Along with my colleagues Dr. Mei-ling Weidmeyer and Jack Parkyn, I will be presenting a poster at the Moving Trans History Forward Conference. We’ll be sharing the rationale, methods, results and implementation challenges associated with our curricular audit project.

Funded by the UBC Faculty of Medicine’s Strategic Investment Fund and the Centre for Gender and Sexual Health Equity, we developed a strategy for auditing undergraduate medical education curriculum with an eye to answering two questions: 1) How does medical education mobilize the concepts of gender and sex, and 2) How does medical education prepare students to meet the needs of intersex, trans and Two-Spirit patients.

As part of the Centre de recherches mathématiques (CRM) and CANSSI, I will be sharing a presentation on Gender Equity in Research. During this talk, you will be introduced to the Centre for Gender & Sexual Health Equity's Research Equity Toolkit, entitled Gender & Sex in Methods and Measurement. This toolkit addresses two interconnected problems in research: the pervasive erasure of intersex, trans and Two-Spirit people, among others; and, the often inadvertent misuse of gender and sex concepts. I will share some strategies for improving accuracy, precision and inclusion in research with a particular eye towards gender diversity, from determining eligibility criteria, to thinking about sample size, to designing surveys and analyzing data. 

Organized by the UVic Society for Students with a Disability, I am honoured to sit on this virtual panel about Reproductive Justice. There is still a lot of work that needs to be done to ensure reproductive equity is a reality for all folks in Canada. As a panelist, I will be sharing information about the ways that trans people experience reproductive inequities, and sharing strategies for ensuring that reproductive justice efforts are inclusive.

Have you ever wondered about the sexual and reproductive health care experience of trans populations? Are you seeking to improve your understanding and finding tangible ways to cultivate inclusivity in our healthcare system?

Join the LORSH team virtually on January 19th, 2023 at 7:30 PM to hear from Dr. A.J. Lowik, a trans scholar and health researcher, whose work is primarily focused on trans and non-binary people’s reproductive lives, health, decision-making and experiences accessing reproductive health care. 

This event is open to current UBC MD students. Get in touch with the LORSH for a link and more details.

The Global Period Poverty Forum brings together 42 speakers from around the world, united to end period poverty. I will be on a panel focused on Advocacy, Research and Impactors in Education, Health and Policy along with Sumaira Lokhandwala (co-founder of HER Pakitan), Dr. Annalise Weckesser (Senior Researcher at Birmingham City University), moderated by Mary Crooks (Executive Director of the Victorian Women’s Trust).

I am thrilled to be moderating this virtual Pride event, called Generations of Pride, hosted by the Health Initiative for Men. It will include conversations with four speakers on issues relating to age, intergenerationalism, change and progress, gender, HIV, isolation, etc.

Join us via Zoom, by registering here.

Learn more about the event and the four speakers on the Health Initiative for Men website, here.

Are you a doula in Canada, and interested in learning more about trans and non-binary people’s needs? I will be sitting down with Doula Canada’s LGBQ2TS Consultant and Coordinator Anna Penner on Tuesday, June 23rd at 12:30 PST/3:30 EST for a quick half-hour chat about all things trans-inclusion during conception, birth, pregnancy loss and postpartum. We will chat about what doulas should know and what actions they can take to build a more inclusive doula practice!

Check out Doula Canada’s website for more details, including how to attend this virtual discussion.

POSTPONED until 2021 due to Coronavirus.

As part of the Moving Trans History Forward Conference at the University of Victoria, I will be presenting a paper entitled “Women-centred Spaces, Contentious Feminisms and Trans-Inclusive Reproductive Healthcare,” which will focus on the ways in which invocations of fear surrounding cisgender women’s safety and erasure are used to justify the exclusion of trans people from spaces understood as being for and by women, including reproductive health care spaces. This paper will explore the deployment of a so-called ‘feminist’ politic that is used to legitimize these cisnormative and transphobic exclusionary policies and practices.

The Moving Trans History Forward conference brings together community activists, academics, artists, and allies from around the globe, all of whom are interested in trans issues and seeking equity for trans people. Registration for this conference is now open, and they offer low-income and sliding scale registration fees for those who need them, as well as a limited number of complimentary tickets.

