Christmas Square

Crafting has always been a family affair for me: my interest was sparked as a young teenager, and it was my mother who taught me how to crochet, quilt and embroider, while one of her close friends who taught me to knit. Browsing the local quilt store in my hometown with my mother, I spotted a pack of Christmas-themed squares. Although I had never made my own quilt before, my mother immediately offered to buy the squares for me. This was the first complete quilt I made – a Christmas lap quilt pieced painstakingly as I would sew, rip apart, and sew again the various squares and borders. My memories of quilting are embedded in the living room carpet, where I would lay out my pieces to see how they looked as an aesthetic whole. I’m sure you can still find bits of thread that have yet to be vacuumed out of that carpet, four or five years later. With my mother’s guidance and advice, I completed this quilt, the first of many.

Georgia Peaches

Pattern, “In Praise of Peaches,” published in “Celebrations” vol. 2, #4 in the summer of 1991

When I first saw this pattern amongst the dozens of embroidery books my mother keeps in storage, I was reminded of my childhood and driving cross country in a car packed with children and parents. We used to visit my grandparents in Georgia twice a year, and perhaps the strongest memories I associate with those trips (beyond the carsickness) was the fresh Georgia peaches we would eat in the summer. So ripe they’d fall apart in our mouths, we’d eat them raw all season, cook them into jam for the winter, and bake them into pies for dessert. For me, this is a small memory brought to life by the hours of work I put into this embroidery. That’s one of the joys of cross stitch for me; you take the time to stitch every square, with love, passion, and patience, and the end result is more important, more beautiful, than any print you could get at the store. It has meaning, not only because of the design you chose yourself, but because of the time you dedicated to its making.

Summer, Summer

One of the things I enjoy about crafting is that: I can mark time by the projects I’m working on. When I worked on this piece – my first attempt at a large scale cross-stitch – it was summer, and I had just gotten a bike as a birthday gift in May. I found a photo of this piece online, and I immediately wanted to recreate it, so I scoured the Internet for a pattern of it. Finally, I found it (a rarity!), and started to stitch away. That summer, I was travelling eight hours a week to southern West Virginia for an internship. I would spend three days there in McDowell County, and four days in my hometown of Morgantown. The hot summer evenings in McDowell County were spent sweating over my work, watching Bravo, and swatting at mosquitoes and fleas (my hosts’ dogs had fleas). And each weekend, when I stayed at my mother’s house, I’d show her my progress. When it was done, over four months later, I couldn’t have been prouder of my work. A brilliant blue bicycle with flowers bursting from the basket – there was nothing that could better commemorate my summer in West Virginia.

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Most recently, CMHS shifted to a ‘stepped care model,’ but despite efforts on the part of CMHS to become more inclusive and anti-oppressive, many trans students have noted that their experiences with the service have been less than ideal.

In an interview with The Daily, Khloe,* a current McGill undergraduate student, described their experiences working with a number of therapists and psychiatrists at the clinic. They noted their discomfort discussing issues of queerness, transness, and racialization with their service providers, despite the fact that these issues often interact deeply with their experiences of mental illness.

When they met with their first psychiatrist, they explained, “I just didn’t trust [him] at all [and] just like could not tell him the most basic things about myself, like the fact that I was queer, that I was trans.”

A sense of distrust has permeated their relationships with therapists, creating a barrier between Khloe and their clinician. This distrust was created, according to Khloe, through the lack of incorporation of trans positive behaviors in the atmosphere of the sessions. For example, therapists normalized the gender binary.

When asked if the therapists leading a group therapy session asked for pronouns when meeting Khloe for the first time, Khloe said that “it just wasn’t a thing that was talked about.”

Furthermore, Khloe said the therapists did not respect their pronouns even after they had asserted them.

This created a client-patient relationship that wasn’t open to hearing about Khloe’s experiences with oppression. “I feel like like being non-binary or being queer are important aspects of my identity, and therefore my mental health, and if I can’t talk about those things in therapy, what the fuck am I supposed to be?” they said.

Another trans student who uses the Services, James*, told The Daily that when he initially accessed the services, the first clinician he saw turned him away because of a lack of knowledge about providing healthcare for trans patients, despite the fact that James was not seeking care regarding his transness.

