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It’s the late 2010s and I’m a teenager carefully watching my mom out of my peripheral. She’s paying attention to the TV and the animated man on the screen in a hilarious combination of suit, tie, and yellow beanie. He’s eating ice cream in a diner with a friend: a girl who’s made it very clear she likes him this whole season, only to be met with his awkward body language, stumbled excuses, and quick subject changes.

I’ve seen this one before, but my heart is in my throat when the companion asks Todd Chavez (Aaron Paul) if he’s gay.

Todd responds, “I’m not gay. I mean, I don’t think I am, but I don’t think I’m straight either. I don’t know what I am. I think I might be nothing.”

I click the next episode of BoJack without hesitation.

BoJack Horseman is a Netflix original animated tragicomedy set in a fictionalized version of Hollywood. Our cast includes a mix of humans, anthropomorphized animals, and celebrity cameos. As it aired from 2014 to 2020, BoJack went on to receive consistent critical acclaim and a dedicated audience who loved the balance between the wacky scenarios typical to adult animation and the honest portrayal of serious topics like substance abuse and depression.

When season four graces our screen, I finally hear the word that I’ve held close to my chest for years now spoken aloud: “asexual.” Todd Chavez, our wacky slacker sidekick, initially reacts with an aversion to the label.

But after some uncertainty and self-reflection, Todd embraces his identity in “Hooray! Todd Episode!” During a vulnerable moment, Todd comes out to BoJack: “I’m asexual. Not sexual.”

I share a look with my mother, the woman who’s known me all my life, who still knows me best, and hope that she understands.

*

Todd Chavez was one of only two asexual characters included in GLAAD’s 2017-2018 “Where We Are on TV” report, marking the first year the annual publication included asexuals in its data. While the publication notes that there was some asexual representation on television in previous years, “those characters were often relegated to one-off episodes, which did not allow for nuanced exploration.”

Seeking out asexual representation on TV was an often-disheartening exercise for a young asexual (commonly shortened to “ace”) like me. As a greater number of queer characters stepped into the spotlight, I searched desperately for the aces. When it came down to it, most of our “ace representatives” pre-2017 were only “ace-coded” characters, portraying some common signs of asexuality without ever encountering, exploring, or articulating the term. Asexuals would often recognize these signs or find the experiences of the characters relatable to their own asexual experiences, but we rarely heard our label spoken aloud.

Sometimes, it was enough to be the character left uncoupled by the end of the narrative—like Frozen’s Elsa—to be hailed as an “asexual icon” on internet forums. The ambiguity of the unlabelled asexual meant little repercussion for portraying common ace stereotypes like the logical and emotionless “robot” over and over again. Think The Big Bang Theory’s Sheldon Cooper who says he “find[s] the concept of coitus to be ridiculous and off-putting.” Sheldon is touch-averse and sex-repulsed, but never uses the term “asexual” to describe himself. The lack of articulated labels leaves it up to fans to draw their own conclusions and, in more cases than not, leaves the writers space to retcon any common ace markers to suit their narrative needs. When the word “asexual” was actually uttered, it was met with a “fix it” attitude like House M.D.’s episode “Better Half.” (House spends his 44-minute run-time trying to disprove the claims of a self-identifying asexual couple, unfortunately succeeding when it’s discovered the man has a pituitary tumor that lowered his libido and caused erectile dysfunction, and the woman admits she was faking for her husband.)

Todd Chavez’s ground-breaking journey on BoJack was an important milestone for those of us looking to see our sexuality portrayed with positivity and a complex, comprehensive multi-season storyline on screen. When I showed my mom BoJack, already knowing where Todd’s journey would lead, I was secretly building a foundation for my own coming out moment.

As Todd comes into his own understanding of his identity—an asexual who is interested in romance, but sex-averse—the show demonstrates the variance in ace experiences. A couple from his Asexual Alliance group explain the difference between aromantic asexuals—those not interested in sex or relationships—and aces who enjoy dating. Todd’s childhood friend Emily (Abbi Jacobson) informs us that some asexuals do have and enjoy sex. As Todd’s dating life progresses, we see the struggles that arise from dating while asexual, such as Todd dating Yolanda (Natalie Morales) because they’re both asexual, even though they have nothing else in common.

The thing I dreaded most about my own coming out moment was having to explain to my family what asexuality means. I didn’t want to field questions, discuss the nuances, and be delegitimized because I was just an inexperienced teenager. One of the benefits of representing marginalized identities on screen is that representation bridges gaps in understanding. Pink Triangle Press’s 2024 PTP Pink Paper, a research report on Canadian 2SLGBTQIA+ media representation, explains, “9 in 10 media professionals agree that on-screen representation increases understanding and drives acceptance of 2SLGBTQIA+ people in society at large.”

In its delicate handling of my identity, BoJack provided the crash course on asexuality that I dreamed of. My mom was an apt student who was enticed by the series’ rapid-fire shifts between tense dramatic moments and silly schemes. By the end of the series, she left with something meaningful: some basic knowledge about a type of sexuality she wasn’t previously familiar with. All that was left for me to do was to point at Todd and say, “Mom, that’s me.”

Yes, I came out to my mom using BoJack Horseman. Turns out TV is a useful tool.

*

Since BoJack, I’ve encountered more asexual characters in the media I love, though many of them aren’t as widely visible as the ones found on television. Most of my favourites come from books or indie content on the internet with a limited audience. On TV and popular streaming services, especially in Canada, there’s still a lot of work to be done.

In GLAAD’s most recent “Where We Are on TV” (2023-2024), they reported four asexual characters across streaming and cable: Sex Education’s O, Heartstopper’s Isaac, Heartbreak High’s Cash, and Big Mouth’s Elijah. At four characters, we see double the total from Todd’s ace-debut year—all of them found on Netflix, two carried over from the previous year—and still pitifully in the single-digits. The 2024 PTP Pink Paper report omitted data on asexuals as there was not sufficient ace representation in mainstream Canadian media.

A greater number of characters only have their asexuality confirmed by their creators rather than shown on screen. According to SpongeBob SquarePants creator, Stephen Hillenburg, in a 2005 People Magazine interview, he “never intended [SpongeBob] to be gay. I consider [him] to be almost asexual.” SpongeBob is asexual! Who knew? Many other creator-confirmed aces can be easily-missed by audiences, buried in interviews and old social media posts. The aces are out there—more of us than you’d think—but where are our storylines?

It’s tough work seeking out asexuals on screen. Alongside intersex and Two-Spirit, we’re still one of the most underrepresented queer identities on mainstream TV. Nearly a decade after he said “asexual,” Todd Chavez is still important to me, still my favourite character in western animation. He gave me the courage and the resources to express my pride and come out to my family by bravely embarking on his asexual journey. As the next generation tunes in to their favourite shows, I hope they find their Todd.

Photo by Katie Rainbow via Pexels

On a cloudy February day in Edmonton, Alberta, a giant trans pride flag flies over Dr. Wilbert McIntyre Park, marking the meeting place for a rally in support of the trans community. It’s days after Premier Danielle Smith, in a seven-minute video posted online, announced the most restrictive gender policies in Canada under the guise of “preserving choice for children and youth.” Alongside my 15-year-old daughter, who has many non-binary friends at school, and my best friend, whose child is gender diverse, I join the growing stream of people heading to the gazebo at the centre of the park.

The crowd eventually balloons to over 1,000 people as we wait to hear from the speakers—politicians, Two Spirit Elders, and organizations fighting for trans rights and reminding us to celebrate trans joy. Everywhere are Pride and trans colours and handmade cardboard signs. Some are cheekier than others, like the one that says, Someone come get your ‘Auntie’ Marlaina, she’s harassing the youth again. Marlaina is the premier’s given first name, but she prefers to go by Danielle—an irony she failed to appreciate while telling Alberta’s youth that all name and pronoun changes at school need to be approved by their parents.

While it’s a scary time for young trans and gender-diverse kids and their families, protests like the one happening today show how much solidarity there is in the community, letting these students know they’re not alone. There’s also a clear message that, no matter what policy the province tries to implement, those who know and love them will not stop seeing them for who they are. All around us, clusters of teachers hold signs saying they will never out their students. We run into the parents of a trans kid who lives in our neighbourhood and have a big group hug.

