Arts, Faculty of
Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice, Institute for
DSpace
UBCV
Ali, Aliyah
Master of Arts - MA
University of British Columbia
My research examined gender nonbinary Indigenous, Black and people of colour (IBPOC) experiences with violence and answers two questions: 1) How do you perceive and understand violence? and 2) How does violence affect your relationships (e.g., friendships, family, intimate partner(s) or colleagues and supervisors)? Participant responses filled in gaps in the literature and provided cultural recommendations on changing how cisgender white groups receive, interpret, and express knowledge on the stories of gender nonbinary IBPOC encountering violence. My theoretical framework includes intersectionality, queer of colour, and trans of colour critique and identified patterns that emerged from the information collected. I reviewed literature by scholars whose work is grounded in gender, race, sexuality studies, including Atmospheres of Violence by Eric A. Stanley (2021), The Sense of Brown by José Esteban Muñoz (2020), Trans Exploits by Jian Neo Chen (2019), The Colonial Problem by Lisa Monchalin (2016), Violence Against Queer People by Doug Meyer (2015), and Aberrations in Black by Roderick A. Ferguson (2004). The work of these scholars supported my literature review and information analysis process. I conducted four semi-structured interviews in the format of storytelling online over Zoom. This study interpreted the experiences of one Indigenous (not specified), Black (Somalian), Middle Eastern (not specified) and agender neutral/non gender affirming participant; one Black (Puerto Rican-American) and androgynous/trans/non-binary participant; one Indigenous (Métis) and trans-mask/nonbinary/left-of-centre leaning participant; and one person of colour (South Asian-European) and nonbinary; three of who had a university degree. All four participants experienced interpersonal and collective violence, and one of the encountered self-directed violence. The study findings revealed challenges amongst participants of intersectional identities and their experiences with violence. The four key themes that emerged from this research are 1) microaggressions 2) gender-based violence, 3) family and relations, and 4) workspace and educational settings. The analysis of findings and key themes are detailed in the discussion chapter and supported by the theoretical framework and research literature.
ENCOUNTERING VIOLENCE: THE STORIES OF GENDER NONBINARY INDIGENOUS, BLACK AND PEOPLE OF COLOUR (IBPOC) by ALIYAH ALI B.A.H., Kwantlen Polytechnic University, 2020 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORAL STUDIES (Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) April 2023 © Aliyah Ali, 2023 ii The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies for acceptance, the thesis entitled: Encountering Violence: The Stories of Gender Nonbinary Indigenous, Black and People of Colour (IBPOC) submitted by Aliyah Ali in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice Examining Committee: Christopher B. Patterson, Associate Professor, Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice, UBC Supervisor Denise Ferreira da’ Silva, Professor, Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice, UBC Supervisory Committee Member iii Abstract My research examined gender nonbinary Indigenous, Black and people of colour (IBPOC) experiences with violence and answers two questions: 1) How do you perceive and understand violence? and 2) How does violence affect your relationships (e.g., friendships, family, intimate partner(s) or colleagues and supervisors)? Participant responses filled in gaps in the literature and provided cultural recommendations on changing how cisgender white groups receive, interpret, and express knowledge on the stories of gender nonbinary IBPOC encountering violence. My theoretical framework includes intersectionality, queer of colour, and trans of colour critique and identified patterns that emerged from the information collected. I reviewed literature by scholars whose work is grounded in gender, race, sexuality studies, including Atmospheres of Violence by Eric A. Stanley (2021), The Sense of Brown by José Esteban Muñoz (2020), Trans Exploits by Jian Neo Chen (2019), The Colonial Problem by Lisa Monchalin (2016), Violence Against Queer People by Doug Meyer (2015), and Aberrations in Black by Roderick A. Ferguson (2004). The work of these scholars supported my literature review and information analysis process. I conducted four semi-structured interviews in the format of storytelling online over Zoom. This study interpreted the experiences of one Indigenous (not specified), Black (Somalian), Middle Eastern (not specified) and agender neutral/non gender affirming participant; one Black (Puerto Rican-American) and androgynous/trans/non-binary participant; one Indigenous (Métis) and trans-mask/nonbinary/left-of-centre leaning participant; and one person of colour (South Asian-European) and nonbinary; three of who had a university degree. All four participants experienced interpersonal and collective violence, and one of the encountered self-directed violence. The study findings revealed challenges amongst participants of intersectional identities and their experiences with violence. The four key themes that emerged from this research are 1) microaggressions 2) gender-based violence, 3) family and relations, and 4) workspace and educational settings. The analysis of findings and key themes are detailed in the discussion chapter and supported by the theoretical framework and research literature. iv Lay Summary The goal of this study was to address how the stories of gender nonbinary Indigenous, Black and people of colour (IBPOC) affected their view on encountering violence and determined the implications of race and gender identities that affected their relationships (e.g., friendships, family, intimate partner(s), classmates, instructors, colleagues and supervisors). Participants provided suggestions for potential policy recommendations, some individuals hoping for more cultural changes to how straight white groups receive, interpret, and express knowledge on the stories of gender nonbinary IBPOC encountering violence. The contributions to this study allowed cultivating awareness around contemporary research exploring the stories of gender nonbinary IBPOC to spark and support conversations around the research topic and potential future policy recommendations and academic research conducted within the area of gender, race, and sexuality studies. This study is available to view and access online through the UBC research repository database, cIRcle. v Preface This research is the original and unpublished work of the author, Co-Investigator and master’s student Aliyah Ali. I composed all chapters and appendices for this study. I designed this qualitative study, including the socio-demographic, theoretical frameworks and review of literature, methodology and sampling approaches, submission of a research ethics application, scheduling, conducting, transcribing storytelling sessions, gathering and analyzing the information retrieved, integrating research results, and discussing the research findings. Associate Professor, Dr. Christopher B. Patterson, was the supervisory committee member of this study. The second committee member is Dr. Denise Ferreira da Silva, who reviewed this study. This study required ethics approval by The University of British Columbia’s Behavioural Research Ethics Board (BREB), which reviewed, provided revisions, and approved the ethics application for this research. The ethics certificate number and project title: H21-02908: Encountering Violence: The Stories of Gender Nonbinary Indigenous, Black and People of Colour (IBPOC). vi Table of Contents Abstract........................................................................................................................................................ iii Lay Summary............................................................................................................................................... vi Preface......................................................................................................................................................... v Table of Contents........................................................................................................................................ vi Language Guide.......................................................................................................................................... viii Acknowledgments........................................................................................................................................ x Chapter 1: Introduction............................................................................................................................. 1 1.1 Research Purpose.................................................................................................................................. 1 1.2 Language............................................................................................................................................... 2 1.3 Critical Review...................................................................................................................................... 6 1.3.1 News Article #1........................................................................................................................ 6 1.3.2 News Article #2........................................................................................................................ 8 1.3.3 News Article #3........................................................................................................................ 10 Chapter 2: Theoretical Framework & Literature Review......................................................................... 12 2.1 Chapter Summary.................................................................................................................................. 12 2.2 Theoretical Framework.......................................................................................................................... 12 2.2.1 Intersectionality........................................................................................................................ 12 2.2.2 Queer of Colour........................................................................................................................ 15 2.2.3 Trans of Colour Critique.......................................................................................................... 16 2.3 Literature Review.................................................................................................................................. 18 2.3.1 Historical Atrocities................................................................................................................. 19 2.3.2 (I)BPOC: Two-Spirit Youth Experiences................................................................................ 24 2.3.3 I(B)POC: Black Queers and Trans Experiences...................................................................... 27 2.3.4 IB(POC): Queer and Trans People of Colour Experiences...................................................... 30 Chapter 3: Methodology............................................................................................................................. 35 3.1 Chapter Summary.................................................................................................................................. 35 3.2 Research Design.................................................................................................................................... 35 3.3 Participant Criteria................................................................................................................................ 35 3.4 Recruitment........................................................................................................................................... 36 3.5 Sampling Approach............................................................................................................................... 36 3.6 Oral History........................................................................................................................................... 37 3.7 Photovoice............................................................................................................................................. 38 3.8 Participant Choice................................................................................................................................. 38 3.9 Information Collection.......................................................................................................................... 39 3.10 Information Analysis........................................................................................................................... 40 3.11 Positionality......................................................................................................................................... 41 3.12 Ethical Considerations......................................................................................................................... 42 3.12.1 Confidentiality........................................................................................................................ 42 3.12.2 Voluntary Participation.......................................................................................................... 43 3.12.3 Avoid Retraumatization......................................................................................................... 43 3.12.4 Information Security.............................................................................................................. 44 vii Chapter 4: Findings................................................................................................................................... 45 4.1 Chapter Summary................................................................................................................................. 45 4.2 Socio-Demographics............................................................................................................................ 46 4.3 Participants Stories............................................................................................................................... 46 4.3.1 Participant #1: Yusef............................................................................................................... 46 4.3.2 Participant #2: P2..................................................................................................................... 54 4.3.3 Participant #3: Alistair............................................................................................................. 68 4.3.4 Participant #4: Alex................................................................................................................. 78 Chapter 5: Discussion & Conclusion........................................................................................................ 86 5.1 Key Findings......................................................................................................................................... 86 5.1.1 Microaggressions..................................................................................................................... 86 5.1.2 Gender-Based Violence........................................................................................................... 88 5.1.3 Family and Relations............................................................................................................... 89 5.1.4 Educational Settings and Workspaces..................................................................................... 89 5.2 Recommendations and Future Directions............................................................................................. 90 5.3 Limitations and Benefits....................................................................................................................... 91 5.4 Conclusion............................................................................................................................................ 94 References.................................................................................................................................................. 95 Primary Sources....................................................................................................................................... 102 Secondary Readings................................................................................................................................. 103 End Notes.................................................................................................................................................. 104 Lists........................................................................................................................................................... 105 List 1: Recruitment Contact List - Organizations, Groups & Programs......................................... 105 List 2: Recruitment Contact List - Universities/Colleges and Academic Services......................... 110 Appendices................................................................................................................................................ 114 Appendix A: Consent Form....................................................................................................................... 114 Appendix B: Verbal Consent Script.......................................................................................................... 120 Appendix C: Risk Assessment Survey Form............................................................................................ 121 Appendix C.1: Risk Assessment Survey......................................................................................... 123 Appendix C.2: Risk Assessment Table........................................................................................... 124 Appendix D: Initial Contact Email Script.................................................................................................. 125 Appendix E: Invitation Letter.................................................................................................................... 127 Appendix F: Recruitment Email Script...................................................................................................... 129 Appendix G: Online Recruitment Advertisement Text.............................................................................. 130 Appendix H: Referral Instructions & Message Template.......................................................................... 132 Appendix I: Message of Appreciation - Email Script................................................................................ 133 Appendix J: Session Guide........................................................................................................................ 134 Appendix K: Professional Sources............................................................................................................ 135 Appendix L: Recruitment Poster............................................................................................................... 137 viii Language Guide Gender Nonbinary: Gender identities under the Trans umbrella, outside of the gender binary (male and female), and different from the gender assigned at birth. This includes but is not limited to the following: ● Two-Spirit ● Agender and Androgynous ● Bigender ● Ceterosexual (or Skoliosexual) ● Demi gender ● Genderfluid, genderless, gender free, gender neutral, gender nonconforming, and genderqueer ● Intergender ● Multigender ● No gender, nonbinary, and non-gender affirming. ● Omnigender ● Pangender and polygender ● Queer ● Transgender and trigender IBPOC: Indigenous, Black, and people of colour; an acronym under the contemporary umbrella term that helps identify race/ethnic identities. This includes but is not limited to the following: ● Indigenous Persons of Canada: Algonquin, Blackfoot, Cree, First Nations, Inuit, Métis, Nakoda, Tlingit, etc. ● Black: African, African American, Afro-Caribbean, Caribbean, Congolese, Ethiopian, Guyanese, Haitian, Jamaican, Nigerian, Somalis, Tanzanian, Trinidadian, etc. ● East Asian: Chinese (Han, Mongolian, Taiwanese, Tibetan, Uyghur, etc.), Japanese (Yamato, etc.), Korean (North and South Korean). ● Latin(a/o/x)/Hispanic: Bahamian, Brazilian, Chilean, Colombian, Costa Rican, Cuban, Dominican, Latin American, Mexican, Portuguese, Puerto Rican, Venezuelan, etc. ● Middle Eastern: Afghan, Arab, Egyptian, Iranian, Lebanese, Palestinian, Syrian, Uzbek, etc. ● Mixed-Race ● Pacific Islander/Oceanic: Melanesian (Fijian, Indigenous Australian, New Caledonian, Solomon Islander, etc.), Micronesian (Carolinian, Marshallese, Palauan, etc.), Polynesian (Hawaiian, New Zealand Māori, Samoan, Tahitian, Tongan, etc.) ● South Asian: Bengali, Indian, Nepali, Pakistani, Sri Lankan, etc. ● Southeast Asian: Bamars, Filipino, Indonesian, Malaysian, Singaporean, Thai, Vietnamese, etc. ix Violence: Three forms of violence self-directed, interpersonal, and institutional violence. 1) Self-Directed Violence: Ideations, self-harm, and suicide ● Attempted: unsuccessful completion resulting in survival. ● Completed: successful attempt resulting in death. ● Parasuicide: (self-harm/injury) alcohol poisoning, cutting, distraught and distressed, ingestion or inhalation of chemicals, drugs, and substances (commercialized drugs, prescription medication, poison, and toxins), intentional overdosing, risk taking behaviour, and stabbing. ● Suicide ideations: (thoughts and feelings) forming plans, writing suicide notes/letters, gifting or giving away valuables, and internal dialogues. 2) Interpersonal Violence: Intentional use of force to abuse an individual or small group emotionally, physically, psychologically, and verbally. ● Gender violence: emotional abuse, female genital mutilation, forced abortion, forced monogamy, homophobia, patriarchal violence, physical abuse, psychological, sexual abuse, stalking, and transphobia. ● Cultural violence: antisemitic, artwork, cuisine, language, law, music, racial slurs and microaggressions, religious ideologies, and traditions and practices. ● Domestic violence: (inmate partner or family members) captivity, emotional abuse (gaslighting, intimidation, manipulation), forced intercourse/rape, physical abuse (hitting, slapping), and threatening violence or self-harm. ● Sexual abuse and Harassment: bullying and harassment, groping, grooming, rape and attempted rape, stalking, and unwanted communication/interactions. ● Youth violence: bullying and harassment, childhood sexual or physical abuse, and physical altercations. 3) Institutional Violence: ● Economic violence: bank robbery, forced labour, insurance fraud, mortgage fraud, property theft, and tax evasion. ● Organized crime: drug trafficking, gang violence, human trafficking, mass murder, and sexual exploitation. ● State violence: assassination, election fraud, genocide, riots, supremacy, terrorism, warfare, carceral violence and police brutality (false arrest, false imprisonment, unwarranted removal, unwarranted search and seizure, and unjustified use of force) ● White collar/Corporate crime: bribery, cybercrimes, embezzlement, employing illegal foreign workers, estate/property theft, insider trading, piracy, tax fraud, and wage/time theft. Chronic Illnesses: A prolonged (over one-year) disease with medical condition(s) that induce limitations on daily activities, functions and motor skills, personal hygiene, etc.). ● Anxiety ● Bipolar disorders ● Chronic pain ● Depression ● Epilepsy ● Post-traumatic stress disorder ● Psychosis ● Relapse ● Suicidality x Acknowledgements Land Acknowledgement I am a settler who studies and works on UBC's Vancouver campus located on the traditional, ancestral and stolen territories of the Musqueam First Nations. These lands have always been a place of learning for Musqueam youth, who were instructed in their culture, history, and tradition, and who in turn shared their knowledge with a new generation. I would like to acknowledge the significance of surrounding territories, including Stz’uminus, Kwantlen, Sto:lo, Tsawwassen, Katzie, Semiahmoo, Coast Salish, Qayqat, Kwikwetlam, Squamish, and the Tsleil-Waututh First Nations communities. To My Participants I am beyond grateful for the opportunity to meet you, and for your individual degree of trust in myself and the institution; your time, dedication, capacity, and willingness to recount raw details; your support towards the study and the recruitment process; your acknowledgment on the need to advance scholarship in this area of study; and your deep-rooted understanding of the topic through individual experiences, and the collective communal experiences we share as Gender Nonbinary Indigenous, Black and People of Colour (IBPOC) To My Supervisor I would like to acknowledge Associate Professor, Faculty member, and thesis supervisor, Dr. Christopher B. Patterson, for encouraging, supporting, understanding, and being open to my project ideas. I appreciate and value the time that Dr. Patterson set aside to support the development of this research. His resilience and mentorship helped me learn to write with confidence. Dr. Patterson introduced me to the works of modern and contemporary scholars in the field of gender, race, sexuality and social justice, and theoretical approaches that are relevant to this study. I value Dr. Patterson’s expertise in the interdisciplinary research areas of interest on gender, race, sexuality and social justice, and critical sexuality studies. xi To My Supervisory Committee Member I would like to acknowledge Professor and Faculty member, Dr. Denise Ferreira da’Silva’s support in reviewing and taking the time to provide feedback on my dissertation. Dr. da’Silva’s research focuses on post-structural and feminist theory to analyze contemporary global justice matters involving multiple intersectional identity groups. I trust and value Dr. da’Silva’s knowledge and experience to provide feedback on the different themes and intersections of identity in this research. To My Research Ethics Guide I would like to acknowledge those outside of my master’s thesis committee whose knowledge supports the development of this project’s research ethics application. Dr. Tara Lyons, Chair of Kwantlen Polytechnic University Research Ethics Board (KPU REB) and my former Honours thesis project supervisor, whose background and expertise in research ethics, supported the approval of this project’s ethics application with consideration to participants potential for risk of harm, distress, and suicide. To My Family I am thankful for my support network, including the matriarchs and pillars of my family: My mother and nani (maternal grandmother), my partner and our two cats, Kylo and Ren, for their endless support at this stage of my academic career. 