2SLGBTQIA+ Health

The LiveWell podcast discusses 2SLGBTQIA plus health at Mount Royal University. The guests discuss the barriers to accessing healthcare for the community, the need for adequate representation, and issues related to stigma and anti-trans legislation. They also highlight the importance of education for healthcare professionals and the need for affirming care. The podcast emphasizes the unique challenges faced by transgender individuals in accessing healthcare and the importance of breaking free from pathologizing non-normative bodies. Overall, the focus is on improving healthcare access and support for the 2SLGBTQIA plus community. Welcome to the LiveWell podcast, hosted by the Healthy Campus team of Wellness Services. My name is Liv Taylor and my pronouns are she, her. I'm a fourth year general science student here at MRU. I'm also a senior lead peer health educator with the Healthy Campus team. I wanted to acknowledge that we are on Treaty 7 land and we're so excited that you are here with us today. The LiveWell podcast is a series focused on the voices and experiences of our students, staff, and faculty here at MRU. We intend this series to be conversation-based, informal, and all about the experiences and insights of our Mount Royal community. I'm joined today by Celeste Pang, Avery Follett, and Taya Schlegel to discuss 2SLGBTQIA plus health at Mount Royal. Thank you for joining me today. Before we start, I'd like all of you to introduce yourselves, your pronouns, and your major or affiliations with the university. You can start, Avery. My name is Avery Follett. I'm a second year sociology major and I'm minoring in indigenous studies. My pronouns are they, them. I'm really interested in social philosophy and social policy and I hope to go on to get my master's after school. Thank you. My name is Celeste Pang. My pronouns are she, they. I'm an assistant professor in women's and gender studies here at MRU and I'm the co-lead of the Critical Queer and Trans Research Hub. Awesome. Thank you. My name is Taya Schlegel. I'm a psychology student here. I minor in women and gender studies and my pronouns are she, they. Awesome. Thank you for joining me today, all of you. In today's podcast, we'll be discussing 2SLGBTQIA plus health, barriers to accessing healthcare in the community, and a variety of topics regarding adequate representation, stigma, and anti-trans legislation. Before we get started, I wanted to provide our listeners with some background information that might help them understand what we'll be talking about throughout the podcast. Celeste, I'd like to start by asking you, what does 2SLGBTQIA plus stand for? It stands for two-spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, questioning, intersex, and asexual. Okay, perfect. And then alongside this, I wanted to ask both of you, Avery and Taya, what does queer mean? For me, queer is just someone that identifies with one or more of the acronyms under the 2SLGBTQIA plus spectrum. Also, I don't think it's necessary that you have to either. I think that you can be kind of in an in-between phase and identify as queer. Okay, perfect. And would you say the same thing, Avery? Yeah, absolutely. The word queer historically was used as a pejorative for gay people or people who were gender non-conforming or who were non-normative, but the term has been reclaimed these days to act as a sort of umbrella term for people who belong to the acronym. I really appreciate the term because it's very succinct and it's all-encompassing. It really just captures everybody. Okay, awesome. And this is an important foundation for our listeners as we proceed throughout the podcast. And if any new terms come up throughout the podcast when we're talking, we'll do our best to pause and define them for those of you that are listening. So with an understanding of who might be a part of the 2SLGBTQIA plus community, we want to discuss health and wellness within the community. And Taya, I wanted to ask you what members of the 2SLGBTQIA plus community need to support their health and wellness? And what does health and wellness even look like in the community? How might that be different from other communities? I think there, because the community is so varied, there's a lot of different needs. Specifically, I've kind of been focusing personally on bisexual people and their needs. But I think generally, queer people do not fit into the normative ways of the way our health systems operate and what health even is seen as. And I think that for queer people, health is not something that is as easily accessible, regardless of which acronym you might identify with. So I think a lot of it is access, resources. That's something that a lot of queer people struggle with when trying to get health care. Okay, and that makes sense. So from what you're saying, I'm kind of hearing that it is this idea of, they don't, like members of the community might not feel like they fit in within the normative definitions, the normative perspectives seen in health care. And this is exemplified even by the fact that all of our standards for health care, how we've investigated what representations of symptoms look like based on the white male, this is a widely known fact. And do you think it kind of has something to do with that same idea of not seeing that representation, feeling like they can access health care in that manner? Definitely. I think like heteropatriarchy is a part of every facet of our society, especially integrated into health care. I think a lot of medical professionals need to be further educated on