwood, 1997).

For Chief Al Houston (Silver Coyote), the WagonBurners Two-Spirit Convention is “more or less an Aboriginal Two-Spirit society taking care of [their] own community, which is important because [they] feel they aren’t getting that attention from the community at large” (quoted in Lewis, 2013). Indeed, in 2004, 38% of Two-Spirit youth sampled in British Columbia aged 24 and younger stated that they do not feel accepted in their community (Urban Native Youth Association, 2004). Given the historical responsibility of Two-Spirit people to serve their community as caregivers (Miranda, 2010; Walters et al., 2006), the fact that such a high percentage of Two-Spirit youth do not feel accepted by their communities can result in a high degree of anxiety and life dissatisfaction. Furthermore, Two-Spirit people can experience dysphoria and displacement from their cultures as a result of being forced into, or forced to choose, between one of only two genders in the binary gender system that exists in colonized Canada (Miranda, 2010).

Two-Spirited people’s desire to belong in their Native communities might, to some Queer theorists, be a process of homonormativity. However, the Two-Spirit identity has more to do with gender than sexuality, and Two-Spirit people yearning to be integrated members of their Native community, as they traditionally are, is actually an opposition of assimilation, not an adoption of homonormativity (Driskill, 2010).

Thus, Driskill (2010) calls for the intertwining of Native studies and Queer studies: A union that works beyond intersectionality and ventures into a stronger analysis, called Two-Spirit critiques. Unlike current Queer studies that un-see Native people, or mention them along with all other people of colour, Two-Spirit critiques are embedded in Native historic and political dimensions. Also, these critiques “are created and maintained through the activist and artistic resistance of Two-Spirit people” (Driskill, 2010, p. 81), such as the work done by the GVNCS Two-Spirit organization and the WagonBurners events. These activisms work to repair the relationship Two-Spirit people have with their Native communities, and Two-Spirit critiques can gain vast knowledge from the work done by these activist organizations.

 

References

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.

Blackwood, E. (1997). Native American genders and sexualities: Beyond anthropological models and misrepresentations. Two-Spirit people: Native American gender identity, sexuality, and spirituality. S. Jacobs, W. Thomas, & S. Lang (Eds.) Chicago: University of Illinois Press.

Davidson, M. R. (2012). A Nurse’s Guide to Women’s Mental Health. New York: Springer Publishing Company.

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.

GVNCS Two-Spirit. (2017). In Facebook. Retrieved November 5, 2017 from https://www.facebook.com/events/126504628059982/

Lewis, S. (2013, Dec 10). Annual Two-Spirit dinner provides a sense of family, Chief says. Xtra. Retrieved November 5, 2017, from https://www.dailyxtra.com/annual-two-spirit-dinner-provides-a-sense-of-family-chief-says-56319

Miranda, D. (2010). Extermination of the Joyas: Gendercide in Spanish California. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, 16(1-2), 153-84.

Takeuchi, C. (2016, July 28). From South Asian to Jewish Canadians: Metro Vancouver’s LGBT cultural organizations and groups. Straight. Retrieved November 5, 2017, from https://www.straight.com/life/745416/south-asian-jewish-canadians-metro-vancouvers-lgbt-cultural-organizations-and-groups

Urban Native Youth Association. (2004). Two-Spirit youth speak out! Analysis of the needs assessment tool. Retrieved November 5, 2017, from http://www.unya.bc.ca/downloads/glbtq-twospirit-final-report.pdf

Walters, K. L., Evans-Campbell, T., Simoni, J. M., Ronquillo, T., & Bhuyan, R. (2006). “My spirit in my heart”: Identity experiences and challenges among American Indian Two-Spirit women. Journal of Lesbian Studies, 10(1-2), 125-49.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

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.

The QTBIPOC Youth Gathering came out of a collaboration between the Urban Native Youth Association (UNYA) and QMUNITY, alongside other organizations. It was a day-long gathering that occurred on 30 January 2017. The gathering invited over 50 queer, trans and two-spirit youth of colour from across British Columbia to share information about resources, as well as discuss what is lacking in their communities to facilitate change while centering the voices of those for whom changes are to be made. Together with the facilitators (also QTBIPOC youth), they put together a QTBIPOC Road Map to be shared with each of the youths’ communities. The event also notably included workshops for adults and non-QTBIPOC people, while funding was made available for youth who live outside of Vancouver to participate in the meeting (Takeuchi, 2016).

