Program

Thursday, March 11

8:00 AM - 8:15 AM (PST)

INDIGENOUS OPENING

8:15 AM - 8:30 AM (PST)

WELCOME

Dr. Aaron Devor - Chair in Transgender Studies

8:30 AM - 9:30 AM (PST)

KEYNOTE: Blas Radi 

"Building the Chair of Trans Studies at the University of Buenos Aires: Too trans to be philosophy? Too philosophical to be trans?"

Blas Radi is an assistant professor of Philosophy at University of Buenos Aires, PhD candidate with a full scholarship granted by CONICET (National Committee of Scientific and Technic Research), and a human rights activist. He teaches theory of knowledge and Feminist Philosophy and coordinates the Independent Chair of Trans Studies. His PhD research explores the interplay between ignorance and epistemic injustice.

9:30 AM - 9:45 AM (PST)

BREAK

9:45 AM - 11:00 AM (PST) CONCURRENT SESSIONS

SESSION 1

Kyle Shaughnessy: Teaching & Learning Two-Spirit: Education as Healing

For many Two-Spirit people, there is a felt sense of cultural purpose as we carry out specific roles in our communities. Is being an educator, a teacher, a mentor, a sacred role? This presentation shares findings from the “Teaching and Learning Two-Spirit” research project.

SESSION 2

Sachie Tsuruta: Telling the relationships between transgender identities: transgender phenomena in Japan

The focus of my presentation is on the activities in which trans people articulate their own identities in relation to other transgender categories. By analyzing the interview, I will describe the way the categories of “TS” “transgender,” “GID,” “X-gender” and “feminist” are mutually connected.

Jonah I. Garde: An Abundance of Rats: Impossible Subjects, Lost Objects, and Entangled Trans* Histories

Starting out from seemingly empty archives marked by absence and loss the paper suggests an approach to trans* history that does not focus on subjectivity and identity but instead follows rats to think trans* as at the heart of European modernity and its global entanglements.

Brenda Alegre: From Babaylan to Bakla to Transpinay: Histories and Narratives of Trans Philippines

This talk and paper presentation is about Transpinays and also includes an original poem that narrates our forgotten past, our polarizing present and our uncertain future.

Lisa Thomas: Contesting Gendered Citizenship in India: Exploring Body, Property and Personhood Relationships

The paper attempts at closely reading the legal conception of transgender and intersexed body that appears in the transgender persons act and judgments, to argue for the need to conceive one's body and its gender as personal property of a person, to curtail the state's intrusion into bodily rights.

SESSION 3

Jeffry Iovannone, Christiana Limniatis: The Peggie Ames House: Preserving Transgender History in the Rust Belt

This presentation combines historic preservation and transgender history to examine the life and legacy of Peggie Ames, an early trans activist from Western New York. The setting for much of Ames’s life and work was an historic 1835 Greek Revival style home in the rural town of Clarence Center.

Vincent Bolt: We Live Up Here: Services for homeless trans people in Sudbury ON

This presentation is going to focus on the current challenges facing trans and gender non conforming homeless people in Sudbury Ontario during the COVID-19 pandemic. This presentation will cover ways that local shelters have included or failed to include trans and gender non-conforming people.

Sabastian Buser: A Transarchitectural History of the Women's Anarchist Nuisance Cafe (WANC) 1999-2012

A presentation of the Women's Anarchist Nuisance Cafe (WANC). A monthly trans-inclusive feminist DIY event that took place in several squats across London from 1999-2012. It specifically looks at WANC through a trans-masculine and architectural history lens.

SESSION 4

Tobias Wiggins: Transgender Mental Health during COVID-19: Digital World Building in Alberta

This community-based research traces the pandemic’s effects on trans mental health in Alberta by focusing on digital world building. We explore ethical and “trans methodological” considerations, intersectional research design, and the foregrounding of good relations through Indigenous partnership.

William Keohane: Transition in Lockdown: Shaving and Growth

This non-fictional essay is due to be published in “Gender Euphoria: Stories of Joy” in June 2020. “Shaving” is an exploration of hormonal and medical transition within the confines of lockdown; William’s top-surgery recovery and hormonal transition all took place in Ireland, last year.