We’re all in need of comfort. At their AGM in November 2023, the United Conservative Party (UCP) overwhelmingly adopted three policies all related to “parental choice.” An opt-in consent for “any subjects of a religious or sexual nature,” including enrolment in extracurriculars or distribution of instructional materials relating to them; one supporting parents’ rights to be informed of and in charge of all decisions to do with all services paid for by the province; and the requirement for parental consent for name or pronoun changes for anyone under 16.

The UCP government wants to take things even further. They are proposing legislation to restrict gender-affirming healthcare for minors—no puberty blockers for anyone under 15 years of age and no gender-affirming surgeries for anyone under 18.

In her video, Smith said that gender-affirming care “poses a risk to [children’s] futures that I, as premier, am not comfortable permitting in our province.” It’s horrifying to know that Smith believes her feelings override actual medical evidence and best practices, or that parents, doctors and minor patients need her permission to choose the right treatment plan for any health concern.

There is a real fear, echoed by many health-care associations and gender-supportive services across Canada, that these policies will result in more harm to this vulnerable and at-risk community. In the Canadian Paediatric Society’s position statement on caring for trans and gender-diverse youth, they clearly state that adolescents who have access to gender-affirming medications have “lower odds of suicidal ideation over the life course.” Denying trans and gender-diverse youth access to the care they need when they need it is the real risk to these children’s futures.

Regardless of Smith’s position on the matter, many caring adults know this, and are fighting for students’ rights to be themselves. In a powerful member statement on the first day of the spring legislature session, Brooks Arcand-Paul, Alberta New Democrat MLA for Edmonton-West Henday and a Two Spirit person, stood proudly, wearing a floral and rainbow ribbon skirt gifted to him by his community, and condemned these policies and the divisiveness they are stoking.

Arcand-Paul says he’s pleased that many Albertans and organizations like labour unions are coming together to support the trans community. The vice president of the Alberta Teachers’ Association spoke at the rally in February, and the United Steelworkers, the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees and the Canadian Union of Public Employees all came out with strongly worded statements denouncing the proposed policies.

But Arcand-Paul also warns, “if this government intends to take rights away from one group, it’s certainly not going to stop there.” He says Albertans need to continue to contact their MLAs and voice their concerns about the proposed policies. “Sometimes we say something once and think it’s good enough, but we have to keep pushing the gas on this one and we can’t lose steam.” Arcand-Paul suggests people donate to organizations like Skipping Stone and Egale Canada, who are establishing legal advocacy funds and gearing up to challenge these policies in the courts if necessary.

As we left the rally, I still had the progressive Pride flag pinned to my jacket. We headed to the Old Strathcona Farmers’ Market for a pre departure coffee. Within minutes, three people stopped me, curious about the flag and the rally. I gladly answered their questions. It made me realize how powerful the simple act of showing up can be—and that we can’t assume everyone knows what’s happening in Alberta politics, or that they don’t care.

The queer and trans community have been fighting for their rights for a long time, but for some of us, this is new territory. It’s imperative that progressive Albertans continue to show up and commit to defending the Charter and human rights of all people, and to keep the pressure on this government with individual calls and letters, attendance at rallies and protests, and donations to the grassroots organizations leading these actions.

Given their track record, it’s hard to say if these actions will be enough to force the UCP government to change its course. But we have to try.

Photo Courtesy Studio ZX

The graffiti-covered Van Horne skatepark on the edge of Montreal’s Mile End is usually dotted with boys in beanies and sneakers, launching themselves into the rink with the cracking sound of skateboard wheels hitting concrete. But, every Thursday night for a brief stint during the summer of 2021, they were replaced with a different crowd: femme, queer, and trans people, speeding by on skateboards or rollerskates as their friends cheered them on.

As the sky darkened, more people arrived. They came dressed to impress and eager to be with others who understood queer joy. When Vicky B. Ouellette, a trans woman and community activist, looked down into the skatepark the first time she attended “Tran Horne Take-Over,” she couldn’t hold back tears. “I’d never seen something quite like [it]. It was so precious and so exclusively queer, and it was really important.”

“There’s a lack of understanding that we create these spaces out of necessity, not out of entertainment,” Ouellette explains as she recalls the weekly event, which was intended to unite femme, queer, and trans people during Montreal’s COVID-19 lockdown. However, with each passing week, Ouellette noticed a shift: slowly, more straight, cisgender people who seemed like observers rather than participants started to attend, recording videos and taking photos. By August, the event was shut down. She believes that the police discovered it as a result of these people broadcasting the event online.

Despite knowing that the events broke the city’s stringent rules against gathering at the time, Ouellette also knows they were deeply necessary. She cites this saga as an example of how there is a widespread absence of awareness around the importance of nightlife for queer Montrealers. For many, coming together with their community is more than just a hangout; it’s seeing their self-made family.

Ouellette is the founder of Studio ZX and the president of MTL 24/24’s advisory council, two organizations driving nightlife activism for marginalized communities. To her and many others, the act of nighttime entertainment and gathering is sacred. If an event or venue is expressly queer-friendly, it becomes a haven for people to let loose without the fear of being misgendered, harassed, or othered. However, as city officials place greater scrutiny on the nightlife sector, the underground scenes that the community has built may be pushed further to the fringes.

In April 2024, Montreal’s Commission on Economic and Urban Development and Housing presented its final nightlife policy recommendations in a public assembly meeting. It was a step toward the city’s intention to spend $2.1 million to create a 24-hour nightlife zone, likely in the Latin Quarter, as well as “nocturnal vitality zoning” throughout the city. The details of the latter are still vague, with a sense that this zoning would permit alcohol sales after 3 a.m. (the city’s current cutoff). These developments may pad the city’s bottom line, but the policy lacks clear details on how it will include or protect the main drivers of Montreal’s local nightlife scenes and its most vulnerable populations: queer and racialized artists, patrons, and workers.

For those who are not within these minority groups, it can be difficult to understand the constant feeling of unease and danger in nightlife. When asked if she feels unwelcome in nightlife spaces that are not expressly queer-friendly, Ouellette was quick to answer: “Absolutely. It’s just so easy to be objectified, or fetishized, or harassed, or screamed at, or [looked at] cross-eyed. Stuff like that is so common.”

Maintaining physical safety is also a factor. For racialized people and those who are both queer and racialized, some of the peril in nightlife is not overtly violent, but stems from a sense of otherness in some of the city’s scenes. “Being hit on by cishet men not knowing that I’m trans is a situation that is extremely uncomfortable, and can be dangerous,” Amai Doucet, Studio ZX’s media relations and communities manager, explains.

For too many people, discomfort, and sometimes violence, is the status quo in nightlife. Canada’s Survey of Safety in Public and Private Spaces found that sexual minorities are nearly three times more likely to experience violent victimization and more than twice as likely to experience inappropriate sexual behaviours than heterosexual people. Studies have also shown that racialized women who report violence are often taken less seriously than white women, leaving them at further risk.

The document outlining the city’s most recent recommendations for the nightlife policy includes a section titled Safety & Security, which emphasizes a need to increase funding for NGOs that work to decrease night-based sexual violence and collaboration between these groups, the city, and Quebec’s Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Solidarity. Although these recommendations are a starting point, they are so general that it is difficult to glean any concrete plans.

Queer and racialized groups, and the threat of danger they face, are mentioned in the published recommendations, but the details are scant. One recommendation is to “support the creation and maintenance of inclusive nighttime community spaces for marginalized communities, such as LGBTQ2+ people, racialized communities, and people with disabilities.” Although marginalized communities and safety issues are both mentioned broadly, the document does not link the two. (This Magazine contacted several city officials who were part of the policy’s creation for comment, but none were willing to speak about the policy directly.)

As Montreal prepares to invest millions into nightlife, there is no better time for the city to improve its relationship with some of its more important players. Montreal cannot continue to undervalue the voices of marginalized groups as it enacts policies that directly affect these communities.

Last year, FANTOM, a non-profit that serves as a voice for queer and racialized people in Montreal nightlife, conducted a survey to assess its community’s needs. By far, the top concerns were safety and security, with 61 percent of queer and 58 percent of racialized surveyees mentioning it in their responses. FANTOM’s co-founder, Oliver Philbin-Briscoe, was pleasantly surprised to see that the new recommendations mentioned safety for marginalized groups at all—it’s the first time the city has done so in writing, as far as he remembers.

FANTOM envisions several projects that may help address queer and racialized people’s safety concerns, like an app to search for, review, and share venue information and the creation of more local, community-owned and operated event spaces. Still, many activists have more expansive ideas that require significant funding, resources, and collaboration with local officials.

