"The word I have coined in te reo Māori for autism is ‘Takiwātanga’. It is a derivation of my phrase for autism: “tōku/tōna anō takiwā” – “my/his/her own time and space”."
Read more about how this word came to be in Keri Opai's story (video and text): https://www.altogetherautism.org.nz/a-time-and-space-for-takiwatanga/
Read the short BBC article on this project: https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-40493398
Check out the very cool language glossary, featuring te Reo Maori <> English translations, word collections, plus phrases and proverbs: https://www.tereohapai.nz/
I'm currently reading this book, the first one I've read by a trans author and the first that's about the Bible and the lives of transgender Christians. It's especially interesting in light of a recent panel that I attended on "Being Transgender in the workplace".
Love the book so far! Keep your eyes open for future posts inspired by this...
Find out more at http://austenhartke.com/book or get a copy from your local bookshop or library.
Austen's site also includes a lengthy resources page and a link to Transmission Ministry Collective:
"We’re an online community of transgender and gender-expansive Christians committed to growing our faith, supporting each other, and healing the world."
The Transmission Ministry Collective offers:
This is a free, online tool which is intended to give those who are working with new immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers a basic understanding of trauma as it tends to be experienced by this group of people. The topics covered, each in a page or two, are:
Immigration: An Introduction
Why Does Migration Occur?
Who Are Lawful Permanent Residents?
Phases of Adjustment
Refugees and Asylum Seekers
Trauma: An Introduction
The Injury Mental Model
Triple Trauma Paradigm
Vicarious Trauma
Consequences of Trauma
"Research from the Family Acceptance Project found more than 50 family accepting behaviours that help protect your lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer-identified (LGBTQ) / Two Spirit child against health risks like depression, suicide and illegal drug use and help to increase your LGBTQ / 2S child's self-worth, health and well-being." (from poster)
"A little change makes a difference in decreasing your child's isolation and risk
and giving them hope that their family will be there for them."
This project has several great posters available for free in PDF, sized for various printing purposes. This image shows a portion of one of the posters.
Article on this project: https://www.advocate.com/commentary/2021/11/26/saving-two-spirit-and-indigenous-lgbtq-youth
Direct link to project page and posters: https://familyproject.sfsu.edu/content/family-acceptance-project-healthy-futures-posters-american-indian-communities
Are you in contact with newcomers to Canada? Whether as a volunteer, at your place of worship, or during your daily routine, you likely are in contact, and some of the newcomers (whether you know it or not) will be LGBTQ.
The titles of the five videos are:
 |
| Skyways, 2019, Bartram's Garden (c) Andrea Walls |
https://www.museumofblackjoy.com/
You can read an article the NPR wrote about her:
https://www.npr.org/2021/08/14/1026447517/museum-of-black-joy-andrea-walls?s=09
Affirmation Guide for Trans & Gender-Expansive Identities, plus Trans & Gender-Expansive Identities eCourse
"Q Christian’s second Affirmation Guide features Taj Smith. This guide is designed to counter the idea that transgender and gender-expansive people cannot be Christians. This guide is also meant to support anyone who is and/or loves someone who is transgender. Taj dives into the Scriptural, theological, and relational affirmation of trans people in this foundational resource. Video content for the guide can be found below." (from webpage)
The guide is free though a donation is requested from those who are able. The page also features five videos that relate to content in the guide:
Posted in response to a large social media company rebranding itself as "Meta" with a logo looking like two collapsed kidneys...
Laverne Cox, American actress, said, "It is revolutionary for any trans person to choose to be seen and visible in a world that tells us we should not exist."
To all transgender people who read this post, I just want to say,
“You rock! You are wonderful and amazing! You are an inspiration!”
Wishing you much strength and wisdom as you live an authentic life, and many family members, friends, colleagues and acquaintances who love and support you! You do exist and should exist, and your beauty and your gifts make the world a better place!
Happy Transgender Awareness Week!
"Canada Post’s stamp honours the Colored Hockey Championship and the all-Black hockey teams in the Maritimes that competed for it between 1895 and the early 1930s.
It is impossible to fully appreciate this story without understanding the Canada of the day, when Blacks lived in segregated communities that often lacked proper roads, health services, water or street lamps."