1 Chapter 1: Introduction 1.1 Chapter Summary This study focuses on the stories of gender nonbinary Indigenous, Black and People of Colour (IBPOC) encountering violence and the impacts against race and gender identities. I use oral history storytelling to explore the stories of gender nonbinary IBPOC encountering violence. I describe the purpose and significance of conducting this study to provide insight into my research topic, introduce the language used, and critique three news media reports published by contemporary US mainstream networks to support my interpretation of the stories of four participants: one Indigenous (not specified), Black (Somalian), Middle Eastern (not specified) and agender neutral/non-gender affirming participant; one Black (Puerto Rican-American) and androgynous/trans/non-binary participant; one Indigenous (Métis) and trans-mask/nonbinary/left-of-centre leaning participant; and one person of colour (South Asian-European) and nonbinary; three of whom had a university degree. All four participants' stories of encountering violence addressed repeated exposure to hate-motivated interpersonal and collective violence, while one of four participants reported self-directed violence. 1.2 Research Purpose This study explores the discourses and analyzes the stories of gender nonbinary Indigenous, Black and people of colour (IBPOC) encounters with violence across Canada and parts of the United States of America. I propose two research questions: 1) How do gender nonbinary IBPOC perceive and understand violence? and 2) How does violence affect gender nonbinary IBPOC interpersonal relationships (e.g., friendship, family, intimate partner(s), colleagues, and supervisors)? My rationale and orientation to the research demographic of gender nonbinary IBPOC aged eighteen to twenty-five years old stem from personal experiences with violence as a disabled queer of colour, listening to stories of violence against queers of colour, and how ostracization of multiple intersectional identity groups operate. My goal is to fill in the socio-cultural gaps in knowledge and understanding of gender nonbinary IBPOC by cisgendered white groups and to suggest potential policy recommendations to secure the lives of gender nonbinary 2 IBPOC from violent encounters and receive equitable treatment and safe access to public/private federally funded services and facilities (e.g., hospitals, correctional facilities, not-for-profit organizations, post-secondary institutions, etc.). Some participants understood and acknowledged the significance of suggesting policy recommendations but explained that it does not seem like a plausible outcome. Therefore, some participants suggested cultural recommendations on changing the dynamics in how cisgender white groups receive, interpret, and express knowledge and understanding of the stories of gender nonbinary IBPOC communities. I address why the normative ways of understanding violence are oppressive and how the IBPOC-centered way can allow for broader and more impactful social justice practices. 1.2 Language The study team consists of two members: the ‘Principal Investigator’ (PI), Dr. Christopher B. Patterson, the supervisor of this project, and informed by the Co-Investigator on data collection and analysis processes. My role as ‘Co-Investigator’ (Co-I) focused on recruiting prospects who meet the study eligibility criteria while listening to participant encounters with violence and engaging in storytelling sessions to collect and analyze participant stories. The importance of using inclusive language in this research and beyond the academic context is to practice and reinforce the use of identifiers such as pronouns, ethnic background(s), and gender identities that an individual asks to be identified by, especially when conversing with folks in discussions, educational or workspaces, or through forming relationships that are inclusive to people of all identities. Dr. Tracie O’Keefe (2021) explains the significance of using correct pronouns without the potential to be misgendered or (re)traumatized and states that “some pronouns may seem odd or cumbersome but remember: a personal address (Alberta) is a form of respect and reducing for the other person’s experience” (73). Based on participant experiences, being misgendered in public spaces occurs almost daily by predominantly cisgender folks. As Dr. O-Keefe (2021) mentions: The use of the wrong pronouns or name causes extreme offence and pushes the client into a defensive reaction when empathy is broken or damaged, then we all accidentally at times mislabel 3 or misaddress people [...] The client[individual] may have frequently suffered attacks from people who question their right to exist and dismiss the importance of addressing them correctly. (73-74) This description provides details on why and how using incorrect pronouns to identify gender nonbinary folks can further induce detrimental impacts on mental health. A reason why ensuring correct pronoun use is to practice. For example, if unsure of a name or preferred pronouns, Dr. O-Keefe (2021) recommends asking, “how would you like me to address you?” (73). This communication is a sign of respect and willingness to understand and demonstrate allyship to many gender nonbinary communities, who often are misgendered by cisgender folks on individual preferred pronouns. This study utilizes gender-affirming language to describe the demographic of gender nonbinary IBPOC. ‘Gender nonbinary’ is part of the trans umbrella and refers to gender identities outside the gender binary (male/female), with a portion of gender nonbinary and trans-identifying folks who, as Dr. Tracie O’Keefe (2021) describes, are “seeking to change their bodies through hormones and surgery to reflect a different sex, whether that be male, female, or neuter” (Morgenroth et al., 2020). Gender nonbinary is also inclusive but not limited to gender identities including Two-Spirit, agender, androgyne bigender, ceterosexual (or skoliosexual), demi gender, genderfluid, genderless, gender-free, gender neutral, gender nonconforming, genderqueer, intergender, multigender, no gender, nonbinary, non-gender-affirming, omnigender, pangender, polygender, queer, and transgender (Chen 2019). The abbreviation IBPOC refers to Indigenous, Black and people of colour. The acronym is a contemporary umbrella that helps identify race/ethnic identities. Primary Colours/Couleurs Primaires is an arts-based initiative that brings Indigenous arts to the forefront of the Canadian art system by recognizing IBPOC artists and their work, achievements, and communities (Ebanks et al., 2022). This art-based initiative enforces the representation of Indigenous persons in Canada by using the acronym ‘IBPOC’ as a term of endearment, explaining how: IBPoC is a contemporary term that refers to Indigenous, Black and People of Colour. Its origins are in the USA where the term is expressed as BIPOC. This formulation is sometimes used in Canada as well. We strive to consistently place ‘First Peoples first’, so we are using the Indigenous-first acronym - IBPoC. (Primary Colours/Couleurs Primaires; Ebanks et al., 2022) 4 The abbreviation IBPOC is less known in the contemporary research literature and the general public, as the more common and well-known acronym BIPOC refers to Black, Indigenous and people of colour. The “IBPOC” abbreviation avoids the expanded version, “Indigenous, Black and People of Colour”. Furthermore, the literature clarifies the acronym “POC,” also known as people of colour identifies and simultaneously generalizes communities of colour by using nondescript language to explain their experiences, historical legacies, and significance behind the using the POC abbreviation, whereby: The current usage stems from its 1970’s and 80’s renewal in the USA. It was revitalized - as a less insulting term for ‘non-white’ - as a way of describing all peoples who are racialized by white supremacy, and therefore who are subjected to racism. Significantly, it included Indigenous people who had been named as Native Americans in the territory known as USA. (Primary Colours/Couleurs Primaires; Ebanks et al., 2022) This text acknowledges the connotations, history, and background details on why academics are gradually deviating from using the acronym "POC" and focusing on using the abbreviation "IBPOC" to recognize, sustain awareness, and support research on Indigenous persons of Canada by decolonizing the language paradigms of Canadian scholarship. Similarly, the University of British Columbia Office for Equity and Inclusion describes the abbreviation known as "BIPOC" as more recognizable in literature, meaning: While usage of the term ‘People of Colour’ dates back to the late 18th century, its contemporary usage is rooted in the 1970s when it emerged as an alternative to the then common, and highly contested, terminology of “non-white” to describe all racialized people. In response to critiques that ‘People of Colour’ (abbreviated as ‘POC’) erases or conflates the particular histories of Black and Indigenous peoples under colonialism, the additional letters are placed before ‘POC’ by those who aim to recognize those distinctions. (UBC Equity & Inclusion Office; Garcia 2020) The difference between ‘BIPOC’ and ‘IBPOC’ abbreviations is the significance of ‘IBPOC’ to Indigenous persons of Canada. As a settler who accesses education and employment opportunities on Musqueam First Nations territories, I acknowledge the honour and privileged position I am in to conduct this research with the University of British Columbia, also located on the Musqueam First Nations territory (Ghomeshi 2021). This study includes an expansive list of race/ethnic groups under the Language Guide. I address my thesis statement research by arguing why the normative ways of understanding violence are oppressive and how IBPOC-centered methods allow for broader and more impactful social justice practices. The concept of hate crime is associated with crimes that predominantly occur to hateful 5 others (intersectional identities and marginalized populations) (Haritaworn 2015). Sarah Ahmed (2004) critiques a hate/crime paradigm with crimes that do not directly target gender nonbinary IBPOC. Haritaworn (2015) argues how individual identity is often associated with racialized groups, explaining that hate crime is now interpreted as hate violence (Haritaworn 2015). There is evidence of narratives explaining the concept of hate as an emotion provoked by hateful incidents. Spade (2015) argues how “hate crime laws are an even more direct example of the limitations and views on oppression. Hate crime laws frame violence as unlawful conduct enacted by individual wrongdoers and are known to be violent and destructive" (Spade 2015; Hanhardt 2013). Therefore, recognizing the difference between hate crime and hate speech and the potential effects on gender nonbinary IBPOC. However, according to Hanhardt (2013) literature interprets how “hate crimes often involve hate speech, [...] hate speech falls under hate crime law when it is invoked in the process of an activity that is already criminal, such as assault, trespassing, vandalism, or harassment” (163). Finally, the hate crime legislation interprets violence through an oppressive lens that oversimplifies its operation, suggesting the criminal punishment system is the right way to resolve violence. This project refers to three forms of violence: 1) self-directed violence (attempted suicide, completed suicide, parasuicide (self-harm/injury), and suicide ideations (thoughts and feelings); 2) interpersonal violence (gender-based violence, cultural violence, domestic violence (inmate partner or family), emotional, sexual, and physical abuse, stalking, bullying and harassment, youth violence (child sexual or physical abuse, physical fighting, etc.); and 3) collective violence (organized crime, police brutality, prison violence, tax evasion, etc.) (O’Keefe 2021; Herrenkohl 2011). These three forms of violence help me analyze and organize my research findings and explain the oppression they face for all three types of violence. 6 1.3 Critical Review Throughout this study, I refer to three news media articles to demonstrate the discourse on violence against gender nonbinary IBPOC. I incorporate a critical anti-oppression approach to analyze news articles (Leavy 2017; Reid et al. 2017). A critical anti-oppressive lens to reviewing and interpreting news media articles that support the understanding of contemporary politically left-leaning news media outlets that misconstrue the stories of gender nonbinary IBPOC, resulting in distorted images and perception of violence against gender nonbinary IBPOC communities. 1.3.1 Article #1 The first news article published in a weekly LGBTQ news magazine, The Advocate, reports on a mass shooting in Orlando, Florida, on June 11, 2016, at an LGBTQ Latinx nightclub. This attack killed forty-nine individuals and rendered fifty-three individuals’ survivors of mass violence (Moore 2016). The report details the experiences of Latinx survivors, integrating visuals of public memorial sites that capture interpersonal violence at the macro-level targeting race and gender identity or gender nonbinary IBPOC, affecting the sense of security of intersectional identifying communities as they mourn together (Moore 2016). For many queer Latinx/Latin Americans, the memory of this event and the mass attack and collective violence against Latinx communities reinforced the historical practice of degradation against queer Latinx in the US (Muñoz 2020). The 1969’s Stonewall riots influenced violence against queer Latinx/Latin American communities post-Stonewall era, including the story of a trans woman of colour, Sylvia Rivera, a Latin American trans woman and activist, who was not allowed to speak at New York City’s Gay Pride Parade in Washington Square Park. Rivera’s, but who delivered her famous 1973 speech titled “Y’all Better Quiet Down: You all better quiet down. I’ve been trying to get up here all day for your gay brothers and your gay sisters in jail that write me every motherfucking week and ask for your help, and you all don’t do a goddamn thing for them. Have you ever been beaten up and raped in jail? Now think about it. They’ve been beaten up and raped after they’ve had to spend much of their money in jail to get their self-home and to try to get their sex changes [...] I have been to jail. I have been raped and beaten. Many times. By men, heterosexual men that do not belong in the homosexual shelter. But do you do anything for me? No. You tell me to go and hide my tail between my legs. I will not put up with this shit [...] What the fuck’s wrong with you all? Think about that! I do not believe in 7 a revolution, but you all do. I believe in the Gay Power. I believe in us getting our rights, or else I would not be out there fighting for our rights [...] The people are trying to do something for all of us, and not men and women that belong to a white, middle-class white club. (YouTube 2019) [00:01:35-00:05:13] Rivera's story is prevalent in queer and trans-Latinx/Latin American history reflecting historical patterns of violence against vulnerable and marginalized groups reinforced in contemporary settings by lesbian and gay rights movements (Meyer 2015). Muñoz (2020) adds context to the event, stating that “the night of the riots when she, along with other transgender bar patrons, mostly Black and Latino, resisted arrest during a routine raid on gays in the West Village bar” (131) and representing how the “minoritarian subject” which in this case is Rivera, whose Latinx identity increased her chances of encountering violence, in areas including prison violence, police brutality, emotional and sexual violence, and physical violence. Rivera’s historically famous speech resonates with many Latinx communities impacted by the Pulse nightclub massacre, which was a hate-motivated attack against what was presumed by the suspect as a crowd of white gay men, not realizing that most attendees belonged to Latinx communities. This article reinforces some of Rivera’s stories of encountering violence in the late 1900s as a trans woman of colour in the US. The killings of queer and trans people of colour and the lack of reporting on intersectional identity groups encountering violence in contemporary US mainstream news. Literature by Ramirez et al. (2018) further argues the lack of inclusive reporting practices on the stories of intersectional identity groups encountering violence. For example, many cisgender folks who identified as LGBTQ persons of colour believed their responses to the incident reported by US mainstream news networks due to the secondary effects of violence. I integrate the responses of cisgender LGBTQ communities of colour: I've felt left out of the conversation because the majority of LGBTQ folks in my life are White and haven't really focused on the race aspect of the Orlando massacre. Or if they have it still doesn't come from a place of experience simply because they aren't POC. (Bisexual, cisgender woman, Black/African American, age 26). (Ramirez et al. 2018 591) I often believe that being an LGBT-POC we are often not recognized in the same light as a typical LGBT person. The Orlando incident in some ways made me feel disassociated with the LGBT community, because I feel that in conversation, I often feel excluded from the LGBT community... In short, I always feel that I have two separate identities. I am either a black male or 8 an LGBT individual, but never feel that I am viewed as both at the same time. (Gay, cisgender man, Black/African American, age 25). (Ramirez et al. 2018 591) I think that White LGBT [people] are less likely to do anything given opportunities missed to take action, to encourage intersectionality with POC LGBTs, and to understand the disparities between LGBT and LGBT POC issues and perspectives. (Gay, cisgender man Asian/Asian American, age 21). (Ramirez et al. 2018 591) I'm frustrated by the futility there seems to be in relying on non-LGBT individuals for support, especially from POC and religious devotees. There's just as much stubbornness coming from non-POC as well; however, the negativity that comes from people who look like me matters more. (Black/African American cisgender gay man, age 20) (Ramirez et al. 2018 592) It has felt as though I'm having to force my identity as a Queer Chicana onto people who are whitewashing what happened in Orlando. (Hispanic/Latina cisgender queer woman, age 36). (Ramirez et al. 2018 592) The responses of cisgender LGBTQ-identifying folks of intersectional identities communicate the want for belonging. However, a trans-of-colour critique approach identifies the concerns of minimization and diminishment of gender nonbinary IBPOC encounters with violence (Chen, 2019). Moreover, the historical and contemporary pattern of cisgender folks did not recognize the existence of gender nonbinary IBPOC communities. For example, the 1969 Stonewall riots in the US is a traumatic incident for many trans people and trans people of colour past and present, who experienced violence imposed by white LGB communities and the attempts to whitewash narratives of the mass attacks (Stryker 2017; Baumann & White 2019). This article provides my research with an understanding and awareness of the historical and contemporary lack of recognition and reporting of violence against gender nonbinary IBPOC communities. 1.3.2 Article #2 The second news article, published by the Toronto Star (Hasham Jun 8, 2020), describes a chain of serial killings between 2015 and 2020. In 2015, the Toronto police department (TPD) assigned former police chief Mark Saunders to the murder cases of eight gay Black men who went missing from Toronto’s Gay Village and were later found dead (Hasham 2020). The former police chief and his failure to respond promptly to the eight cases, and a lack of transparency by the TPD suggest inequitable investigation standards into the deaths of eight gay Black men. This news article demonstrates how Canadian news 9 media interprets that Black experiences with violence explain the actions of the police targeting race and sexuality and reinforcing the violence against Black people (Maynard 2017; Stoler 2002). This news article is another report published by the Toronto Star highlighting the prevalence of racial and gendered profiling against Black trans women (Hasham 2020; Maynard 2017). This report also reveals the imminent lack of public awareness and coverage by news media on incidents of violence involving Black trans women. This case raised questions and concerns about unsolved missing person cases. For example, Toronto’s Gay Village maintains a pattern of serial killings and sex work. As Carolyn Strange reports additional details on these cases: Unlike the recent disappearance of men from downtown Toronto's "Gay Village," a neighbourhood marked with rainbow street signs, the men were attacked along Windsor's dimly lit waterfront. In the post-war border town, subcultural communication, not street signs, turned the zone into a place where men met to have sex. Two decades later, in the 1970s, homosexual sex was no longer criminal. But homophobia continued to taint the policing of violence against gays. In Toronto, between 1975 and 1978, 14 men who frequented downtown gay bars disappeared and were later discovered dead. Eight of those homicides went unsolved. In 1978, The Body Politic, a monthly Canadian magazine on gay issues, published a damning article on the skewed priorities of the police. When it came to gay people, Toronto's force assigned more staff to harass men who cruised for sex than to solve the disappearances and murders of gay men. (2018) Strange’s (2018) work focuses on unravelling past, current and future at-risk environments, demonstrating a pattern in incidents of violence against vulnerable and marginalized communities, including gender nonbinary IBPOC. The events outlined are historically significant and contributing factors that influenced the serial killings between 2015 and 2020 (Hasham 2020). These serial killings display a pattern of race and gender-based deadly attacks against Black gay, queer, and trans folks living in Toronto’s Gay Village or surrounding areas. This article’s significance to understanding the limitation of my research as it explains how law enforcement officials, in the case specifically, a cisgender Black man in a high-ranking position and possess the power, privilege, and authority to make executive decisions that could impose life or death circumstances, this includes the willful neglect of investigating into the deaths of eight Black gay men and 10 the interpretation of systemic policing practices targeting intersectional identities such as gender nonbinary IBPOC. 