As a result, James saw a student doing a practicum or internship who did not have training for treating transgender people and did not help with the original issue he sought help for.

“That was my first useless experience,” he said, “and I was so burned by that that I just didn’t go back for two years.”

These testimonials play into past criticisms of the Canadian medical system, with many saying that despite seeking care that has nothing to do with their gender, providers sometimes feel that if they do not understand trans issues, they will be unable to provide services.

Unfortunately, this results in many trans patients being reduced to their gender identity; trans people, like anyone else, experience health problems that have nothing to do with their sexual or gendered characteristics.

James went on to note that when he recently returned to access CMHS, although his new clinician was also unfamiliar with trans issues, “he seemed to have done a lot of reading, he mentioned some of the things he’d been reading and showed me,” he said. “He’d been doing his homework, which I really appreciated.”

James commented that this made him feel much more comfortable, though he worries about trans folks who might approach Counseling and Mental Health Services early on in their transition. These patients, who might not have access to information and resources about transness, could experience harm at the hands of a mental health service provider lacking knowledge about trans issues.

“If I think back to the person that I saw years ago, the first person I saw, she had worked with so many trans people she knew the right language to sort of lead me to where I needed to understand myself and things like that,” James said. “So [a clinician] with that kind of experience, I think is invaluable [for trans patients early on in their transition.]”

Trans patients are still facing these challenges in sessions at CMHS despite numerous efforts on the part of administration to improve services.

Associate Director of Counseling and Mental Health Services, Giuseppe Alfonsi, told The Daily that improving the inclusivity of their services was one of the Services’ main goals.

He noted that feedback was an important part of their new administrative model and he takes it very seriously: “I literally record every single feedback I get. I try to contact every single feedback,” he said. “But I’ve had a gap where I haven’t heard anything.”

As it stands, patients can only provide feedback through an online forum. Alfonsi added that “the first thing I would say [we need to work on] is figure out a kind of more proactive feedback system. Meaning, do we reach out on purpose to students who come from marginalized experiences? Do we design […] a kind of more formalized assessment for those students’ needs?”

In 2013, all Mental Health Services staff received a three-day training with Françoise Susset and Pierre Paul Tellier, both health care providers who work closely with trans communities in Montreal. Following this training, Tynan Jarrett, Equity Educational Advisor (LGBTTQ) at the Social Equity and Diversity Education (SEDE) office, has delivered training sessions each year to the MMHS staff on competent trans care.

In an interview with The Daily, Jarrett discussed the contents of these trainings. These trainings addressed a number of issues including the importance of asking pronouns, not assuming anything about patients’ relationships to gender or transitioning, and how gender intersects with other aspects of one’s identity, such as race, class, and ability.

When asked why trans folk continue to face difficulties at CMHS, Jarrett and Alfonsi both noted that often this type of education takes a long time to take hold.

“The health system is embedded in broader social systems, which means that…health care providers, even relatively explicitly liberal health care providers […] are going to be raised […] in a classist, racist, sexist, transphobic, homophobic society […] and that stuff is going to seep in,” Alfonsi said. “So you have to constantly exert energy to kind of roll that back.”

Creating a change within the culture of CMHS is a difficult task that requires the commitment of all staff members. Alfonsi indicated that most, if not all, clinicians at Mental Health Services were open to feedback and eager to provide the best care possible to patients.

Jarrett emphasized that the only way to improve is to continue educating the staff and make it a priority to hire clinicians who either are trans, knowledgeable in trans issues, or both. Alfonsi told The Daily that hiring was indeed a priority for the Services.

Both Alfonsi and Jarrett were optimistic regarding the potential for CMHS to improve.

They both think this is a moment of change for the Services in improving their care, not only to better serve trans patients, but also to improve on issues of racism and classism.
Beyond education and hiring, important next steps could include providing more trans-specific services and resources, as well as improving the clarity and ease by which students can provide feedback.

*Names have been changed.

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I’ve had far too many debates about this topic. The more I have this argument, the more it feels like my eyes are permanently stuck to the back of my head. Here’s the thing – why is there a debate about trigger warnings in the first place? If we can do one small thing, one thing that’s not enough but is something, one act of kindness, one act of recognition, of allyship, then it’s clear to me that we should.