The plan to create a youth gathering grew out of conversations that began in 2016 between UNYA, the Vancouver School Board and youth support workers around creating safer spaces for queer, trans, two-spirit, people of colour youth. Aimee Beauchamp of Squamish Nation, a school support counsellor notes that upon beginning her work with UNYA, she received many requests to run programs for two-spirit and queer indigenous youth. After connecting and consulting with various organizations, they decided that the best way to understand needs of the youth was to have them partake in discussion (Takeuchi, 2016). Ayesh Ismail-Kanani, one of QMUNITY’s youth workers co-facilitated a brainstorming session, while Tiaré Jung followed along with conversations and drew live images of the ideas that were being presented to produce an infographic. By documenting and facilitating discussion rather than leading it, QTBIPOC voices are centered, as opposed to a reliance on assumptions about how youth navigate institutions (Ismail-Kanani, 2017).

The QTBIPOC Road Map maps out important sites in the everyday lives of youth and their needs within those spaces. Needs are marked with red dots to denote a higher level of priority; some examples of this include gender neutral washrooms, quiet public spaces to decompress, healthcare professionals always learning, staff training in schools, inclusive learning that acknowledges queerness and transness and people of colour histories, accessible queer recreational spaces and affordable housing. The emphasis on different spaces and the significance of various relationships that QTBIPOC youth have with different institutions importantly points to the need to move away from the production of cis-white-centered queer spaces (e.g. Davie Street) by moving away from idealizations of the metropolis, as such work reveals the operation of interconnected systems of oppression across cities, suburbs and rural communities. This is exemplified by its mention of the need for accessible and meaningful community consultation of public space alongside issues around affordable housing, including spaces for more marginalized youth. This connects QTBIPOC to issues around settler colonialism, including gentrification and neoliberalism’s centering of the ‘free individual.’

The discussion between QTBIPOC ultimately disidentifies with identitarian politics, recognizing its strategic uses in terms of queer, trans and two-spirit, people of colour advocating for their needs, while also emphasizing the desire to be seen as ‘whole,’ and, thus, beyond mainstream queer politics’ tendency to devalue or erase race and class from discussions around sexuality and gender. The presentation of the lived realities of QTBIPOC and their navigation of societal constraints in the everyday moves away from the homonormative white middle class subject, centering identitarian ideas about queerness, sexuality and gender that is supported by a post-racial and multiculturalist understanding of the lower mainland (Bacchetta et al, 2015, p. 771; Manalansan, 2005, p. 147). The articulation of discussion about the everyday lived lives of QTBIPOC youth through a road map reveals the “inadequacy of conventional narratives where self and community progressively unfold,” as the desire for transformation is shaped by the need to navigate institutions to survive, highlighting important work being done within institutions (Manalansan, 2005, p. 147). While this is not necessarily ‘transformative’ or radical, the livability of queer and trans lives of colour and two-spirit lives becomes a site of contestation that centers the desires, affect and, thus, futurity of QTBIPOC and two-spirit youth.

The success of the road map has yet to have been reported, but it has been made available as a resource on QMUNITY, UNYA and other web pages, as well as reportedly being made accessible to the communities of the youth who participated in the gathering. The bringing together of QTBIPOC from beyond the ‘Vancouver’ area provides a more nuanced notion of queerness that is not limited to the bounds of the metropolis that brings into the realm of possibility alternative spaces.

References:

Jung, T. (2017, January 30). QTBIPOC road map [Illustration / Online image]. Retrieved from http://qmunity.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/QTBIPOC-Youth-Road-Map.png

Ismail-Kanani, A. (2017, February 28). Hearing from the youth: QTBIPOC youth gathering. QMUNITY. Retrieved from https://qmunity.ca/news/qtbipoc-youth-gathering/

Manalansan, M. (2005). Migrancy, modernity, mobility. In Eithne Luibheid and Lionel Cantu (eds.), Queer migrations, 146-160.

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.

Takeuchi, C. (2016, December 12). Urban native youth association to hold gathering about safe spaces for queer youth. Georgia Straight. Retrieved from https://www.straight.com/blogra/844226/urban-native-youth-association-hold-gathering-about-safe-spaces-queer-youth