For example, Philbin-Briscoe says it’s important to expand public transit hours to match the proposed 24-hour zones, ensuring that after-hours patrons and workers would have affordable and reliable methods to return home safely. This idea is proposed in the document, but Philbin-Briscoe is reluctant to celebrate it as a win before further steps are taken. Ouellette suggests a more qualitative path forward: a widespread education campaign illustrating the realities of marginalized communities.

Another key solution that activists emphasize is well-trained security personnel. Doucet believes that good security must hold a deep understanding of the needs of marginalized communities and be sensitive to the existing tensions between these groups and law enforcement. Several of FANTOM’s survey respondents felt that overly aggressive and poorly trained security are a central problem for marginalized communities in the underground and after-hours nightlife scene. Doucet suggests mandatory training that focuses on harm reduction and de-escalation rather than the use of violence.

Ouellette says that she believes the city’s lack of consideration for marginalized communities is not ill-intentioned, but rather, stems from a lack of knowledge and resources. However, Doucet thinks there is a relatively simple way to address this problem: to put more marginalized people in decision-making roles. “This would make sure we don’t get to a point where we’re asked our opinion after 95 percent of the work is done and most of it can’t even be changed,” she says.

Doucet suggests a council of queer and racialized people that can advocate for themselves in the city’s policymaking, in nightlife and beyond. Sometimes, she says, policymakers may not consider what Black and Brown folks, women, and queer people need because they don’t know their life experiences. That’s why Montreal needs these groups to be involved in making decisions about this city’s future.

Queer and racialized nightlife activists are cautiously optimistic, but wary of what is to come. To ensure that their hope is not misplaced, marginalized people’s concerns, solutions, and voices must be a central and meaningful part of Montreal’s nightlife policy.

Collage by Valerie Thai

Isabella Calahoo-Zeller was attending eighth grade in Alberta when she received sex education for the first time. It consisted of a YouTube video about consent, and not much else. “We didn’t really get much on what a penis looks like, or what a vulva looks like,” Calahoo-Zeller says. “We never got the birth video that you hear so much about. So for me, I was like, what is this?”

Calahoo-Zeller is one of many young people in Alberta, and across Canada, who have been left wanting more from the sex ed experience offered in schools. Research by the Sex Information & Education Council of Canada (SIECCAN) has shown that 82.5 percent of young people across Canada see sex ed as a basic right for all.

These results come at a time when political and popular support for sex education seems to be shifting. Across the country, some parents, who claim to be advocating for parental rights, have been extremely vocal in their distaste for comprehensive sex ed, especially content focused on 2SLGBTQIA+ identities. According to Statistics Canada, about four percent of the population identifies as 2SLGBTQIA+. This means that if queer and trans-related content is left out of sex ed, many young Canadians won’t be receiving essential information about their health.

In Alberta, Saskatchewan, and New Brunswick, trans and nonbinary young people’s rights in the education space are on a backslide. New policies by the United Conservative Party, the Saskatchewan Party, and the Progressive Conservative Party respectively around the use of changed names and pronouns, as well as sex-ed access, are increasing the number of hoops through which young people have to jump to be recognized as their authentic selves and access resources made to support them.

“You’re already struggling in surviving to be yourself. How can you ask for help when the help doesn’t want to help you, right? I think it’s really a struggle right now being a trans person,” says Calahoo-Zeller, who is Two Spirit.

The benefits of receiving comprehensive sexuality education have been proven by science, and they’re not just about healthy and safe sex. From a violence prevention perspective, sex ed is key because it builds knowledge and understanding of bodily autonomy. It can be the first place children who are being abused learn that what’s happening to them is not okay. The health and safety aspect of sexuality education is essential, but that’s no less true of learning about gender identity, self-expression, and the full spectrum of human relationships.

“Historically, sexual health education focused on issues related to problem prevention. It has been focused on the needs of heterosexual, cisgender, white youth primarily, and focused on preventing unwanted pregnancies and preventing sexually transmitted infections,” says Jessica Wood, research and project development lead at SIECCAN. “It’s really important to understand that sexual education is not just learning about safer sex and reproduction, but should be a comprehensive approach to learning about sexuality and bodies and relationships, personal and interpersonal well-being, gender and sexual diversity, and values and rights.”

Because education falls under provincial jurisdiction, sex ed experiences are known to vary widely across Canada. Approaches can differ even between classrooms in the same school, as educators have different levels of comfort and training in delivering this knowledge. This means some students get all of the details, while others are left in an unfortunate state of ignorance. And it’s not just their own openness to the topic that educators must negotiate with: the volume of anti-trans rights rhetoric can also affect the classroom.

But, according to Janani Suthan, the comprehensive sexuality education program coordinator at the Canadian Centre for Gender and Sexual Diversity, the perception that support for comprehensive sex ed is decreasing isn’t always rooted in reality. “The majority of parents, in the grand scheme of things in Canada, are supportive of their children learning about their sexual health in schools, and learning it holistically and comprehensively,” they say. “But the people that are against this are very loud and very proud about it, and are mobilizing.”

Wood also says it’s a small minority of people who are actually against students learning this critical information. Advocacy against comprehensive sex ed, led by groups like 1 Million March 4 Children and Parents for Choice in Education, are often well organized and well funded. Religious and political interest groups have a strong hand in the work of such organizations.

The spread of misinformation and disinformation about sex ed on social media has contributed to the movement. “And so when we hear about this often, it may seem as if more people are not supportive of comprehensive sex ed,” Wood explains. “We find that a lot of people actually are, but we just don’t hear that coverage as much.”

This disproportionate coverage of dissenting voices leads to the spread of myths about sexual health, sex education, and queer and trans experiences. “They don’t want youth to know about gender, [or] sex,” says Suthan. “They are fearful of youth having knowledge, of youth having skills to understand themselves better.”

If queer and trans experiences aren’t taught as part of sex ed curriculum, that leaves young people vulnerable. Since sex ed is a health and safety issue, it is reasonable to expect that all students should have equal access to it. “It’s suicide prevention, it’s mental health care. It’s everything, because a lot of issues end up linking to sexuality and relationships,” Suthan says. “It’s very much necessary for everybody.”

For those who are supportive of sex ed in the classroom, it has never been more important to speak up for young people’s right to access information. “If you can advocate, advocate. If you can’t, that’s okay,” says Suthan. “Show up for your kid.”

Sharing knowledge with young people can help to build acceptance and understanding, some of the most important parts of living a fulfilled life. “Community is where I found more information on being Two Spirit,” says Calahoo-Zeller. “You get to understand yourself and also other people… we don’t have secrets. There’s nothing to hide.”

Illustration by Olivia Thomson

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 that existed were decidedly not in New Brunswick, Beaumont took matters into their own hands.

They created QT Fatties, a mostly online, and sometimes in person, community for queer and trans fat folks living in New Brunswick. Four years later, it has transformed into a space Beaumont had been dreaming of: one where trans fat folks across the province can connect.

QT Fatties uses Discord to plan both virtual and physical events geared towards other fat, trans queers. They’ve hosted clothing swaps and art markets, and have had online monthly meetups. They’ve also run mutual aid fundraisers for people in need of gender-affirming care.

Sam Walsh, who does administrative work for the group, explains that their Discord channel is where most of the community gets together. “There’ll be messages in the Discord sometimes like, ‘I want to do this. Anyone available to meet up and we can just hang out?’ Which I think is really awesome. It’s changed from being all on Aaron organizing, to being a little bit more community based.”

Beaumont founded the group in the hopes that more queers could find and help each other navigate being fat and queer in a largely rural province. “There was no activism happening in the province, more specifically, [around] accessibility. By that I mean clothing, gender affirming items, access to healthcare. All of the things that are already hard to access in this province—but you add body size and fatness on and that makes it more challenging,” they explain. “So, I wanted to make some of those things free and supportive and more accessible for folks.”

Walsh also says it was important to have a group based in the Maritimes, since a lot of resources are based on the West Coast. “Having something that’s local, where you’re able to connect with people that are in the Maritimes is really nice because some of the experiences that we’re dealing with are a bit different. Particularly when it comes to the medical system or accessing gender-affirming care.”

Some of these needs, Beaumont explains, stem from much of New Brunswick being not only rural, but also conservative, and generally lower income, especially compared to other provinces. Because of that, they make sure QT Fatties events take place in the province’s three major cities as well as virtually to remain accessible to all who need it.

