Moving beyond Allyship: Creating Inclusive Spaces Within Schools for Queer and Trans Community

Our Why For This Event:

With the number of legislations targeting queer and trans people increasing across the United States and Canada, schools are becoming a particularly vulnerable and dangerous space for queer and trans youths. Recognizing our lived experiences as queer and trans folks of colour working within the DEI industrial complex, we are striving to be more transformative justice-oriented in our personal and political practice. We also acknowledge that many educators, community members, and parents struggle to understand and support queer and trans youth, in part because of the lack of spaces for folks to engage in conversations and discussions around things that are challenging and uncomfortable. Through this session, our aim is to co-create and co-facilitate a community gathering space to not only deepen political analysis on the intersections of racism, gender, sexuality, and other identities and lived experiences, but to also strategize on ways in which we can create inclusive spaces within our communities for queer and trans youth to thrive beyond survival.

This event is designed for:

• Educators (teachers, administration, tutors, educational assistants, etc.)
• Community members that work with youth (ex. afterschool programs, sports teams, community programs, etc.)
• Parents

Some of the topics you can expect from the session are:

• Historical and Current Political Landscape
• Moving Beyond Allyship and Into Accomplice/Co-conspiratorship
• Let’s Practice Interrupting & Addressing Harm!
• Community Discussion/Peer Learning

Event Details:

Date: Saturday, October 19, 2024

Time:10-12pm PST (1-3pm EST)

Platform: Zoom (zoom link will be sent out to folks after registration)

Pricing Transparency:

We acknowledge that historically educational institutions are underfunded and that defunding practices continue to this day, resulting in educators consistently being underpaid for their work and labour. As many educators seek out external opportunities to continue their own professional development and deepen their political practice through their own financial resources, we want to strive for accessibility to address this inequity and provide a sliding scale of pay what you are able to from $0 to $100 USD for this event. Consider your own social identities (ex. race, class, gender, ability, etc.) and financial resources to determine what you choose to pay within the sliding scale. For example, if you are white, cis, straight men of middle-class and primarily able-bodied, consider paying the higher end of the sliding scale (ex. $100).

• Actual pricing: $50
• Solidarity rate to support 3-5 free registrations: $75-$100
• Sustainable rate will ensure that we can continue to hold sessions in the future: $100-$150

*25% of the proceeds will go to Crips for eSIM to purchase eSIMS for Gazans.*

About Crips for eSIM for Gaza:

https://disabilityvisibilityproject.com/2023/12/25/crips-for-esims-for-gaza/

Donation Link:

https://chuffed.org/project/crips-for-esims-for-gaza

Disclaimer:

We are not providing specific solutions or policy changes that can be immediately proposed to any specific schools or school districts. Our intention is to build collective strategies, measures, and best practices that educators can utilize and incorporate into their classrooms and community spaces and begin to develop inclusive spaces for queer and trans youth.

We will not arrive at any specific destination; this is meant to be a generative conversation with the desire to propel attendees to further their own learning and actively engage in actionable steps to support queer and trans youth.

This event is intended to be an online facilitated peer learning and community gathering space where we collectively will support skill development and build a care network, so the work can be continued sustainably.