1.3.3 Article #3 The third news report, published by USA Today Online, details the incident that occurred in Colorado Springs on November 19th, 2022, at an LGBTQ nightclub known as Club Q (Stanton & Miller 2022). Two left-leaning news networks reported on this case, USA Today Online and CNN. Both news outlets kept up to date on reporting the latest details on the development of the investigation into the massacre that transpired, claiming the lives of Daniel Aston (he/him), Kelly Loving (she/her), Ashley Paugh (she/her), Derrick Rump (he/him) and Raymond Green Vance (he/him) with at least nineteen survivors the majority sustained gunshot wounds (Afshar & Sanchez 2023). Aldrich could potentially face up to life in prison without the chance of parole or possibility of a bond if convicted on all five counts of first-degree murder charges and tried by jury for all 323 charges (Dupont Jan. 10, Feb. 23, 2023; Golodryga & Blackwell 2022). The news report delivers the testimonies of three individuals: one law enforcement officer and two detectives. First testimony: Officer Connor Wallick of the Colorado Springs Police Department (CSPD), the first responder to arrive at the scene, described Aldrich was “wearing a ballistic vest, claimed to the officer that one of the two patrons who disarmed and held Aldrich down had carried out the shooting, according to Wallick”. (Afshar & Sanchez 2023) Second testimony: Detective Jason Gasper delivered his response to the scene and photos captured throughout the entire investigation, this included “bullet impacts from around the club, pools of blood, numerous AR-style cartridges, and the bodies of the five victims”. (Afshar & Sanchez 2023). Third testimony: Detective Joines, who described the evidence found during the investigation at Aldrich’s residence, a note in Aldrich’s words, which displayed a “preconceived intent to execute a violent attack fueled by thoughts and feelings of hate”. (Afshar & Sanchez 2023) Based on the compiled evidence and testimonies presented by the prosecution, Aldrich actions are motivated by “hatred” towards the LGBTQ community (Dupont Feb. 23, 2023). Although both news outlets are focused on reporting the latest details on this case, they failed to report the ongoing impacts and aftermath of the shooting for loved ones of victims and survivors of the incident. Both news reports 11 demonstrate how left-leaning news outlets tend to fixate their reports on the accused suspect of mass violence, which in the US, is demographically known to be executed by white heterosexual men from teenage years into adulthood. This incident and reporting on the mass violence against the Colorado Springs LGBTQ community, is evidence of the need for more news media outlets to shift their perspective on reporting incidents of encountering violence through a cultural shift in positionality and power to focus more on the stories of gender nonbinary IBPOC. This critical review of three news media articles provides context into incidents of violence against gender nonbinary IBPOC that made news headlines in both Canada and the US. These three news media articles are significant to my study and understanding of the context of experiences with violence against gender nonbinary IBPOC. These articles are chosen based on the degree of violence and the detrimental impact on gender nonbinary IBPOC. The articles discuss how violence can present itself in shared community settings such as nightclubs. My review of news media articles addresses the potential for detrimental impact in shared community spaces, especially for groups highly susceptible to vulnerability and marginalization. This critical review of three contemporary news media articles critiqued through an intersectional, queer of colour and trans of colour critique lens to understand and interpret how most mainstream news media outlets critique the stories of gender nonbinary IBPOC encountering violence published by socio-left-liberal news networks, which tend to misconstrue or invalidate participants report and investigation into the stories of gender nonbinary IBPOC. 12 Chapter 2: Theoretical Framework & Literature Review 2.1 Chapter Summary This chapter details the theoretical framework used to inform my literature review and research methods (e.g., collect and analyze the participant information, interpret study findings, and discuss research outcomes). The theoretical framework includes intersectionality, queer of colour theory, trans of colour critique, and research literature that focuses on the historical and contemporary context of stories of queer and trans of colour communities. Both the theoretical framework and literature are significant to interpreting, understanding, and documenting the stories of gender nonbinary IBPOC encountering violence and how it affects study participants’ perception and understanding of how violence affects their interpersonal relationships. 2.2 Theoretical Framework The theoretical framework for this project guides and assists with critically analyzing stories of gender nonbinary IBPOC encounters with violence. The three most relevant theories I draw on include 1) intersectionality, 2) queer of colour theory, and 3) trans of colour critique. In this section, I explain these three theoretical approaches to my project by drawing on the works of well-known scholars in gender, race, and sexuality studies. I refer to my theoretical framework to analyze the stories of gender nonbinary IBPOC encounters with violence. 2.2.1 Intersectionality Intersectionality, coined by feminist scholar and critical race theorist Kimberlé Crenshaw (1989), is a theory that analyzes how violence against gender nonbinary IBPOC affects race and gender. Intersectionality is the most appropriate framework for my research as it theorizes the interconnectedness of social identifiers, including gender, class, age, nationality, disability, and religion. Jennifer C. Nash (2019) explains in their book the significance of how Crenshaw interprets the term ‘intersectionality’ stating that “intersectionality is an analytic fundamentally rooted in Black women’s experiences, and it constitutes a theoretical, political, and doctrinal effort to do justice to the forms of violence that operate in 13 raced and gendered ways in Black women’s lives” (9). Furthermore, Crenshaw specifically elaborates on her term, stating: I will centre Black women in this analysis in order to contrast the multidimensionality of Black women’s experience with the single-axis analysis that distorts these experiences. Not only will this juxtaposition reveal how Black women are theoretically erased, it will also illustrate how this framework imports its own theoretical limitations that undermine efforts to broaden feminist and antiracist analyses. (Nash 2019 9) Crenshaw’s explanation of ‘intersectionality’ indicates the need to elevate marginalized voices and demand change in legislation and public policies that are historic and contemporary to the lives of Black women and Black feminists. The limitation of intersectionality is the independence of reporting true stories of gender nonbinary IBPOC encountering violence that increases when challenges of overlapping identities such as race, gender, and sexual orientation are key factors to increased challenges induced by the structural powers and control of white elitist and settler-colonial societies (Meyer 2015; Martinez Dy 2014). This debate concerning intersectionality theory affects the ability to interpret past dominant narratives generated through Western patriarchal hierarchies within settler colonial societies (Martinez Dy 2014). These details inform my research through an intersectional approach to determining how to interpret the stories of gender nonbinary IBPOC and the influence of participants’ overlapping intersections, agency, and independence in reporting their stories. Intersectionality can also appear in individual and collective experiences as it conceptualizes gender nonbinary IBPOC encounters with violence. Intersectionality is a theoretical framework that feminist scholars like Patricia Hill Collins and Selma Bilge (2020) incorporate into their academic and activist work to interpret feminist-based research. I draw on intersectionality to examine how intersectional identities implicated in participants' stories affect how they encounter violence. Feminist and intersectional scholars such as Collins and Bilge (2020) recognize the value behind intersectionality when analyzing the stories of members of overlapping intersectional identity groups. The significance of recognizing intersectional aspects of this research allows the interpretation of the stories of participants of intersecting race, class and gender identity groups. According to Collins and Bilge (2020), the potential to interpret participants’ stories through a transformative effect, which is plausible based on the influence of 14 a socio-structural standpoint of intersectionality to understand the power and control of intersectional identity race class and gender identity groups on the equal division of power and control. An intersectional approach allows interpretation of the stories of IBPOC communities and the significance of state and structural violence against Indigenous Two-Spirit youth in Winnipeg, MB and Vancouver, BC (Ristock et al. 2019). Intersectional literature helps interpret and recognize how minority stress becomes a common factor of family/domestic violence, whereby child abuse is prevalent within the home. The definition of minority stress, according to literature by Balsam et al. (2011), is a result of interpersonal violence against an individual's intersecting identity (e.g., race, gender, and sexual orientation) through common factors such as increased thoughts and feelings of distress. Ongoing incidents of settler-colonial violence against Indigenous Two-Spirit youth through microaggressions can also contribute to poor mental health conditions and concerns for physical safety (Ristock et al. 2019). Microaggressions are described by Balsam et al. (2011) as “brief, daily assaults on minority individuals, which can be social or environmental, verbal or nonverbal, as well as intentional or unintentional (Sue et al. 2007)” and thereby “interpersonal exchanges involving microaggressions may not be perceived as discriminatory by perpetrators, who may believe their actions to be innocent or harmless and may not understand the potential impacts of these behaviours on recipients''. Incidents of microaggressions against Indigenous Two-Spirit youth can help identify the type of microaggressions and how it affects participant perception and understanding of violence and its impact on individual personal and professional relationships. A collective lens on encountering violence can also reveal microaggressions against Indigenous Two-Spirit youth, which can contribute to potential increases in risks of developing intergenerational trauma through the US educational school system, which lacks effective anti-bullying policies in schools (Pritchard 2013). Intersectionality informs my research and identifies the intersectional dynamics of race, gender, and sexual orientation that affect Indigenous Two-Spirit youth and has the potential to influence violence in Western settler-colonial societies. 15 2.2.2 Queer of Colour The second theoretical approach to this study is a queer of colour framework, which encourages contemporary societal and cultural practices that stem from historical events of violence imposed on racialized groups by US global capitalism (Reddy 2011). The aspect of race/ethnicity is a common yet differentiating characteristic prevalent within the context of a queer of colour framework. A queer of colour approach to my analysis of participant experiences with violence, targeting members of racial/ethnic minority groups. Ferguson (2004) refers to Reddy’s (2011) and discussion and meaning of home in their essay, “Home, Houses, Non-identity: ‘Paris Is Burning’”. Ferguson quotes Chandan Reddy (2011), a queer theorist who wrote an essay that states, Unaccounted for within both Marxist and liberal pluralist discussions of the home and the nation, queers of color are people of color…take up the critical task of both remembering and rejecting the model of the “home” offered in the United States in two ways: first, by attending to the ways in which it was defined over and against people of color, and second, by expanding the locations and moments of that critique of the home to interrogate processes of group formation and self-formation from the experience of being expelled from their own dwellings and families for not conforming to the dictation of and demand for uniform gendered and sexual types. (2-3) This excerpt explains the concept of home as a nation and a cultural product of cultural identities with racial differences that influence differentiation in gender and sexuality (Ferguson 2004). A queer of colour analysis of participant accounts provides new and current insight into queer people of colour experiences with violence, a common factor in participant stories. Reddy addresses the use of queer of colour analysis, a framework interpreting the racial limitations to liberal capitalist ideologies, expressing how “racist practice articulates itself generally as gender and sexual regulation, and that gender and sexual differences variegate racial formations” (Ferguson 2004 3). Reddy addresses egalitarian views imposed on the nation-state to advance racial limitations through modern instruments of socio-structural oppression against racial/ethnic minority groups. Contemporary racial limits enforced through nation-state legislation retract from the efforts to fight for emancipation (Reddy 2011). A queer of colour framework also recognizes the dynamics of working with queer people of colour to enhance contemporary understandings of queer studies (Ghazani & Brim 2019). Muñoz (2020) discusses how identity affects queer people of colour experiences, describing how being “positioned between a straight ethnic past and a predominantly white 16 queer present, is the kind of reality that queers of color often negotiate” (65). For many queers of colour, this could be a reminder that their identity does not meet the standards of a normative population, ostracizing them from society. This review of contemporary queer of colour literature contextualizes modern social formations of racial limitations generated from socio-historical differences (Reddy 2011). A queer of colour approach was used to critically analyze queer of colour stories that identified interpersonal (gender-based, family, and social relations) and collective (Western settler-colonial, employment, and institutional) types of violence that centre around participants of intersecting race and gender identity. 2.2.3 Trans of Colour Critique The third theoretical approach is trans of colour critique, deriving from the feminist standpoint theory framework. Intersectionality, women of colour theory, queer of colour theory, and trans of colour critique all stem from feminist standpoint theory that focuses on knowledge production of the knowledge holder, who shares their lived experience(s) as trans of colour regarding multiple forms of oppression (de Vries 2015). Trans of colour critique questions what might be transgender and the significance behind the term to widespread nations (e.g., Two-Spirits Indigenous Canadians) (King 2016). Trans of colour critique informs my analysis of gender identity and the uprise of trans organizations throughout American trans history and its impact on contemporary trans of colour culture. A key motive for incidents of violence against trans people of colour is the topic of identity and the disruption of gender conformity that contributes to the internal fears of white cis-hetero men (Chen 2017). Trans of colour critique theorizes the experiences of trans people of colour and transcultural expressions by referring to a decolonial approach to unveil the dominance and resistance of white settlers who tend to display "racist and classist forms of anti-trans cis-hetero-patriarchy” (Chen 2017 7). Trans of colour critique identifies a shift in power dynamics amongst specific white colonial settlers and their history of persistent acts of conversion, assimilation, and erasure of social minority groups, such as gender nonbinary IBPOC. Trans people of colour have historically and continue to exist as outsiders for not conforming to the dominant narrative (white people) and gender binary (man women). Chen (2019) describes that her analytic use of the term 17 trans of colour reveals “potential solidarities based on inter-related experiences and histories of displacement from the white Western binary gender/sex system” (104). However, it is essential to note the difference when applying the term trans of colour, which is not to be confused with the term trans. Chen (2019) specifies their use of the term trans “only when transgender and/or trans are repurposed explicitly by the groups and individuals discussed” (104). Chen (2019) uses the term trans if only the community refers to terms such as transgender and the context of its use. The theoretical framework guides and ensures the understanding of key concepts, themes and frameworks throughout the analysis process. The theoretical framework helps identify patterns that emerge from participants’ accounts. This framework supports the current research literature on gender nonbinary IBPOC encounters with violence and the need to fill in the socio-cultural gaps in knowledge and understanding of gender nonbinary IBPOC by cisgendered white and white-passing groups. My collective analysis of reviewing the literature on gender nonbinary IBPOC experiences with violence and the oral histories of four participants displays several violent accounts perpetrated by cisgender white and white-passing folks, also known as the Oppressor to many minority groups (Musser 2018). In the context of my research, the Oppressor has a history of targeting individuals’ race and gender identity, relationships, education, and employment and career goals. With predisposed knowledge of socio-historical events, contemporary literature, and stories of encountering violence surrounding gender nonbinary IBPOC communities, some participants expressed the need for policy recommendations that can change the cultural dynamics in how cisgender white and white-passing groups receive, interpret, and express comments, questions, and responses regarding oppressed groups, such as gender nonbinary IBPOC communities. 18 2.3 Literature Review My literature review covers modern scholars whose work reflects the characteristics and experiences of the participant demographic. Participants recruited for this study included: one gender-neutral/non-gender affirming Indigenous (unspecified nation), Black (Somalian), and Middle Eastern who resides in British Columbia, Canada; one androgynous/trans/nonbinary and Black (Puerto-Rican-American) who lives in Illinois, in the US; one trans-mask/nonbinary/left-of-centre leaning, and Indigenous Persons of Canada (Métis) who resides in British Columbia, Canada; one nonbinary person of colour of South Asian-European descent who lives in British Columbia, Canada. This study found three out of four participants had a university degree. Participant age ranged from nineteen to twenty-five years old. The types of violence that participants encountered based on their race and gender identity, three of four participants encountered interpersonal and collective violence; one participant encountered self-directed, interpersonal, and collective violence. My review of literature addresses and interprets participants’ experiences with violence and discusses the overall impacts that different types of violence (e.g., self-directed, interpersonal, and collective) communicate on their experiences of gender nonbinary IBPOC communities targeted for race/ethnic and gender-based discrimination. I integrate the books below, which are organized based on their key theoretical frameworks or participant demographic. Intersectionality: 1. Intersectionality by Patricia Hill Collins and Sirma Bilge (2020) 2. Black Feminism Reimagined after Intersectionality by Jennifer C. Nash (2019) Queer of colour theory: 1. Beyond Survival by Ejeris Dixon and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha (2020) 2. The Sense of Brown by José Esteban Muñoz (2020) 3. Left of Queer by David L. Eng and Jasbir K. Puar (2016) 4. Violence Against Queer People by Doug Meyer (2015) 5. Queer Lovers and Hateful Others by Jin Haritaworn (2015) 6. Terrorist Assemblages by Jasbir Puar (2007) 7. Freedom with Violence by Chandan Reddy (2011) 8. Aberrations in Black by Roderick A. Ferguson (2004) 19 Trans of colour critique: 1. Trans Exploits by Jian Neo Chen (2019) 2. Transgender History by Susan Stryker (2017) 3. Normal Life by Dean Spade (2015) Additional books: (participant demographic) 1. Atmospheres of Violence by Eric A. Stanley (2021) 2. Queer and Trans Artists of Color by Nia King (2016) 3. The Colonial Problem by Lisa Monchalin (2016) 4. This Bridge Called My Back by Cherrie Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa (2015) 5. Captive Genders by Eric A. Stanley and Nat Smith (2011) These books by scholars within the fields of Gender, Race, and Sexuality studies are recommended reading and support my analysis and understanding of participant accounts. My review of the literature helps analyze and respond to both research questions to fill in cultural gaps in the literature on gender nonbinary IBPOC encounters with violence. 2.3.1 Historical Atrocities Participants in this study reside in Canada and the US and expressed the influence of historical atrocities, predominantly perpetrated by white settlers, and the consistent impact that emerges through their daily activities, interactions, spaces and settings, and environmental factors. Participants recounted the systemic backlash, defensiveness, skepticism, ignorance and willful ignorance, and minimization or invalidation of personal traumatic experiences reinforced through contemporary white settler colonial violence. The literature focuses on historical events that provide crucial insight into the effects of violence against gender nonbinary IBPOC in Canada and the US. According to literature by Nia King (2016), trans and queer studies have mostly covered the historical experiences of white people and Americans. Eric A. Stanley (2021) studies different forms of violence against trans, queer, and gender non-conforming of colour in the United States, including increased risk of suicide, prison and institutional violence amongst gender nonbinary of colour (Muñoz 2020; King 2016; Meyer 2015). Events including the Stonewall riots and the AIDS crisis are significant 20 moments throughout queer and trans people of colour history where hate crime legislation infringed on gender nonbinary of colour human rights, including the right to freedom of expression, the right to equal treatment and to be free from discrimination, the right to life liberty and the security of the person (Stryker 2017). Hate crime legislation in the US was enacted under the Crime Prevention Act, an amendment made by the federal government in 1969 to include crimes against an individual’s “perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability” (Reddy 2011 2). This amendment allows US state officials to investigate and potentially prosecute suspects involved in hate-motivated offences against individuals susceptible to hate-motivated violence based on their identity. Stanley (2021) highlights the significance behind the death of former drag queen and gay rights and AIDS activist Marsha P. Johnson during the peak of the Stonewall riots. Johnson was a Black trans woman who was well-known in her community. Her suspicious and undetermined death in 1992 came after attending a gay pride parade in New York City, a period known for heightened anti-LGBTQ violence (Stanley 2021; Stryker 2008). Johnson’s death was labelled a suicide until post-mortem examination revealed a severe blow to the back of the head. The initial cause of death did not add to the information provided by witnesses, friends, community activists, and investigators. They recounted that although Johnson suffered from mental health challenges, she was not suicidal, nor were there signs of suicide (attempted or parasuicide) present during the autopsy (Stanley 2021). Years after Johnson’s death, there remains no further development on the cause of death other than labelling the case as a homicide/murder. Marsha P. Johnson’s passing was during this surge in poorly investigated violent attacks against Black trans women and trans of colour communities in New York. Chen (2019) recounts how state-sponsored violence in the form of police brutality affects Black women and girls, Black trans folks, and gender-nonconforming Black people. The staggering influx in violence (death, attack, and rape) against Black women and girls, Black trans folks, and gender-nonconforming Black people, who are of intersectional identity, characterizes individuals throughout contemporary trans history that endured state violence. The following names are of Black cisgender women and girls whose lives were affected due to 21 state violence against trans identities, including Korryn Gaines, Jessica Williams, Gynnya McMillen, Sandra Bland, Tanisha Anderson, Aiyana Stanley-Jones, Rekia Boyd, Denise Stewart, and Alesia Thomas (Chen 2019). In addition to Black cisgender women and girls are the names of Black trans women and gender-nonconforming people, including