“Fat activism is really grounded in disability justice. When we think about accessibility, online platforms, chats, whatever it may be, is what’s most accessible to a lot of disabled folks. I’m disabled myself and sometimes, in-person events are just not possible for me. [Online meetings] help in terms of rurality, but also disability accessibility,” Beaumont says.

The feedback QT Fatties has received from those it serves has been positive—but not everyone understands why it needs to exist. Beaumont says that simply means there’s more work to be done.

“There has been general questioning around like, ‘Why do we need a group specifically for fat people?’ Also, people being uncomfortable with the word ‘fat.’ I don’t think that has been a barrier to our events, but that has been things that come up online. Even though we’ve been doing this for four years people are still uncomfortable with just the idea of using the word fat.”

Still, members and organizers of QT Fatties feel grateful for its existence, especially in a politically tense time where we need activism and community more than ever.

Illustration by Jessica Bromer

My friend Lou is visiting from Australia. We do silly things together, like watch Love Island and listen to music. Lou shows me the video for Chappell Roan’s “Casual,” which follows a girl and a mermaid in a situationship. I’m fascinated. The song is good, too: the slow pumping synth and zesty lyrics contrast with the video’s overall sense of campiness.

I laugh it off, thinking this is another artist my friends and I will talk about but who will remain coded in proximity to community, a secret, a love language for what we love together like girl in red or Rina Sawayama. Someone I can ask new friends about, a question inside a question about who they might be as well as what they love.

And then I hear another Roan song (“Good Luck, Babe!”), and another (“Pink Pony Club”). They get poppier and poppier, reminiscent of ’80s pop ballads I love because of my mother but also somehow the feeling I had when I first began loving Taylor Swift in 2008. Something maybe about the storytelling and the texture of feeling for women who are “different.” I have the feeling that I’m sure everyone has when they start to like an artist, a sense of discovering something both about yourself and in them.

It seems that sense of discovery is viral. I am one of many who fell in love with Roan’s music. By the middle of summer, she’d garnered hundreds of millions of streams. She’s performed at Coachella and Lollapalooza. What’s catching traction online, though, isn’t just her fame but her reaction to it. Roan has stated bluntly, “I told myself, if this ever gets dangerous, I might quit. It’s dangerous now, and I’m still going. But that part is not what I signed up for.”

Roan is being praised for setting a precedent for a new generation of artists and celebrities. She talks about having worked at a drive-thru and scoffs at the media for their surprised or sympathetic reactions. “Most people work horrible jobs.” Commenters cherish the rise of a queer working-class artist—but I wonder about the continual obfuscation of her whiteness, which prevents a certain honesty about her impact and how she’s able to make it.

Roan’s fame picks up pace, and so does her reaction. In August, she releases a series of TikToks. She speaks directly into camera, her iconic curly red hair up in a messy bun. “Would you go up to a random lady and say, ‘Can I get a photo with you?’ And she’s like, ‘no, what the fuck?’ and then you get mad at this random lady?” Should we expect a smile from celebrities and a customer service voice, or should we stay away—knowing that certain actions are expected in the workplace and certain boundaries are in place outside of it?

The celebrity as worker and fame as abuse are interesting arguments to make. When I ask Toronto-based producer Anupa Mistry, who also worked as a culture writer and editor, what she thinks, she says: “…[Roan’s] rancor is valid, but it’s ultimately focused on individual behaviour change on the part of fans and photographers, rather than a condemnation of the institutions of power that fund and amplify and set the terms of fame. She’s young and trying to work out if it’s possible to have an encounter with the music industry on her own terms. But even her ‘controversies’ generate value for her label.”

The idea that Roan’s candor is commodifying feels oddly manipulative. Mistry names what has been on my mind too: race and gender. Privilege, even when it seems absent or well-accounted for. “Do we read Roan’s demands and boundaries as more valid because she is white and cisgender? Her queerness suggests transgression only in its continued association with the American heartland, [the Midwest]. I’ll always think of Thelonious Monk or Lauryn Hill when I think about the costs of pushing back. What about Doja Cat’s shenanigans? When it got to be too much she pushed back and people didn’t like the way she did it.” But Roan’s pushback is applauded.

This brings me back to an original instinct I had ignored. As my enamourment with Roan begins to fray, I scroll her YouTube Shorts. In one, she says: “I wanted to be a cheerleader in high school. But I just never felt like I was that kind of girl. I don’t know. I am, now.” It reminds me of Swift’s rise to fame and her beloved video for “You Belong With Me.” Roan makes people feel seen in a similar way: you’re different, but all the things you want can happen to you too. The really distinct marker here, the key to their mass marketability, is that they’re both white American women.

My friend reposts Roan’s recent photo in Interview magazine on her close friend story, wild-clown themed of course. She writes: If I got straight famous, I’d unravel too. There is a point in math where a limit approaches infinity and cannot be quantified further. There is a point in fame where you simply cannot get more famous than you already are. Did Chappell Roan set out to become Mitski famous and ended up Taylor Swift famous instead? Did she strive toward success, the way any artist does, only to accidentally strive too far, primed by her personal privilege and positionality?

I can’t imagine how disconcerting it must be to be in Roan’s position. When talking about her with writer and poet Victoria Mbabazi, they say: “As a Black femme I understand what it is like for people to look at you as a shiny object and think that your existence giving them life means that’s where your life ends. Usually this ends in a disillusionment for both me and the person who dehumanized me into a fictional version of myself.” The parasocial toxicity artists endure is inexcusable and should be checked.

Yet the question I’m interested in when it comes to Roan is not whether fame is good or bad, whether she’s right or wrong, but of what she makes visible in the culture of celebrity, the purpose behind her commodification. And to me, that’s the power that white women have had and will always have. White women’s palatability imbues their art with the power of “relatability” even as it appropriates from communities, cultures and precedents that are usually created by Black and brown people who are then excluded from the material success of their own legacies. Roan’s drag persona and her lineage with activist, drag queen and queer icon Sasha Colby, a trans woman of Native Hawaiian and Irish descent, is a key example. Roan’s slogan, “your favourite artist’s favourite artist,” comes from Colby’s own tagline: “your favourite drag queen’s favourite drag queen.” This is indicative of the ecosystems of cultural transmission and inspiration, which can be appropriative and can not; which can be racist and can not, but which are undergirded by the uncontrollable, uncontrivable machinery of white supremacy. Intentionally or otherwise, Roan’s inspiration and interpretations in this lineage suffers from a sore reality: when white cis people do it, it suddenly just makes sense to a mass audience.

Don’t get me wrong though: Roan and her team are using Roan’s privilege to do good work. They’re against ticket resellers. She pushes back against rude photographers and makes clear contributions to queering pop. In the fall, she made a political stand by refusing to endorse either U.S. presidential candidate and by invoking Palestine.

But I believe it works against her when she refuses to own her success in all of its complexities. Part of me remains suspicious, reluctant as a fan, unable to fully trust or believe her when she has not once acknowledged her own positionality. It’s a place I’ve been before—with friends, coworkers, lovers—why does privilege do what it does and how do we make sense of the discomfort we are left with? How does this affect our ability to make sense of each other, to feel seen and heard?

I guess it just reminds me of the limits. Both for Roan and for myself and for celebrities like Kehlani, Janelle Monáe, and Victoria Monét, who have done similar work as Roan but were not afforded the same understanding: on the toxicity of the industry, on queerness, on politics, in terms of Palestine. What can celebrities offer us and what we can offer them? What are we owed and what do we owe each other?

My original instinct plateaus. I’m left with an old feeling, despite and maybe because of its flattening effect, a feeling like the popping of a balloon at the end of a party, sad and stalwart in its reminders. Clichés that are cliché as pop music itself, maybe because they stick around in the same way.

Sometimes you get where you’re going only by going too far. Sometimes what we think of someone has nothing to do with who they actually are.

Art by Valerie Thai

Ronnie Riley learned through social media that their first novel was facing censorship. Riley was scrolling late one evening when they saw what appeared to be a leaked school memo. Their middle-grade book about a non-binary pre-teen named Jude was one of four 2SLGBTQIA+ books that Ontario’s Waterloo Catholic District School Board was trying to get out of students’ hands.

