Presenter: Dr. JJ Wright (she/they)

Drawing on findings from the Queer Joy! Project, and particularly participatory visual arts-based research with 2SLGBTQ+ youth in Alberta, this talk examines how queer leadership takes shape through practices of joy, connection, and collective care across educational and community contexts. Participants’ narratives and artistic works demonstrate how youth lead by creating spaces where queer and trans people can live authentically, relate deeply, and engage in collective world-building.

In a context of rising anti-2SLGBTQ+ hostility, these practices are vital to collective survival and flourishing. This presentation offers educators concrete ways to recognize and support these forms of leadership in their own contexts.

Presenter: Jordan Sophasath

Navigating healthcare as a queer individual in a rural setting presents unique barriers, from a lack of specialized providers to valid concerns regarding privacy and stigma. This session offers a pragmatic look at queer health outside of major urban centers, focusing on the intersections of rural geography, sexual health, and harm reduction.

Drawing on frontline public health experience in the Westman region, this presentation examines the current landscape of rural access to crucial health services. We will delve into the specific challenges and community-driven solutions surrounding STBBI testing and treatment, abortion access, and substance use support for 2SLGBTQIA+ individuals. Participants will learn about work being done by rural queer folks and gain an understanding of the local harm reduction landscape, leveraging community partnerships, and advocating for equitable, trauma-informed care closer to home.

Presenter: Graham Robertson (he/him)

This session explores how 2SLGBTQI+ considerations are at the margins of international relations. This session will provide participants with an overview of queer diplomacy and discuss strategies for effectively integrating SOGIESC across the field of international relations. Amidst a global rollback of 2SLGBTQI+ rights, this research is essential for anyone studying, practicing or interested in foreign affairs.

Presenter: Becky Pritchard (she/her)

This presentation will explore recently completed graduate research on Manitoba superintendent decision-making regarding 2SLGBTQIA+ policy. Drawing on interviews with 5 current Manitoba superintendents, this study examines what factors (sociopolitical, institutional, and personal) might explain superintendents’ decision-making in reviewing, revising, creating, and/or leaving unchanged divisional policy documents relating to 2SLGBTQIA+ issues. Emerging themes from the interview data include ignorance, perceived competing rights, external leadership vacuums, and backlash. The session will include direct instruction, small group collaboration, and whole group discussion to offer all participants the opportunity to reflect on the data shared and explore the role of 2SLGBTQIA+ policy in the creation of a more just public schooling system for all.

For this session, symposium participants will discuss emerging topics in queer and trans leadership that may need further research.

Presenter: Debbie Owusu-Akeyah

In an era where LGBTQ+ rights are increasingly targeted, understanding the mechanics of opposition is no longer optional. It is a core component of queer and trans leadership. This presentation provides a comprehensive overview of far-right tactics and strategies, pulling back the curtain on how extremist rhetoric is used to destabilize progressive progress. We will move beyond simple awareness to focus on strategic coordination, exploring how our movements can build resilient networks of collective action.

True leadership within the queer and trans community involves not only celebrating our identities but also mastering the art of the counter-maneuver. By deconstructing the playbooks of those who oppose us, we can transform our response from reactive defense into proactive, unified resistance. Join us to discuss how we can leverage our history of grassroots organizing to safeguard our future and ensure that our movements remain unshakeable in the face of coordinated pressure.

Presenter: Dr. Cameron Smith (he/they)

Mixing presentation and arts-based activities, we will explore how queerness intersects with languages in plurilingual classrooms. We will draw on research highlighting how queering language pedagogy might unfold, and end with case studies and practical resources to embed gender expansive and inclusive language practices in education.

Presenter: Bruno de Oliveira Jayme

This hands-on workshop invites participants to explore queer leadership through embodied, material practice using clay. Drawing on approaches from ceramics, new materialism, and post-qualitative inquiry, participants will “think with their hands,” engaging clay as a medium for reflection, relationality, and meaning-making.

The session emphasizes process over product, encouraging participants to consider how vulnerability, touch, and material engagement can inform leadership practices within 2SLGBTQIA+ communities. Through guided making and facilitated dialogue, participants will reflect on how creative practice can support connection, resilience, and collective exploration. No prior artistic experience is required.

This workshop positions the studio as a space for both personal insight and community-building, highlighting how artistic processes can contribute to more responsive, relational, and transformative approaches to queer leadership. 