Mya Hall, Kayla Moore, Duanna Johnson, Nizah Morris, and the New Jersey 7 (Chen 2019). Lastly, the names of Black trans-cultural influencers such as Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, Janetta Johnson, Chandi Moore, CeCe McDonald, Ashlee Marie Preston, Elle Hearns, Tourmaline, Wriply Bennet, Aaryn Lang, Janet Mock, and Laverne Cox who are powerhouses in mobilizing change for Black trans women and girls in the U.S (Chen 2019). Research also highlights the historical and contemporary patterns of violence against trans people of colour, specifically during the surge in positive HIV/AIDs cases (Stanley 2021). This stigma against trans persons of colour who work in the sex trade industry continues to experience violence against their race and gender identity (Stanley 2021; King 2016; Stanley & Smith 2011). Encountering rejection by employers forced many trans persons of colour into industries deemed “undesirable” by those in privileged enough positions. Industries, including sex work, drug dealing, and other areas of government that declare as ‘criminal’ or ‘illegal’ (e.g., under the table, cash-in-hand work, etc.) are undesirable (Stanley & Smith 2011). The stigmatization experienced by trans persons of colour stems from prejudicial views against those of multiple intersecting identities but also from those who identify with the population of interest and work in the sex trade industry (Moraga & Anzaldúa 2021). Oppression induces socio-economic violence and increases risks of harm or death for many trans persons of colour in sex work. Stanley and Smith (2011) explain the level of exposure to violence in the population of interest: Queers of colours at high risk for violence, such as exploitation, rape, robbery, and physical threats, but also endangers their health from increased exposure to HIV and STIs. Economic and class position influences a sex worker’s ability to screen out undesirable clients and to refuse dangerous services. Sex workers with little class privilege working in low-status positions are generally afforded the least respect and are considered the most “deserving” of abuse by clients, the police, and the public. Queers of color-specifically transgender women-who are poor and who work as sex workers are under constant surveillance from police and frequently subject to ongoing harassment and violence. (171) 22 Queer and trans sex workers of colour are at a greater risk for exposure to violence that affects more than one area of life, often including areas such as healthcare or social services. Many trans sex workers have challenges obtaining a safe and secure supply of hormones, often leading them to purchase hormones from the black market, a rising healthcare concern. Research literature focusing on HIV/AIDS provides detailed images of American inner-city queer/trans life and communities, describing how “transgender persons may share needles with their lovers and friends in order to inject their hormones. This practice puts trans persons at an increased risk of contracting HIV as well as other health complications” (Stanley & Smith 2011 172). The history of trans persons of colour, specifically in the US, reveals how violence against trans persons of colour is a systemic denial of healthcare and social services. US history and contemporary history values nationalistic ideals, culture, and US news media networks have manifested that contributes to the increased incidents of hate crimes against queer and trans of colour communities. Trans and queer people of colour communities repeatedly encounter hostility and microaggressions in three areas of life: family, employment, and transition processes (e.g., hormone replacement therapy (HRT), surgeries, etc.). Meyer (2015) expands on these three areas, starting with family, whereby the trans communities, in comparison to lesbians and gay males, were “more likely to describe rejection from all of their immediate family members” (137). According to research literature, familial rejection is a massive barrier when receiving support from family. Family relations have the potential to offer trans family members financial aid, housing, safety, affirmation, attending medical appointments, picking up HRT, etc.) (Meyer 2015). Many familial rejection cases concern financial support, whereby a trans family member will ask for financial aid, but are arbitrarily rejected, potentially causing confusion, stress, anxiety, and trust issues. Familial rejection over financial support is often the cause of hostility, confrontations, and microaggressions against transgender identities within the employment sector. Meyer (2015) explains this matter, stating: “familial rejection potentially sets in motion a series of events in which transgender people must support themselves through means such as sex work and, therefore, subject themselves to the potential hardships that accompany it in the United States” (138). Knowing familial rejection imposes discriminatory constraints on other areas of trans lives, such as 23 employment, but it also demonstrates how discrimination against trans people can appear in family dynamics. Trans communities also face discrimination in the employment sector through the manner of microaggressive behaviour and commentary that specifically targets race and gender identity. Employment discrimination is a more common issue among trans communities than among lesbians and gay communities. For example, the literature recounts a story of a forty-eight-year-old Black transgender woman named Lela who encounters challenges with a former boss, where she mentions “a former boss telling her that she was not allowed to work in front of customers at a fast-food restaurant because she “might make them sick.” Like many transgender respondents” (Meyer 2015 137), this incident demonstrates a form of employment discrimination that trans of colour experience. In a collaborative research project conducted by the University of California (Los Angeles, CA) and the U.S. Agency for International Development, research results reported that thirty-nine countries across the globe violated LGBT human rights at the micro-level. Chen (2019) elaborates on LGBT human rights were treated at a ‘micro-level’ stating, “the exclusionary treatment of LGBT people at the “micro-level” results in costs to the economy, including “lost labor time, lost productivity, underinvestment in human capital, and the inefficient allocation of human resources through discrimination in education and hiring practices” (Badgett et al. 2014 27).” (109). The research literature demonstrates how LGB, and transgender communities encounter micro-levels of human rights violations, causing an economic impact on vulnerable communities. Lela’s former boss’s comment is nondescript. It communicates racist implications, and microaggressions “masks blatant racism; at times, classist statements are less stigmatized than overtly racist ones, leading some individuals to make classist comments while harboring racist thoughts” (Meyer 2015 140). Lela’s encounters with violence in the workplace by her former boss connect to topics of familial rejection and the transitioning process. Confrontational incidents are common amongst trans people of colour, with hostile behaviour and gender and race-based microaggressions directed toward their race and gender identity during their transition process. The process of transitioning is different depending on the individual, the intensity, and 24 the frequency of potential increase in encountering violence through self-directed, interpersonal, and collective violence communicated through different degrees of microaggressive attacks against participants, which often, is enabled by family (members) and foster families, employers/supervisors, colleagues/coworkers, classmates and instructors, and Western settler-colonial communities. Participants' daily interactions with violence were displayed through microaggressions, this included but is not limited to misgendering, defamatory comments and remarks transphobic, (un)intentional looks or stares, facial expressions and gestures, behaviour and attitudes, tone of voice and volume. The detailed accounts of participants' stories of encountering violence affected multiple areas of their lives as members of intersectional identity groups. Participants’ stories are like that of Lela’s stories. For example, during Lela’s transition process, she faced discriminatory remarks made by her employers (Meyer 2015). Meyer (2015) highlights that “transgender people regularly described this process as a fluid one that took place over their entire life, without a clear starting and ending point. Nevertheless, undergoing hormonal replacement theory (HRT), the violence directed against transgender people frequently increased, as it became more apparent that they were transitioning their gender” (137). Lela was not discouraged or set back from following through with her transition process. She underwent sex reassignment surgery and HRT. However, Lela’s experiences did not change, but they did stimulate awareness of transgender communities and their continued susceptibility to vulnerable and marginalized treatment. 2.3.2. (I)BPOC: Two-Spirit Youth Experiences The literature on Two-Spirit youth communities of Canada and the US is essential to understanding the research topic, the participant demographic, but most importantly, to enforce decolonizing practices and acknowledging the privilege granted to conduct this research on Musqueam First Nations territories and the significance to this study, including the encounters of two participants who identified themselves as “Indigenous” with one participant specifying they are Métis, the second participant did not specify their nation. Participants encountered interpersonal and collective violence. Both participants recounted similar stories of violence directed by Canadian governing agencies and officials with Canada’s Ministry of Child 25 and Family Development. This section expands on the literature on Indigenous Two-Spirit Youth of Canada, encounters with violence and the frameworks that support my argument. Lisa Monchalin is an Algonquin, Metis, Hurona and Scottish author and professor in the Department of Criminology at Kwantlen Polytechnic University (KPU), which addresses the treatment of Two-Spirit communities. Monchalin’s (2016) work titled The Colonial Problem explains the extent of violence induced by Indigenous youth ages sixteen to twenty-one in the criminal justice system due to increased recidivism amongst the age group. Many Two-Spirit communities encounter institutional violence through systems, including juvenile detention centres and foster care homes. According to Spade’s (2015) research, the concept of “state violence” is viewed as “essential for exposing the central harms faced by native people, women, people of color, people with disabilities, and immigrants” (2). Minority groups affected by state violence occur to vulnerable and marginalized groups. Literature expands on patterns and practices of subjection involving race and gender identity, “Native scholars and activists have shown how white European cultural norms determine everything from what property is to what gender and family structure should look like, and how every instance of the imposition of these norms has been used in the service of the genocide of indigenous people” (Spade 2015 5). The elements of race and gender identity are built on European sociocultural norms and ideologies to ensure and increase continued support. The common factor contributing to intergenerational and cultural trauma among youth is associated with the genocidal and violent events of colonization against First Nations, Métis, and Inuit youth and communities. Research literature addresses how youth in juvenile justice discuss “youth involvement in crime is due to the interaction of various risk factors related to engaging in risk-taking behaviours” (170). This risk-taking behaviour demonstrates how Two-Spirit youth are pre-exposed to multiple behaviours due to the consequences of colonial events and increased violence initiated by workers in blue uniforms (e.g., police officers). Monchalin (2016) describes violent, prejudicial, and disadvantageous events through US television and politics, including Canadian historical events such as genocide, abuse, and unjust treatment of Indigenous peoples. I see the potential for prejudice using 26 systemic violence against Indigenous children forced to endure by older white Catholic priests and nuns. The violence against Two-Spirit youth is a systemic neocolonial practice that targets vulnerable and marginalized groups based on race and gender (Monchalin 2016; Ristock et al. 2019). Although historically, gender nonbinary and nonconforming communities are known to be resilient and proud, the impact of European colonization, the disparagement of trans culture, and neoliberal structures and forces of Western-European societies affect trans liberation. Kai Cheng Thom (she/her) (2021), a Canadian writer, poet and arts from Toronto, who identifies as a nonbinary trans woman of colour, and whose area of study is sex education, trans and queer youth of colour, trauma-informed therapy, and somatic and family therapy (Thom 2021). Her (2021) work focuses on trans identities, and youth transition literature also supports Monchalin’s (2016) Two-Spirit communities continue to face scrutiny and acts of discrimination by neocolonialists, as the writer states: Gender-nonconforming, third gender, and Two-Spirit individuals have been recognized as artistically and spiritually gifted in many societies across the globe. Although the ravages of European colonization have worked to suppress this cultural knowledge in many communities, it remains alive and relevant today. The resilience and brilliance of trans people have a long and proud lineage, rooted in the ancestral memory of colonized peoples worldwide. (Thom 2021 102) This excerpt provides insight into the neocolonial influence on Two-Spirit communities and the entrenchment of oppressive ideals by imposing judgment, microaggressions, and matters of discrimination against Two-Spirit communities. Attacks of hatred against Two-Spirit, trans, gender nonbinary, and gender-conforming communities by settler colonial nations, generating political discourse on Indigenous queer studies, raising representation for neoliberalist settler values of maintaining the gendered dichotomy and control of groups that are subjects of vulnerable and marginalization backgrounds (Eng & Puar 2020). Queer and trans-Indigenous politics seek to decolonize debates on identity politics and traditional white-heterosexual norms. Settler colonialism on Canadian territory reminds many Indigenous nations of histories and contemporary colonial implications on life. Sherene Razack (2002) explains how: The Indigenous and racialised people who live there are always already cause and origins of violence (both in the figure of the racialised perpetrator and in that of the non-rapeable women of colour). Race, class, gender and colonial violence thus disappear and become utterly unremarkable, self-inflicted phenomena which naturally inhabit racialised bodies and their surroundings. (Haritaworn 136 2015) 27 This excerpt from Jin Haritaworn’s (2015) book titled Queer Lovers and Hateful Others details the roots of white European settler colonial violence against Indigenous persons. A queer of colour approach brings attention to the historical practices of racialization by white settlers through segregation, assimilation, and genocide of Indigenous Persons of Canada, including Two-Spirit youth of Canada (Stanley & Smith 2015; Dixon & Piepzna-Samarasinha). The literature on experiences of violence against Two-Spirit youth of Canada demonstrates how white settler colonialism induced intergenerational trauma, forcing many Indigenous nations such as First Nations, Métis, and Inuit to assimilate to white Western-European culture (clothing, food, entertainment, religion (e.g., Catholicism, Protestantism, and Anglicanism), educational system (Catholic residential schools), and colonial governance through enforcement of the Constitution Act (1982) (e.g., Aboriginal citizens and rights, treaty rights, Indian Act, etc.). The literature on Two-Spirit youth provides insight into white settler colonial societies and the specific types of violence they inflicted on First Nations, Métis, and Inuit communities of Canada. 2.3.3 I(B)POC: Black Queer and Trans Experiences This study includes the experiences of one Black (Puerto Rican-American) trans male participant from Illinois in the U.S. Research literature by Meyer (2012) contextualizes the discrimination projected by New York advocacy and support organizations against queer people based on their intersectional identity (e.g., race, gender, and class). Hate-motivated violence against lower-class queer of colour, specifically in the New York region, remains absent from studies on victimhood (Meyer 2012; Stryker 2008; Puar 2007). Even existing research literature on experiences with violence against queer people of colour tends to recount white, middle-class, lesbian and gay stories of victimhood. The disproportionate number of published white, middle-class, lesbian and gay men stories of victimhood, compared to queer of colour victims throughout queer of colour histories within the U.S. Also, in 2015, the White House hosted the LGBT pride parade for the first time in U.S. history with the hopes of, as Chen (2019) argues, “normalize relations between the state and queer and trans people, building on the normalized relations between the state and Black communities and communities of colour performed by Obama’s presidency” (138). However, the literature provides a deeper understanding of queer and trans of colour lives in 28 contemporary U.S. history, highlights that the reported number of trans people of colour murdered during the Obama presidency increased and continued to increase during the Trump presidency (Chen 2019). The hypocrisy in hosting a pride event at the White House without seeking to implement regulations that enforce the safety and enhance the efficiency in receiving justice for queer and trans people of colour whose lives are affected by the actions of right-leaning states, political figures, and news media networks that disproportionately influence American culture and societies and interprets the stories of trans people of colour. The history of white America, outlined in my literature review, continues to affect brownness and blackness. Muñoz (2020) explains the concepts of brownness and blackness, stating how “brownness is coexistent, affiliates, and intermeshes with blackness, Asianness, Indigenousness, and other terms that manifest descriptive force to render the particularities of various modes of striving in the world [...] brownness is the mode of knowing, the aesthetic rationality, that correlates with this ontological condition” (xxxi-xxxii). Brownness asserts a representation of brown as a representation of communities of colour. Brownness is a continuous unidentifiable state that is not reducible to small matter (Muñoz 2020). Brownness is symbolic of political empowerment and solidarity. Muñoz (2020) how brownness can appear as an intersection between race and nation, therefore: To brown America is to bring it down, [to] depress what is notably and nobly understood as White America, thereby staining it and dragging it to its limits. Even the philosopher of colors, Goethe, associated brown, a color he did not necessarily enjoy, with seriousness and melancholy. The sobering intensity of the disenfranchisement of minoritarian people in the United States is nothing less than browning the way we understand the misapplication and abuses of those suspended realities known as justice, democracy, and freedom. Here is the drama within the color brown: it is itself a mixture of yellow, red, and black--the iridescent reminder that we are in brownness and of brownness, here and now. (xxiv) Muñoz (2020) interprets how brownness characterizes Black and Brown Americans as “minoritarian subjects” through the sovereignty of white American Elitists/Extremist/Nationalist/Supremacist groups. Historically, brownness in the U.S. is a contemporary discourse interpreted by Western settler-colonial societies as a “threat to white purity” (Patterson 2023). A more descriptive scenario of colonial discourse on the binaries of whiteness versus brownness, and whereby Christopher B. Patterson (2023), in his 29 recently published article titled “Brown Theory: A Storied Manifest of Our World,” quotes Eng-Beng Lim (2014) who explains how “the colonial is a white man and the ‘native’ is a brown woman.” That the “native” was cast through the ethno-visual marker of brownness produced an ambiguous and fantasy-driven colonial subject, where brownness was always othered within binaries of “white/brown, man/boy, rational/exotic, clean/dirty, First World/Third World” (93). This scenario reflects postcolonial ideology, critically analyzing how colonial and imperialist practices affected contemporary political, cultural, societal, and economic structures within American Western settler-colonial societies. Although the stories of participants reflect, to a degree, this dynamic of white Americans versus ‘others’ (communities of colour), this dynamic resonates most with US-based participants who have grown up in white America and have directly encountered violence based on their intersecting identity, amplified by their physical characteristics. Muñoz (2020) points to the forty-fifth (former) U.S. President Donald J. Trump, who made a derogatory comment associated with migrants or asylum seekers from nations such as Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East in 2018 at an art exhibition called Mundos Alternos, held at the University of California (Riverside, CA). Incidents of violence against minority groups that are majority prompted by white communities, with some enacted upon by communities of colour. These incidents vary in the degree it affects Brown and Black subjects. Visible minority groups encounter prejudicial attacks and confrontations directed toward their intersectional identity, which creates more tension and risk for distress, harm, or (re)traumatization. Literature by Moraga & Anzaldúa (2021) expands on violent attacks against the race and gender identity of Black people. In a 1980’s interview with Barbara Smith and Beverly Smith, two Black feminists’ part of a Women’s Movement, had a goal to raise awareness around violence against Black women (Moraga & Anzaldúa 2021). In Beverly Smith’s interview transcript, she recounts how: This country is so racist that it is possible to take many, many things and concepts that have nothing to do with race and talk about them in racial terms. Because people are so dichotomized into either black or white, it defines a continuum. This is so strict and so overwhelming in refer to them racially. Therefore, Black people have the option of taking things--sexuality, behavior, 30 conflicts, whatever they don’t like--and saying, “That’s white.” [...] A real good example is suicide. Black people say, “Yeah, suicide is a white thing.”. (122) Often Black women are confronted by racial attacks based on their attitude, behaviour, and demeanour. Beverly Smith continues to detail how: Any behavior Black people say is despicable, they can disregard by saying this doesn’t belong to the Black community. There’s hardly a thing in this world in our experience that is not referred to being either Black or white, from animals on--people talking about “white dogs.” They weren’t talking about dogs that were white in color, they were talking about dogs that belonged to white people. (Moraga & Anzaldúa 2021 122) In Beverly’s response, she interprets how Black people compared to white people, are viewed as dogs, specifically, how these dogs were not white but belonged to white people. This interview demonstrates how Black women have historically strived for equitable and fair treatment from white communities. These recurring patterns within contemporary society continue to affect vulnerable and marginalized groups. 