When people argue against trigger warnings, they often rely on the worn-out script that the world is a tough place, and we shouldn’t be coddling people. How have we grown so weak in our activism, in our allyship, that we think this is any way an acceptable response?

Is it coddling people when I try to address systemic sexism? There’s an issue that affects a lot of people, and, at least in activist communities, it is not considered “coddling” to try and prevent sexist rhetoric from going unnoticed. While it’s true that some will try and say that we should just “let it go” and stop “worrying” about sexism, that’s a rhetoric that’s prominent outside of activist communities. Why is it that inside of them, though, this debate about trigger warnings continues to happen?

If we can do one small thing, one thing that’s not enough but is something, one act of kindness, one act of recognition, of allyship, then it’s clear to me that we should.

There are several aspects of this debate that are problematic, and ignore important facets of the reality of the situation. First, trigger warnings are not for people who don’t need trigger warnings, and as such their opinion about this topic is less relevant. If you think trigger warnings are unnecessary and cumbersome, it’s probably because you don’t need them, and you must remain conscious of your privilege and your relationship to trigger warnings in the first place.

Trigger warnings are meant to be warnings for people who experience “trauma triggers,” or experiences that evoke painful and upsetting memories and cause distress. While triggers are varied and individual – a trigger can be a smell, a sight, a word, anything – including trigger warnings at the beginning of articles or other media can help people who experience post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to either avoid or be better prepared for a potentially upsetting experience. Someone might want to avoid this for several reasons: not having enough energy, needing some space from certain topics, or in order to practice self-care.

Although designed for PTSD and trauma triggers, trigger warnings can also be useful for other people. Especially on the internet, they can be a useful guide for navigating material concerning oppressive behaviour. For example, if someone is discussing their experience with anti-queerness and they preface their post with a warning to that effect, then other queer people can make an informed decision about whether they wish to read it.

Secondly, an argument I’ve often heard against the use of trigger warnings goes something like this: “In the real world, no one is going to shield you from harmful content.” This argument implies that if it happens in the “real world,” then we shouldn’t avoid doing it in feminist spaces.

When you refuse to issue trigger warnings, you’re not “helping people learn to cope,” no matter how attached you are to that argument.

The main problem with this line of thought is that it’s hypocritical. There are a lot of problematic things that happen in the real world, and we still recognize that they’re a problem that we especially want to combat in feminist spaces. Take anti-queerness as an example again. When anti-queer behaviours or ideas are displayed within our circles, we recognize that this is not acceptable and that we need to change it. By making our spaces safer, we are making a part of the real world safer – the fact that oppression happens elsewhere doesn’t mean we should accept when it happens here.

In the same way, the fact that trigger warnings are generally uncommon doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try to incorporate trigger warnings into our media presence. Many members of activist communities experience marginalization of some kind, and have furthermore experienced trauma in relation to those experiences. We must acknowledge that trauma exists in our communities, that we are aware of the different relationships people have to their trauma, and that we respect individuals making decisions for themselves about what kind of content they engage with.

This brings me into my third point. What perplexes me about this whole debate is why people would be so concerned with others’ choices about the content they engage with. Consider an analogy: should we stop making article titles relevant to their content, since this allows people to avoid reading content they are not interested in? Of course not. Trigger warnings, however, are targeted on similar grounds.

This is an instance of ableism toward those who suffer from PTSD or other trauma-related mental health issues. One of the particular characteristics of ableism is that it is often cloaked in concern for others’ well-being. A severe example of this kind of justification has been used to promote the forced sterilization of intellectually disabled people, by framing this as protection from pregnancy, in particular in case of sexual assault. There is a number of things wrong with this – for instance, why aren’t we aiming to prevent the sexual assault instead of the pregnancy of disabled people? – but it’s clearly part of a larger project to control disabled bodies, disempower disabled people, and remove their agency, and all this is done under the guise of “protecting” them.

