I am admittedly a formerly pretentious, insecure hater of all things popular, pastel, and mainstream. As a teenager I forced myself to sit down and read Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, making long lists of Russian names, trying to keep complex plots straight that were honestly above my paygrade. Though I still think Anna Karenina is a […] More »

  Gender-neutral clothing is a growing trend in Canadian fashion, and one that is trickling down to the wardrobes of the youngest Canadians. From chains such as La Tuque, Quebec’s Aubainerie, to small businesses such as Vancouver’s Pley Clothes, options for parents looking to build their children a genderless closet are growing across the country. […] More »

“It was just something to do…like getting your hair braided,” says Kayowe Mune, describing the mindset held by many communities about female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C). Mune, now 42, is a content creator based in Toronto and was cut when she was six years old, as part of what’s known as vacation cutting, which often happens […] More »

Photo Courtesy Oliver McDonald The Scarlette Ibis, wearing burgundy curls, a red leather corset, and matching heels, strode across the pub floor to the buoyant electro beat of Kim Petras’s “Slut Pop.” She briefly disappeared as she hit the floor in a confident roll. If she wobbled slightly on the rebound, the crowd only cheered […] More »

Michelle Peek Photography courtesy of Bodies in Translation: Activist Art, Technology & Access to Life, Re•Vision: The Centre for Art & Social Justice at the University of Guelph. Fashion spaces have long excluded people who aren’t straight, white, cisgender, able-bodied men. But for many disabled folks, the field also represents opportunity—a place where it’s possible […] More »

Photo by Dieter Meyrl Last spring, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and six other suited-up politicians held a press conference announcing a long-awaited change to Canada’s blood donation system. Given that the change they were making—eliminating the blood donor screening question that deferred men who’d had sex with other men in the last three months—was really […] More »

In Scarborough, Ontario, in Cedarbrae Mall, down the escalator and across from the Dollarama, there’s Frugo, a store that feels very much like a flea market. There you’ll find an assortment of items that range from vintage to essential. A few years ago, I found a small orange faux leather handbag and modelled it in […] More »

No joy is more fulfilling for me than shattering the expectations someone has of me. To be unpredictable is to be individualistic. And in my skin, standing alone as an individual gives me the chance to take solace in myself. Because I am an unambiguous Black woman in a predominantly white community, escaping the stereotypes […] More »

I am a non-binary Black queer femme survivor of sexual violence who has never gone to the police or engaged in a court process in order to seek justice and accountability. Every time that I have disclosed that I am indeed a survivor, I am seldom believed. Why would anyone do that to someone who […] More »

When Zawadi Bunzigiye was assigned to create a project with some sort of community impact as part of their creative writing program at OCAD University, they were stumped. It wasn’t until a conversation with a friend that Bunzigiye decided to start a podcast. What began as an academic assignment has blossomed into a “passion project” […] More »

When Julia Horel presented a report at an Annual General Meeting (AGM) for the non-profit where she worked, she had a secret. Less than 24 hours prior, she received gut-wrenching news. Sometime between the first ultrasound at eight weeks into her pregnancy and the follow-up two weeks later, she experienced a miscarriage. The embryo she […] More »