2.3.4 IB(POC): Queer and Trans People of Colour Experiences According to Muñoz (2020), queer of colour critiques sociocultural elements to disidentified historical materialistic entities outside of one’s field(s) of expertise (Ferguson 2004). Queer and trans of colour are susceptible to vulnerable and marginalized circumstances based on discrimination against the intersectional (e.g., race, gender, and class identity) identity of queers of colour within the U.S. Muñoz (2020) describes how Latino/a and queer communities are queers of colour through the interconnectedness of ‘mixing’ or ‘layering’ cultural identities and analysis of civil rights discourse. This connection between layers of experiences and their effect on Latinx lives is the role of memory. Muñoz (2020) incorporates the experiences of Luis Alfaro, a queer urban Chicano of the working class, and demonstrates how his queer of colour identity stems from views on intersecting worlds. In 2015, the White House hosted the first annual LGBT pride celebration with the hopes of, as Chen (2019) mentions, “normalize relations between the state and queer and trans people, building on the normalized relations between the state and Black communities and communities of colour performed by Obama’s presidency” (138). Many queer and trans people of colour that exist in contemporary America 31 are aware of American history and literature that affects their communities and understanding statistical details on the reported number of trans people of colour whose murders transpired during the Obama presidency increased and continued to increase during the Trump presidency (Chen 2019). Additional US-based literature provides insight and an example of queer of colour culture increasing risks of emotional distress affecting race and gender-based minority groups through microaggressions (e.g., attitude, behaviour, comments, questions, responses, etc.). Author and researcher Nia King (2016) provides details from one-on-one interviews with various scholars of colour regarding queer of colour experiences and where microaggressive behaviour is present, including King’s (2016) interview with Mimi Thi Nguyen, a punk artist, writer, editor, former columnist, and currently an Associate Professor in Gender and Women’s Studies and Asian American Studies at the University of Illinois. Nguyen shares responses to having read a column from a popular magazine called Maximum Rocknroll, composed by a male columnist who wrote about his curiosity and fetishization of Asian women: How he really loved Asian women, and then he made these jokes about how Asian women’s eyelids look like slants, and thus looked like vulvae, and then resurrected an old imperial joke about how he’s really curious whether Asian women’s vulvae were also slanted and horizontal. There’s a long history of imperial speculation about the bodies of racialized and colonized women being somehow “inhuman” and sexually distinct from white European women’s bodies. There’s also a long history of bodies of racialized and colonized women being seen as a source of disgust, but also a source of desire [...] The magazine did say, “no racism, no sexism, no homophobia,” but that column got published anyway. (King 2016 79-80) Nguyen had read the column during the early years of her undergraduate degree at nineteen years old. The racism that Nguyen encounters, particularly against Asian women, does not often find its belonging, acceptance, or validation and is deemed not a “real” encounter with racism (King 2016). The concept of “real racism” and what it entails is a common ideal for many left-leaning activists and movements to possess as a value to many white anti-imperialist and anti-colonial who invest in anti-capitalist politics (King 2016). Nguyen’s experiences with racism as an Asian woman demonstrate how easily queer people of colour experience in the U.S. specifically, targeting race and gender identities of East Asian communities, resulting in ongoing concerns associated with incidents of modern and contemporary racial 32 violence dismissed, deflected, and unacknowledged (King 2016). The literature on Asian American experiences of violence is valuable to this research as it provides perspective on how violence against Asian communities, specifically, East Asian groups and how a Westernized lens portrays violence. Violence against gender nonbinary people of colour often happens at the institutional level (e.g., correctional facilities, airport security, government personnel and agencies, etc.). Literature by Jasbir Puar (2007) includes a term she coined known as homonormativity, a concept that refers to systemic ideals and practices of heteronormativity (heterosexuality; gender binary) as the preferred mode of sexuality, targeting the gender nonbinary IBPOC communities (Puar 2007). Heteronormativity is a social norm that ostracizes vulnerable and marginalized groups who do not identify with the dominance of sexuality. Homonormativity has the power to affect many queers of colour, making some question their own identity, including gender, race, and sexuality (Puar 2007). Black and Brown bodies in Western-European societies have historically been inferior and labelled sexually nonconforming or a terrorist based on racial backgrounds, religious views, and nationality (Dixon & Piepzna-Samarasinha 2020; Puar 2007). My theoretical framework, including intersectionality, is undermined by the ideology of homonationalism, purposefully avoiding discussions concerning identity politics and the mobilization of queerness between the U.S. and the Middle East (Puar 2007). The most relevant contemporary example in U.S. history is the treatment of queer Muslims of colour. For Muslims, post 9/11 and the attacks on the twin towers. Violence targeting Muslims increased, specifically in the U.S., arrested by the U.S. government without a warrant, detained, and charged over 1200 people from Muslim-majority nations due to increased suspicion of terrorist activity and deported back to their homeland. (Chen 2019). The treatment of Muslims in the U.S. is like that of Mexican immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers who continue to attempt to flee the violence erupting in parts of Mexico. However, U.S. military and national security defence units are focused on law enforcing a specific agenda to sustain and protect American nationalism and exceptionalism by “identifying and removing “criminal” and “terrorist” noncitizens from the U.S. interior have made immigration and border enforcement synchronous with the U.S. national security, 33 military expansion and international diplomacy” (143). The protection in the lives of white Americans has demonstrated more significance and value than providing aid to the lives of queer people of colour. Under the Trump administration, people who identified as queer, Muslim, or practiced Islam, or as the administration interprets it to be “immigrants and refugees, Muslims, LGBTQ, and Black communities” (Dixon & Piepzna-Samarasinha 2020 167). The Trump administration and elite white heterosexual men labelling ‘Muslims’ specifically, Muslims from seven specific nations with the largest Muslim population yet deemed a potential threat to the homogeneity of U.S. nationalism. These countries are Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen (Greenberg 2021). The Trump administration conspired to target and attack Muslim groups. It is because of the Trump administration that members of targeted groups themselves expressed: Because Trump’s regime does not even pretend to represent us, we must organize to resist, defend ourselves, and transform our communities: county by county, town by town, city by city. It is imperative that we organize where we live, work, party, and pray in order to attract more people, build leadership, and make change in an arena that is within reach right now. (Dixon & Piepzna-Samarasinha 2020 168) The communities targeted by Trump’s regime are members of communities that are from historically vulnerable and marginalized backgrounds and have some form of exposure to violence (e.g., interpersonal, community-related, or institutional). Therefore, on January 27, 2017, the White House issued an Executive Order to protect the nation-state and all its entries into the country and terrorist activity (Greenberg 2021). According to research literature, “embracing the tone of the war on terror, the executive order (EO) signaled that foreign terrorism remained a significant threat to the nation. It brought to a complete halt entry from seven countries” (Greenberg 2021 168). The Executive Order on this decision regarding ‘foreign terrorism’ was fueled by Trump’s regime and the transfer of information compiled to compose this literature review, reassuring the need to fill in gaps in the literature on gender nonbinary IBPOC encounters with violence to support suggestions on potential policy recommendations. In the next chapter, my literature review will contribute to the research methodology and content analysis and highlight significant findings relating to the main themes and key concepts (e.g., violence, race, gender nonbinary, queerness, intersectionality, etc.). The assistance will help to interpret how 34 historical events, including the Stonewall riots and AIDS crisis, and contemporary events, such as increases in Two-Spirits violent encounters in a post (neo)colonialist Canada, queers of colour in the U.S., and the systemic practices of profiling gender nonbinary IBPOC throughout Western societies. 35 Chapter 3: Methodology 3.1 Chapter Summary This chapter introduces the research methods and procedures used to conduct storytelling sessions with participants through a decolonial feminist anti-oppressive approach to understand the cycle of oppression sustained by Western settler-colonial power and control (Quinless 2022). An anti-oppressive framework identified patterns from participants' responses and answered two research questions: How do gender nonbinary IBPOC perceive and understand violence? and how does violence affect gender nonbinary IBPOC interpersonal relationships (e.g., romantic, family and friends, community, and work)? 3.2 Research Design I conducted qualitative semi-structured one-on-one oral history storytelling interviews[sessions], allowed for tailoring questions to the research topic, generating context and understanding of the research topic and key themes, including gender-based violence; family and relations, workspaces and educational settings, Western settler-colonialism, microaggressions. Oral history storytelling sessions benefited from key characteristics, including cultivating authenticity and building trust between myself and participants to discuss key themes in-depth. Oral history storytelling sessions provided context into the emotions, thoughts, feelings, different perspectives, and participants' lived experiences (Creswell & Poth, 2018; Qu & Dumay, 2011). 3.3 Participant Criteria This study draws on an intersectional approach to participant recruitment and understanding the context of stories of gender nonbinary IBPOC encountering violence within Western settler-colonial society. This study benefited from an intersectional approach, which broadened the participant criteria. Participants of intersecting race, gender, sexual orientation, and class identities were encouraged to contact me by email. Inclusion Criteria: Participants met the following eligibility requirements (refer to Language Guide for an expanded version of the participant demographic criteria, outlining race and gender identities and types of violence. 36 a) Participants must identify as gender nonbinary. b) Participants must identify as either Indigenous, Black or a person of colour. c) Participants must meet the age group. d) Participants must have encountered violence. e) Participants must write, speak, and understand English. Exclusion Criteria: a) Individuals who are under eighteen years old and over twenty-five years old. b) Individuals who do not identify as Indigenous, Black or a person of color. c) Individuals who do not write, speak, or understand English. d) Individuals who suffer from chronic illnesses but are encouraged to participate while mitigating the potential risks of harm, distress, or death. e) Individuals who have not encountered violence. 3.4 Recruitment a) I hung Recruitment Poster (Appendix L) in coffee shops (e.g., Starbucks and Waves Coffee House) and community spaces (e.g., Davie Village in downtown Vancouver). b) Online posts were uploaded to social media platforms (Facebook and Instagram) with the required post description (Appendix G) to communicate the significance of securing participants’ personal identification information to ensure confidentiality and privacy. c) Recruitment Poster (Appendix L) posted to LEX, a queer dating/friendship/events app. d) List 1: Recruitment Contact List - Organizations, Groups & Programs e) List 2: Recruitment Contact List - University/Colleges and Academic Services This study intended to recruit up to twenty gender nonbinary IBPOC participants, but given the timeframe to complete my master’s program thesis research project, the PI made the executive decision to stop participant recruitment at four participants. 3.5 Sampling Approach The study used two sampling approaches to recruit participants for this research: convenience sampling and snowball sampling. Both sampling approaches were ideal for my research, which focused on individual stories of encountering violence within a western settler-colonial societal context. Convenience Sampling: 37 A non-probable sampling approach allowed me to recruit participants for a study seeking participants from a specific demographic to compose a sample group. Convenience sampling was an efficient demonstration of community engagement and cut costs on research-related expenses (Leavy 2017; Marshall 1996). The risk of relying on convenience sampling is the potential for “poor quality data and lack [...][of] intellectual credibility” (Marshall 1996 523). Although convenience sampling provides a sustainable and naturalized effect, it cannot guarantee the information gathered is accurate. The study avoided this risk by conducting qualitative semi-structured one-on-one oral history storytelling interviews. Snowball Sampling: A non-probable sampling approach encouraged participants to partake in the research recruitment process by uploading and posting the study poster and required post description to their social media platforms (Leavy 2017). This approach benefited the study by seeking study prospects through participant referrals of those interested in participating and met the participant recruitment criteria through the interest of others and people who know people (Creswell & Poth 2018). 3.6 Oral History All four participants chose an oral history storytelling format to recount their stories. Oral history required scheduling a one-time one-on-one semi-structured storytelling interview online over Zoom. I facilitated the information collection by asking participants follow-up questions using the study Session Guide (Appendix J). Oral history storytelling sessions were crucial to building rapport with participants beyond the surface of this project. I drew on the SHOWeD model, a method of questioning interviewees that allowed for more context and dialogue to understand the potential causal factors of participants’ stories of encountering violence (Breny & McMorrow 2021). Participants sent a list of professional resources to have on hand during their session. I referred to scholar Margaret Kovach’s (2009) work, Indigenous Methodologies, to inform this research and the participants’ of how oral history is a traditional, sacred, and culturally symbolic method of knowledge production amongst Indigenous Peoples of Canada (First Nations, Métis, Inuit) (Ristock et 38 al. 2019; Simpson 2017). I drew on Gregory Younging’s (2018) book to address the background, histories, cultures, and traditional context of Protocols of Oral Traditions under Indigenous Laws and the role of Elders, according to Principle 7: “Indigenous style recognizes the significance of Elders in the cultural integrity of Indigenous Peoples and as authentic sources of Indigenous cultural information. Indigenous style follows Protocols to observe respect for Elders” (37). This study refers to Younging’s (2018) literature to enhance the knowledge of participants and myself on the Traditional Knowledge and Oral Traditions. for participants felt safe in a race and gender-affirming space to tell their stories (Quinless 2022; Younging 2018). Oral history elicits a participatory approach to research and cultivated engagement in a mean-making through shared stories of encountering violence and the multi-faceted narratives that communicated vulnerability and empathy (Ghaziani & Brim 2019; Sheftel 2018; Simpson 2017; Sugiman 2009). 3.7 Photovoice This method of visual storytelling was an option for participants to represent their stories. Photovoice was a participatory approach, which would have allowed me to integrate different mediums and visual perspectives into participants’ storytelling sessions. I referred to Breny and McMorrow’s (2021) work as a go-to guide on photovoice, which mentioned that photovoice allowed participants to share their stories through a photographic medium with a brief description of each photo. Photovoice is an accessible, creative, adaptive, and expressive method that would have been suitable for a diverse range of participants, including individuals with disabilities (intellectual, deaf, mental illness, and sensory) (Ben-Moshe 2020; Ristock et al. 2019; Povee et al. 2014). 3.8 Participant Choice Participant choice would have allowed participants the agency to tell their stories through an artistic, abstract, and flexible style lens, which could have allowed the integration of different forms of storytelling. Participants would have had access to a wide range of mediums that included but were not limited to drawing, painting, poetry, a letter, or lyrics. These art forms would have provided a creative 39 outlet for participants to recount their stories (Ross 2017). Participant choice followed the same procedures as the photovoice method (Appendix J). 3.9 Information Collection Participants were notified by email regarding the research purpose. Those who were interested were encouraged to email the study team. Prospects received an Initial Contact Email Script (Appendix D). Participants received a formal Invitation Letter (Appendix E) to respond and confirm interest in this study. Participants were emailed a copy of the study Consent Form (Appendix A) and Risk Assessment Survey Form (Appendix C). All participants were obligated to complete a ten-minute self-completed risk assessment survey which evaluated the likelihood of risk for distress, harm, or death. Participants were required to read, fill out, review, sign, and save a copy of all documents for records and email a copy to the study team for their records. Once I received copies, participants were allowed to schedule a storytelling session. The PI oversaw this study in three ways: reviewed the research proposal, notified of all scheduled (date and time) storytelling sessions, and debriefed after each storytelling session. The storytelling sessions took place between December 2022 to March 2023. Participants chose their preferred method of communication, online over Zoom or phone. All four storytelling sessions occurred online over Zoom with a licensed UBC account, providing participants with confidentiality, privacy, and information security (Breny & McMorrow 2021). All storytelling sessions were audio recorded, along with handwritten notes with participants’ written and verbal consent. Participants were informed to find a private room to ensure their personal information was kept confidential and account for aspects of a location such as spaces/environments, settings, convenience, accessibility, degree of privacy (not being overheard by a third party), safety, and comfort to help determine the best location to discuss personal stories (Leavy 2017; Reid et al. 2017). All participants received a $50 VISA gift card by post as an honorarium. 40 3.10 Information Analysis I interpreted participants' storytelling sessions through exploratory and explanatory approaches to identify key themes, concepts, and characteristics from each participant’s storytelling session transcripts. An exploratory approach to analyzing information collected helped identify and compile a list of key characteristics from participants’ including demographic details, which mainly focused on interpersonal and collective violence. The intersections of race and gender identities, interpersonal familial and relationships with colleagues, classmates, and broader communities (Reid et al. 2017). An assessment of emerging patterns of information that could contribute to the research findings. An explanatory approach to analyzing information helped identify and explain key themes and concepts that emerged from the list of key characteristics (Reid et al. 2017). This approach analyzed evidence-based research and theoretical debates to understand the significance behind research findings and explain how they affected the participants (Reid et al. 2017). My theoretical framework, including intersectionality, queer of colour, and trans of colour critique, supported the interpretation of the participants’ stories who belong to communities of intersectional identities. I transferred all audio recordings securely by USB from the handheld audio recorder to a personal password-protected and encrypted computer. I transcribed all audio files using desktop transcription software immediately after each storytelling session. I read participants' oral history session transcripts multiple times. A two-step coding process (open and closed coding) was used to provide descriptive codes used to transcribe each storytelling session and then logged onto spreadsheets to help organize key findings, audio files, participant Consent Forms (Appendix A), spreadsheets, handwritten notes, and pseudonyms were copied and saved. The coding process included taking the information collection and reducing large amounts of insignificant and inapplicable information to the research findings (Baker & Lucas 2017; Reid et al. 2017). The study theoretical framework allowed easier access for participants’ curiosity to explore their stories of encountering violence and emphasizing the acquired insight into the lives of gender nonbinary IBPOC and pushed for social change by suggesting potential cultural recommendations instead of policy 41 recommendations on current Canadian legislation, which can help restrict the treatment towards gender nonbinary IBPOC. The stories collected from participants answered both research questions. 3.11 Positionality I identify as a disabled queer of colour, age twenty-five, and have stories of encountering violence. To avoid the potential for misrepresentation, biases, and shifts in power dynamics between participants and myself, a safe, equitable, non-judgmental space was provided, which allowed for a consensual exchange of participants’ stories of encountering violence (Kovach 2009; Sugiman 2009). As Co-Investigator (Co-I), I was aware of positions of ‘insiderness’ as a queer person of colour. This insider positionality provided space to share personal stories with participants and build trust with them (Reid et al. 2017). The participants encountering violence provided context, clarity, and enhanced understanding of contemporary forms of violence as self-identified gender nonbinary IBPOC. The attribute of My insiderness as a graduate student provided me with knowledge of higher educational institutes founded by Western settler-colonial practices of structural power and control (Leavy 2017). I was aware of positions of my ‘outsiderness’ as a graduate student with a privileged opportunity to conduct graduate-level research with members of my community (Khan 2005). I ensured participants that students, faculty, and staff who work or study at the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice at UBC strive to dismantle and decolonize western settler-colonial practices within academia as it is determined to be a factor of the “academic-industrial complex” (AIC) (Spade 2015). The AIC is a higher education system with specific ideologies and hierarchies, reflecting a cultural divide. The attributes of outsiderness as a graduate student enabled these considerations regarding personal positionality. 42 3.12 Ethical Considerations This study is a medium-risk research project. The participants in this study were not susceptible to vulnerability, poor health outcomes, discrimination, no exposure to vulnerable and marginalized treatment, or risks beyond what participants may encounter in daily life. This research accounts for sensible language to foster a safe environment for participants to discuss their stories. I referred to the Course-Based Research Project Application Guidelines (2019) while completing the study research ethics application. All participants had a choice of a word/term to use if not violence. All participants understood and agreed to the ethical considerations of the study before consenting to participate. There are four primary ethical considerations, including 1) confidentiality; 2) voluntary participation; 3) avoiding retraumatization, and 4) information security. I consulted with Dr. Tara Lyons, Chair of Kwantlen Polytechnic University Research Ethics Board. I consulted with the UBC Behavioural Research Ethics Board Review Coordinator and ensured the research ethics application met the requirements for ethics approval. All participants’, the PI, and I were well-informed and adhered to ethical research guidelines before receiving participants’ consent. All participants received an honorarium by post in the form of a $50 VISA gift card. 3.12.1 Confidentiality The confidentiality of all participants was essential to carrying out research that involved humans to avoid any potential risk of harm or suicide. The establishment of participant confidentiality was through building trust before signing the study Consent Form (Appendix A) via email when exchanging study forms (e.g., Initial Contact Email (Appendix D), Invitation Letter (Appendix E), and Risk Assessment Survey Form (Appendix C). I read the study Verbal Consent Script (Appendix B) to participants. All participants chose their preferred pseudonyms to secure their privacy. The UBC Office of Research Ethics website covers policies and standard operating procedures (SOP) according to section 700 of UBC SOP involving human subjects in subsection 701: Informed Consent Form Requirements and Documentation 43 (2018). Section 4.1.2 of the SOP 701 states that “the REB will review the proposed Consent Form (Appendix A) to ensure that it contains adequate information to safeguard the privacy and confidentiality of research participants” (2018 2). Some ethical considerations of this study included a Consent Form (Appendix A) that participants were required to read and provide their written signatures before participating. The signed consent form secured participant information on a password-protected and encrypted computer. All electronic and handwritten notes from storytelling sessions were recorded and stored in the key lock office of the PI at the UBC campus (Vancouver), allowed the PI and I access to participants' personal identification information. 