By Tarra Joshi

This past week in my Intro to Equity Studies class, some students performed Tara Goldstein's performed ethnography entitled Snakes and Ladders (linked at the bottom of this post) which examines the ways in which homophobia and racism are experienced in high schools. For anyone who has not read this piece, I encourage you to do so! 

The part of the piece that was most interesting to me was apparent allusion to the institutional and systemic oppression that our society faces, but displayed on a smaller scale in a high school. Sure, the school in the script was following an equity policy, and encouraging the students to become more aware of homophobia and racism, but the real problem was with the attitudes of the teachers. For example, at one point a teacher comments on how a gay student teacher should back his car into the parking spot to hide the rainbow sticker on his bumper. This illustrated to me how even if the students become inspired through GSAs and the like, it is the teachers and faculty (who will most likely spend more years in the school than the students) who need to do real work to fix the oppression that occurs in schools. This is intimately related to how our society as a whole functions. We need to strive to eliminate the systemic oppression in our society if we want to make real change. In my opinion, the way to do this is through anti-homophobia and anti-oppression education at a young age. Snakes and Ladders is an incredible teaching tool that should not only be given to teachers, but also to students, as it is easy to engage with and very relatable for teenagers. 

Click here to read Snakes and Ladders by Tara Goldstein

By Sara Cancelliere

Yesterday, on March 9th, the last research meeting which I would attend took place. I was privileged to have the opportunity to participate in research under Tara Golstein and Pamela Baer and alongside an excellent and diverse team of colleagues, including graduate students, fellow undergrads, and even an OISE librarian! I would like to take a moment to extend my thanks to all my colleagues and the ROP299 program that made such an excellent and helpful experience possible, and look forward to future opportunities. 

Participating in this project, I learned a great many things. How to transcribe; exactly how detailed and meticulous the research process is, and just how many things have to be considered even before a project can begin; how to carry out qualitative research, and how to hone my analysis skills. My perhaps greatest takeaway, however, was connecting to the 'real-life' effects that so many theoretical axes of oppression have. So often in my academic work, I had approached oppression from an activist perspective; words like 'intersectionality' were purely theoretical, mere vocabulary to use to educate others. I had read and understood great advocates, those with an extensive educational background in the topics they spoke on. But I had never had the opportunity to connect with people beyond that; all of these concepts were real, but still somehow far away.

In the LGBTQ Families in Schools project, my work consisted often of transcribing and analyzing the interviews of members of LGBTQ families. I did not approach these people as an activist; I did not approach these interviews as particular activism, but rather from a place of people recounting things on a simpler, yet still heavily nuanced level. The interviewees were simply trying to live their life and reporting back the challenges they had faced doing so as a result of systemic oppression and invisibility. This is not to say that they made no 'intelligent' commentary, or that any complexity was lost; simply that I saw the concepts I had so often spoken about in a theoretical and detached way come to life in a frank, tangible manner. I was reminded of the 'why' of activism, as well as the 'who' and the 'what' of oppression in general, and I feel as though this experience has given me new purpose and meaning in pursuing equity as an academic endeavour. I hope I can continue along the road of research with these perspectives in mind, and feel grateful to have gained these insights.

Signing off,
Sara Cancelliere

By Pamela Baer

I recently started watching the new Amazon series Transparent. For those of you who don't know the premise, the series follows a retired political science professor and trans woman, Maura, as she comes out to her adult children and transitions later in life. Here is the trailer.

The series is very entertaining and has met with much excitement and anticipation. But despite the show working hard to hire trans actors and crew, there has justifiably been a lot of criticism at having a cis-man take on the leading role. As we know Hollywood has a long way to go to create shows with diverse casts, and equitable representation. But for what it is, Transparent is quirky and endearing and worth checking out.  

If you are interested in a more well rounded piece on the experiences of Transparents here is a link to Rémy Huberdeau's Transforming Family. A longer version of the film reviewed by Tara here.