Presenter: Dr. Lucy Delgado

This presentation will focus on a research project underway examining the ways that Two-Spirit/Indigiqueer peoples are present within or absent from Manitoba classrooms. This multi year research project includes an examination of Manitoba curriculum documents, government briefs, and other relevant documents to determine what Two-Spirit/Indigiqueer content is currently mandated to be included within Manitoba K-12 classrooms, and how it is included (i.e. as required examples, or as suggested topics, or within unofficial briefs, and so on), as well as a survey of students and teachers to be delivered across the province. 

Presenter: Casey Burkholder

In a moment shaped by rising polarization, anti-queer and anti-trans legislation, and the normalization of white supremacist rhetoric, how do we create spaces that are both politically grounded and genuinely joyful? This talk/workshop explores how DIY practices within The JOYLab: The Queer & Joyful Worldmaking Lab have cultivated community spaces that resist harm while centering queer and trans flourishing.

Drawing on grassroots organizing, creative facilitation, resource redistribution, and collective care strategies, the talk/workshop highlights practical tools for responding to hostility without reproducing burnout or fear.

Participants will learn how to nurture spaces, gatherings, workshops, and micro-interventions that interrupt exclusionary narratives, strengthen solidarity, and foreground pleasure, creativity, and play. Rather than framing resistance solely as reaction, this approach positions joy as method, strategy, and outcome—making community-building both sustainable

Presenter: Charlie Eau (they/them)

This workshop is for those who are invested in the futures of Two Spirit, trans, nonbinary, and gender diverse people. By attending this session, queer and trans educators and community leaders will gain knowledge, resources, and build connections that lead to a common goal: envisioning and building a safer future where gender diversity is recognized and valued. Trans Manitoba’s Executive Director, Charlie Eau (they/them), will take us through the recent history of gender diversity in Manitoba from a human rights lens.

Manitoba has made great strides in equity, by introducing the x gender marker on provincial ID, and formally recognizing the Two Spirit and Transgender Day of Visibility, but our advocacy is not over. We will talk about what visibility means, the change we have yet to accomplish, and what a gender diverse future looks like. Together as allies and advocates, we can ensure trans youth grow into adults, and trans adults grow into elders

Presenters: Jamie Anderson & Rebecca Holm

As trans teachers and researchers, we explore how policy and discourse shape professional possibilities for trans people in education. We examine the systemic forces making teaching increasingly untenable for trans teachers in Canada, particularly in Alberta, while also exploring what conditions would make it possible for us to continue to imagine ourselves in the profession.

Presenter: Sydney Brouillard-Coyle (pronouns ney/nem/nir)

Asexual and aromantic existence aims to challenge binaries and norms imposed by society, much like the experiences of queer individuals. Many who are part of ace/aro communities also consider themselves to be part of queer and/or trans identities and communities. Thus, ace/aro perspectives on sexuality are a critical way to engage with queer theory and liberation. This workshop will explore the experiences of asexuality, discuss the harms of amatonormativity and compulsory sexuality, and examine what asexual liberation can look like.

Presenter: Darren Stehle

Drawing on original research interviews with queer leaders across Canada, the UK, and the US, this session reframes Pride not as celebration or identity assertion, but as the accumulated practice of self-permission queer people have been developing their entire lives. Grounded in the philosophy of the Tao Te Ching and the six principles of his book, Queering the Way, participants move from the historical and political roots of that practice into a guided values-clarification exercise — leaving with language for the permission they’ve already been giving themselves, and a way to lead from it with conviction, direction, and intention.

Presenter: Lou Lamari

This interactive workshop invites participants to rethink the “queer professional” through a paradigm shift that moves it from something invisible or taboo, to an invaluable strength in the professional world. Through storytelling and reflection, this session will explore how queer knowledge reveals hidden systems and power dynamics, offering insight that can transform ideas about success, conformity, and self-acceptance.

Using an intersectional lens, participants will interrogate assumptions about assimilation and success, and imagine alternative professional cultures grounded in authenticity, community, and mutual support where future generations will not have to choose between belonging and professional achievement.

Presenter: Keith Anthony Griffin

This collaborative session invites feedback on my study investigating 2SLGBTQIA+ teacher identity, familial dynamics, and praxis. Participants will explore theoretical framing, methodology, recruitment, ethics, and engagement strategies through roundtable dialogue and reflection. My session emphasizes participant agency, trauma-informed practices, networking, and ongoing scholarly collaboration across diverse and global educational contexts.

For this session, symposium participants will discuss emerging topics in queer and trans leadership that may need further research.