3.12.2 Voluntary Participation This study enforced participants' voluntary participation through a Verbal Consent Script (Appendix B) and written Consent Form (Appendix A). All participants were aware of their right to withdraw from the study at any time without any negative consequences. A UBC BREB statement included in the consent form communicated voluntary participation and outlined measures implemented to avoid manipulation and coercion. These requirements allowed participants to be well-informed of their role as participants. 3.12.3 Avoiding Retraumatization Gender Nonbinary IBPOC is susceptible to vulnerability and marginalization by UBC’s BREB. This study ensured all participants were aware of their potential for retraumatization and their right to withdraw at any time without any negative consequences. All participants, the PI, and I understood and adhered to the ethical research guidelines. This study avoided participant retraumatization by implementing measures including: a. A caution symbol and content warning sign were on the Recruitment Poster (Appendix L). a) Another measure was asserting participants’ read the Consent Form (Appendix A) and posed questions or addressed concerns about the study or their role as a participant. b) All participants were required to complete a Risk Assessment Survey Form (Appendix C) to determine whether participants were a good fit to participate. c) All participants received a document from Professional Sources (Appendix K). 44 d) All participants asked to be informed of the study results once uploaded and available online through the UBC cIRcle research database. If the participant said yes, my email intended to include a link to the study results. 3.12.4 Information Security All participants' personal identification information remained confidential in many ways. My primary method of information security was for both parties to sign a digital copy of the study Consent Form (Appendix A). All participants provided written consent by signature followed by a verbal consent script. I read the Verbal Consent Script (Appendix B) out loud to participants and retrieved their verbal consent. All emails regarding participant personal identification information and consent forms were secure through the UBC email accounts of the study team, where documents stored in a separate folder, including contact information such as participants’ full name, address, and pseudonym, were not used or released. I transferred audio files from the handheld audio recording device to a personal password-protected and encrypted computer using a USB. I transcribed audio files and recorded details onto spreadsheets to organize the information collected. A master list of codes included key themes, concepts, words, and patterns that emerged from participants’ storytelling session transcripts, which were transferred indefinitely to the password-protected computer of the PI using UBC encrypted email. The PI must retain copies of electronic transcriptions for a minimum of five years following the completion of the project. The PI stored transcripts on their password-protected and encrypted computer and kept hard copies of transcripts in a locked cabinet in the key lock office of the PI at the UBC Vancouver campus. The PI disposed of research materials, including all audio files, handwritten and electronic notes, photos, pseudonyms, electronic notes, electronic consent forms, and information on memory sticks, by wiping all content from the PI and my password-protected and encrypted computers. I used the shredder in the main office of my department at the UBC Vancouver campus to destroy all hard copies of participants’ personal identification information. 45 Chapter 4: Findings 4.1 Chapter Summary The study findings show from four oral history storytelling sessions with participants who identified as gender nonbinary Indigenous, Black and people of colour (IBPOC) and experienced violence. I began each participant's oral history storytelling sessions by asking a general question on personal safety: how would you know if you are safe or unsafe? I asked women as a Senior Crisis Line and Intake Volunteer for a non-profit and violence against women organization called Battered Women Support Services (BWSS). A Session Guide (Appendix J) guided each participant's oral history storytelling session. These follow-up questions enabled participants to provide insight into participants' stories, which contributed to answering both research questions. Participants disclosed their gender identities: The first participant identified as gender neutral/non-gender affirming. The second participant identified as nonbinary/trans. The third participant identified as a trans mask/nonbinary/left-of-centre leaning. The fourth participant identified as nonbinary. Participants indicate their racial identities: The first participant identified as Indigenous (not specified), Black (Somalian), and a person of colour (Middle Eastern). The second participant identified as Black (Puerto Rican American). The third participant identified as Indigenous (Métis). The fourth participant identified as a person of colour (South Asian-European). All four participants encountered interpersonal and collective violence. One participant had encounters with interpersonal, self-directed, and collective violence. This study identified four key themes from participants’ storytelling sessions: microaggressions, gender-based violence, family and relations, educational settings and workspaces. The key themes interpreted from the transcript of each storytelling session supported by gender nonbinary IBPOC encounters with violence in both Canada and the U.S. The socio-demographics for this study provided evidence from each storytelling session through dialogue. I indicate the depth, frequency, and extent of participant encounters with violence. 46 4.2 Socio-Demographics All four participants' stories of encountering violence informed this study by responding to both research questions on how participants perceived and understood their stories of violence as gender nonbinary IBPOC. The findings from this study address the impact on participants' relationships (e.g., friendships, family, intimate partner(s) or colleagues and supervisors) and the influence of participants' unique intersecting identities on their stories of encountering violence. All participants chose their preferred pseudonym/alias: Participant 1 (Yusef), Participant 2 (P2), Participant 3 (Alistair), and Participant 4 (Alex). My study results demonstrate challenges associated with members of intersectional identity groups encountering systemic violence against race/ethnic and gender identity. 4.3 Participants Stories 4.3.1 Participant #1: Yusef The first participant goes by the name Yusef (he/him) and identifies as gender neutral/non-gender affirming, Indigenous (not specified), Black (Somalian), and a person of colour (Middle Eastern), aged nineteen, from British Columbia, Canada. Yusef’s cultural background is associated with Brown (South-Asian) culture and religious ideals stemming from Islam. Yusef encountered two of three forms of violence: interpersonal and collective. Yusef provides details of encounters confronting challenges with their mother and family (mother, neglect, emotional abuse, culture, and religion) and white Western settler-colonialism (foster care and the child welfare system). I interpret Yusef’s encounters with violence to find any potential external influences that contributed to his encounters. Personal Safety Question: When Yusef was asked, “how would you know if you’re safe or unsafe? He replied: [00:03:25] Yusef: You're safe when, you don't really have any concerns that you're in harm's way or anything like that. When you're, safe, it's kind of like you don't have to be so paranoid that you're going out. [00:03:48] Yusef: Whereas when you’re unsafe. It's like you don't know someone, you don't trust someone, and chances are you are usually in an unfamiliar environment with people who likely are closest to you, like your parents, your siblings, your partner(s). For me, I've never experienced “domestic violence”, but I have experienced violence 47 such as child abuse and teachers at school used to hit me, and institutional violence in that sense. Yusef’s response to personal safety contributes to the collective understanding and interpretation of multifaceted encounters with violence influenced by his intersecting identities. The following section provides insight into Yusef’s experiences by integrating segments of dialogue from his oral history session and interpreting with the support of my theoretical framework and literature review. Interpersonal Violence Yusef speaks about past experiences with interpersonal and collective violence, including incidents of child abuse inflicted by his mother and the Ministry of Children and Family Development (MCFD). Yusef helplessly endured repeated emotional and physical violence as a child by his biological mother, government personnel, and social workers resulting in challenges in creating and maintaining relationships, friendships, and community connections. The most persistent and influential factor for violence in Yusef’s life is his mother and the Western settler-colonial systems of power and control that he faced growing up at home and within British Columbia’s (B.C.) foster care system. The following segments are key moments through the duration of Yusef’s oral history storytelling session, which took place remotely and online via Zoom, where he shared stories of encountering violence caused by his emotionally abusive mother, foster care staff, and the stress accumulated over time due interpersonal and social barriers. Yusef begins by addressing challenges with interpersonal relations, specifically with his mother: [00:05:51] Yusef: I’ve faced violence in foster homes and even in my own home, like my mom would hit me sometimes, by sometimes, I mean like a lot. She would just get really angry, and she would have unhealthy ways of managing her anger. My mom is Muslim, and so, basically [...] she’s always trying to dictate things for me. I honestly don’t talk to her because she made things very difficult when I was growing up. She wasn’t really, she kind of lacked nurturing. Yusef’s mother’s religious ideals influenced his childhood and his ability to develop social relationships. Yusef’s queer of colour identity factors into how he encounters violence from his biological family and foster home. I can relate to Yusef’s stories based on shared cultural practices, customs, and religious 48 ideals and values that have heavily influenced our childhood encounters by impacting areas of our lives such as forming friendships and relationships due to being sheltered, interpersonal communication skills, and intellectual development. The enforcement of cultural values, religious constructs and the power and control of matriarchal households increased encounters with emotional abuse influenced how we navigate life as adults. Yusef adds to the abuse endured by his mother: [00:06:36] Yusef: My mom is [...] emotionally abusive and she doesn't have proper ways of expressing her anger [...] she just did a lot of things that are not age appropriate. [00:11:14] Yusef: People talk about, you know, “why don't you talk to your mother?” she's your mother. [00:11:19] Yusef: I'm big on chosen family, and just because we have the same last name, it doesn't mean that I have to consider her as my mother. Cause she's not really a good parent. [00:11:52] Co-I: Do you feel like she brings you down? [00:12:01] Yusef: She finds every reason to put me down. [00:12:31] Yusef: It affects me mentally and it affects me and other relationships I have because those who were close to me [...] I never was able to trust, and this is between foster families, professionals, and then, obviously my own family. Sometimes I just really have to be careful of who I trust and who I involve myself with. People talk about how lonely it is living alone, and I'm just like, you should try it. [00:13:09] Yusef: Nobody likes me anyways [...] I think that I'm at peace being by myself because when I was growing up, you know, I really struggled being around kids my age because of my mom, she never really let me talk to other kids. She always wanted me home after school. She never really allowed me a social opportunity. I moved around a lot while I was growing up. It was still difficult to maintain any of that, and so eventually I just kind of never tried. Like I have a few close friends, but it took a while. [00:20:05] Yusef: My mom is always trying to dictate things for me, and [...] I don't talk to her because she made things very difficult when I was growing up. [00:20:37] Yusef: She kind of lacked nurturing. She kind of lacked, like the good role model-type. People think like, “oh, you know, she's your mom and she's, you are so crazy and always upsetting her”. She does not make it easy to be around her. I made every attempt possible to have a good family life, but she made me not want it anymore. I can't be made to want it. [00:22:44] Yusef: I always wanted to be everything that my mom’s not [...] my mom is not very forgiving, so I try to be forgiving. And for her it’s just very contradictory because she does not deserve my friendship [...] she doesn’t deserve me as a son. 49 [00:23:14] Yusef: She’s caused a lot of violence in my life. She’s wrecked relationships for me. I mean, friendships, like, she would tell parents that, I would do crazy things and that, I would lie and steal. She would talk about all these untrue things. And so, it’s like, honestly, a factor of why I don’t have friends, and a factor why I don’t want friends. In that sense, she’s caused a lot of physical, emotional violence and neglect for me. Childhood experiences and interactions take a toll on a child’s brain and social development skills from a young age. To support the development of interpersonal skills and relations, emotion regulation, coping with stress, rational thinking, and problem-solving (Monchalin 2016). Monchalin (2016) explains how the early stages for Indigenous children are crucial for forming relations with family members, extended families, and co-existing communities. Similarly, a US-based randomized research project with a sample of 400 women from the New York area was either low-income, unmarried or under nineteen years old. The study included nurses who “provided mothers with information on the health and development of the children and helped the mothers cultivate supportive relationships with friends and family and link to essential health and human services [...] it suggests that a supportive environment can reduce their children’s risk of suffering early childhood trauma, which could increase susceptibility to crime” (Monchalin 2016 167). However, the history of residential schools and the Canadian government’s history of abuse and handling, including the extraction of Indigenous children from their homes and family, assimilating them into Western-European culture by instilling rigorous cultural practices on Indigenous children, and gradually ‘removing the Indian from the child’ (Monchalin 2016; Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada 2015). The removal of Indigenous identity from children and Western as possible by assimilation through apparel, language, and coercion of practicing faith and upholding Christian values. The assimilation of Indigenous youth to Western socio-cultural practices of Western institutionalized religious values that are closely linked to the roots of Christianity in Canada and thus disregards the significance of using Indigenous stolen land by white settlers for their benefit to divide and conquer. The family was a re-emerging theme amongst most participants' stories. As mentioned in the previous section, Yusef is a big advocate for “chosen family” and discusses the events throughout his upbringing that influenced his view on family and relations. Yusef's childhood and the type of parenting 50 practices displayed by his mother provide insight into how aspects such as race/ethnic identity, religious upbringing, and multicultural implications have heavily influenced his social life in cultivating friendships, familial bonds, long-term relationships, and community connections. Yusef recounts how his intersectional background challenges and imposes on his values, beliefs, and ability to reconnect with his roots and relations. Yusef points out the following regarding family and relations: [00:17:12] Yusef: …Brown parents are just… [...] this is gonna sound so racist, but you can't tell me I'm wrong. Like there's a generational gap, so it's quite a challenge. [00:17:24] Co-I: Oh yeah. My aunt, who identifies as a trans woman, grew up as a gay male of colour with a very practicing Muslim mother, so my grandmother doesn't have that relationship with her daughter because of religious values. [00:17:45] Yusef: Yeah, that generational gap and like not wanting and having religion get in the way of understanding, her identity kind of thing. [00:18:51] Yusef: Some families are just much more stubborn than others. But it's still like, why must people dictate your life, you know? Yusef’s family maintained strong religious and cultural values. As a (non-practicing) Muslim, I understood, to a degree, his encounters in a space that many children deemed as a safe space. However, his encounters within the home were everything but safe and accepting. It was a hostile environment for him, which eventually led him to the involvement of MCFD and entering foster care. Yusef’s encounter with interpersonal violence demonstrates patterns of emotional and physical abuse perpetrated by his mother and caregiver and the handling of foster children by Western setter-colonial government agencies that have historically been known to be abusive towards Indigenous youth (Monchalin 2016). The analysis of Yusef’s encountering violence included but was not limited to interpersonal violence caused by his biological mother, British Columbia’s social services, and the foster care system’s abandonment/neglect, hostility, bullying and harassment, physical abuse, denial of self-worth, and the use of foul language. The interpersonal violence that Yusef experienced as a child intertwines with his experiences of institutional violence. 51 Collective Violence Yusef describes the time spent in B.C.’s foster care system since the age of sixteen. He explains the violence he endured from teachers and staff as a young child in foster care. He digs deep into extrapolating the historical and contemporary treatment of Indigenous communities across Canada and the reinforcement of residential school practices. [00:03:48] Yusef: When I was growing up, I was in and out of foster care a lot. I used to get beaten a lot while in foster care, which is illegal, but you know, people just do what they want [...] I think when you're in and out of foster care, it kind of seems like you're really estranged from your family and stuff. To expand on institutional/collective violence, Yusef’s initial encounters with the child welfare system are like what Sara Ahmed (2021) takes a closer look into institutional experiences in her book, titled Complaint! Ahmed (2021) incorporates the encounters of a postgraduate student in an educational setting that quickly becomes an unsafe and hostile environment for members of marginalized groups. She states: The atmosphere [...] was really oppressive. It was the cultural shift I recognize as I came through the doors. There was a lot of touching going on, shoulder rubs and knee pats. I was the dialogue. They were making jokes, jokes that were horrific. They were doing it in a very small space in front of staff, and nobody was saying anything [...] It felt really disconnected, the way I felt about the way they were behaving and the way everybody else was laughing [...] You start to stand out in that way; you are just not playing along. (Ahmed 2021 122-123) This excerpt interprets how intrusive institutionalized spaces can be for many folks of marginalized groups. It communicates how when a visible minority confronts, complains, or poses questions, other students, instructors, and staff are prone to immediately resorting to responses that are microaggressive and demonstrate defensiveness, denial, and ignorance, revealing the extent of their bigotry towards groups that are Othered by the dominating narrative of the Oppressor (also known as white settler-colonial mentality displayed through racial and gendered hierarchies of power and privilege) (Moraga & Anzaldúa 2015). Yusef adds to his stories of encountering violence inflicted by the foster care system. [00:05:42] Yusef: Sometimes when kids are in a small town, or sometimes when a kids' home life is different, or when you notice changes in kids, people’s behaviour really, it’s stressful, especially because it’s something I’ve always liked, been embarrassed about to tell other people. 