queer issues, especially intersex issues, bisexuality, lesbian, gayness, just sexuality as a spectrum as well. Just the assumption of heterosexuality within health care settings is super oppressive for queer people and holds them back from accessing health care. And that makes sense, that idea of not being able to fully be yourself, that makes it even more difficult to really access health care and receive the benefits that health care might have to offer. So along those lines, Celeste, I wanted to hear your thoughts on what changes you might like to see for care access and maybe even what can be done at MRU or in the greater community to improve this. So I would love to see a lot more affirming care. Tam mentioned education. I would like to see to us LGBTQIA plus people and issues within all health care professional education, also social service education. I think it's really important that professionals going into the field have some basic knowledge because so often they are queer and trans people. We are the people who have to do that education when we're seeking care. That position of seeking care can be a very vulnerable position and we shouldn't have to be doing that work. So I think we need that and I think we need to see the visible but also very deep and real commitment of our systems, of our educators, of our politicians to our communities to continue to support us. Yeah. And from what you're saying, I'm really gaining that perspective in terms of this systemic oppression, the systemic bias that makes the health care system a non-welcoming environment for members of the queer community and obviously that's deeply saddening because it only continues to go on today, which is shameful in our society, especially, yeah, I personally hear what you're saying and I can't imagine because I know my privilege. I know that when I walk into the health care system, there's someone who looks like me, probably has the same lived experience as me and, for example, my mom who is part of the queer community, she doesn't have that and it's really harmful if people are wanting to take advantage of preventative care. So alongside that, Avery, before our podcast, we discussed this kind of idea of uniquely challenging barriers to accessing health care specifically for trans individuals. I was wondering if you wanted to share more about that experience and what you might see there. Absolutely. So there are many mental gymnastics that go into accessing health care as a transgender person. I have to evaluate how affirming my doctor is going to be. Are they going to use my pronouns? Are they going to take the time to get to know my unique medical needs instead of just pathologizing me as a trans person? There's this concept called the trans broken arm syndrome where, like, if you can imagine a transgender person maybe goes to the emergency room with a broken arm and says, help, my arm's broken, I need health care and maybe the doctor will say something like, well, are you sure it's not because you're trans? Like, how long have you been on hormones? Is this because of your top surgery? And of course that's a hyperbolic situation, but it's something that we always have to take into consideration. Like, to what degree are our medical problems or the care that we need, is it going to be implicated back onto our transgenderness? So that's certainly something that's at the fore of my mind and that kind of goes into – that goes hand in hand with the ways in which there is a lack of knowledge about transgender bodies, especially regarding ones that are on HRT for longer. To clarify, HRT stands for hormonal replacement therapy and it's something that some transgender people choose to access in order to change some of their phenotypic or physical attributes to more closely resemble their desired kind of end goal. So back onto the track of generating knowledge about transgender bodies, I've actually been given the opportunity to participate in quite a few health studies for transgender bodies. So essentially, they ask a lot of questions about health history, they'll take blood tests. A lot of it is very qualitative and that's one way that the medical sphere and healthcare professionals can help increase their knowledge about transgender bodies and try to break free of that pathologization of non-normative bodies and queer bodies in general. I really love your use of the word pathologization and pathologizing healthcare because I don't think I've actually heard that term before in terms of expressing someone's experience who's part of the queer community or the trans community in healthcare and I think just that idea of being looked at like your identity is the problem. That's the health concern without being able to be seen as a whole patient, a whole person with valid concerns that go beyond just who you are as a person and what you've needed to get to that version of yourself, the version of yourself that is healthiest and happiest. So thank you for sharing that, that's incredibly insightful and I really appreciate it. So now, we want to shift our discussion to particularly vulnerable communities who are consistently targeted by biased policies and legislation and stigma. And before our podcast, Taya and I discussed one of her passions which is advocating for sex working students. So Taya, could you tell us more about how sex work relates to the queer community and maybe what the stigmas are that are associated with sex work? Yeah, so last semester, I was in a class with Kimberly Williams who works here and it was a social policy class and we were kind of