The book wasn’t explicitly banned, but there were enough hurdles for kids to access the novel that Danny Ramadan, the chair of The Writers’ Union of Canada, called the decision a “shadow ban” in an interview with the Toronto Star. (Ramadan’s book Salma Writes a Book, part of his children’s series about a young immigrant, was also challenged by the school board.)

Riley, whose work so far is most prominent in the Canadian children’s literary scene, says that while they anticipated having some issues in the U.S., it’s difficult to acknowledge that Canada is not immune to book bans. “In the States…they’re more vocal,” Riley says. “But I do believe that it’s happening in Canada, just very quietly.”

Advocacy groups in the U.S.—Parents’ Rights in Education, Citizens Defending Freedom and Moms for Liberty are three of the most vocal organizations—represent a growing trend of censorship there. By re-framing language as advocating for parental rights rather than literary censorship, groups like these have been able to successfully ban books. This harms children by suppressing their ability to access information, though advocacy groups often claim that they’re trying to protect children from explicit and inappropriate materials. And, though in its characteristically slower, slightly quieter way, the same has been happening in Canada, with an increase in book ban requests here in recent years.

It’s not just these authors’ books that are at risk. Without them, children have fewer opportunities to learn about other people and customs, and about themselves. Children’s education and exposure to different ways of life are under threat, and public libraries may be, too.

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In the U.S., recent data from the American Library Association (ALA) found that “[books] targeted for censorship at public libraries grew by 92 percent from 2022 to 2023,” and “47 percent of challenged materials represent the voices and experiences of those in the LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC community.” In Texas, 578 books were banned in the 2021-22 school year, 424 in Pennsylvania, and 401 in Florida.

Moms For Liberty, a so-called parental rights group that reports having over 130,000 members, has often made the news due to its continuous calls to ban children’s books in libraries and schools across the country. In July 2023, they were successful in getting five books banned across Leon County schools in Tallahassee, Florida. The books had characters dealing with HIV, sexual assault, leukemia, and life after death.

While parental calls to ban books aren’t always successful, the ones that are can set off a political ripple effect for other parts of the country. “What we know to be true in several states is that they’ve been following each other in a race to the bottom about how many books you can ban in how many different ways,” says John Chrastka, executive director and founder of EveryLibrary, a non-profit political action organization focused on fighting book bans in the U.S.

Chrastka references data from the Unpacking 2023 Legislation of Concern for Libraries report, created by EveryLibrary to examine the status of bills in the U.S. aiming to censor access to books in both school and public libraries. Chrastka says that EveryLibrary was able to track that some bills, despite being in different states, were using the same language as one another to ban books. “That cut and paste job—that copycat—is sometimes very explicit,” he says. “And sometimes it’s based on the intent of the law: how can we make it easier to call a book criminal, call a book obscene, call a book harmful?”

There’s a clear “feedback loop,” Chrastka says, between groups like Moms For Liberty and politicians when it comes to banning books, meaning that citizen organizations and political leaders are influencing each other. “It is a witch’s brew of interest groups that are utilizing a fairly soft target—public libraries—which are intended to be, under law, under Supreme Court precedent, public forums, and the materials are available for all—as long as they’re legal,” he says. “If you can say that those books about those human beings are obscene or criminal or harmful, you can make an attack on those populations by proxy, whether it’s LGBTQ or Black and Brown communities.”

When libraries refuse to remove books from their shelves, parents sometimes push to remove their funding altogether in retaliation. Chrastka says that while not every library will lose funding from continuing to stock challenged books, there have been and continue to be states where this is the case. In Alabama, a legislative code change, enacted this past May, made $6.6 million in state funding for public libraries contingent on their compliance with the Alabama Public Library Service Board’s guidelines about restricting access to books deemed inappropriate for certain ages.

This isn’t just happening in southern states. In Michigan, the Patmos Library nearly lost 84 percent of its funding after the town’s residents voted twice that taxpayer money shouldn’t support the library as long as it continued to supply 2SLGBTQIA+ books. But library staff would not remove the books, and after a third vote, the library will remain open.

When asked whether parental requests for libraries to censor 2SLGBTQIA+ materials could lead to budget concerns, the ALA told This Magazine in a written statement that while they don’t have national data to validate this correlation, they felt this outcome was unlikely: “Although it is challenging to quantify, these incidents emphasize the ongoing importance of defending libraries as vital community resources,” the statement reads.

As Chrastka says, though, “This is not a casual social interaction. This is a political movement.” It’s a movement that’s travelling north of the border, and in an unprecedented way.

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Fully banning a book in Canada is a tough task, and it’s not always clear how it can be done. Public libraries, though funded by municipalities, are run by independent boards which have jurisdiction over the contents of their shelves. Libraries usually respond to disputes by following their challenge policies or request for reconsideration policies. In Canadian schools, the process for vetting books often involves the board developing selection methods through training with librarians, and then trusting librarians to implement those methods. Curricula are set by provinces, and teachers decide how best to meet the curricula. It’s not the role of school boards to police individual books, though parents sometimes appeal to them in attempts to bypass any formal selection and reconsideration processes that boards entrust librarians to follow. When these policies do not exist—and they often don’t—it’s often board members and administrators who end up handling the issue and responding to parental pressures.

Shadowbanning, though, is easier to accomplish. It can include what happened to Riley, where their book was moved to a shelf inaccessible by students and “a teacher must provide the Catholic context” before students are allowed to borrow the book. Basically, citizens and school districts are finding other ways to get books out of people’s hands rather than outright banning them. In the words of Fin Leary, the program manager at We Need Diverse Books, a nonprofit organization focused on making the publishing industry more diverse, the goal is to “not have them seen as often.” He says it’s much harder to fight this kind of censorship.

Regardless of whether or not a book is challenged in a public library or a school, book bans affect both readers and authors. A November 2023 statement from the Ontario Library Association said that a diverse representation of books helps students “learn how to navigate differences and develop critical awareness of their environments.” The largest worry, according to Canadian School Libraries, is that groups calling for censorship in the U.S. will continue to inspire Canadians to use similar organization tactics.

According to data from the Canadian Library Challenges Database (CLCD), Canadian libraries facing the most calls for censorship are the Edmonton Public Library (143 requests), the Ottawa Public Library (127 requests) and the Toronto Public Library (101 requests). While the database has information from as early as 1998, some libraries have only reported censorship requests from recent years.

Michael Nyby, the chair of the Intellectual Freedom Committee of the Canadian Federation of Library Associations, said in an article published on Freedom To Read’s website that library challenges from September 2002 to August 2023 represent the highest number ever recorded in Canada in a twelve-month period. According to data from the CLCD, books and events with 2SLGBTQIA+ content made up 38 percent of all challenges in 2022. (Between 2015 to 2021, less than 10 percent of all challenges were connected to 2SLGBTQIA+ matters.) Books surrounding sexual content (19 percent) and racism (16 percent) made up the next highest percentages. The influence of library censorship in the U.S. also extends to books on drug use, abuse, violence, grief, and death.

Though Riley’s novel’s shadow ban was overturned after public outcry, concerns about a rise in book censorship in Canada, and calls to defund in the event that it doesn’t happen, aren’t without reason. At the Prairie Rose School Division (PRSD), a Manitoba-based school board, 11 requests for books to be banned were made in just 2023. Among them were 2SLGBTQIA+ books like Juno Dawson’s This Book is Gay. Dawson, who spent seven years working as a sex-ed teacher, described the nonfiction book as “essentially a textbook.” Each chapter of the book focuses on a different aspect of queer life, including definitions of 2SLGBTQIA+ identities, the history of HIV/AIDS, and sex. The book also addresses the importance of queer dating apps and using sexual protection. According to the PRSD, parents proposed banning this book (among multiple others) for reasons of pornography— though the book teaches children about bodies, and is not pornography. The school board said there was “some connection with the Concerned Citizens Canada Twitter account,” but not whether the parents proposing the ban were part of the group, which self-describes as “addressing sexually explicit materials being made available to children in our public libraries.” Still, the group’s account falsely tweeted that This Book is Gay was encouraging minors to solicit sex from adults on Grindr. The school board did not end up removing Dawson’s book (or the others proposed in the ban), but Concerned Citizens Canada is just one of many social and political groups that continue to advocate for book censorship.

In the summer of 2022, Manitoba’s South Central Regional Library was also pressured to remove three books about puberty and consent from shelves. Residents protested a library board meeting, flooded city council meetings, and said public library funding should be removed if the books weren’t, calling them “child pornography.” However, both Cathy Ching, the library services director, and local city councillor Marvin Plett both denied these claims. “Calling books pornographic does not make it so,” Plett said at a Winkler council meeting in July 2023. “Censuring books based on content that some find objectionable can have far-reaching and unintended implications.”

