For more information about any of our past or current projects, feel free to contact us anytime.
The Centre for Gender Advocacy is excited to announce that we have received Women and Gender Equality (WAGE) funding for a Montreal Sex Worker Support Network to further community led initiatives for 2SLGBTQ+ people and women engaged in the sex work industry. The goal of the program is to identify and respond to systemic barriers and discuss anti-violence strategies. The Centre for Gender Advocacy will fulfill the funding expectations through the creation of two new positions at the Centre, community-led meetings, and a final report.
You can read the Centre’s brief, submitted to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Bill 36, here. For more information, to suggest a program or event, or to get involved, contact Mischa at programming@genderadvocacy.org.
Our Administrative Coordinator, Jordyn River, put together new streams of volunteering in Fall 2022, in order to invite folks who may not have the flexibility required by the Peer Support and Advocacy training program to still be a part of our events and organizing at the Centre. With a focus in either Events or the Library, volunteers may help with anything from postering on campus to cataloguing new library acquisitions. Feel free to contact Jordyn at info@genderadvocacy.org to get involved!
Zine Library Digitization
With the help of new volunteers, the Centre hopes to increase the accessibility of its zine library by digitizing the collection to be made available online. The Centre is currently seeking funding to assist in the development of this project, and hopes to begin the digitization process in the coming months.
In Winter 2022, the Centre, led by Programming Coordinator Mischa Shadloo, worked with Tom Deerhouse in his capacity as a community Elder. Over six weeks, Tom took Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Concordia students and wider community members alike through a range of topics. The program began with Indigenous histories, and led the students through a series of teachings with a special focus on intervention tactics aimed at students with the goal of entering psycho-social and/or caring professions.
The Centre is incredibly grateful for Tom’s work on this project, and we hope to continue providing opportunities for Indigenous-led projects in the future.
In October of 2021, the Centre began working to oppose the transphobic aspects of the proposed Bill 2, most notably the attempt to reintroduce gentitalia-based sex markers and segregation of intersex people by sex markers. These propositions were in direct opposition to the wins afforded to the trans community of Quebec by the Centre’s historical court case victory for trans rights in 2016. The Centre’s team — led publicly by Celeste Trianon, our Trans Advocacy Coordinator — alongside the individual and organizational members of the Table de concertation trans du Québec (formerly known as the Comité trans du Québec), successfully fought for amendments to the Bill that ended up furthering access to legal name and gender marker changes for trans and non-binary people across Quebec.
Adopted in June 2022, the final Bill 2 included, most notably, free first gender marker changes, the possibility of obtaining a non-binary gender marker, the possibility to modify your parental designation, and a transitional measure simplifying the change of sex designation process for non-binary people who already changed their designation previously.
A huge thanks to Celeste, as well as all the activists and organizations, who allowed for this great victory to happen. We will continue to fight for trans rights however we can!
Our team worked hard to create lists of gender neutral bathrooms at both Concordia’s downtown SGW campus and the Loyola campus. Thanks to the Centre’s advocacy on this point, beginning around six years ago and having been continued by Celeste and the current team, Concordia began offering their own interactive map of inclusive washrooms on campus at the end of 2022.
You can also see a map of gender neutral bathrooms in and around Montreal here.
The Mapping Project was a one of a kind research project that ran from 2018-2020 coordinated by Shay Hadley and Gift Tshuma, supported by three community research assistants and a community advisory team. The project was supported and coordinated mainly by Concordia alumni who identify as 2SLGBTQ+ and/or disabled. It used surveys, interviews, and focus groups to highlight the experiences of trans, queer, and disabled Concordia students.
In the end, the project heard from over 300 Concordia community members including students, staff, and faculty. Students shared with us recommendations they had for Concordia, and these, along with their experiences, were compiled into a report. Complimenting the larger project, a review was undertaken of Concordia’s current Student Accessibility Policy, providing recommendations for a much-needed update to the 16-year-old policy. In October 2020, these results were shared publically and provided to Concordia administration.
The project focused on the following barriers faced by students:
- Attitudinal (e.g. lack of knowledge, prejudice, etc.)
- Structural (e.g. physical access, washroom access, etc.)
- Systemic (e.g. policies, training, pedagogical approaches, etc.)
Mapping Project Reports
1. Accessibility Policy Report – pdf download
2. Mapping Project Report – pdf download
Coming soon.