talking about the ways in which we can become active members in policy change and we had to choose kind of a passion project and the one I decided to focus on was sex work. And what you were saying about kind of these stigmas, sex work is immediately associated with trafficking and even the current legislation, PSEPA, Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act, it conflates sex work, consensual sex work and trafficking. So all people who engage in sex work are seen as oppressed or victimized or unable to care for themselves which creates a weird perception of sex workers. It also creates a lot of access and inclusion issues for sex workers in terms of healthcare, STD testing, accessing resources, issues with homelessness and things like that. For me, I think it's really important to talk about it in a hyperlocal space because there are sex working students within MRU that are not being represented and that don't have the resources they need. I would assume a lot of the sex workers on campus are most likely online-based sex workers, at least from my research. But in terms of the queer community being represented, it's a lot of trans and disabled and BIPOC and queer people that are a part of sex working spaces. There's lots of reasons why that could be. A lot of it could be stemming from discrimination and violence faced in other workforces which might make online-based sex work a little bit more accessible for someone who is especially trans or disabled. But we see a lack of just generally awareness for sex work. MRU doesn't have a resource board for sex workers. Even I tried to get a group started for sex workers on campus with the Pride Center and I really struggled with that. There was no one that wanted to kind of partner with me. So sex work is still seen as kind of this very taboo thing that is very separate from academia and the two haven't seemed to marry. I think it's really important to bring sex work and higher education together. Yeah, it's really interesting how you said that about the Pride Center and your experience there trying to establish some type of partnership or bridge. And you would think from what you're describing to me, it sounds like the sex work community and the 2SLGBTQIA plus community, they face a lot of similar barriers in terms of access to healthcare, in terms of representation, systemic biases. So you would hope that you could establish some type of partnership and some type of connection between those two groups. And I liked also how you said hyperlocal. I feel like that it's not, I don't want to say it's easy, but it's easy for some people to kind of turn a blind eye to some of these issues, you know, within their own mind being like, oh, well, this doesn't happen in Canada or this doesn't happen at MRU, but it does. And that's why we're here to talk about it because these are relevant to our own local circumstances. So thank you for sharing that. I think it's really important. And in addition to sex workers and sex working students, recent proposed anti-trans legislation in Alberta is just yet another example of how trans individuals, how members of different communities who don't fit the normative standards of societies are targeted by political agendas in our community. So we do want to discuss some of these proposed legislations today. And I wanted to start, Celeste, can you tell us more about what these new legislations are? Yes. So these are a slew of proposed policy changes that were announced by Premier Daniel Smith on January 31st targeting areas of healthcare, education, and sports. So under the guise of preserving choice, these policies will, and they already have post that announcement, directly and negatively impacted trans children and youth. Not only are they extremely harmful, they are also not based in evidence. I can provide a few examples of what these proposed policies are. So in the realm of education, for children 15 and under, parental consent would be needed to change names and pronouns at school, and notification would be required for 16 and 17 year olds. Essentially what this means is that schools are not the safest places to begin with, but they will not be safe spaces for trans children and youth. There are many reasons why trans and gender diverse are questioning. Children and youth may not go to their parents or their caregivers or their families. That may be unsafe. They may face harm. They may face violence. Their educators, the teachers in the schools, may be the adults who they are safer with. So what this proposed policy change would do would essentially mandate those trusted adults to out them to their families. So this has a really serious impact on both students and educators and the whole climate of the classroom and the school system. Similarly, classroom instruction on gender, sexuality, and sexual orientation would require parental notification and opt in. So this is any instruction on any of these topics. In K-12, needless to say, this gravely impacts all students who need to learn about their bodies, need to learn about sexuality, need to learn about consent, or gender-related questions. So I think we can find some common struggle in this area in particular. In terms of health care, so there are a range of proposed changes. One of the main ones is that for children 15 and under, puberty blockers and homeworn therapy for the purpose of gender reassignment or affirmation will not be permitted except for those who have already started these treatments. And youth ages 16 and 17 would be able to begin hormone treatment only as long as they're deemed, quote unquote, mature enough and have parental physician and psychologist approval. So we already know what the best practices are. There have been decades and decades of activism and research and work around this. There is already best practices established. So this proposed change has nothing to do with this evidence and has everything to do with refusing needed care, which we already know can have really, really dire consequences, including people seeking to end their lives. So this is kind of an immediately very serious issue. And then a last example, just to touch on the realm of sports, the proposed policy changes would limit the participation in trans women in sports, again, under a non-fact-based idea, very false idea that trans women have a necessary competitive advantage. Thank you for giving us a foundational understanding of these legislations. I'm honestly at a loss for words at this moment. And I feel like all I really want to say in terms of that is that to deny gender reaffirming care to the most vulnerable members of our community being youth who are, whether or not you are transgender or part of the queer community, being a teenager is hard. You already face enough mental health struggles within that. And to be denied a safe space to receive gender reaffirming care, it's horrifying, is really the only word I have for that. Yes. And I would emphasize the idea that we've been talking about in classes and students have been telling me about all week as well, that this, is this really about trans kids and youth? This is targeting really foundational social institutions, including health care, or is it about political power? Is it about distracting us from other issues that we have? And I think we are in a moment where there is increased transphobia, increased anti-queer and anti-trans violence, but where there is also this political project to distract us from other social issues. Yeah, I think there is some real validity behind that thought process. And I think that what's worse is that we can't, it's difficult to even have conversations about this. It's difficult to try to bridge gaps, to try to make progress here, because it's easy to feel powerless in this situation as members of the queer community, as people who are not members, but are wanting to help. I see this. I've seen other students talk about this. And I'm glad that you're here with me today to help educate me, educate our listeners about what is truly going on and how all of these impacts, they may seem like, you know, this isn't interfering in health care, but it is. And this does affect individuals' health at all levels of the system. So with that being said, Avery, I wanted to know about your perspective specifically on these legislations and why they might be harmful, your own journey in relation to that, and any insight you could really give us there. Absolutely. So I'll be turning 26 in March. And I'm transgender. I came out when I was 16. So that would have been in 2014. I was in grade 10 in Lethbridge. And it was with a teacher that I chose to use my new name the very first time. I asked her to call me Avery instead of my birth name. And she was extremely affirming and receptive. And it was just that small gesture that she gifted me that really kind of sparked me on my own journey. I became comfortable asking my other teachers to also use that name. And then I became comfortable asking them to use my pronouns. And it really just snowballed me into this growth. I think that if these policies that Danielle Smith is proposing had existed back then, not only would my teacher have had to refuse my request, she would have had to report it to the office. And then they would have called my parents to disclose to them what I was doing. And that would have severely set me back. Even though my parents did end up being affirming of me as I came out as trans, it's so important to control the method and the timing of when you come out to anybody, not just your parents. It's hugely violating and alienating to have that taken away from you and to be thrust into the public sphere with something that is so personal. And I'm sure all of us can identify with that feeling of having something disclosed that we wanted to keep private or that we weren't ready to disclose. So I think that this is hugely transformative and disruptive for trans youth. And I can only imagine how many youths are going to be outed to their parents and will just have their risk of homelessness, physical abuse, emotional abuse, religious excommunication, all of these really awful things just so heavily increased for them. And I think that it really does pose an emergency situation for our queer youths in Alberta. Thank you, Avery. Thank you for sharing your perspective and being willing to be vulnerable here with us today, talking to us about your own personal story, I think, is a great example of why we can't let this happen in our province, in our own community. And as I hear you talking about this and Celeste giving us this information, my biggest thought is, what can I do? What can I do to help? What can students do? How can we prevent this? How can we be there for members of the community without putting them into places where they have to teach us? You know, that's the last thing we want. And I'd love to hear what you guys think about that. I think a really important thing is cross movement solidarity. And that's something I've learned a lot, even with sex work. All forms of oppression are intertwined. And if you're going to fight for one thing, you should also fight for the other thing. So I think anyone who's, you know, let's say you're really passionate about sustainability or the environment, you should also be passionate about trans rights and queer rights. And I think all forms of oppression need to be fought at the same time to make movement. So if you're curious about how you can help, I say get involved in a group and just make your voices heard. Form groups of people. Talk about what's happening. Raise your voices. It does a lot. There was a lot of people that showed up on Saturday at City Hall to protest. And I think it's things like that that show that we're not going to allow these policies to be implemented or sit back and just be okay with it. So I think just voicing your opinion and joining up with others is really important. Thank you. Yeah, really less complacency. And it's like when you see something, say something, stand up for what you believe in and what you believe is right. And I agree. Incredibly valuable. I'd add to that right to your MLAs. Again, this is about politics and power. We each have a vote. We live in a democracy. So use that power. If you are a healthcare professional or an educator with the privilege that you can speak up in your workplace, you can write to your professional association. Do that. Do not leave that to your trans colleagues who are at much greater risk in this moment. So take that initiative and show up where the community is asking you to show up. Thank you for talking about those resources and helping me understand, I guess, not resources, but ways that other students can help. And it is easy, like I said, to feel like there's nothing I can do. But that's not true. There's so much that can be done by individuals who aren't members of the community, as well as individuals who are. But it's unfair to expect that individuals who do identify as trans, who are part of the community, that they're the only ones that are responsible for taking action, because it's not true. And that's really important for our listeners to know. So to end our discussion today, we did want to provide our listeners with some additional resources, both for individuals who are members of the 2SLGBTQIA plus community and for those who are wanting to learn more about it. So can I ask all of you, what resources are available on campus for students who might be members of the community? And maybe Tay and Avery, what resources have you had experience with? I would say for any queer students on campus, the Sam Rue Pride Centre is an amazing place to meet other people who are similar to learn more about the community, regardless of whether you're queer or not. That's a good touchstone area where you can kind of get immersed. They also have a lot of physical materials like brochures, pamphlets, things like that that can help improve your education. And I would say that's a good lifting off point in terms of like MRU in general. Broader Calgary-based, we also have Calgary Outlink, which operates community-wise in the Beltline area. And they are so well connected to basically the heartbeat of Calgary in terms of social awareness. Thank you. And Tay, if you wanted to talk about maybe any resources that might be available off campus as well. Sure. Yeah. I was just going to add to what Avery said. The Pride Centre is a good resource. Specifically, I mentioned the MRU Clinic. They do offer birth control. I personally haven't had experience there, but I've had experience at Sheldon Schumer Clinic, which is downtown. And they're very queer-friendly. They provide free birth control. You don't need to be an Albertan citizen or resident. And they're great for offering alternatives, especially if you're a queer person who may feel a bit unsure about what birth control methods you would like to take. Yeah. And those are great resources. So thank you both. And Celeste, I was wondering if maybe specifically you could recommend any courses that our listeners might want to take if they're wanting to learn more about these issues. So I can recommend a few courses. So in Women's and Gender Studies, we have a 2SLGBTQIA plus health course. This was a special topics with Ted Avery last fall. It will now be on the book. So it will be offered on a recurring basis. We have a trans futures course that's also offered, a gender, race, and representation. And then even our core courses. So our Introduction to Women's and Gender Studies or Global Gender Issues are great starting places. And they are Gen Ed designated. So we welcome students from across departments. And then I'd also like to plug the activities of the Critical Queer and Trans Research Hub. We have a bunch of stuff going on this semester. And we're also a good place to connect with faculty. Awesome. And where might listeners be able to locate more information about the Critical Club? You can follow Critical on Instagram at critical.mru would be a good place to start. And is that critical with a Q? Critical with a Q. Awesome. Thank you. That's all we have for today for our podcast. And again, I wanted to give a special thank you to Celeste Pang, Avery Follett, and Tej Legle for joining us today for our discussion on 2SLGBTQIA plus health. The Live Well podcast is run by the Healthy Campus team at Mount Royal University. You can find us online at livewell.buzzsprout.com. We're also available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else you can get your podcasts. Thanks to artist Scott Holmes for our theme. The song is called Feeling Sunny. You've been listening to the Live Well podcast, and I'm your host, Liv Taylor. Thank you so much for tuning in.