Keynote Speakers

Friday, October 23

Dr. Lee Airton

“How will we know we have outlasted the opposition: Employing transgender young adults through the next five years of backlash”

Time: 9:30 – 10:45am
In this lecture, Dr. Lee Airton will draw on findings from their cross-Canada research program and advocacy work to identify a critical issue facing 2SLGBTQ+ leaders in Canada across sectors. Advocacy and change efforts in K-12 education as well as growing societal awareness of gender diversity has produced a generation of young transgender people who have come up through affirming schools and often with affirming parents, but who are currently entering workplaces that are unprepared to support them. In fact, this cohort’s openness and self-advocacy are producing a crisis in many business-as-usual structures and processes. Using teacher education and career induction as an example, Dr. Airton calls for an all-hands-on-deck approach to retaining this cohort in the coming years of growing anti-trans and anti-queer movements.

Time: 9:30 – 10:45am

In this lecture, Dr. Lee Airton will draw on findings from their cross-Canada research program and advocacy work to identify a critical issue facing 2SLGBTQ+ leaders in Canada across sectors. Advocacy and change efforts in K-12 education as well as growing societal awareness of gender diversity has produced a generation of young transgender people who have come up through affirming schools and often with affirming parents, but who are currently entering workplaces that are unprepared to support them. In fact, this cohort’s openness and self-advocacy are producing a crisis in many business-as-usual structures and processes.

Using teacher education and career induction as an example, Dr. Airton calls for an all-hands-on-deck approach to retaining this cohort in the coming years of growing anti-trans and anti-queer movements.

Dr. Lee Airton is an Associate Professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies in Education at Queen’s University. Dr. Airton has created resources that have changed the Canadian conversation about transgender people and gender diversity, such as www.gegi.ca, a widely-used self-advocacy resource for K-12 students. Most recently, Dr. Airton and colleagues released a white paper titled “No for Now: Guidance for School Staff on Supporting Transgender Students and Parent-Child Relationships” which is informing policy and educator practice across Canada.

Their popular press book, Gender: Your Guide (second ed. 2024) has been adopted as a professional development text in teacher education, schools, the public sector and private sector organizations. Dr. Airton has been interviewed 97 times, and received the 2025 Award of Distinction from Ophea which recognizes them as a leader in the meaningful advancement of inclusive healthy, active living opportunities for children and youth in Ontario school communities.

Saturday, October 24

Dr. Alex Wilson

“Supporting Two-Spirit Leadership”

Time: 9:00 – 10:15am
In this keynote session, Dr. Alex Wilson will examine the urgent and interconnected challenges facing Indigenous communities, including chronic housing insecurity, disproportionately high suicide rates, and the ongoing crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two-Spirit people (MMIWG2S+). Grounded in her longstanding advocacy for queer, trans, and Two-Spirit rights, Dr. Wilson will explore how these systemic issues are shaped by colonialism, structural inequities, and ongoing social and political marginalization. The session will highlight the critical role of Two-Spirit and Indigenous leadership in responding to these challenges through community-based approaches grounded in relationality, resurgence, and care. Participants will be invited to consider how leadership practices rooted in Indigenous knowledge systems can inform more just, responsive, and sustainable pathways forward for both Indigenous and 2SLGBTQIA+ communities

Time: 9:00 – 10:15am

In this keynote session, Dr. Alex Wilson will examine the urgent and interconnected challenges facing Indigenous communities, including chronic housing insecurity, disproportionately high suicide rates, and the ongoing crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two-Spirit people (MMIWG2S+). Grounded in her longstanding advocacy for queer, trans, and Two-Spirit rights, Dr. Wilson will explore how these systemic issues are shaped by colonialism, structural inequities, and ongoing social and political marginalization.

The session will highlight the critical role of Two-Spirit and Indigenous leadership in responding to these challenges through community-based approaches grounded in relationality, resurgence, and care. Participants will be invited to consider how leadership practices rooted in Indigenous knowledge systems can inform more just, responsive, and sustainable pathways forward for both Indigenous and 2SLGBTQIA+ communities

Dr. Alex Wilson is an acclaimed educator, scholar, and researcher whose commitment to building and sharing knowledge about land-based learning and Two Spirit identity, history and teachings has influenced educational policy at regional, national, and international levels. Wilson is from and lives in the Opaskwayak Cree Nation.

The first Canadian First Nations woman to receive a doctorate from Harvard, her experience as a teaching fellow led to the formation of two Harvard courses that now serve as a foundation for training curriculum in communities throughout Canada and the United States. She has published and presented extensively on issues of sexuality, gender, culture, community, and spirituality. Her efforts to revitalize Cree culture and her dedication to supporting LGBTQ2S+ people and First Nations people have earned her recognition from the Legislature of Manitoba.