Around the same time, in Chilliwack, B.C., the RCMP were called to investigate after books there were reported for alleged child pornography in schools, too. Also in 2023, library picture books about gender in Red Deer, Alberta were vandalized. A page about using a singular “they” pronoun for nonbinary people was ripped out, according to a news report from the Red Deer Advocate.

Though the case in Chilliwack was dismissed and the books in Red Deer were replaced, parents’ calls to defund the Manitoba library if certain books aren’t removed echoes bills proposed by American lawmakers stressing that libraries should lose funding if bans aren’t enacted. And while books aren’t being overtly removed from shelves in Canada very often, there are other, sometimes more insidious impacts this attitude is having on queer and racialized youth.

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The Toronto Public Library (TPL) is Canada’s largest public library system. When asked about whether groups like those in the U.S. seeking to defund libraries for not removing 2SLGBTQIA+ material could affect what happens in Toronto, the media team at TPL said in an emailed statement that its budget is not affected by these groups. “We are governed by a library board and while our budget is ultimately approved by City Council, our materials selection is governed by our Board policies,” the email reads.

TPL’s Intellectual Freedom Challenges – 2023 Annual Report states that none of the requests to remove books from its shelves were successful that year. However, the same report also acknowledges that there are other issues at play. “TPL has experienced objections to 2SLGBTQ+ content outside of the formal request for reconsideration process, with opposition to Drag Queen Story Time programs at five branches and protests at three of them; damage to Progress Pride decals at eight branches; vandalized Pride Celebration displays at two branches; and vandalized 2SLGBTQ+ books at one branch.”

Historical book banning represents violence and censorship. Current book bans, though they may be disguised as parental rights, are more of the same. Vandalism of Pride displays at TPL is another form of violence, and while it may not be physical in nature, it has lasting effects that can harm queer youth for years beyond the act itself.

Banning queer and trans people’s books sends the message that these folks shouldn’t exist, at least not publicly. Ideas like these contribute to the state of widespread violence against them. Recent data from Statistics Canada found that around two thirds of 2SLGBTQIA+ Canadians had experienced physical or sexual violence. However, this number could be much higher: data from the same report found that around 80 percent of physical assaults against this group within the year prior to the survey didn’t “[come] to the attention of the police.”

Many 2SLGBTQIA+ people also struggle with feelings of suicidality. In the U.S., data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that 29 percent of trans youth have attempted suicide. In Canada, researchers at the University of Montreal and Egale Canada reported that 36 percent of trans people in Ontario experience feelings of suicidal ideation. Systemic discrimination, erasure, and invalidation contributes to this, and book banning is part of this wider package of behaviours that harms the community.

Canadian author Robin Stevenson was interviewed for PEN Canada about her children’s rhyming picture books, Pride Colors and Pride Puppy!, being targeted by the recent wave of book censorship in the U.S. and Canada. “Book banners say that they want to protect children, but they are doing real harm to the very children they claim to protect,” Stevenson said, explaining that “learning to hate yourself was far more dangerous than any book could ever be.”

Leary says that removing these types of books from libraries can send a message to publishers: if they notice that titles aren’t making it to school libraries or are banned, it could discourage them from publishing and promoting them. “As much as the book bans are horrifying, they also are so much scarier when you consider the larger context of why they’re happening—because it’s to legislate folks out of existence, or to legislate folks out of having an education about these topics.”

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Representation matters because it helps reduce stereotypes. Books with diverse representation are vital. They can help teach empathy and understanding, while also showing readers that they aren’t alone in their experiences. Diverse books also teach a fuller picture of history, sharing stories previously overlooked. They are a key aspect of a well-rounded education.

While it is a terrifying moment for queer and racialized writers, authors are not silencing themselves as a result of the pushback. Protecting their work from the possibility of being banned, though, will take a concerted effort on the part of anyone hoping to support them.

Riley believes that the shadow ban of their novel at the Waterloo Catholic District School Board was only overturned because of statements from not only their publisher, but other authors as well. They say they had a sound support system, and that helped.

That kind of unified support is crucial to fostering an environment that permits the continuation of freedom in publishing. Leary says that from an advocacy standpoint, parents opposing book censorship have the most power when they stick together. “Our voices are stronger when we are collectively organizing, and it also kind of allows parents to have each other to lean on,” he says. One way to do this is by communicating with school board members and going to community meetings that include opportunities to speak to these issues.

Riley keeps their final advice to anyone passionate about this issue simple and blunt. “Keep speaking out,” they say. “Keep making sure that books get into the hands of kids—especially queer books.”

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 harder. Shockingly, the February 2023 show, at Vancouver’s University of British Columbia (UBC) campus, was The Scarlette Ibis’s drag debut—it seemed like she’d been doing this forever.

Cheers from one table rose above the rest. They were from members of UBC’s Trans Coalition, a new group campaigning to add gender-affirming care to UBC’s student health-care plan. The Scarlette Ibis, also known as Oliver McDonald, is one of the coalition’s most outspoken organizers. McDonald is transmasc, two-spirit and Cree from Peguis First Nation in Treaty 1—all of which shape his drag and advocacy.

The coalition formed because UBC’s student health-care plan did not include trans health care. Paying out of pocket for hormones, surgery, and other treatments was a staggering burden for many trans students already struggling under the rising costs of living. “People’s lives are at risk, including my own,” McDonald said in an address to the UBC student council in February.

A month after the show, the coalition succeeded: UBC will now insure trans health care. Drag performers—both in and out of makeup—were a vital force for advocacy and queer joy during a tense campaign.

Gender-affirming care can be an issue of life and death. A 2020 U.S. study of 20,619 trans adults found that of those, 3,494 had wanted pubertal suppression at some point in their lives. Amongst that segment of the population, those who had received puberty blockers were 15 percent less likely to consider suicide than those who hadn’t.

But council members and student executives had reservations. UBC’s student insurance plan is financially strained, and adding gender-affirming care to the plan would require an $8 increase in student fees. Ultimately, the student body voted to raise their health fees to add gender-affirming care to the insurance plan. “I hope that with this win it lets other activist groups … see that it is possible,” McDonald says.

UBC’s gender-affirming care campaign represents just one facet of a bigger fight for trans rights occurring across the continent. Trans health care in Canada is notoriously underfunded and inaccessible, and transphobic discrimination is on the rise. Last year, protestors harassed over 15 drag queen story hours across Canada.

Although McDonald is new to drag, he has always been a performer, and he used to sing in choir. That changed when he medically transitioned. “Testosterone changed my voice, so I can’t sing like I could before,” he says. “It pushed me out of my comfort zone.” Lip syncing to femme-fronted anthems has been one workaround.

“[The Scarlette Ibis] is about expressing that fun, very feminine persona which, as a transmasc person, it’s not always easy to express,” McDonald says.

The Scarlette Ibis was born when McDonald was a volunteer at the Vancouver Aquarium. As a self-described biology nerd, he felt a special resonance with scarlet ibises—a vibrant red-orange bird related to flamingos. “That’s me in every way—the drama, the poofiness, the colour … they also love shrimp,” he says.

The Scarlette Ibis is not the only alter ego McDonald has up his sleeve. King Colin Izer is McDonald’s latest drag persona, intended to challenge settler Canadian masculinity by laughing at it.

King Colin Izer looks like moose-patterned boxer shorts, red flannel and miniature Canadian flag props waved with a sinister swagger. Before he struts onto the floor, he breaks character to tell audiences “not to be afraid to boo.”

McDonald described this new act, which he performed for the first time at the end of March, as a way to process and play with “mixed confusion” as a light-skinned person with Cree and settler ancestry.

“I want to have a look that’s iconically Canadian, that calls back to this very white working-class … thing,” McDonald says. “People who have a lot of misconceptions about Indigenous people—I really love playing with that.”

He also plans to do more performances that represent his Cree culture. McDonald emphasizes that his drag career builds off of the Indigenous and two-spirit drag performers who came before him and created a thriving scene in Vancouver. He hopes to pay it forward through organizing drag events to platform other Indigenous drag performers, with the principle of ensuring that all get paid equitably for their work.

“Performing is really fun and I love it, but the more important thing is [to make sure] that other Indigenous people can show their stuff,” he said.