When you refuse to issue trigger warnings, you’re not “helping people learn to cope,” no matter how attached you are to that argument. You simply don’t think it’s valuable to make content accessible to people with various relationships to mental health, or you don’t want to take the time to do so. But it’s not up to you to decide how someone engages with media, or with their mental health.

Trauma triggers are unique and individual, and we will probably never be able to issue trigger warnings in a way that accommodates every person who experiences triggers. In no way, however, does this mean that we should ever stop trying. The impossibility of perfection is no reason not to try to act in solidarity.

Lucie Lastinger is a U2 Women’s Studies and Anthropology student. They can be reached at lucile.lastinger@mail.mcgill.ca.

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In rad communities, activists try to be as intersectional as possible by being inclusive toward various identities in our organizing. Intersections of race, class, gender, ability, sexual orientation, citizenship, age, et cetera ideally should be taken into account at the onset of planning events. Although oftentimes groups organize around single-axis frameworks (that is, our activism focuses on one particular issue), I believe there is a general sentiment among many activists that it is beneficial to thoughtfully and provocatively engage with the multi-facedness of people’s identities.

In the context of accessibility, this is done by including accessibility information, enforcing a scent-free space, and providing refunds for transportation costs, for example. Too often, however, an effort to be conscious of ableism slips into half-hearted inclusions of access information on event pages, typically starting with “we regret to say that our event will not be wheelchair accessible” as a passive apology.

These apologies are not enough. We need to think critically about how it is that one-sentence apologies are seen as an acceptable substitute for hosting events in accessible locations.

Too often, however, an effort to be conscious of ableism slips into half-hearted inclusions of access information on event pages, typically starting with “we regret to say that our event will not be wheelchair accessible” as a passive apology.

Event organizers often argue that the fault lies with Montreal for being an inaccessible city. It is true that Montreal is notably inaccessible to folks who use wheelchairs. Heritage laws in Quebec that regulate the renovation of buildings value maintaining historical accuracy in old buildings over making those buildings accessible to wheelchair users, for example by installing a ramp.

Grace, a Montreal activist and wheelchair user, told The Daily, “Who do you think notices [that Montreal is not accessible] more? [A non-disabled person] who doesn’t have to deal with these problems on a personal level, or [I] who every day [carry] my wheelchair down three flights of stairs to attempt to get to my job via a public transport system that’s trying to exclude me and a system of buildings that works the same way?”

Grace continued, “It’s up to non-disabled people to take the first steps to [make Montreal accessible]. Yes, it’s a reality that most of the buildings that exist were built in a time where disabled people, and wheelchair users specifically […] weren’t expected to be out and independent, but that’s […] not an excuse for the problem; it’s the original problem. The problem is also that no one has taken any steps to remedy that, except for a small handful. It’s unacceptable.”

“Who do you think notices [that Montreal is not accessible] more? [A non-disabled person] who doesn’t have to deal with these problems on a personal level, or [I] who every day [carry] my wheelchair down three flights of stairs to attempt to get to my job via a public transport system that’s trying to exclude me and a system of buildings that works the same way?”

Inaccessible queer spaces
This semester, several organizations in Montreal were forced to confront their ableism. Queer McGill cancelled two events this semester, “Friendship Universe,” scheduled for September 18, and “Dungeons and Drag Queers,” scheduled for November 21, following community pressure to host events in locations that would be accessible to all queer community members, including trans folks and disabled folks. On the original Facebook event page for “Dungeons and Drag Queers,” the following accessibility information was included:

“Note on accessibility: Due to a miscommunication, the venue does not have an elevator, making it inaccessible to certain folks (as the space we will be using is on the second floor). Queer McGill would like to apologize for this lack of accessibility – this is something we are currently working to improve on as an organization. Please be advised that this event is a scent-free space.”

No information was included concerning crucial details of the location’s accessibility; there was no description of the number of steps, whether there would be a quiet space, et cetera. The event was simply described as “inaccessible to certain folks,” thus essentializing and dismissing the many different barriers embedded into the structure of event.

When asked to comment, the organization informed The Daily that “upon reflection and rumination […] Queer McGill has chosen to cancel this event.”

The event was simply described as “inaccessible to certain folks,” thus essentializing and dismissing the many different barriers embedded into the structure of event.