To all the hes and the shes,
The aes and the faes,
The pers and the xes,
The zes and the zies,
The eys and the others,
And most of all, to all the theys
(but only cuz there’s more of them):
Happy International Pronouns Day!
"Kent Monkman’s Shame and Prejudice: A Story of Resilience takes you on a journey through the past 150 years of Canada. It is a journey that reclaims and reinserts Indigenous voices into the collective memory of our country, challenging and shattering colonial ideas of our history."
(from website)
Through his art, Kent Monkman has been critiquing the colonial world of the museums which have been so silent about Canada's history of colonization, which have presented the colonizers' view of history, which have whitewashed the horrible things that were done.
Expand your mind by taking part in this excellent curatorial tour of the exhibition:
Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mACqPVUXzk8
Read the book online, in Cree, English and French: https://online.fliphtml5.com/xkla/ttia/#p=1. Note: I'd suggest watching the above video first, as it gives a clearer explanation if you are new to this.
 |
| Lori Blondeau, Asiniy Iskwew, 2016 |
Here's a great learning opportunity that I've created for you -- a practical guide to the new world of pronouns.
This 36 minute video covers key topics like:
Link to watch directly at YouTube.com:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdtVLgU6OxA&t=6s
This is a pretty cool short film, featuring an unhoused youth and a DeafBlind man.
"After a late-night chance encounter with a DeafBlind man on a New York City street, writer/director Doug Roland wrote the award winning short film, Feeling Through. Doug knew from the start he wanted to cast a DeafBlind actor to star, so he partnered with Helen Keller Services to realize that mission."
While casting a DeafBlind actor to play a DeafBlind character might seem like the logical thing to do, too often this does not happen and able-bodied people are cast to play disabled people.
Watch this short film and read more about it at: https://www.feelingthrough.com/
Evolution's Rainbow: Diversity, Gender, and Sexuality in Nature and People
For a quick peek at what kinds of things this book talks about, check out this visual summary by @alokvmenon on Instagram:
He drew a circle that shut me out -
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle and took him in.
Edwin Markham1852-1940, "Outwitted"
(emphasis added)
I want to let you know about this amazing resource put out by International Board on Books for Young People (Canada) (IBBY) in 2018 - a catalogue of the 100 best of Indigenous picture books!
Plus, issued in June 2021, an additional catalogue of the best new 25 books!
From board books to picture books for older readers, this collection is a selection of 100 of the best books by Indigenous authors, many illustrated by Indigenous artists, published in Canada and currently in print. The titles reflect the diverse First Nations, Métis, and Inuit cultures, languages, perspectives, and experiences from sea to sea to sea. Attention was given to including picture books that promote and support Indigenous languages. All titles reflect authentic First Nations, Métis, and Inuit voices and offer insight into their distinct histories and current realities of these communities. (from IBBY website newsletter)
IBBY Introduction to the Catalogue
The Original "From Sea to Sea to Sea: Celebrating Indigenous Picture Books" Catalogue (PDF)
The 2021 "From Sea to Sea to Sea (2021 edition)" Catalogue (PDF)
IBBY Canada Special Edition Newsletter: From Sea to Sea to Sea: Celebrating Indigenous Picture Books
Edmonton has recreated its electoral ward boundaries, and at the same time, named the new wards based on names gifted by the Committee of Indigenous Matriarchs.
I’d like to highlight one new ward in particular:
tastawiyiniwak - ᑕᐢᑕᐃᐧᔨᓂᐊᐧᐠ
You may have heard of the term “Two Spirit”, used to refer to Indigenous people who do not fit a Western gender binary and who had specific roles and responsibilities in their nations. The term is a cross-nation umbrella term for use only by Indigenous peoples, coined in contrast to Western labels and because many original Indigenous words have been lost due to the impact of colonization.
Tastawiyiniwak – pronounced TASS-TAW-WIN-EE-WOK – is the Cree-specific word for those who are Two Spirit. It means “the in-between people”, and “was only used when referring to all of the iskwêhkânak ekwah nâpêhkânak. Each was free to move between gender roles”.