Li Lock, Brandon Hill: Using the tools we have: Telehealth and gender-affirming care at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic

This study explores gender-affirming care visits before and during the pandemic using patient data from 10 family planning clinics in the US South and Midwest. Number of visits fell but proportion of GAHT visits was stable, with new patient visits increasing and telehealth boosting in-person visits.

11:00 AM - 11:15 PM (PST)

BREAK

11:15 AM - 12:30 PM (PST) CONCURRENT SESSIONS

SESSION 5

Larrisa Glasser: TRAN YOUR HEAD--the Renaissance of Visibility and Confidence for Trans Women in Heavy Metal

My interviews with several trans metalheads include conflicts experienced pre and post-transition, what performativity means onstage, backlash and/or negative experiences from metal fans and/or the press, and where they see metal and trans rights/visibility headed during the next decade.

Jersey Cosantino: Hauntings of Longing: A Mad Trans Autoethnographic Poetic Transcription

Interweaving a Mad and trans poesis, this poetic presentation and forthcoming publication explores experiences of mental health diagnoses, attendance in an LGBTQIA+ outpatient facility, the obstacles to receiving gender-affirming care, and the hauntings (Gordon, 2008) that pervade this all.

Andrew Robbins: Precarious Persistence: Queer, Punk, and Trans Lineages of San Francisco Transgender Film Festival

Tracing the San Francisco Transgender Film Festival's (SFTFF) lineage to intersections between queer, punk, and trans subcultural formations and the sensibilities they fostered, this paper highlights the significance of SFTFF’s persistent, albeit precarious, resistance to assimilation.

Markus Harwood-Jones: No Other Words: The Stories of Lili Elbe 

“The Danish Girl” novel and film adapt the ‘true story’ of Lili Elbe, the ‘first’ person to undertake a medical transition. The revival of Lili’s narrative speaks to the lingering spectre of modernist sexology in trans identity.

SESSION 6

Shir Bach: Tracing Trans Surgery Through the Archives in Portland, Oregon

Drawing on institutional archives, trans self-narratives, and oral history, this presentation explores the possibilities and limitations of writing a local history of trans surgery. This presentation arises from a 2019 research project with the Gay and Lesbian Archives of the Pacific Northwest.

Jerilynn Prior: Progesterone Is Important for Transgender Women’s Therapy—applying evidence of its ciswomen benefits

Transgender women are usually prescribed high-dose estrogen pills. However, they need progesterone, too. Why? To help lower estrogen doses; safer transdermal estrogen; avoid increased blood clots and breast cancer; increase breast maturation; prevent heart attacks improve sleep; and build bones.

Dallas Denny: Tabletop John Ronald Brown, Surgical Menace

When 79-year-old Philip Bondy was found dead in a hotel room in 1998, authorities were mystified. Who had amputated his healthy leg, and why? I provided the answer to the San Diego County District Attorney: Ronald Brown, a disgraced plastic surgeon who specialized in vaginoplasties.

Anahí Farji Neer: Implications of the Argentine Gender Identity Law on healthcare professionals clinical practice

This work addresses the variations surfacing in health professionals discourse after the approval of the Gender Identity Law, particularly in the assessment of access to and outcomes of treatments requested by transgender people.

SESSION 7

Raegan Swanson, Eli Holliday, Evan Taylor, Myrl Beam: Archival Description and Metadata for Trans Collections

This panel will focus on the description and metadata of trans archival projects, including oral histories, research guides, and community outreach.

SESSION 8

Leo Valdes, Jaden Janak, Rebekkah Mulholland, Simon Fisher: Trans History, the Civil Rights Movement, and Prison Abolition

This panel presents research in Black trans U.S. history and/or Black trans studies. Spanning the twentieth century, the panelists explore Black trans contributions to social movements and ask how our understanding of the trans past (and present) changes when we center their visions and critiques.