Inaccessible academic spaces
On October 21, the Institute for Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies (IGSF) hosted a talk by faculty lecturer Mary Bunch called “Disrupting the Biopolitical: The Ecstatic Politics of Disability,” as part of its Esquisses seminar series. The topic of the presentation was imagining future worlds through the lens of disability studies. Although the Esquisses seminars are usually hosted on the second floor of the IGSF (a building with no elevator and only a single, steep staircase), the location for this particular talk was changed, due to the topic of disability.

The new room, according to Bunch, was “the most accessible room [the IGSF] could find.” However, as was noted by an attendee of the event, the room could only accommodate around ten people, and the chairs were arranged in such a way that a person using a wheelchair could not have accessed the space to begin with.

It is not enough to simply hold events in locations that could theoretically be accessed via wheelchair. Hosting accessible events also means thinking about how we organize space, and who might be limited by that organization. Alanna Thain, the director of the IGSF, noted in an email to The Daily, “While this is not an issue unique to IGSF but should be a basic concern across the university, we have a special interest in [accessibility] as a teaching and research unit explicitly concerned with issues of social justice and inclusion.”

However, as was noted by an attendee of the event, the room could only accommodate around ten people, and the chairs were arranged in such a way that a person using a wheelchair could not have accessed the space to begin with.

Inaccessibility at Expozine
Most recently, the Facebook event page for Expozine 2015, a zine fair held from November 14 to 15, focused on the “alternative publishing scene,” received over a hundred comments of debate after Grace inquired as to whether the event was accessible to wheelchair users. One of the organizers of Expozine responded to Grace’s question by dismissively saying, “not really, sorry!” in French. In the subsequent days, comments ranged from support for the organizers who “worked so hard” to support for those who bravely demanded an accessible location, or at least sufficient accessibility information.

Writer and activist Aimee Louw, whose work focuses on feminism and accessibility, wrote an open letter to the organizers of Expozine arguing that as an event meant to centre marginalized and “non-mainstream” folks, Expozine should respect “at least […] the very basic tenets of accessibility.” Furthermore, the letter noted that the event’s inaccessibility signals that disabled people are unwelcome, and that organizers “value the participation of able-bodied people more than that of disabled people.” As a protest to the inaccessibility of the venue, Aimee and other activists and allies tabled across the street from the location where Expozine was held.

Melis Çağan, a McGill student, participated in the protest in solidarity with Louw and wheelchair users who could not access Expozine. “People say that they’re creating spaces for marginalized people, but then […] people don’t actively try to make it accessible. That’s something that I think most of us, as able-bodied people, are really complicit in, because we don’t really think about the accessibility of things when we organize,” Çağan said in an interview with The Daily.

Writer and activist Aimee Louw, whose work focuses on feminism and accessibility, wrote an open letter to the organizers of Expozine arguing that as an event meant to centre marginalized and “non-mainstream” folks, Expozine should respect “at least […] the very basic tenets of accessibility.”

When it comes to accessibility, responsibility has constantly been shifted onto community members, often disabled people themselves, to request information or a change of location. For example, Queer McGill cancelled their events only after having been called out by students. In addition, the IGSF’s Esquisses event series website notes, “This is not an accessible space. Please contact us to request a change of location,” leaving disabled folks to actively work for the same basic level of access that able-bodied people expect in their daily lives. Expozine organizers drew on transphobic and ableist arguments to defend their choice of hosting the event in the basement of a church. Days after Grace’s original post, an organizer posted an apology for the “perceived ‘oppression’ or intolerance.” This very blatant oppression continued in the ensuing comments on Facebook as well as in the execution of the event itself, which was, regardless of apology, still inaccessible to wheelchair users.

As non-disabled organizers, we need to make a greater effort to check our privilege when we plan events. We need to take responsibility for our actions, not by giving half-assed apologies, but by actually ensuring that everyone can attend our events. We need to remind each other that organizing in inaccessible ways is blatantly ableist and exclusionary, and that it is our responsibility to avoid perpetuating this oppression in our events that seek to do the opposite. It is not the responsibility of disabled people to constantly remind us about their needs; their needs should be the first thoughts that cross our minds when we’re booking a venue and arranging a space.

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