When Derek Brougham was a member of the University of Ottawa’s varsity track and field team, they regularly searched for scholarships for queer athletes. No matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t find a single one.

Brougham, who uses both he and they pronouns, is no longer on the team. “I never felt like I quite fit in. No one was ever rude to me, but there was a certain sense that I was being tolerated rather than accepted and celebrated.”

Retirement is one of the most difficult things an athlete can experience. Unlike an office job, an athletic career can become someone’s social life, form of exercise, job and escape. So what happens when athletes no longer compete? “[Track] was really such a huge part of my identity for so long that when I retired I wasn’t fully ready to give it up,” Brougham says.

Post-retirement, athletes must bridge the divide between who they were while playing sports and who they are without sports. For Brougham, this period of seeking led to his eventual foray into drag. “Representation is one of the most important and impactful ways to make change,” he says. “To me, drag is just the queerest part of queer culture, so I thought it made sense to do that and bring it to sport.”

Brougham brought drag “to sport” by merging their love of track with their interest in drag. They named their alter ego Deca Thlon, an ode to their chosen track event. Thlon made her debut as a drag performer in June 2022, during Pride Month.

After years of being out and encouraging various organizations to support and engage with Pride, Brougham decided it was time to do something about the utter lack of athletes. So in her first month of work, Thlon collected all of her booking fees and tips to put toward a queer athletic scholarship. “I decided that I really wanted to make that change and offer that to someone,” Brougham says.

It was their first month doing drag, and they didn’t know how much they’d make. Their goal was to raise $500. They ended up exceeding their own expectations and making enough for two scholarships of $1,250 and $500 respectively. Those were awarded to Johnathan Frampton, a Nordic skier at Queen’s University, and Sienna MacDonald, a combined-events athlete in track at the University of Calgary.

Brougham plans to award scholarships again during this year’s Pride Month. June 2023 will be Thlon’s one-year anniversary as a performer, so she wants to throw a big celebration with the proceeds going toward her scholarship fund.

To Brougham, this marriage of interests represents taking up space and serving as a beacon for other queer athletes. Growing up, they remember seeing very few openly 2SLGBTQ+ athletes to look up to. “I can’t think of a single queer, gay or lesbian athlete that I could point out,” he recalls.

“I always found myself relating to women athletes more because it’s more about talent than just the brute strength in men’s athletics, which is not something I always associated with.”

Deca Thlon’s drag balances strength and femininity. She loves performing to Taylor Swift songs and even hosted a four-and-a-half-hour T. Swift-inspired show in the lead-up to the artist’s latest album release. Thlon also makes costumes for herself and other queens in the city, incorporating her love of sewing into her newfound art.

But the culmination of Deca Thlon’s mix of athleticism and drag, aside from her scholarship, is the monthly show she hosts at a local rock climbing gym, where Thlon scales climbing walls while performing songs like Miley Cyrus’s “The Climb.”

“[The] rock climbing drag is just the coolest thing in my mind—it just feels perfect because of what my drag is and what I’m trying to do,” Brougham says.

Moving forward, he hopes to encourage others to find themselves in similar ways by offering bigger scholarships to queer student athletes and increasing the number of scholarships available.

“I used to be a lot more quiet and shy than I am today,” MacLeod says. “So I was happy to isolate a little bit and not have to worry about that stuff.”

After receiving a promotion, MacLeod started to buy into the “family” culture. As people got to know them better, they felt more comfortable coming out. While opening up to their colleagues felt good, it also had drawbacks.

MacLeod noticed their colleagues coming to them more and more to discuss queer issues, or to ask them about the 2SLGBTQ+ community. For a maritimer, the experience of coworkers or acquaintances being in your business isn’t particularly uncommon, and MacLeod didn’t always detest the attention, or the opportunity to get to know their coworkers.

However, at times, being the de facto queer resource would turn MacLeod’s workspace into a makeshift water cooler. If a discussion relating to queerness arose in the office, MacLeod noticed their colleagues would sometimes gather around their desk to hear what they had to say.

“You become more interesting in a way that can be both good and bad,” MacLeod says. “You can feel like you’re in a fish tank. But it also makes you a little cooler, as long as people aren’t outright homophobes, right? For better or for worse, it felt like kind of a social currency.”

In the summer of 2020, as social justice movements spurred by Black Lives Matter protests went global, the company began developing a diversity and inclusion policy. It wasn’t long before MacLeod’s managers looked to them as a resource to help develop its initiatives.

MacLeod felt a sense of obligation to help their team as a representative voice. But that soon led to uncomfortable situations. At one point near the end of their employment, despite not being Indigenous, MacLeod’s bosses asked them for advice on how the company could approach two-spirit issues.

“Once you come out as queer generally, you are now the spokesperson for every part of [the community],” they say. Not only was MacLeod being looked to as a voice for all marginalized identities, they were performing work outside of their job description. But they also felt a responsibility to speak up for other members of the queer community, even if they didn’t always know what to say.

Eventually, MacLeod chose to leave that job, and came to see clearly just how toxic the family dynamic can be when it leads employees to put the companies they work for above their own mental health.

Their experience in the software industry typifies just one of the many ways that 2SLGBTQ+ community members are made to feel othered at work, or asked to go above and beyond their assigned role compared to straight employees.

For many queer workers in Canada, coming out creates additional barriers to employment, career advancement, and access to benefits and healthcare. These potential pitfalls often cause anxiety about whether to publicly identify as queer at all.

The challenges for Queer employees are multi-faceted. Egale Canada found in 2019 that despite Canada’s perception as a progressive country and a shift in workplace inclusion, their colleagues regularly discriminate against 2SLGBTQ+ Canadians, particularly trans and non- binary people. Ultimately, Canada’s workplace and human rights frameworks are failing the community.

Meg MacKay, a queer comedian and television writer, says they feel more welcome in writers’ rooms than in previous jobs they’ve held in the service industry. But, when they divulge their queer identity at work, they report being put in situations like MacLeod’s, where they are often asked to speak for all queer people. In addition to being asked to take on queer assignments, MacKay says there are also moments when their queerness makes them feel othered socially.

“If I’m talking about people I’m seeing, if I’m seeing a guy, [those] conversations don’t make people stiffen, but if I’m talking about an ex-girlfriend or an ex partner who is a non- binary person, you can see people’s body language changes a bit,” they say.

Jade Pichette is the director of programs for Pride at Work Canada. The organization works with Canadian employers to promote inclusivity in the workplace and build safer spaces for employees with diverse gender identities, gender expressions, and sexual orientations. Pichette says they have heard from queer employees who were asked questions that would be inappropriate in any work environment, including questions about their sex lives or even their genitalia.

“I’ve heard people talk about how they were asked to remove a photo of their partner from their desk, or [being told] even talking about their partner is somehow talking about sex in the workplace, while their cisgender, heterosexual counterparts are not experiencing the same thing,” Pichette says.

This causes queer employees to shy away from networking opportunities and shelter their personal lives from their colleagues, putting them at a disadvantage when meeting new people, trying to make friends with coworkers, or competing for promotion and advancement against their straight colleagues.

Tom Barker is a gay man who performs drag as Birthday Girl and owns Salutè, a cocktail bar in Okotoks, Alberta. Prior to working full-time in the entertainment and service industry, he worked a number of jobs in retail, media, and corporate spaces. Barker felt the pressure varied across each industry.

It was in media where Barker was othered the most. Working as a radio personality, a manager once asked him to be “less flowery” on the air. On another occasion, a manager was circulating the office shaking hands with all of the employees, before offering Barker, the only visibly queer person in the room, a fist bump.

As a queer person in a small, rural town, Barker says he’s often approached by younger members of the 2SLGBTQ+ community for advice on how to navigate their workplaces. He says he typically encourages younger queers to be true to themselves when deciding whether being out in the workplace is the right decision for them.

“To put it simply: it’s a pivotal thing that you have to figure out where you stand,” he says.

This conversation matters not only in relation to people’s emotional well-being at work, but also because queer and trans people are chronically underpaid and underemployed. In 2022, the Social Research and Demonstration Corporation reported that the average heterosexual man in Canada makes almost $56,000 annually, while heterosexual women average around $40,000. Meanwhile, bisexual men and women average around $32,000 and $25,000 respectively. The average incomes for queer- identified people who are also racialized, disabled, or come from non-traditional backgrounds are even lower.