To clarify, iskwêhkânak is the Cree word for “fake woman” (but without the negative connotations) and nâpêhkânak is the Cree word for “fake man”. Depending on the Cree nations, there were up to five additional words for gender beyond the “traditional Western” words male and female. Tastawiyiniwak is a word that refers to all Cree people whose gender roles are other than male or female.
So why was this name gifted to that particular new ward?
Terri Suntjens, Director of Indigenous Initiatives at MacEwan University, explains:
“We have grandmothers within our spiritual realm, within our ceremonies, that sit in different directions. We have the east, the west, the south, the north, the southeast. They each have different responsibilities. They look after different people and have different … responsibilities. And so, the grandmother that sits in the north direction, when the pipe is gifted and held up to the north, is the grandmother that takes care of our LGBTQ2S+ community” (shared at Edmonton Council meeting, Sept. 21, 2020)
For more information:
A little rant:
A common saying that I hear in organizations and companies is, "Diversity and Inclusion are two sides of the same coin".
Here's an example, from an article at the Alberta CPA website (but they aren't the only ones saying this):
Rubbish!
It is true that a coin has two sides and it's not possible to have one side of a coin without the other, but it is certainly possible to have diversity without inclusion.
Think of pre-apartheid South Africa -- there were white people and Black people (= diversity), but the Blacks were not included and the whites, though in the minority, held all the power (no inclusion).
Think of Canada - there is great diversity, but many minoritized people are excluded, some even from basic human needs like clean drinking water.
Think of your company or organization. There is probably much diversity among the employees overall, but most likely, the higher in the organizational structure you go, the more white, male and cisgender it gets. So clearly, there is not inclusion at those levels.
Edmonton has revised its electoral boundaries, and at the same time, renamed all the wards with Indigenous names selected by the Committee of Indigenous Matriarchs.
My new ward is #5, named O-day'min, meaning strawberry or heart berry.
The city's page about the new wards includes explanations of the new names, pronunciation guides, and information about how the name was chosen for that ward.
If you live in Edmonton, check out your new ward using the links at the bottom of this post.
How did this come about?
Recently I had the opportunity to be involved in the design of a logo to be used for internal, diversity and inclusion-related events where I work.
Now, here are some of the constraints. The design will be of an icon - size 550 x 330 pixels - that will appear in a webpage and in an email newsletter. We don't have masses of space nor the option of fine detail and lines of text that would be available on a poster design or a billboard. This clearly will influence the design.
Now, a common rule when designing logos is that you first design in black and white, so that the design's effectiveness is not dependent on colour. This is because often, things created in colour get photocopied in black and white and you don't want to end up with a meaningless or unreadable image. However, in this case, as the design will only appear on computer screens and almost never printed black and white, this rule is not particularly applicable.
I kind of liked this, though it is rather impersonal, as it shows interconnectedness and can indicate diversity abstractly. This is one of the difficulties of a logo or icon for diversity and inclusion in general. It would be much easier to design something for one specific group, such as for disability-related events or Indigenous events. In this case, we either need to show D&I abstractly or in a way that includes a wide variety of specific diversities.
So realizing that the above was too detailed for the size requirement, I contemplated a four piece puzzle but that seemed to lose too much.
Looking to broaden your musical horizons and increase your cultural exposure? Here's just the thing for you:
Reclaimed is a weekly series on CBC Radio that explores the many worlds of contemporary Indigenous music from traditional songs and acoustic sounds to Native hip-hop, R&B, and the dancefloor-filling beats of electric powwow.
Listen free online at:
https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-184-reclaimed
Featuring over 80 episodes, each 53 minutes in length.
BlackIllustrations.com is one site that offers illustrations of Black people in different contexts, including office, medical, STEM, education and more. Some sets are free; others have a cost.
https://www.BlackIllustrations.com
(Above: some education-related images from BlackIllustrations.com)
Collections include Tiny Humans, "Breathe, Stretch, Shake, All Hands, Black in Green Spaces, Food for the Soul, Women at Work, The Perfect Holiday, All Black Lives Matter, I's Married Now, and Good Hair.
The Gender Spectrum Collection
 |
| Vice Gender Photos Collection https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ |
