International Trans Day of Visibility

Recognized annually on March 31, the International Trans Day of Visibility is dedicated to celebrating trans people and raising awareness of discrimination faced by transgender people worldwide.

• Learn more via The Canadian Centre for Gender + Sexual Diversity.
• Find U of T resources for Trans and Nonbinary students via the University’s Sexual & Gender Diversity Office.
• Learn about FIFSW research & initiatives designed to strengthen transgender individuals and communities, below.

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FIFSW Research & Inititiatives

(The following information was also shared during Transgender Awareness Week, November 2023.)

INQYR — International Partnership for Queer Youth Resilience  

Reimagining Roller Derby, led by PhD student Kaitrin Doll (they/them), who is also INQYR’s Canadian Regional Network Co-Chair, is exploring the experiences of sexual and/or gender diverse athletes who play on roller derby teams.  

Category Is:, led by Associate Professor Keith Adamson and Gerard Dee, is examining how 2SLGBTQ+ Black young adults in the Kiki-Ballroom scene of Montreal and Toronto are challenges and impacted by racism in both physical and virtual worlds and how the Kiki-Ballroom scene supports them.  

Safe and affirming abortion care 

Youth Wellness Lab youth researchers, mentored by Associate Professor Stephanie Begun (Youth Wellness Lab Co-Director, and Director, Social Work Research, Contraception and Abortion Research Team, CART-GRAC), have been working hard since Spring 2023 to conduct research and develop tools for making abortion care more accessible and destigmatized for equity-deserving groups across Canada. Through focus groups and individual interviews conducted during Summer and Fall 2023, this research is showing an urgent need for developing further resources and supports specifically for trans and non-binary people seeking abortion information and care. This research is funded by Health Canada. Stay tuned for more updates as this team continues to develop and share resources that can be used by abortion patients, healthcare providers, and social workers! 

The team working with Dr. Stephanie Begun on this project includes Cam Bautista (Youth Research Coordinator), Dr. Preetika Sharma (Research Associate), and Youth Researchers: Sarmitha Sivakumaran, Gaja Ananthathurai, Ayla Arhinson, Hajar Seiyad, and Temulun Bagen. 

Image credit: Cam Bautista 

 

Trans Women of Colour Video Series 

Created in 2019, the Trans Women of Colour Video Series was developed as part of a program of research by the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) Stigma & Sexual Health Interventions to Nurture Empowerment (SSHINE) Lab, led by Professor Carmen Logie.  

The videos also support the goals of TEACHH (Transgender Education for Affirmative and Competent HIV and Healthcare) — a CIHR and CTN funded research project that aims to remove healthcare barriers to engaging Transgender women in HIV prevention and care.  

Produced by Logie with Ashley Lacombe-Duncan (MSW 2010, PhD 2018) and Yasmeen Persad, the Trans Women of Colour Video series gives viewers the opportunity to learn from trans women of colour about their experiences as newcomers to Toronto and their experiences with selflove, health care access, and stigma, mental health, and resilience. 

 

Access to Justice for Trans People 

In 2022, the Canadian Bar Association published the report Access to Justice for Trans People [PDF], which identifies barriers and challenges for trans people in accessing justice and makes recommendations for improvements.  

Professor David Brennan, contributed to the report as a member of the research team. Brennan is the founder and director of the CRUISElab, an interdisciplinary, community-based social work research lab dedicated to addressing the sexual, mental, physical, and emotional health of gay, bisexual, two-spirit, cis- and trans-gender men who have sex with other men (GB2M). He also co-authored the summary report Legal Problems Facing ing Trans People in Ontario, published in 2018 [PDF]. 

 

The VOICES Project

In 2021, Professors Peter A. Newman and Notisha Massaquoi in partnership with Toronto Public Health and several community-based agencies launched a study aimed at gaining a deeper understanding of the pandemic experience of racialized sexual and gender minorities — and the complex factors associated with vaccination decision-making in this group.

There’s ample evidence showing that the pandemic has amplified existing health, economic and social inequities, resulting in COVID-19’s disproportionate effects on racialized groups in Toronto and globally. The same is true for LGBTQ+ communities. Newman and Massaquoi’s VOICES (Vaccine Outreach Integrating Community Engagement and Science) project, funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, is examining individuals in the Greater Toronto Area who hold both identities.

 

LGBTQ+ inclusion in Asia

With support from a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Partnership Grant, Professor Peter Newman is leading a project addressing crucial research and knowledge gaps in LGBTIQ inclusion in Asia. The multidisciplinary partnership includes 5 core research teams and 26 community partners in Bangladesh, Hong Kong, India, Thailand, and Taiwan, as well as the Asia Pacific Forum and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

 

Neoliberalism, Control of Trans and Gender Diverse Bodies and Social Work

A recent 2023 paper led by PhD student Kaitrin Doll examines how neoliberal ideology infiltrates mental health care systems and impacts social workers’ ability to support trans and gender diverse people to access gender-affirming healthcare.

“Neoliberal ideology operationalized through bio-medical models infiltrates mental health care systems and results in constraints on social work practice, both in how social workers can adhere to professional ethics and values and in the ways they can support trans and gender diverse people to access gender-affirming healthcare,” write the study’s authors in their conclusion. “This paper contributes to critical scholarship on social work with trans and gender diverse populations and calls for social workers to return to the foundational ethics and values of the profession and resist bio-medical approaches to mental healthcare that enforce transnormativity and pathologize gender diversity at the expense of the lived experiences of trans and gender diverse people.”

Article: Doll, K., Brown, C., Johnstone, M., & Ross., N. (2023) Policing the gender diverse body: The implications of neoliberalism on trans and gender diverse health in Nova Scotia. Journal of Evidence Based Social Work.

 

Let’s Talk About Stigma podcast: How to use your voice to support trans people 

Listen to Professor Carmen Logie’s interview with Yasmeen Persad about stigma experienced by trans people and how people can use their voice to support them. Yasmeen Persad is a trans activist who has been providing education  and training around  LGBT related issues for the past 10 years. Her experience ranges from working with trans youth, women living with HIV, sex workers and many diverse populations. She  also provides training to service providers around Trans community inclusion and support.  

 

The PRIDE Project 

The PRIDE Project, led by PhD student Ali Pearson, seeks to “dismantle destructive heteronormative conversation through social advocacy and justice.” The PRIDES Project’s website includes resources on trans inclusive social work, the intersection of near and gender diversity, transgender healthcare services and more. 

As an MSW student Ali worked with queer puppeteer Adam Proulx on a video for a class assignment related to Trans Day of Remembrance. The video brings awareness to the importance of language in a light, humorous way.

 

Do you have a resource you’d like to share? Reach out to Dale Duncan at dale.duncan@utoronto.ca