In 2019, Trans Pulse Canada conducted a survey and found that nearly half of trans people in Canada over the age of 25 make under $30,000 per year, making them roughly three times more likely to be low-income than the general population. For non-binary people, that number rises to 54 percent.

Across many Canadian industries, queer employees report generally better working conditions and improved acceptance over time. But navigating people’s responses to their queer identities means these workers are still in the challenging position of having to constantly worry about whether they are safe to come out, furthering a systemic divide between cisgender and heterosexual Canadians and their queer colleagues. Data from the Williams Institute out of the University of California, Los Angeles school of law released in 2021 found that employees of all orientations, across all sectors of the workforce, reported high levels of discrimination and harassment of 2SLGBTQ+ employees in the workplace.

While we’re beginning to have more data about life for queer employees in Canada, Mathias Memmel, president of Start Proud, a nonprofit organization that helps queer students and young professionals with networking and transitioning into the workforce, says there are limitations to the conclusions we can draw from the available research. Because of his work with Start Proud, Memmel says he regularly hears from young queer workers who opt out of chasing after their preferred profession, or decide not to pursue further education, because of a lack of queer representation at higher levels.

“It’s very difficult to quantify how many queer students are themselves opting out of recruitment processes,” he says. “Even in law school or med school, do [queer youth] see themselves reflected in that position?”

“At many different ages, we’ve heard from students actually self-selecting out of the process, where they have said no before a potential employer has. That’s really heart-breaking.” Companies may value the expertise queer employees bring them—or they may want to appear that way—but that doesn’t mean they know how to value their employees. Not only are queer workers often asked to speak on behalf of the entire community, they also regularly face barriers to accessing their companies’ health-care and benefits packages. Critical medications, including gender-affirming hormone therapy, are often unavailable through generic health plans.

Memmel says that he’s heard from queer employees who have to specifically request their hormone therapy medication be added to the approved prescription list, leaving some trans folks with no choice but to out themselves to their employers against their will. “It diminishes and takes away from people’s presence in the workforce,” Memmel says. “That’s a loss to both the individual and the organization.”

“You should be able to be queer and not be out in order to access care or your employment plan. Employers need to have policies and plans in place that give agency to trans folks, so by default they don’t have to seek it out themselves.”

Job-seeking students have told Memmel that when choosing where they want to work, they’re looking for accommodations that, for some reason, remain controversial to some: gender- neutral washrooms, universal parental leave for parents of all genders, trans and queer-inclusive healthcare coverage, and therapy and mental health coverage.

Start Proud advocates for all companies to make simple, smaller changes like normalizing pronoun identification in email signatures, using gender-inclusive language like “partner,” and offering diversity and inclusion training for all employees. Memmel also advocates for low-barrier health plans for queer people in the workplace, including integrating benefits so queer couples receive the same type of support as hetero couples when, for example, they are looking to adopt a child.

“Each of these barriers stack over time, and that leads to people exiting the workforce. It leads to them feeling unwelcome and [feeling] anxiety. That’s part of why we see the rates of mental health concerns among queer folks being so much higher than the average for the rest of the population.”

Statistics Canada found that the rate of people who identify as a sexual minority and report having “poor or fair” mental health is nearly three times higher than it is for heterosexuals. Queer Canadians are similarly more likely to have considered suicide during their lifetimes (40 percent versus 15 percent of heterosexual Canadians), and the ratio of those diagnosed with a mood or anxiety disorder is nearly the same. These issues can be compounded for queer people who are also racialized, have disabilities, or are from immigrant families.

Despite the anxiety and uncertainty that can be felt due to the pressure of coming out, there are plenty of positives that come from it, too. Being out means people can stop working to hide their orientation or gender identity, and sharing about their lives at work can bring them closer to colleagues. It also creates role models for others. The Harvard Business Review found that queer workers who are out stood a better chance at advancement, and were more likely to remain with the company.

So where is it safest to be “out”?

Both Start Proud and Pride at Work Canada report working with companies that are keen to improve circumstances for their queer employees. From what they’ve seen, larger employers, including banks and law firms, have historically tended to exhibit more queer-friendly working conditions. Memmel says there has definitely been a shift across Bay Street over the last 25 to 30 years. But he also sees industries with unspoken “don’t ask, don’t tell” cultures.

Pichette credits organizing by 2SLGBTQ+ employee- resource groups in banking, telecoms, and the legal industry in the early 2000s for creating more equitable environments for employees in those fields. (Pride At Work Canada was founded in 2008 by 12 organizations, including CIBC, Deloitte, Scotiabank, and TD.)

“Because the organizations are so large, there is a significant number of people that are able to come together, work together, and really affect change in their industries,” Pichette says.

While the corporatization of Pride regularly meets with due criticism for not supporting the community’s most marginalized members, these larger employers are often able to offer more comprehensive benefit plans and have the advantage of legal and training departments to draft more progressive policies. They also tend to be more compliant with labour laws. That doesn’t mean, of course, that everyone within these often conservative industries is going to be on board.

That’s also true of small and medium-sized employers, where most people in Canada work. These companies face higher barriers to making their cultures queer-friendly, largely due to a lack of both comparable resources and time available to work on these issues.

One sector that is particularly important to the Canadian economy and continues to struggle with retaining and helping marginalized employees feel safe is skilled trades. “The trades in Canada will only continue to grow in importance, and yet, it is the industry that is having some serious challenges in terms of labour and access to labour,” Pichette says. “Part of that is because they have historically not been inclusive environments for anybody who, frankly, is not a white man.”

Memmel cites retention as one of the core pieces that creates inequality between queer employees and their colleagues. He says queer youth are often unsure whether they’ll actually be able to build a career when starting at a new job, as they wonder whether employees from diverse backgrounds will be protected, or if companies are more interested in recruiting them in order to attain a better public image.

For many in the community, particularly trans people, the uncertainty and anxieties surrounding the decision of whether it’s safe to come out may sound more like a luxury than their reality. Not everybody has the ability to make this choice, Pichette says.

“Whether we’re public or not, we get read as queer or trans, and we still experience those forms of discrimination as a result without even being formally ‘out’ out…One could argue many of us come out repeatedly, many times in our lives, because people make assumptions without knowledge of our actual identities.”

With a rise in alt-right politics, protests against queerness are growing, too. Anti-trans legislation is ramping up in parts of the United States, with restrictions on gender-affirming care and bans on drag shows. The New York Times came under fire this winter for what advocates called its repeated anti-trans coverage, and there has also been a rise in anti-trans protests outside drag events across Canada and the U.S.

Barker, who often works in trans spaces, says his trans colleagues feel increasingly unsafe. He says he regularly hears from drag performers who fear that just getting on the stage could be a matter of life or death.

The biggest fear among drag performers is the possibility of a massacre like the mass shooting at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, when a 29 year-old man killed 49 people and injured 53 more in 2016. At Club Q in Colorado Springs, another five people were killed in November 2022.

“Drag right now is an extremely volatile place to be based on the rise of hate,” Barker says. “I was talking to a trans friend last weekend who told me, ‘we just don’t want to be here right now, because we don’t want to be the one on stage when it happens here.’”

One positive that Barker notes amid the increased protests against drag performances is an increase in allyship and counter-protests. “Allyship in Canada seems to really be rocketing,” he says, citing a recent protest in Calgary where a handful of anti-drag protesters were greatly outnumbered by queer folks and allies. “It doesn’t mean the work is done, and there’s still a lot more to do. Drag and love and trans communities will prevail inevitably… But it’s a question of how bad is it going to get?”

MacKay says they feel grateful for how much better things have gotten for them as a queer person, even in the past 10 years.

“I came out as bi in high school and lost a huge chunk of my friends,” says MacKay, who grew up in Cornwall, P.E.I. “I’m old now and I live in Toronto, and I have nothing to fear here.”

“One year I worked for a queer film festival and the only thing I had to worry about there was having hooked up with too many people that worked there.”

MacLeod left their job at the software firm a few years ago, and now spends their days taking care of a family member. They’ve been offered lucrative opportunities to return to their former industry, but are not tempted to give up the freedom to present how they feel most comfortable.

While being out in their last job wasn’t a universally positive experience, they credit their learned experience for helping them become more self-assured.

“I am no longer this quiet, demure queer person that’s palatable,” they say. “And I think that is the major thing: that I don’t even know that corporations would want me anymore, because I am going to push back on stuff.”