Trans-Affirming Gender-Based Violence Services

In this episode, Keneisha Charles, Jiaqing Wilson-Yang, and Rosalyn Forrester join us to discuss gender-affirming care, and how we can center trans and non-binary experiences in gender-based violence movements and support services.

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CONTENT NOTE

This episode discusses transphobia and gender-based violence. Although there are no descriptions of sexual violence on this podcast, any conversation about sexual or gender-based violence can be hard to hear. Listen in a way that feels safe for you. If you need support, there are resources like sexual assault support centres in your community that you can reach out to. See our list here of supports available by province.

For peer and crisis support, Trans Lifeline is a great resource.

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FURTHER LEARNING

For more on trans-affirming gender-based violence services, see Courage To Act’s Resources For Gender Justice Advocates To Affirm And Support 2SLGBTQIA Gender-based Violence Survivors On Post-secondary Campuses.

trans-LINK Network is a wonderful resource with great guidelines for gender-affirming care.

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ABOUT OUR GUESTS

Keneisha Charles (they/them) is an organizer and artist who strives to dream and co-create liberation through all they do. As a fat, Black, queer, nonbinary, second-generation Caribbean, intersectionality is at the heart of their praxis. Their community work centres around Black liberation, collective care, environmental justice, disability justice, queer-trans liberation, and gender equity. As a poet, storyteller, and musician, they’re also passionate about the role of art in revolution.

Jiaqing Wilson-Yang (she/her) is a mixed-race (Chinese & Irish) trans woman and gender-based violence worker. She has worked with survivors of all genders, trans women affected by HIV, LGBTQ youth labelled with intellectual disabilities, trans youth and their parents, and under-housed youth for nearly 15 years. She is the award-winning author of Small Beauty (Metonymy, 2016), and is currently employed at Consent Comes First, the Office of Sexual Violence Support and Education, at Toronto Metropolitan University. She loves cats, dogs, all things Star Trek, and nerding out about gender-based violence.

Rosalyn Forrester walks with several identities: she is a woman of colour who was born with transexualism, a single mom of two beautiful daughters, a woman living with chronic pain, a woman loving women femme, an activist, a Pagan, an educator, a caregiver. Presently, Rosalyn works at Embrave, a VAW agency in Mississauga; as well as at East Mississauga Community Health Centre. She has organized a number of events for trans communities and spoken across Canada. Rosalyn has also been forced to become well-versed in Human Rights Law and Family Law as it pertains to people from within the Greater Trans Communities.

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CONNECT WITH POSSIBILITY SEEDS

Want to follow our gender justice work? Connect with us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, and visit our website at possibilityseeds.ca.

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TRANSCRIPT

Read the episode transcript here.

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CREDITS

Created by Possibility Seeds. Project team: Farrah Khan, Emily Allan, Anoodth Naushan, Laura Murray, and Chenthoori Malankov-Milton. Produced by Vocal Fry Studios. Graphic design by Kitty Rodé with elements from Arzu Haider.