Social Justice Synonyms #17: “Dyke” and “Fag”
The words “fag” and “dyke” are both words that carry a history of violence – emotional, verbal, and physical – against folks perceived as QUILTBAG. They’re words that have been, and continue to be used to remind people when they are enacting gender or sexuality in ways seen as ‘deviant’ according to social norms, which […]
Femconcept
Over the Christmas holidays I spent most of my time catching up with folks in my hometown. After the “how’s school?” spiel, most of these conversations eventually curved toward the subject of my radio show on CiTR. To provide detail as well as to propagate ourselves, myself and long time pal and CiTR Student Executive […]
In Defence of “Native”
Speaking as someone who is one-fourth Northern Tutchone and three-fourths settler European (German, mostly, and about six other things), I have always had something of an identity crisis when it comes to my Native heritage. My dad was half Northern Tutchone, from the Yukon, my place of birth. He was visible to me, in his […]
Navigating Beyond the Gender Binary
When I was a young child, I thought my parents wanted me to be a girl so badly that they secretly surgically altered my body so I’d be a girl (i.e. have a vulva). I never brought it up with my parents, I just frustratingly accepted it. I was taught gender and sex were synonymous, […]
Rule Out Racism Week at UBC: Call for Submissions
Rule Out Racism is a week-long series of events focused on the need for greater literacy and conversation about race and racism within the UBC community. Rule Out Racism week is hosted by UBC Equity and Inclusion Office and is held in recognition of the United Nations International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination […]
I Am Still Here: Reflections on #AmINext
A while back there was a social media campaign called “Am I Next?” which aimed to raise awareness about the numerous murdered and missing Native women in Canada. In solidarity with the campaign, many people changed their Facebook profile picture to a silhouette of a Native woman with a feather in her hair with the […]
Reconciling Whom I Love with Where I Love
This piece originally appeared in the recent (and first ever) “Sowing Seeds and Setting Roots: An Outweek 2015 Zine.” Outweek is a series of events hosted annually by the Pride Collective at UBC. For “Sowing Seeds and Setting Roots,” they encouraged submissions that took intersectional approaches to queer identity. We encourage you to check out the zine […]
Event Preview: ISIS and the New Middle East
Feeling uninformed about the rapidly unfolding situations in Syria and Iraq? Want to share your thoughts? This Thursday, February 12, attend the #15 BARtalk, hosted by the Terry Project, from 6:00- 7:30 to learn more and engage with informed speakers. The event, “ISIS and The New Middle East,” will be an informal panel discussion style […]
Social Justice Synonyms #16: “Illegal Immigrant”
Welcome to the sixteenth segment of Social Justice Synonyms, a column at The Talon that discusses harmful and oppressive language embedded in our culture and provides ways to unlearn this language. This week’s term is illegal immigrant. This piece pulls from the work of Harsha Walia, a local South Asian activist, whose book Undoing Border […]
