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Welcoming the New Queer Ontario Steering Committee

November 8th, 2012 Comments off

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Hi Everyone,
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I would like to thank all that attended and participated in Queer Ontario’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) on Sunday, November 4, 2012.
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This is to announce our new Steering Committee roster as elected at the AGM (election results in parentheses, positions are staggered):
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Queer Ontario Steering Committee
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Chairperson:
Nick Mulé
Vice Chairperson:
Davina Hader (Newly Elected)
Secretary:
Martin Otarola
Treasurer:
Richard Hudler (Re-Elected)
Member At Large:
Alana Boltwood (Newly Elected)
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We have a very promising team of individuals to assist Queer Ontario in continuing our important work.  Congratulations to Richard Hudler on his re-election as Treasurer, who has our trust and confidence in overseeing the QO finances and advising us on budgetary matters; Davina Hader who was an important and effective liaison to QO on trans issues and carried out extensive cinematography work on the Queer Liberation Theory Project and was a Member At Large, now moves into the role of Vice Chairperson where she will carry on with these duties and more; and Alana Boltwood whose far reaching work on multiple issues as Chairperson of the Research and Education Committee and her ongoing assistance with the QO Think Tank positions her well as our newly elected Member At Large.
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A special thanks is extended to Casey Oraa who chose not to stand in the role of Vice Chairperson.  In this position Casey contributed immensely to QO doing extensive behind the scenes work at every level.  Of course he is best known for raising the profile of issues such as GSAs, queer youth and the education system, with his skilled handling of these difficult issues in the media and his ongoing coalition work with community activists and organizations.  Although he will be greatly missed on the QO Steering Committee, we look forward to continuing to work with him within QO in general.
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In order to align our governance with our fiscal year, Queer Ontario’s next AGM will be in May 2013 at which time the positions of Chairperson, Secretary and Members At Large (1 position within Toronto and 2 outside) will open up for elections.
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Thanks everyone and we look forward to another exciting year made even more so by the promise and talent of our newly elected Queer Ontario Steering Committee members.
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Cheers,
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Nick Mulé

Chairperson,
Queer Ontario
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Queer Ontario Steering Committee members elected

November 6th, 2011 Comments off

Queer Ontario’s first Annual General Meeting and Elections were held Saturday, November 5, 2011 at the 519 Community Centre in Toronto.

Elected to the steering committee were Chair Nick Mule, Vice-Chair Casey Oraa, Secretary Martin Otarola and Treasurer Richard Hudler, as well as At-Large Members Lisa Duke and Davina Hader. They join fellow steering committee members Alana Boltwood (Chair, Research and Education), Dwayne Shaw (Chair, Events) and David Demchuk (Chair, Governance and Media).

AGM Reports

The following reports are now available in the Documents section of the website, under Queer Ontario 2011 AGM, as well as via the links below:

Nick Mule – Chair’s report

Richard Hudler – Treasurer’s report

A.J. Lowik – Queer Liberation Theory Project report

Participation from Outside Toronto

To encourage participation from outside Toronto, Queer Ontario used Cover It Live to live-blog the event, streamed an audio webcast via UStream and created the hashtag #QO2011 for participation on Twitter. The archive of the Cover It Live live-blog is now available, as is the audio recording of the meeting (part one, part two – apologies for the ads).

Queer Ontario Denounces the Institute for Canadian Values’ SunTV Ad for its Anti-Trans Fear-Mongering

October 26th, 2011 Comments off

Queer Ontario has learned that the Institute for Canadian Values (ICV) has chosen to continue its war on the province’s trans communities by running a transphobic ‘advertisement’ on SunTV that disingenuously attempts to raise fears around the trans-inclusive materials recommended by the Toronto District School Board for its students.

Just like the advertisement that was run in the National Post during the provincial elections and subsequently withdrawn from the paper because of its inaccuracies, the SunTV ad is grossly misleading and exploitative for callously throwing around and trivializing a set of identities that are used by non-stereotypically-gendered persons to give meaning to themselves and their lives. These include individuals who have struggled with their sex or gender identity in the past because of a lack of transsexual, transgender, intersex, and two-spirited representation in the Ontario education curriculum – struggles that often lead to depression and suicide. This also includes sex and gender identities that raise concerns and fears in less informed individuals because of their misunderstanding of these identities and the lived realities associated with them.

Indeed, these hardships only serve to underscore the need for such a frank discussion of sex and gender identities in the Ontario curriculum to teach Ontarians about the various sexes and genders that exist in this world. And we have faith that our teachers will be able to do this skilfully, using age-appropriate language, to ensure that students are not “confused” by these lessons like the ICV claims they will be.

We applaud Advertising Standards Canada’s decision to investigate the ad and encourage individuals to file their own complaints, drawing attention to Provision 14 (Unacceptable Depictions and Portrayals) of the Canadian Code of Advertising Standards:
http://www.adstandards.com/en/consumerComplaints/howToSubmitAComplaint.aspx

We also encourage individuals to write to Dr. Chris Spence, the Director of Education for the Toronto District School Board, to let him know that you support the Board‘s decision to use the Challenging Homophobia and Heterosexism curriculum resource guide, which is the target of the ICV’s ad. This can be done via:

Email: chris.spence@tdsb.on.ca
Mail: Dr. Chris Spence, Director of Education, Toronto District School Board
5050 Yonge Street, Toronto, Ontario M2N 5N8

This ongoing campaign by the ICV against Canada’s trans communities only highlights the need to include ‘gender identity’ and ‘gender expression’ as protected grounds in our federal and provincial human rights codes. Indeed, much like the case of ‘homosexuality’ in decades past, a prevailing ignorance about the lives of transsexual, transgender, intersex, and two-spirited people only serves to breed fear and misunderstanding in people – and, with that, discrimination and hate-based violence. We call on the Ontario and federal governments to step up and take action.