Organized by the Pacific Post Partum Support Society and the Women’s Health Research Cluster, this Roundtable discussion will serve as an afternoon of conversation around the perinatal mental health needs of 2SLGBTQ+ families. I will be a part of the Roundtable discussion, along with two others. I will be talking about trans people and perinatal mental health specifically.

Click here to check out the poster advertisement for the event. There will be a free lunch from 12-1 p.m., and then the roundtable discussion from 1-3. Click here for more information.

The organizers are also hosting an early parenthood support workshop for 2SLGBTQ+ Parents on February 8, 2020 from 1-3 p.m at the same location. Click here for details.

This discussion is free and open to the public. RSVP by e-mailing Emily Garner at emily@postpartum.org.

As part of the Centre for Gender and Sexual Health Equity Speaker Series, I will be delivering a lecture entitled “Creating Trans-Inclusive Reproductive and Sexual Health Spaces.”

Click here for details about the event.

Click here (or visit the URL above) to RSVP to this free event.

I will be delivering a talk on contextualizing abuse and neglect among transgender older adults to the BC Community Response Networks. BC CRN is a diverse group of concerned community members who come together to create a coordinated community response to adult abuse, neglect and self-neglect. They organize a group called Living OUT Visibly and Engaged, focusing on responding to abuse, neglect and self-neglect among gender and sexual diverse elders.

I will be sharing some information for about 40 minutes, and then Sherry Baker, Executive Director, will be facilitating a discussion for the remainder of the time.

This talk will be delivered via teleconference and is only open to members of the BC CRN. Please get in touch with Regional Mentor for Central and North Vancouver Island, Joan Osborne at jane.osborne@bccrns.ca, if you are a member of BC CRN and would like to participate.

https://www.facebook.com/events/170639844227273/

Along with Cicely-Belle Blain, I will be part of a Curated Conversation, organized by Yoga Outreach on the topic of gender inclusion and intersectionality, both within and beyond yoga spaces. From how to create yoga spaces where trans and non-binary people feel well, to how gender, race, class, ability, sexuality and others all intersect to impact how each person experiences both privilege and marginalization, this curated discussion will focus on the work that Cicely and I both do as consultants, researchers, students and teachers, on the experiences we’ve had in the world of yoga, and on the need for intersectional inclusion frameworks in all kinds of fitness and movement spaces.

Tickets are $7 in advance, $10 at the door - no one turned away for lack of funds.

Register for this talk, and check out the other incredible programming offered by Yoga Outreach here - they offer trauma-informed yoga programming, a knowledge development series, as well as this Out Loud curated conversations series.

I am honoured to have been invited by Social Studies teacher Stacey McEachern to talk to two Grade 12 Social Justice classes at Eric Hamber Secondary School in South Vancouver. I will be sharing what I do as a researcher and consultant, and helping the students understand what allyship looks like and why our social justice efforts need to include trans people.

I am thrilled to be giving a talk at the La Lupa Via Sacred Cycles Community Full-Spectrum Doula Training on the importance of trans-inclusion for doulas! I’ll be talking about pregnancy and birthing, abortion and pregnancy loss, death doulas, strength and resilience and how full-spectrum doulas can better serve their trans clients.

Click here to check out the La Lupa Via website for more information.

This Lunch and Learn with the staff at the BC Centre on Substance Use will cover key terminology, demystify pronouns, and identify some of the challenges facing trans and non-binary people in substance use research, treatment, care, and beyond. It will give participants an opportunity to reflect on their own gender identity and expression and consider their relationship to and experiences of broad systems of privilege called cisnormativity and ciscentrism. This session will serve as the beginning of the conversation on how to foster trans-inclusion at the BCCSU – as a workplace, and as a research institute.

Unfortunately, this event is for members of the BC Centre on Substance Use, and is not open to the public.

I’ll be sharing some thoughts on inclusion in fitness and yoga at this Community Brunch on Sunday, August 18th. Unfortunately, this event is not open to the public, and is specifically for employees of the Juice Truck and Stretch Yoga.

As part of their free, public lecture series, I had the pleasure of sharing my work in the area of trans-inclusive abortion service provision at the University of Victoria’s Chair in Transgender Studies.

You can check out a video of the entire lecture here.