12:30 PM - 1:30 PM (PST)

NETWORKING 

Friday, March 12

8:00 AM - 8:15 AM (PST)

DAILY WELCOME

Dr. Aaron Devor - Chair in Transgender Studies

8:15 AM - 9:30 AM (PST) CONCURRENT SESSIONS

SESSION 9

Will Beischel: “A little shiny gender breakthrough”: Community understandings of gender euphoria

Here, I describe the results of a qualitative survey of gender euphoria. Our analyses revealed that gender euphoria is a multifaceted construct involving the mind, body, and society. I then discuss how the wider recognition of gender euphoria is important for research, health, and politics.

Edda Wolff: I have called you by name' - A liturgy of renaming in the Anglican Church of Canada

The Anglican Church is in a process of becoming more transgender and non-binary inclusive. I will present the pastoral potential and the importance of celebrating the reception of a new name in a communal and ritualised way.

Kai McKenzie: Stepping Forward Through Layers and Layers: Comparing Emergence of Self in Two Novels

Tomson Highway and Manuel Puig use related imagery to express the emergence of self in their novels -Kiss of the Fur Queen- and -Kiss of the Spiderwoman-. This paper compares this imagery to suggest a connection between these works.

Sky & Kai McKenzie: Unspoken: Story and Art of a Transgender Child

Too often adults talk over transgender children without paying attention to what these children have to say for themselves. Variations of Sky McKenzie's story "Sky Blue" over time demonstrate that the stories transgender children tell can help them to adapt and grow.

SESSION 10

Marce Butierrez, Francisco Fernández Romero: “Clothes of the opposite sex”: Public space, policing, and resistance in Buenos Aires

In Buenos Aires, wearing “clothes of the opposite sex” in public was criminalized. Subsequently, travestis were exposed to high levels of police violence. In this presentation, we focus on this violence, but also their strategies for survival and resistance in Buenos Aires during the ‘80s and ‘90s.

Meg Osborn: Trans and Nonbinary Protesters Against Police Violence: Safety, Strategy, and Solidarity

This analysis examines trans and nonbinary people's experiences at the 2020 protests focusing on racial justice and police violence. Participants discussed risk and safety, outcomes of engaging in activism, and ways in which the protests helped shape opinions about police and institutional harm.

SESSION 11

barbara findlay, Kori Doty: And the law says: Current legal developments; gendered identity documents; trans care for youth.

A review of the current state of the law, especially relating to gendered identity documents and trans care for youth (cases of AB and YZ) and a look forward.

Christopher Isperduli, Del LGrace Volcano: GENDER QUEER PARENTING FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE

Our workshop is based upon a foundational approach to parenting that is norm critical and intersectional. We will explore the ways in which gender, race, ethnicity, class and able-bodism intersect and diverge. Through the prism of our lives we will share the ways in which we both resist social norms.

SESSION 12

Leo Rutherford: Health and well-being of trans and non-binary participants in a Canadian community-based survey.

This presentation will share findings about comparisons and community health portraits of both trans and non-binary participants related to sexual health, mental health and substance use, healthcare, social health, and discrimination from cross-Canadian Sex Now Survey.

Shoshana Rosenberg: "The sex life I always wanted but never had": Trans Australians experiences of intimacy and pleasure

This paper presents findings from the Australian Trans and Gender Diverse Sexual Health Survey, as well as in-depth qualitative data on trans people's experiences of sex, pleasure, intimacy, and relationships. The paper will explore the nuances, counternarratives, and complexities of trans sexuality.

Carol Lopez Ricote, Sharp Dopler: Exploring the Health Experiences of Indigenous Gender Diverse Communities: A Scoping Review

This scoping review addresses the range of existing research on the health and experiences with health services of Indigenous gender diverse, trans, and two-spirit people. The review was conducted by the Indigenous Leadership Group of Trans PULSE Canada, a national community-based research study.

9:30 AM - 9:45 AM (PST)

BREAK

9:45 AM - 11:00 AM (PST) CONCURRENT SESSIONS

SESSION 13

Susan Gapka, Martine Stonehouse, Evan Vipond: From Surviving to Thriving: Findings from the Toronto Trans Coalition Project’s Needs Assessment

In 2018, the Toronto Trans Coalition Project conducted a needs assessment of trans and nonbinary people based on the social determinants of health. Our presentation will focus on the key findings and recommendations, and the importance of community-based, peer-led research, intersectional research.

