Join us for an evening of conversation at The 519, home to the PrideHouse Toronto Pavilion at the 2015 Pan/ParaPan American Games. This event is the first in our five-part series and will focus on the history, success and challenges of the 'Pride House movement'. Guests will include Jennifer Birch-Jones, a member of the Pride House 2010 leadership team and Dr. Heather Sykes, an Associate Professor at the University of Toronto who focuses on issues of sexuality in physical education and in sport....
Join us for an evening of conversation at The 519, home to the PrideHouse Toronto Pavilion at the 2015 Pan/ParaPan American Games. This event is the first in our five-part series and will focus on the history, success and challenges of the 'Pride House movement'. Guests will include Jennifer Birch-Jones, a member of the Pride House 2010 leadership team and Dr. Heather Sykes, an Associate Professor at the University of Toronto who focuses on issues of sexuality in physical education and in sport.
Together, we will explore the origins of the Pride House movement, the purpose and objectives of Pride Houses, the challenges and barriers presented by the movement and will look for ways PrideHouse Toronto can grow, change and improve to meet these challenges and help to ensure the 2015 Games are the most LGBT-inclusive in history.
About our Guests
Jennifer Birch-Jones
Jennifer is a long-time member of the Pride House movement as a member of the Pride House 2010 leadership team that initiated the concept of a Pride House and raised the profile of LGBTQ athletes at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. She leads anti-homophobia programming and initiatives at the Canadian Association for the Advancement of Women and Girls in Sport (CAAWS) and has graduate degrees in public administration and kinesiology.
Dr. Heather Sykes
Dr. Sykes is an Associate Professor with the Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning at OISE. Their research interests focus on issues of sexuality in physical education and sport, through the lenses of post-structural, queer and feminist theories. Their current research examines how anti-globalization movements mobilize and resist local gender struggles, neoliberalism and globalized mega-events such as the Olympics, OutGames/Gay Games, Gay Pride and the G20 including an analysis of how the Pride House at the Winter Olympics seemed to have no political solidarity with the Indigenous 'No Olympics on Stolen Land' protests.
Keph Senett
Keph Senett is a Canadian writer and activist whose passions for travel and soccer have led her to play the beautiful game on four continents. Within the last 12 months, her travels have taken her to Manchester, England, where she participated in a remote Pride House in support of Russian LGBTQ people; to Moscow, where she played soccer at the Russian Open Games; and to Mexico, where she spent the lion’s share of her summer road-tripping in southern Mexico and interviewing women and girls who play soccer. Keph spends her free time trying to figure out how to qualify for a soccer squad in Asia, Australia, or Antarctica.
Christelle Thibault
Christelle Thibault is a volunteer member of the PrideHouseTO Policy Advocacy Working Group, with a particular interest in how the initiative is documented and evaluated, which she/they incorporated into her/their graduate studies. Christelle holds a B.Ed. in Adult Education and an M.A. in Intercultural Service, Leadership, and Management, and has been an educator and facilitator for the last 13 years, most recently with Rainbow Health Ontario and Egale Canada. She/they has worked with youth, teachers and school administrators, as well as health and social service providers to challenge heterosexism and cissexism, in Canada and Latin America.
Discussion Moderator: Ashley McGhee
In February of this year, Ashley McGhee joined the PrideHouseTO staff team in the role of Specialist, Sport and Recreation. Ashley’s advocacy work for LGBTQ inclusion in sport began 15 years ago, as an openly queer NCAA student-athlete where challenging homophobia in sport was part and parcel with getting through the day. Through her continued athletic career, playing international and professional level soccer, her graduate work (MA, UBC) and teacher education (B.Ed., OISE, UofT), Ashley has witnessed and participated in rapidly expanding mainstream sport conversations addressing homophobia and transgender athlete inclusion.
About the Café Series
Amid the excitement and anticipation of TORONTO2015, it could be easy to forget the important policy and advocacy issues that LGBTQ people face every day in, through and because of sport. The Café Series is one of the ways that PrideHouse Toronto is working to ensure space and opportunities for critical and challenging conversations on key issues shaping the reality of sport today.
The PrideHouse Toronto Café Series is a bi-monthly conversation that brings thought-leaders and experts to the PrideHouse Pavilion for discussion, debate and capacity building with the PrideHouse Toronto Leadership Team, volunteers and the broader community.
Join us in November 2014 for "Investigating Inclusion: LGBTQ Sport in Toronto" that will look deeper into Toronto's LGBTQ sport and recreation leagues and organizations, their role in creating LGBTQ-inclusive and -exclusive spaces and their success and challenges in developing inclusion within the LGBTQ communities.
Join us in January 2015 for "Our Games on Native Land: Indigenous Communities and Multi-Sport Games", a conversation on the ways in which major and multi-sport games impact and engage indigenous communities in Canada and around the world.