Sign our open letter calling on the Federal government to end conversion therapy for all
Sign our open letter calling on the Federal government to amend the Conversion Therapy Ban Bill to better protect trans and gender diverse communities. Bill C-8, “An Act to amend the Criminal Code (conversion therapy)”, offers an important opportunity to reflect on conversion therapy practices that continue to adversely affect transgender, non-binary, Two-Spirit, queer, bisexual, lesbian, gay, and other gender and sexual diverse Canadians. We are heartened that the federal government is committed to addressing these traumatic practices; however, we are obliged to express our concerns about ways in which Bill C-8 fails to adequately define and prevent all forms of conversion therapy. We are particularly concerned about the inequitable impact the current version of the bill will have on trans, non-binary, and gender-diverse Canadians.
A Personal Letter from Erika Muse
My name is Erika Muse, and I spoke at the press conference introducing the Canadian federal government’s Bill C-8 to ban conversion therapy on March 9th, 2020. I got up, and I broke down in tears, and I said that I could not support that bill, as a survivor of conversion therapy, and as an activist who has fought to make sure conversion therapy is banned in Canada. I want to tell you why I said what I said, why I still cannot support this bill, and why I am pushing for desperately needed changes to be made to that legislation to ensure it protects trans people. Ever since I stood up and said that the bill wasn’t good enough, my concerns with this legislation have gone unreported, and have largely been ignored. Many people may not have seen or…
CGSHE/SFU Post-Doctoral Fellow Dr. Germaine Tuyisenge accepted into the Mitacs Elevate Postdoctoral Fellowship Program
Congratulations to Dr. Germaine Tuyisenge, CGSHE/SFU Post-Doctoral Fellow, for being accepted into the Mitacs Elevate Postdoctoral Fellowship Program. Dr. Tuyisenge will be working on the Evaluating Inequities in Refugee and Immigrant Women’s Sexual Health Access (IRIS) project under the supervision of Dr. Shira Goldenberg, focusing on the experiences and perceptions of im/migrant women on access to HIV & STI services, and im/migration-related structural barriers and facilitators to inequities in navigating and accessing these services.
CGSHE Statement on Response to Racism and Police Brutality
The recent events of anti-Black police brutality, white supremacy, and racialized structural inequities inherent in COVID-19 have amplified how systemic racism is an urgent public health issue in Canada and the US that must be called out and addressed. CGSHE stands in solidarity with #BlackLivesMatter and is committed to ongoing work and advocacy for racial justice and an end to police harassment and brutality. Criminalization, racism, police brutality and discrimination in access to justice disproportionately impact Black, Indigenous and other People of Colour (BIPOC) communities in Canada and the US. Racism is embedded across a variety of public policies and institutions – including public health – as are other human rights violations, including discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, migration, and other intersectional identities. Institutional silence is unacceptable. CGSHE was formed to address deep-rooted structural inequities and…