Jade Pichette: Included? Evaluating Trans Workplace Inclusion in Canada

Transitioning Employers: A survey of policies and practices for trans inclusive workplaces was in 2020 published by Pride at Work Canada and the University of Toronto’s Institute for Gender and the Economy (GATE), the first trans inclusion workplace policies audit across Canada’s large employers.

Evan Vipond, Benjamin Vandorpe: JusticeTrans: An Access to Justice Initiative for Trans People in Canada

JusticeTrans is a not-for-profit access to justice initiative for trans people in Canada, on Turtle Island. This presentation offers a brief history of JusticeTrans, an overview of our current initiative focusing on knowledge enhancement and capacity building, and our aspirations for the future.

SESSION 14

S.J. Langer, Taymy Josefa Caso, Louisa Gleichman, Ella Hilsenrath: The Phenomenon of Phantom Penis in Trans Masculine & Nonbinary People

Trans phantoms are bodily sensations of gendered body parts which are missing from the body. This is the first systematic phenomenological interview study related to phantom penises sensation in TGNB people. Preliminary results shed light on body, sex, mental and physical health.

SESSION 15

 Nico Mara-McKay: Categorizing Gender: Historicizing the Nonnormative

This paper considers two legal cases from medieval Europe, those of Eleanor Rykener and Hetzeldorfer, and explores methodological and ethical questions surrounding appropriate naming conventions, pronoun usage, historicization, and what can be known of a person's sense of internal identity.

Katja Thieme, Mary Ann Saunders, Laila Ferreira: Concepts of Trans Identity in Research on Facial Recognition Software

We investigate the language of facial recognition research with regards to how they discuss gender, esp. trans identities. We conduct coding analysis of a corpus of approx. 20 research articles (2010-2020), and show how binary gender concepts are discursively manifest in AI scholarship.

SESSION 16

Avery Dame-Griff: Did You Yahoo?: Preserving Digital Transgender History

This presentation considers the implications of preserving and archiving digital trans spaces, including practical issues like format and long-term archival storage , as well as ethical questions related to posters’ expectations of privacy, identifiable information, and determining archival access.

Laura Horak: Tracing the History of Trans Filmmaking with the Transgender Media Portal

A brief history of trans filmmaking in Canada and the US and a presentation of the tool my team is building, TransgenderMediaPortal.org. I will discuss our efforts to build the tool in a trans-centric way.

Hanna Jacobsen: Who Counts as Trans? A Critical Discourse Analysis of Trans Tumblr Posts

Tumblr is known as a site of community building among LGBTQ+ youth, but online trans communities can also reinforce hegemonic narratives. This research analyses how trans Tumblr users define the limits of trans identity, including how users define gender dysphoria and its relationship to transness.

Jordan Forrest Miller: An Intersectional Content Analysis of #WeHappyTrans and #TheGenderTag

This dissertation is based on a content analysis of two trans activism campaigns on YouTube. Using a transfemininist methodology, I explore 1) aspects of trans lived experience that contribute to increased quality-of-life, and 2) the effectiveness of digital trans activism for political change.

11:00 AM - 11:15 AM (PST)

BREAK

11:15 AM - 1:00 PM (PST)

ELDERS PANEL

Featuring a panel of Trans+ Elders providing live first-hand oral testimony.

ELDER BIOS

1:00 PM - 2:00 PM (PST)

NETWORKING 

Saturday, March 13

8:00 AM - 8:15 AM (PST)

DAILY WELCOME

Dr. Aaron Devor - Chair in Transgender Studies

8:15 AM - 9:30 AM (PST) CONCURRENT SESSIONS

SESSION 17

Alexandre Baril, Marjorie Silverman, Marie-Claire Gauthier, Maude Lévesque: Moving towards the future: Reflections on end of life planning for trans people with dementia

Trans people are incited to plan their end of life to specify how they would like to be treated in case of dementia. Often, this planning assumes a static gender identity and that the self pre-dementia makes better decisions. We reflect on end of life planning using an intersectional approach.

Cavyn Mitchell: Social experience within gender nonconformity and disability

Transgender identity and disability have long since been at the margins of society and have been stigmatised and alienated. However, there are many commonalities between these two identities including language, fear and invisibility. This presentation will focus on these commonalities.

Hannah Kia: Forging forward: A conceptual foundation for Canadian scholarship on trans aging

I draw on critical gerontology and intersectionality to develop a conceptual foundation for questions underpinning the emerging field of trans aging, as applicable to the Canadian context. This framework may help inform research on the experiences and issues of midlife and older trans adults.

SESSION 18

Ardel Haefele-Thomas, Ms. Bob Davis: Not Trying To Pass As Anything But Outraged

Our presentation utilizes archival materials to examine the employment of drag by marginalized communities for the purposes of speaking truth to abusive power systems, resistance and activism. We focus on drag as gender transgression in LGBTQI2+ resistance from the 1980’s to the present day.

Sky Karp: The Future is Non-Binary: Exploring the Evolution of Gender Diverse Communities in Northern Europe

This study traces the evolution of butch and crossdresser communities in Northern Europe in the late 20th century into the contemporary non-binary movement. While butch and crossdresser communities challenge binaries, ‘non-binary’ expands gender identity in the Western world beyond male and female.

Devin Gaine: Becoming Visibly Nonconforming: Disrupting Norms of Recognition through Nonbinary Dressing

Drawing on interview data, this paper explores the relationship between visible nonconformity and nonbinary gender. Through a critique of norms of visibility and recognition, I show that the imperative gender must be visible affects how we are seen, how we see others and how we wear clothing.

SESSION 19

Jamison Green, Jude Patton, Charley Burton, Zander Keig: Mentoring in Trans Masculine Community

This panel brings 4 generations of trans men mentors to discuss their individual experiences as both mentors and mentees, and their perspectives on mentoring in the trans male community.

SESSION 20

Magnus Berg: Where Are the People Like Me in Libraries and Archives: Interrogating Trans Metadata

This presentation will challenge the current library and archives best practices in place for describing materials created by, relating to, or depicting transgender, non-binary, and other gender non-conforming people and brings a practitioner's perspective to the trans metadata debate.

Beck Schaefer: A History of Classifying Trans Subjects at the Library of Congress before 1963

The Library of Congress first established a classification number for trans subjects in 1963. Prior to that, Library of Congress catalogers interpreted trans themes in a variety of benign ways and rarely associated transness with homosexuality.

Daze Jefferies: Fishy Bodies Fleeing Capture: Trans Women’s Histories in Ktaqamkuk

Waves of outmigration, fish trade, and oceanic time make trouble for trans history work in Atlantic Canada. This presentation demonstrates the significance of research-creation – knowledge in poetry, visual art, and soft sculpture – as a way to think about fishy kinds of trans archival intimacy.

K.J. Rawson: Behind the Search Bar: What’s Happening at the Digital Transgender Archive

The Digital Transgender Archive includes more than 8,000 items that document trans-related history, all contributed by more than 60 archives. In this presentation, Director K.J. Rawson will introduce the project and will offer some some suggestions for how to use the site.

9:30 AM - 9:45 AM (PST)

BREAK

9:45 AM - 11:00 AM (PST) CONCURRENT SESSIONS

SESSION 21

Ruchi Kapila, Zavier Williams, Rafael (Rafa) Brown Sampayo, Romy Keuwo: Holistic Care Perspectives of BIPOC TGNC Folx in the Field of Speech-Language Pathology

Gender affirmative voice work is mostly provided by cis, white voice specialists with no expectation on intersectional cultural responsiveness. Our BIPOC TGNC speech-language pathologist and graduate student panel will discuss our aim to provide quality gender affirmative care to BIPOC communities.

SESSION 22

Cheryl Morgan, Miller Power: Trans People in the Roman World

The Roman world provides a unique opportunity for trans research. Evidence for lives lived outside the gender binary is well documented by the Romans themselves. These histories provide a sense of community to present-day trans people, and disprove the common claim that being trans is a modern fad.

Rachel Schenk Martin, John Walsh: Man! I Feel Like a Woman: Alexander the Great's exploration of gender

This presentation will help participants better understand Classical history and culture and the complex ways in which Alexander the Great embraced gender experimentation through an examination of divine aspiration, gender exploration, and engagement in drag.

SESSION 23

Mattie Walker: Exploring Current Approaches to Trauma Support for Gender-Diverse Survivors of Violence

There is urgent need for informed approaches to trauma support for gender-diverse survivors of violence. This presentation outlines explores current gaps in the literature regarding trauma support and queries the idea of embodied safety in trauma work with gender-diverse individuals.

Audrey Wolfe: Literature Review of the Ways that LGBTQ People Survive Sexualized and Intimate Partner Violence

The ways that LGBTQ people make sense of their experiences of surviving sexualized and intimate partner violence may differ from survivors who are heterosexual and cisgender, with homophobia, heterosexism, and transphobia fostering opportunities for abuse that rely on these power structures.

Teale Phelps Bondaroff, Charles Ledbetter: Til genders run as free as rivers with no dams: Bash Back!, community self-defense, direct action.

This paper compares the strategy of Bash Back! a queer and trans direct action network, with those of other community self-defense initiatives, situates it within the broader ecosystem of LGBTQ activists engaged in direct action, and explores the legacy of Bash Back! on present-day activism.

SESSION 24

Shaan Knan: Trans & Faith - A Roadmap to Inclusion

Faith can be an important part of many trans people’s lives. Yet, the myth is perpetuated that trans people cannot possibly belong within faith communities. Introducing his landmark publication 'Roadmap to Inclusion: Supporting Trans People of Faith', Shaan invites others to share their experiences

Jamison Green, Ms. Bob Davis, Dallas Denny: Not The Only One

Work-in-progress from the forthcoming anthology, "Not The Only One," exploring how gender-diverse people learned to find each other in the mid-to-late-20th century in North America. The proposed volume chronicles the creation of modern transgender identities, lexicons, organizations, and media.

11:00 AM - 11:15 PM (PST)

BREAK

11:15 AM - 12:45 PM (PST)

KEYNOTE: MISS MAJOR! 

Miss Major is a Black, transgender activist who has fought for over fifty years to create a better world.

Major is a veteran of the infamous Stonewall Riots, a former sex worker, and a survivor of Dannemora Prison and Bellevue Hospital’s “queen tank.” Her global legacy of activism is rooted in her own experiences, and she continues her work to uplift transgender women of color, particularly those who have survived incarceration and police brutality.

In conversation with SYRUS MARCUS WARE

Syrus Marcus Ware is a Vanier scholar, visual artist, activist, curator and educator. Syrus uses drawing, installation and performance to explore social justice frameworks and black activist cul-ture, and he’s shown widely in galleries and festivals across Canada. He is part of the Performance Disability Art Collective and a core-team member of Black Lives Matter – Toronto. He has won several recognitions including the TD Diversity Award 2017, “Best Queer Activist” NOW Maga-zine 2005, and the Steinert and Ferreiro Award 2012. He is the co-editor or the best-selling Until We Are Free: Reflections on Black Lives Matter in Canada (URP, 2020). Photo Credit: Jalani Morgan.

12:45 PM - 1:45 PM (PST)

NETWORKING

Sunday, March 14

10:00 AM - 10:15 AM (PST)

DAILY WELCOME

Dr. Aaron Devor - Chair in Transgender Studies

10:15 AM - 11:45 AM (PST)

YOUTH PANEL

Youth from Skipping Stone - Calgary, Alberta

11:45 AM - 12:00 PM (PST)

CLOSING REMARKS

Dr. Aaron Devor - Chair in Transgender Studies

12:00 PM - 12:15 PM (PST)

INDIGENOUS CLOSING

12:15 PM - 1:15 PM (PST)

NETWORKING