Lately, all of my labour—domestic, creative, and income-earning—has shrunk to the space of a studio apartment. My office now doubles as my kitchen table, my gym, and my sick bed. It is a home which felt small even when I had access to third spaces for work, leisure, and exercise (such as cafes, parks, libraries […] More »

With bare midriffs, tattoos, and mermaid tails—or no clothes at all—Mollie Cronin’s unapologetic characters ride alligators, eat pizza, swim, lounge on cheese, and raise their middle fingers. The Halifax cartoonist distills millennial dating woes, the perils and joys of East Coast living, and the complexities of gender and body politics in her honest and funny […] More »

  After reaching my late-40s, becoming more visibly trans, having a child, and losing most of my employment prospects, I finally became comfortable with myself. A lot of that comfort and acceptance came from a new love affair—with, oddly enough, trapeze. In grad school, my girlfriend went to the gym.  I followed suit, because everything […] More »

Being a Plains Cree non-binary lesbian with a non- functioning uterus makes baby-making hard. And the looming pressure of total environmental and climate collapse has made a lot of my friends choose not to have children at all. Is it selfish to bring a child into the world as it stands now? And can I […] More »

Dear Bjork, The year leading up to my 30th birthday almost killed me, quite literally. The stress from my living situation at the time was pushing me to the edge of my sanity. I was living in a place I didn’t want to be in because I had gotten priced out of the place I’d […] More »

An average day for married couple Jeremie Saunders and Bryde MacLean might include dates with their respective partners, an interview with a camgirl, or conversations about orgasm scavenger hunts. Nothing’s off the table for the Halifax-based co-hosts of the Turn Me On podcast, a series on sex, in all its fun and messy forms. In […] More »

“I’ve turned all my sorrow into glass It don’t leave no shadow”             —Robyn, “Missing U”   A boy is driving me home from a poetry reading. I have a crush on him. We’ve been talking and hanging out for five months now, gradually learning each other’s lives and sharing small moments of softness. My […] More »

Debbie Patterson stands in a circle with her castmates, swaying from side to side, from crutch to crutch. The group is performing The Threepenny Opera, a 1928 German musical critiquing capitalism. The cast consists mostly of disabled theatre artists—and that’s especially powerful in this context: Living with a disability directly challenges capitalism, according to Patterson, […] More »

On August 20, 1995, I slipped into the passenger seat of my friend’s rusty old hatchback. It was nine o’clock at night. As we pulled onto the highway, heading from Ottawa toward Montreal, I wriggled to get comfortable on the vinyl seat, smooth against my bare legs. Fastening the seatbelt, I settled in. By ten […] More »

All too often, people with disabilities are left out of the body positivity conversation. That’s why when Andrew Gurza was asked to pose in Toronto alt-weekly Now magazine’s “Love Your Body” issue in January 2015 completely naked, he felt excited and hopeful to start a dialogue about bodies that are not typically considered beautiful. “I like […] More »

Gender Block breaks down and analyzes the latest in news about women, feminism, and gender in Canada. According to its mandate, the Body Confidence Canada Awards (BCCA) “advocate for equitable and inclusive images, messages, practices and policies supporting body diversity.” It’s pretty hard to argue with that mandate, unless you’re a jerk. And if the past […] More »