52 [00:06:36] Yusef: In foster care, they have like group homes. They have different residential spaces for kids and youth in their care. I’ve always been in a foster home up until I was sixteen. I ended up going to a group home for the first time, I was really nervous. The staff there used to hit me sometimes. It would happen every once in a blue moon. I never really said anything because you know, the Ministry of Children and Family Development [MCFD] didn't really have a lot of places to put kids. [00:07:03] Yusef: I only stayed for about two months, and then I requested a social worker and then from that point on I went onto an independent living contract. So, I got to live alone. Yusef's stories of encountering violence focused on emotional abuse and moments of physical abuse. Yusef endured emotional abuse as a child by his mother in a domestic setting, but also by foster care staff working with vulnerable and marginalized youth. Within B.C.’s child welfare system, Yusef encountered emotional abuse through neglect and abandonment. Yusef’s experiences in foster care inform my study of how state-induced violence affects youth. A queer of colour approach interprets Yusef’s encounters with violence through family dissolution as an effective measure to eradicate marginalized queer people of colour (Stanley 2021; Chen 2019; Stanley & Smith 2015). Spade (2015) explains the concept of family dissolution, stating: Black people. Indigenous People, people with disabilities, queer and trans people, prisoners, and poor people are targeted in child welfare systems. Seeking “family recognition” rights through marriage, therefore, means seeking such rights only for queer and trans people who can actually expect to be protected by family law and child welfare systems. Since the availability of marriage does not protect straight people of colour, poor people, Indigenous People, prisoners, or people with disabilities from having their families torn apart by child welfare systems. (31) Queer and trans youth of colour often are judged and forced to disclose their nonconforming identities in spaces that are to be neutral such as courtrooms (Stanley 2021). Instead, many queer and trans youth of intersectional identities are targeted under the jurisdiction of settler-colonial systems of power and control because of status offences (e.g., running away, breaking laws, consumption of drugs and alcohol, etc.) (Stanley 2021). Furthermore, Yusef explains how state officials working for the childcare welfare system demonstrated hostile behaviour: [00:07:49] Yusef: Small things like, you know, emotional abuse and neglect, when my mom would get mad and people would get mad, even professionals, like social workers, teachers at school when they would get mad, they would just suddenly stop talking to me. 53 [00:08:10] Yusef: I would keep being like, “why are you not talking to me? Hello? I'm still here”. So, sometimes they would deliberately ignore me, and that is a form of emotional abuse where it's like I'm not physically present to them and I'm not actually there. Unless you know, they're happy with me. It seemed like sometimes the minute I upset them, I'm no longer liked, they disown me basically, which is really abusive. The emotional abuse Yusef endured in foster care communicates the disregard for his presence, concerns, and needs. Yusef’s experiences are like what Spade’s (2015) literature details about how many queer and trans people of colour are in situations whereby the “state and systemic responses to violence, including the criminal legal system and child welfare agencies, not only fail to advance individual and collective justice but also condone and perpetuate cycles of violence” (115). Spade (2015) addresses the lack of recognition and accountability for the abuse within state-ruined systems such as the child welfare system. The prevalence of family violence within South Asian (also known as Brown) households is a known but highly unlikely to be spoken about due to influencing aspects of pride, ego, shame, and guilt (Gopinath 2005). Yusef and I are non-practicing but grew up in practicing Muslim households influenced by South Asian and Middle Eastern cultures. Many encounters of violence for queer/trans youth of colour occur within the home, as understood by Yusef’s experiences, which Amita Swadhin’s recounts, through her encounters with domestic abuse in Dixon and Piepzna-Samarasinha (2020) book. Amita describes traumatizing experiences from her childhood, for example: My mother “called a therapist for me, and the therapist called the New Jersey Division of Youth and Family Services. Mandated reporting. It was a total nightmare [...] Instead I got the state: two white social workers in my living room [...] a white female police officer who was icy cold; two white prosecutors, one who threatened to prosecute my mother for being complicit in my abuse. I didn’t feel safe enough to tell white people anything (80) Although Amrita’s experiences of sexual and physical abuse are not fully aligned with Yusef’s encounters, aspects such as culture, family, and minimizing and denying a child’s emotions are commonalities between both individual stories. Most importantly, Yusef and Amrita share experiences with the involvement of white settler-colonial systems, such as family services and figures of violence, including law enforcement officials and legal teams (Dixon & Piepzna-Samarasinha 2020). Yusef also adds that the violence endured by his mother, but more specifically, settler-colonial systems as a youth in 54 state care, has affected his ability to form meaningful relations as an adult. Yusef expands on the result of experiencing emotional abuse: [00:10:03] Yusef: I try to distance myself from other people, I'm nineteen now and I still, try not to talk to people, it sucks but, honestly, I don't need to talk to others to feel happy. Yusef’s experiences with family, foster care, and settler-colonial violence faced as an Indigenous youth are the opposite of Indigenous teachings through a meaningful and sacred manner that includes families, communities, love, and support (Monchalin 2016; Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada 2015). Yusef’s childhood encounters of physical violence enacted upon him by his mother and foster care staff contributed to the environmental pressures on Indigenous youth that contribute to chemical alterations to a child's brain development. According to Gabor Maté, “maternal deprivation is directly linked to a ‘permanent decrease in the production of oxytocin’ (which he explains as being our ‘love’ chemical in the brain). Without experiencing loving attachments as children, people have difficulty forming intimate relationships later in life” (Monchalin 2016 166). Monchalin (2016) addresses the institutional brutality and historical treatment of Indigenous children's experiences and the development of attachment issues. Yusef’s stories on encountering violence as a gender-neutral/non-gender affirming Indigenous, Black and person of colour provide detailed insight into how gender nonbinary IBPOC encounter violence through family dynamics, personal attacks and emotional abuse from parents or guardians, but also how white Western settler-colonial induced violence is displayed by foster care staff. Yusef’s stories demonstrate the relevance of exposure to violence targeting intersecting identities from a young age and have inflicted experiences with childhood abuse and trauma, parenting tactics, communication and demonstration of love and care, which are also contributing factors that shape a child’s personality. 4.3.2. Participant #2: P2 The second participant goes by the pseudonym, Participant 2 (P2). Participant 2 (they/them/he) identifies as an androgynous/trans Black man, age twenty-five, from Illinois, in the U.S., and has encountered two forms of violence: interpersonal and institutional. Participant 2 provides details of experiences with 55 confronting challenges encapsulating the understanding of one’s identity (e.g., pronouns, intersectional identity), transition journey (e.g., hormone replacement therapy (HRT), gender dysphoria, misgendering, etc.), family and relations (e.g., family understanding and acceptance, and locating supportive communities), workspace, and educational settings). I will analyze Participant 2’s encounters with violence to examine if there are further potential external influential factors that could affect their life. Personal Safety Question: When Participant 2 was asked, “how would you know if you’re safe or unsafe? They replied: [00:00:23] P2: When I think about safety, I probably think about it in terms of a physical kind of violence that's very kind of red flag-ish. [00:00:35] P2: I think about maybe like safety as in like the discomfort of not knowing for sure how someone feels about you. I would define a safe environment as where I feel free to be myself. It can vary depending on how comfortable you are in which environment, but like, comfortable to be yourself and you don't feel like someone is going to be disrespectful or physically violent to you. [00:01:11] P2: I guess unsafe would be like the opposite of that? I was thinking about this initially before, like, when I was thinking about violence, I was thinking only about physical violence, but I started thinking of all the precursors to that and all the other types of violence. So, it kind of made me think a little more deeply about it. . Participant 2’s responses to the findings emerging from Alistair’s storytelling sessions are the influential aspects of spaces and environmental settings. For Alistair, feelings of comfort are based on when in a new environment and assessing the sense of safety and security. For Alistair, new spaces draw hesitancy when willfully stepping into new settings, with unfamiliar faces, unpredictable commentary and conversations, and unknown understanding and knowledge level of folks in a new space. Interpersonal Violence Participant 2’s oral history storytelling discusses his experiences with interpersonal violence are demonstrated primarily through microaggressions. These microaggressions are communicated through commentary, questions and responses, conversations and language, making choices and decisions, preferences and likings, attitudes and behaviours, and looks and gestures. All forms of microaggressions display a fundamental lack of understanding and knowledge in areas of race and gender identities, 56 transitioning (concept, scientific and medical background, processes and procedures, etc.) and minimization/diminishment or comparison of individual experiences with interpersonal violence. Participant 2 recounts significant moments since starting his transition in June/July 2022. I highlight signifying moments by presenting Participant 2’s oral history experiences with interpersonal violence through a scheduled oral history storytelling session that will be critically analyzed based on their interpersonal violence. [00:02:40] P2: I have to keep in mind, especially now as I'm transitioning more, that other people might be more likely to see me as a Black man, which is going to be interpreted differently as a Black woman in public and having to switch. If I dress more femininely, maybe I don't have to worry about that, but if I dress more androgynous or masculine than keeping in mind that other people might perceive me as “dangerous”. [00:03:31] P2: If I see like a woman walking by herself, then I'm across the street. Even though if someone might think that like I was a woman, it would be a different thing. So, thinking about that, was one thing. [00:07:04] P2: I think in some ways, being a part of a minority race has kind of helped with that. [00:08:00] P2: I would definitely say when I'm going into environments where you’re just kind of going cold in and not sure, um, I'm definitely more anxious and more guarded and maybe more likely to even, if I’m passing as a guy, then maybe I'll play up more like masculine stereotypes maybe. The stories surrounding Participant 2’s race and gender identities demonstrate their perception of interpersonal violence and how these encounters transpire in a public setting. Participant 2, who publicly presents themselves as an androgynous trans person of colour, is interpreted by Chen (2019) as a factor influenced by a dominant and normative narrative of white Western settler-colonial culture. A trans of colour critique analyzes how white settler societies in the U.S. are primary contributors to the reinforcement of historical practices of racialization and gender limitations, which Chen (2019) argues, is “a form of racial gender displacement and subjugation within radically different yet interrelated transnational U.S. histories and systems of genocide, captivity, colonization, and imperialism” (4-5). The history of Western-American society has demonstrated the enforcement of white cisgender identity and dominance and the practice of excluding all groups that fall outside the normative narrative, such as trans people of colour. Participant 2, who resides in the U.S., describes how the history of displacing racial and 57 gender minority groups became more apparent when starting hormone replacement therapy, which took effect on their emotional well-being and gender dysphoria. Participant 2 recounts specific thoughts and feelings throughout their transition: [00:12:02] P2: Personally, I didn't realize until I started testosterone that like I initially thought, okay, non-binary, like kind of androgynous, whatever. But now that I've started taking it and I'm leaning a little bit more to describe myself as a binary trans man, but in like a non-binary way. [00:12:39] P2: Realizing, and like taking that and just feeling much more like centered to my body and not as opposed to like a dissociative kind of feeling. [00:13:00] P2: I didn't realize until I took hormones, how disconnected I was from my body and looking at myself and like, viewing myself [...] and realizing that, is definitely a lot emotionally to take in to kind of realize [...] it can create more dysphoria for some people, which for me it kind of did sometimes. Those emotions come up when you are in your body in a way that's more authentic and realizing that. It can be kind of a lot. [00:13:42] P2: And then for me, testosterone kind of makes me more emotional sometimes. Like I feel like I cry more than before. So that was something that I wasn't expecting. [00:14:26] P2: I started [hormone replacement therapy, HRT.l] back in June or July. The original [...] dose that I started on was a little bit too high, so I got like really depressed. Um, but figuring out the dose is also something you got to do but figuring out the dose. I went from the unoriginal low dose to like half of that. After four months adding the original dose back on. [...] I forgot like there was an emotional state that you're in. I've written it out long enough now where I'm feeling more settled. Participant 2 speaks about identity and uncovering new emotional intensities and physiological changes. The increase in testosterone intake could potentially increase moments of gender dysphoria, a clinical disorder associated with feelings of dissociation differing per person. According to the most recent American Psychological Association’s (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) (2013), the term gender dysphoria refers to: An individual’s affective/cognitive discontent with the assigned gender and diagnostically as ‘a marked incongruence between one’s experienced/expressed gender and assigned gender, of at least 6 months’ duration, and has been made to readjust [...] Gender Dysphoria is distinctive in that it defines its use of terms, including the differences between sex, sexual, and gender, before providing diagnostic guidelines. (Chen 2019 41) Participant 2’s experiences with gender dysphoria demonstrate how influential the binary trait is on members of marginalized groups that identify with a gender identity beyond the gender binary 58 (male/female) (O’Keefe 2021). Experiences include recurring challenges with the use of pronouns among primary school students. Participant 2 provides details on frequent public interactions that implicate misgendering, interpreting a series of microaggressions targeting his gender identity: [00:03:51] P2: Similar to my journey with race and kind of sitting with all that, I'm noticing more microaggressions. Luckily, I haven't had any like physical, severe damage, but those microaggressions, like if someone is not calling you the right pronouns that you want to be called, if someone is constantly misgendering you and you're wondering like, do they actually see me as who I am or is that…and of course like everything that's online nowadays about like, discrediting who people are and everything else. Participant 2 provides details on the ongoing encounters with being misgendered. This example interprets the frequency and extremity to which these interactions occurred and the long-term psychological effects that misgendering gender nonbinary folks can have on Participant 2, who is transitioning. Many gender nonbinary folks in the stage of transitioning have an increased potential to experience being misgendered and could face long-term challenges with gender dysphoria (O’Keefe 2021). However, Participant 2 does not only experience gender dysphoria and a sense of belonging to communities susceptible to marginalization. [00:41:16] P2: I know people from like, the LGBT community wanted that connection, like that in-person connection and it was really hard [...] I guess it was like being isolated [...] I was living at home, it was definitely difficult sometimes to try and figure out some things about myself while being around people who like knew me differently. [00:42:19] P2: I pretty much always dressed in a kind of androgynous way, so I didn't change. I also still like some feminine clothes too. I haven't really changed a lot in that sense. I remember I did invest in a binder because sometimes, not as much now, but especially then, I had times where I would like, get so uncomfortable with, the fact that my chest was not flat. [00:48:49] P2: I think that anybody can try out pronouns and that's totally fine. But I sometimes wonder if people are just like, taking on an identity just to make a statement [...] It bothers me a little bit because some people, like this is their actual identity. They don't have the luxury of just like, “oh yeah, this is just, I'm making a statement, but if you say the wrong thing, it's not gonna offend me”. Like, I'm choosing these for a reason and then looking into like different genders, like in other parts of the world, and feeling and recognizing how colonial stuff kind of changed and made everything more binary. The significance of using pronouns for Participant 2 stems from aspects of fluidity it brings to their gender identity. Pronouns allowed Participant 2 the space to explore, learn, and understand different gender 59 identities that do not conform to the gender binary (male/female). Participant 2 adds to this discussion on how the challenges they face involving public portrayal of Black women and Black trans folks: [00:07:36] P2: I'm thinking about not just how people see me, but before it was like a Black woman, and then I've heard people even say that which I definitely can understand how, but that Black women aren't even considered women. It's another deviation of women, so coming from that experience to now, adding on Black, but also trans, but not in a binary way. [00:32:21] P2: Sometimes I think that in with some minorities, or I'm speaking for like with some Black people, um, not all obviously, but like with some, I've heard that, like people get upset when they're, like comparing LGBT struggles to Black struggles as if only white people can be in that community and then only Black people are in this community. [00:32:31] P2: I think people forget sometimes that there are Black people in this community even though you can't recognize all the struggles, but people talk about them, as if it's like white LGBT issues versus like Black issues as opposed to like there are minorities in this group too. Modern literature on Black feminism and intersectionality explains how Black women and Black feminists are more often than white women to be targeted by race and sex discrimination based on their intersectional identity (Nash 2019). Nash (2019) addresses the structural barriers within the legal system that works to support white women’s experiences of discrimination. Crenshaw mentions how Modern literature on Black feminism and intersectionality explain how Black women and Black feminists are more often than white women to be targeted by race and sex discrimination based on their intersectional identity (Nash 2019). Nash (2019) addresses the structural barriers within the legal system that works to support white women’s experiences of discrimination. Crenshaw mentions how “black women’s discrimination, experiences that can be --tough are not always-- constituted by the interplay of race and gender. In response to a set legal decision that obscured or wholly neglected black women's experiences of discrimination” (9). This act minimizes Black women's and feminists' experiences with violence, leaving their stories invisible and on the margins of contemporary society. This act minimizes Black women’s and feminists' experiences with violence, leaving their stories invisible and in the margins of contemporary society. 60 The encounters that Participant 2 faces with their identity and the type of distancing between multiple intersecting identities. Chandan Reddy’s (2011) interpretation of how the separation between intersecting identities can affect marginalized identities, including Participant 2. Research literature details how intersections of race, gender, and sexuality will most likely result in varying degrees of deviation from multiple identities, explaining: Deviate from those accounts that read in this figure the travails of black, white mixedness, of the American Negro, and cosmopolitan European cultures and communities, for example. Rather, we could say that Larsen’s mulatta represents--or more accurately, locates-- an unstable blackness that abruptly shifts, like the effects of grandiosity and shame, between the registers of the black Pacific and the black Atlantic, between black alienage and black citizenship, between the foreclosed conditions of possibility of US Atlantic modernity and an emerging black transatlantic that is the leading edge and the border of European global modernity’s national cultures. (Reddy 2011 97). This deviation from multiple intersecting identities is most common amongst Gender Nonbinary IBPOC used in the queer of colour examined how “Queer of Colour analysis extends women of colour feminism by investigating how intersecting racial, gender and sexual practices antagonize and/oral conspire with the normative investments of nation-states and capital” (Ferguson 2000 4). Sensations of pain and gender dysphoria often target Black lesbians such as Participant 2. Research literature mentions how Black matriarchy is the key factor in upholding the power and significance associated with Black lesbian feminism that corresponds with the cultural movement. However, the ideology and discourse of “Black matriarchy” is falsified and based on “assumptions that presumed hetero-patriarchal culture as the appropriate and regulatory norm (Ferguson 2000 123). A theme and concept that resurfaces throughout Participant 2’s oral history session is ‘family’. Participant 2 discusses some of the challenges encountered when having conversations with his family about his gender identity and transition. These challenges are articulated below, including familial understanding and sincere acceptance, multiple intersecting identities (e.g., race/ethnicity, culture, religion, nationality, etc.) can influence people's perception of ‘gender’. Participant 2 recounts experiences reflecting his gender identity and gender expressions, stating: [00:08:25] P2: I don’t personally wanna do like, I’ll try to make sure my voice is a little bit deeper. I'm playing to what I think a man should be. Even though that's not really me. Um, if 61 I'm around people, if I'm around my family that's a little bit of a challenge because I know they see me and accept me [...] but when they're getting used to like gender stuff, it's like feeling this distance and discomfort from your own family, because you want them to see you as who you are, but then when people who were previously been really close to you are not able to see you for who you are, it's just, like a distance of like, you don't see me. [00:33:26] P2: I remember, one family member getting really upset, like, “don't compare the two”. And I'm like, “I'm not? I'm not saying one's worse or anything. I'm just saying, both are struggles and they're both struggles that I'm kind of dealing with”. [00:46:11] P2: I'm still working on that with family, but like dating wise, it makes things harder, but then in some ways easier because I know that I'm only gonna, be with someone who can actually see me as who I am [...] It's more important for me that other people who are intimately close to my life get it, because I felt like I did have more of a need to explain myself before, especially with family. With family, I would think, but I'm thinking that now sometimes it's still kind of that, I need to explain [...] who I am. I've spent so many years in this body and it's like, transitioning is really hard. It's like I'm doing this for a reason and it's hard. I wouldn't just do this for fun. I wouldn't like change pronouns. Just like for the kick of it. [...] I'm doing all this, and like I don't have any, at a certain point I don't have the energy. It affects me a little sometimes, but other times it's just like I don't have the energy to explain myself, just believe me or like don't be in my life. The experiences of Participant 2 provide a glimpse into the challenges he encounters with his family. Most importantly, their encounters with family and the receptiveness of their gender identity and how it affects a Black and androgynous/trans/nonbinary individual in his transition journey. Participant 2’s experiences explain how interpersonal violence can take different forms, including passive-aggressive behaviour and microaggressions against him and many other genders nonbinary IBPOC, whose gender identity and gender expressions do not align with white western hetero constructs in maintaining proximity to the gender binary to observe and learn about microaggressions beyond the Western cultural scope on ‘gender’. Participant 2’s stories of encountering violence are self-identified gender nonbinary IBPOC, confronting various shifts in family dynamics and relations. The research literature on queer and trans of colour studies highlights the significance of ‘gender’ and ‘family’ as concepts that hold significant weight and support for many members of gender nonbinary IBPOC. Chen (2019) discusses the historical events 62 throughout trans of colour history and its ties to contemporary trans movements that disrupt the social norm to gain attention and reinforce the nuclear family structure. Research literature explains how: Gender nonconformity within the family structure disassembles and opens up family roles and positions to ambiguity, subversive chaos, and rescripting [...] the possibility of more expansive embodiments of gender, sexuality, and family that do not rely on biology’s scripting family roles (mother, father, and other as mutually exclusive), binary gender (female or male), and binary sexuality (hetero-or homosexuality). (Chen 2019 114). Research literature explains how even the slightest possibility of viewing sex and gender through a nonconventional lens and the image of a nuclear heterosexual family minimizes the experiences of gender nonbinary loved ones due to preconceived notions and cultural construction of ‘gender’ as a ‘white’ ordeal within western settler societies. A trans of colour critique analyzes Participant 2’s experiences, revealing how trans people of colour communities are subjugated to intersectional violence by people close to them, including family, solidifying the experiences on family relations and challenges recounted by Participant 2. Many gender-conforming folks, including the parents of Participant 2, discuss the historical parameters regarding trans people of colour. Chen (2019) explains how “transiting of gender by trans people of color has been shaped by white settler colonial histories and technologies of racial gender and sexual formation. This gender shifting also draws from reassembled cosmologies and lineages of embodiment, relation, desire, and belonging that exceed what can be extinguished by these histories and technologies” (7-8). This excerpt helps to explain how the American history of transgender communities made no effort to analyze racial and cisgender hierarchies and the impact that European colonialism has imprinted in Western culture and societies. Participant 2 highlights obstacles they experienced in their family home consisting of intersectional identities. They seek family approval, acceptance, and belonging with his transition. Participant 2 identifies himself as a member of intersectional identities (e.g., race/ethnicity, culture, religion, nationality, etc.) and can influence the perception of ‘gender’. Participant 2 reveals their family dynamic and household temperament, specifically concerning Black families/households and exploring gender identities and expressions outside of the gender binary (male or female) or the gender assigned at birth. 