A few years ago I gave a workshop Algonquin College’s Pride Centre about transmisogyny. Fast-foward a few years later, and I got to revisit the topic as I was asked to give the workshop again, this time at Project Acorn, a summer camp for 16-24 year old queer & trans youth or from rainbow families.
I found out about Project Acorn when I was 25, so I never got to be a participant. Most of my friends have, however, and the experiences they shared of their time at that camp was always glowing. So too was the case for my other friends who went there to facilitate workshops and support the youth-led annual event.
Finally going after all these years, albeit as a workshop facilitator, I can see what they meant. Uplifting community building events. Laughter. There was a dramatic reading of memes when I was there. There were workshops on decolonization and family building.
When it came time to make the slides for this group, I started from scratch. A lot had changed since I had last given this. Language that once needed to be explained, like “cisgender”, was now in everyone’s vocabulary. There was much more awareness about transphobia as a whole. And all the stats and cultural references I had were dated. I also did territorial acknowledgements now that went beyond saying how we were on unceded territory, a tokenistic gesture at best when it was repeated without further advancement of dialog.
The workshop seemed to have gone okay. Feedback was generally positive, though I thought I could have done a better job of promoting dialog, pulling from people’s experiences, and getting a discussion going.
You can see the slides here.