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Gender

Spring 2025

QTs unite

Queer and trans fat folks create community in New Brunswick

Ashleigh-Rae Thomas

In 2021, Aaron Beaumont decided it was time to create more queer connections in New Brunswick. While doing their undergrad at St. Thomas University in Fredericton, Beaumont’s work in fat studies led them to learn more about fat activism online. After realizing that most groups were based in the U.S., and the few Canadian groups […] More »
Spring 2025

Vagina dialogues

Has the internet killed feminist health activism?

Jac D.B.

When I learned I had precancerous lesions on my cervix and that my doctor was recommending I remove them surgically, my reaction went as follows: One, muted panic. Two, I’m definitely going to die. Three, Wait, what does that even mean? So I did what anyone in possession of an Internet connection in 2021 would […] More »
Spring 2024

Girl stuff

It’s silly that women get bullied just for liking things, but there’s a lot more to be said on the subject

Sam Nock

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 »
January-February 2024

Next-gen gender

Parents and designers are taking kids' fashion to the next level

Isabel Harder

  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 »
November - December 2023

Breaking the silence

Canada is severely behind in providing support for female genital mutilation/cutting survivors

Kena Shah

“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 »
May-June 2023

Birds of a feather

From stages to council meetings, this Vancouver drag queen advocates for Indigenous representation and gender-affirming care

Tova Gaster

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 »
May-June 2023

Cripping the Script

Queer and disabled people are changing the narrative around masculinity— and making it their own

Tobin Ng

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 »
May-June 2023

Blood Feud

Canada has made changes to be less discriminatory toward queer blood donors, but is it enough?

Maddy Mahoney

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 »
May-June 2022

2000s music video looks are back…

But we’re not dangerously in love with it all

Jody Anderson

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 »
March-April 2022

One and all

The pressure to represent all Black women

Sarah Charles

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 »
March-April 2022

Not your perfect victim

A new law seeks to educate judges on social context and sexual assault—but there are reasons to believe it’s not enough

Samantha Peters

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 »