63 Participant 2 explains the challenges they faced when conversing with his family about his gender identity, gender expression, and transition. Participant] 2 discussed their choice to distance themselves from family. There were two participants' stories of encountering violence with Yusef and the third participant. According to Muñoz (2020), parents and guardians of queer people of colour often communicate the lack of significance in practicing to use of gender-inclusive language, titles, and use of preferred pronouns, “family can often be a place of conflict and potential violence, it is also one where ethnicity and cultural difference are produced and nurtured” (73) Queer people of colour must account for race, gender, class, and cultural identity, whereas, white queer communities are prevalent and normalized amongst white Western settler-colonial families. Participant 2’s interpersonal encounters target their identity, transition journey, and social relations, revealing the detrimental impacts of gender- and race-based violence through ongoing patterns of microaggressions and hostile/aggressive behaviour. Collective Violence Employment and academia are two spheres in which Participant 2 experiences microaggressions targeting their race and gender identity. The stories of Participant 2 encountering violence within a workspace's employment limitations impede them from attaining their desired profession in education. Participant 2 faces social and institutional barriers in academia, such as faculty and staff, on-campus facilities, department reputations, and more (Brim 2020; Ahmed 2021). Participant 2 has experience as a substitute teacher. They are passionate about teaching and working with youth. However, Participant 2 describes the reality of working with youth and the challenges and fears that arise when the potential outcomes of parents become involved. Parents who possess anti-trans beliefs and are concerned for their child’s well-being are in the vicinity of a trans-identifying and androgynous appearing substitute teacher. The following conversation with Participant 2 provides detailed insight into a workspace within an educational setting involving youth. [00:19:57] P2: There's some people who are like, “oh, just because you're Trans or LGBT like, "you're gonna be like a predator”. 64 [00:20:16] P2: I never wanna be alone in a room with a kid. I like, if a kid ever like hugged me, I'm making sure my arms, like hands are visible up high, being extra conscious of that. Its kind of one of the reasons why I'm no longer subbing. It was just like a lot to think about, especially with the little kids. [00:20:39] P2: If I was a long-term sub, and a kid goes home and tells their parents like, “oh, I have this trans person that's my teacher,” like this person without a gender or whatever, as my teacher [...] I don't know how the parents are gonna feel about that. Cause that was one reason why I left that [job]. [00:24:50] P2: It's not that I don’t enjoy working with kids. I just don't enjoy working with kids currently, while I like publicly transitioning, that's the part where it gets uncomfortable. [00:28:07] P2: But then also that worry of like, are people seeing me as how I wanna be seen? There's that layer of like anxiety around it. For me personally, mental health speaking, I'd have to find a work environment where I'm feeling like at least seen and respected. The stories of Participant 2 and their identity as a Black trans person of colour expressed awareness of concerns involving trans folks working with youth in an educational setting. Participant 2 stories about encounters within a workspace involving you stem from the social stigma of predominantly white cisgender settler societies that verbalize and demonstrate their stance on trans identities. The stigma around the preconceived ideologies of trans identities as being dangerous is running rampant in the U.S. in contemporary Western America, where parents of children who possess conservative ideologies around trans folks, result in the development of a moral panic concerning the trans identity and the community that Participant 2 identifies with and where they find a sense of belonging. The stories of Participant 2 encountering violence within an educational workspace is along the lines of a scenario that Ahmed (2021) interprets about public perception of trans people of colour, describing how “a trans student of color makes a complaint about sexual harassment and transphobic harassment from their supervisor, who keeps asking them deeply intrusive questions about their gender and genitals [...] Racist judgements are often about the location of danger “over there,” in a Brown or Black elsewhere. Transphobic judgments are often about the location of danger “in here,” in the body of the trans person: as if to be trans is to incite the violence against you” (160). This scenario reflects on 65 Participant 2 explains encountering violence within an educational setting of being misgendered and having been spoken to inappropriately by a white cisgender male professor they had for a graduate course. Participant 2 encounters potential trauma-inducing effects on their emotional and psychological well-being. [00:37:31] P2: In my graduate program. I did have one experience where a teacher, in my first-year, kind of used they/them pronouns. I was still kinda nervous about correcting people pronoun wise [...] This professor, seemed to be nice to me, but they would also call me the wrong, like ‘she’, instead of what I wanted to be called, which was ‘they’ then back then, but now it's they/he. [00:38:13] P2: I tried to make it super clear by putting it in my email signature and bringing up, like trans issues in class when the topic comes up in discussions, but they still, you know. The professor still was like, “she”, and then of course other people in the group thought that was what I should be called, even though I did introduce myself the first day of class with the pronouns I wanted. [00:38:39] P2: The last day of class, it was still like the time of masks. [...] I was eating something. So, I took my mask down for a second to eat it and put it back up when I was throwing out trash. The professor was like, “you're like, you know, really pretty?” or whatever “I never noticed before” or something like that. [00:39:06] P2: And it just like, I've never been looked at and talked to that way by, a professor, [00:39:14] P2: It was a lot to take in and to not be respected in either sense. Like in, like, even though I'm not a woman, I still like, really hold that experience of being a Black woman. So, like in, in that way it was like, like disrespectful in like that way. [00:39:37] P2: But now adding another layer of like being. Feeling that and almost like, kind of like, kind of unsafety in a way, like in like a gender and like sense. So it was just like a lot, and of course, I made a complaint. [00:39:56] P2: Like Title IX [...] they just kind of was like, oh, this, it shouldn't happen again, kind of thing. So, it's like, the only first major one that I've experienced. Participant 2 addresses this specific story of a white cisgender male professor who made an inappropriate and unexpected comment toward them during the first year of their graduate program. This scenario of encountering violence is like what Ahmed (2021) describes as stories of diversity work counteracting complaints made within institutions, which report increasing incidents of sexual harassment amongst students, faculty, and staff of colour by their white counterparts. For example, Ahmed (2021) interprets the idea of scholars that seek to develop new innovating ways to help better address, investigate, and 66 prevent incidents of sexual harassment, and expressing how they are “furious with administrators for protecting their institutional reputations instead of their students’ rights, survivors bypassed obstructionist deans, invented new strategies of collaboration, taught themselves Title IX” (23). This scenario is like Participant 2’s experience as those reviewing the complaints have demonstrated quick responses to complaints by acknowledging and addressing that such incidents will not occur again, and thus, dismissing the incident report. An intersectional approach to this incident of verbal sexual harassment targeted Participant 2’s gender identity expressing his admiration for their feminine-leaning traits as a Black nonbinary trans individual in their transition journey. Another story of encountering violence is that Participant 2 recounts their increased distress and anxiety when deciding what gendered bathroom to access, inducing gender dysphoria, before transitioning to gender-neutral facilities on campus. The stories of Participant 2 encountering violence within an educational setting are a precedent recurring pattern of gender dysphoria-induced experiences. The literature surrounding gender dysphoria explains the impact of dysphoria, explaining how “dysphoria is individuating--about how we feel on our own, in our bodies and about our being in the world” (Malatino 2022 103). [00:21:14] P2: Bathrooms are something I think about more. I feel like I'm not sure sometimes, because I can kind of look androgynous. I'm a little nervous to go into the men's room, but then I also don't wanna make people feel uncomfortable by going into the women's room. [00:21:35] P2: I still feel like I pass enough as a woman to not have people look at me. It’s just a lot more like thinking involved in that now. [00:22:38] P2: My program now, luckily, they have gender neutral bathrooms. They're al, small, so it's just like two floors. [...] It is annoying sometimes. Um, cause the gender neutral one is only on the 1st floor, so having to go up and down the stairs can be kind of annoying. [00:22:57] P2: I definitely like having the option of not having to think if I had to choose between the men's room or the women's room all the time. I feel like that would just be me having a mini exponential crisis every single day, which I don't wanna do. So, it's helpful to like, not think about it. 67 The lack of gender-neutral bathrooms in post-secondary institutions continues to be an ongoing matter. Participant 2 confronts this barrier on what gender-based (male or female) bathroom is most appropriate and safe to use before he can walk into the bathroom without having thoughts of fear of judgement from those sharing the facility. Participant 2’s experiences with gendered and gender-neutral bathrooms allowed personal experiences as a queer of colour. I accessed gender-neutral bathrooms during my undergraduate studies at Kwantlen Polytechnic University (KPU) in British Columbia, Canada, from 2015 to 2020. The institute first welcomed gender-neutral bathrooms in the Fall of 2015 by installing one gender-neutral bathroom per campus with five campuses in total. Since 2015, a few gender-neutral went installed in some KPU campuses, but not all (KPU Pride). According to Pride KPU’s website, the Surrey campus has four bathrooms in three different buildings on campus. However, three other KPU campuses (Richmond, Langley, and Cloverdale) only have one gender-neutral bathroom (KPU Pride). The last but newest campus, Civic Plaza in central Surrey, does not have gender-neutral bathrooms. Instead, the campus is equipped with individual stalls (KPU Pride). Participant 2’s experiences speak to these limitations on accessing gender-neutral bathrooms around post-secondary campuses, explaining how structural barriers can affect groups of multiple intersecting identities. Participant 2 encounters with institutional violence demonstrate gender-based violence through personal microaggressive attacks amongst family relations, workspaces, and, more specifically, in their educational setting, whereby their department faculty/instructors are majority white-American cisgender folks. Participant 2’s stories reflected how frequent their encounters with interpersonal and collective violence occur, and the component of transitioning within that space and having dominant groups questioning their gender identity because it diverts from what white cisgender settlers grew up learning and the Western-cultural reproduction and pride towards white heteronormativity (Puar 2017). The existence of members of intersectional identity groups within heavily dominated white societies through Participant 2’s perception and understanding of finding a sense of belonging within white Western settler-colonial structures and “navigating the white academy as a Black woman, being seen by “the White eye only, an eye that constantly has the Black woman academic body-individual, collective and 68 epistemological-under surveillance for any sign of trouble, any possibility of a claim of racism to break the uneasy White conviviality of academic” (Ahmed 2021). Participant 2’s stories of encountering violence capture patterns of microaggressions, surrounded by ideologies of denial of gender identities that exist outside of the gender binary, performative acceptance and genuine understanding of trans identity and their transition by family and relations, all effects that centralize their intersecting race and gender identity. 4.3.3. Participant #3 - Alistair The third participant goes by the pseudonym Alistair (they/he) and identifies as a trans mask/nonbinary/Left-of-centre Indigenous (Métis), aged twenty-five and from Alberta, Canada. The adoptive family of white Mormons. Alistair experienced two of three forms of violence: interpersonal and institutional. Alistair addresses experiences with confronting challenges in areas including the following: a) identity (e.g., race and gender identities, transitioning (e.g., misgendering, public knowledge and understanding of gender identities, and public perceptions and judgments), and pronouns; c) relationships (e.g., family and intimate partner relations (e.g., biological family, adoptive family, and intimate partner), work and education (healthcare and medicine, decolonizing education, classmates/students comments, questions, and concerns, and decolonizing higher educational practices and knowledge building). I analyze Alistair’s encounters with violence to uncover further potential external influential factors that could affect their life. Personal Safety Question: When Alistair was asked, “how would you know if you’re safe or unsafe? They replied: [00:02:50] Alistair: I guess, I don't, that's my first answer. I don't think I do. But I think that feeling definitely comes from an instinct or like a vibe. Definitely an 'in the moment' thing for sure. I guess, situations and people that I'm unfamiliar with, is definitely like you're feeling out the environment and people. [00:03:21] Alistair: But feeling safe with people that I know, it's more about having open communication and knowing my comfort level and what I need in that moment is understood and respected. That's where I know like, okay, this is a safe person. 69 [00:03:37] Co-I: Another participant had said very similarly to what, what you mentioned about going into, uh, a space that is unknown or perhaps you don't know people, and you don't know what their thoughts might be or reactions. [00:04:08] Alistair: Yeah. I tend to vet situations through people I know. If I have to go to a new environment, usually it'll be like an environment that someone I know and trust and has already been to, or like people that they already know, then I'll go with them. Alistair explains their hesitancy to enter new spaces and environments with unfamiliar faces, requiring them to assess the overall safety and security of the setting before entering. Alistair maintained their safety and security by surrounding themselves with those they could trust, compassion, understanding, open communication, willingness to learn, and comfort. The spaces considered safe for Alistair consist of people from their communities. Interpersonal Violence Alistair’s encounters with interpersonal violence communicate influential factors to increasing encounters with violence. These factors include spaces and environmental settings, identity (race and gender identity, transitioning, and pronouns), and relationships (family and intimate partner relations) have contributed to an influx in microaggressions through settler-colonialism, which contributed to their encounters with interpersonal violence was most common amongst through apprehensive behaviour (hostility, passive aggressiveness, anger or outrage, and defensiveness and minimization of their stories. Another predominant theme that emerges from Alistair’s storytelling sessions is identity. Alistair discusses their stories of encountering violence targeting their race and gender identity, transitioning, and pronouns. For Alistair, their identity signifies how they are acknowledged, represented, and treated. Alistair identifies as trans-mask, nonbinary, left-of-center Métis and a visible person of colour, their intersectional identity through their experiences with violence that targeted their history, ancestral lineage, cultural heritage, territories, and the oral histories of Indigenous elders. [00:15:40] Alistair: Not fully binary, although sometimes I wish I was just to make that easier on people's understanding, and if I was perceived as a cis male when I'm out with my girlfriend, maybe I would avoid feeling that fear. I'd feel safer, but I don't think I'm afforded that quote/unquote privilege just yet in terms of how I do pass or don't pass. If I'm in a group of gender nonconforming women, for example, it looks like I'm one of them. So, I definitely can’t afford any safety. 70 Alistair’s adopted family are white settlers who live in a small town in the province of Alberta. They explain the level of conservatism that influences their adopted family’s perception of gender identities, specifically nonbinary/trans identities, and the significance of their transition. Alistair explains that their adoptive family’s positionality on their gender identity boils down to their fundamental lack of understanding and knowledge on sex versus gender identity and the willingness to accept, learn, and understand nonbinary gender identities. [00:09:31] Alistair: Most of my family does not understand and are quite against it, so I've lost contact with, like 90% of them, which sucks. I think it might just be a cultural thing. Because I grew up in rural Alberta, it's just a small town, with very conservative values. The only other queer family member that I have is my aunt and she's gay, and that took them a while to come around too. I think that now they're very much champions for that part of the queer community, but when I came out as trans, it was not accepted. I think that their understanding is limited to homosexuality. Alistair’s aunt is one of the only queer figures who understand queer culture and can relate to some of Alistair's encounters with violence to a certain degree. Although Alistair mentions that their aunt within their adoptive family identifies as gay, their adoptive family is far more accepting and understanding of homosexuality, but draws the line at trans identities, a reason why Alistair avoids reaching out to them. This encounter can communicate colonial-induced trauma whereby Alistair demonstrates suppression of their gender identity in public due to reinforced constructs of white Western settler-colonialism ideals taking precedence as the dominant narrative to establishing heteronormative and patriarchal practices, which distances itself from Indigenous Two-Spirit identities. According to the literature on sovereign erotics, which is: An assertion of the decolonial potential of Native two-spirit/queer people healing from heteropatriarchal gender regimes [...] recognizes the erotic as a “creative or generative force,” [...] A Sovereign Erotic relates our bodies to our nations, traditions, and histories.” Because the colonization of indigenous sexualities and genders is a central tactic of colonial oppression, the process of reclaiming, reinventing, and reimagining our lives as Native GLBTQ2 people is a central mode of resistance [...] Part of this resistance takes place in the act of telling our stories. (Driskill et al. 2011 13-4) 71 This excerpt explains the significance of sovereign erotics and the creative forces of gender and sexuality and how colonial structural oppression assimilates to the cultural ideals of how gender and sexuality should be present in Western-European settler-colonial societies. The significance of addressing that white Western settler-colonial cultural reinforcement and attempt to eradicate Indigenous Two-Spirit cultural customs and traditional practices demonstrated how sovereign erotics allow creative excess to expressions of gender and sexuality. These cultural influences in Alistair’s intimate partner relationship characterize both intersecting experiences as queer and trans people of colour and their identity as Métis trans mask/nonbinary/left-of-centre learning their partner identifies as a Black queer woman. Alistair’s intersectional elements of their relationship draw attention to the histories of both Indigenous and Black communities and the influence of cultural dynamics, familial relations, and the locations where they encountered violence in the following stories related to family relations. [00:12:32] Alistair: My partner is mixed, but she's biracial, but she looks very Black. She's a Black woman. She's also queer. We have shared an understanding of what it's like to be in both groups and have that intersectionality, but her response to the environment, especially unknown things and mine regarding perceiving violence or microaggressions is so different. I think that comes down to how we grew up in our experiences. [00:13:09] Alistair: Because she grew up in the heart of Toronto with many different ethnic groups and many different people of different queer identities and just all this diversity. And I grew up in a very cis white Mormon town [...] like small town Alberta. There was so much violence, like even if people thought that you were gay [...] I try to describe this to people and they don't believe me, but it was like what you see on TV where they perceive a gay kid, gets beat up against his locker and forced to leave town because the bullying is so bad. Or people trying to commit suicide and it’s just terrible the things that are happening because they're “perceived” to be threats. They don't even come out because why would you? It's terrifying. I grew up seeing that and then moved to British Columbia to try and get away from that kind of environment. Alistair recounts aspects of their intimate relationship and identifies the differences in spaces and environments in which both individuals grew up within a socio-demographic setting. Alistair’s intersectional identity influenced their encounters with violence. In their session, they highlight multiple 72 forms of interpersonal violence throughout their upbringing, including microaggressions towards intersectional identifying folks, bullying and harassment, and suicide were common incidents of interpersonal violence. One common form of encountering violence for Alistair was when they lived in their hometown community in rural Alberta. Collective Violence Alistair's stories of encountering collective violence interpret how trauma presents itself within educational settings amongst classmates and instructors and in their public healthcare workspace with their white colleagues. Alistair begins by recounting stories of encountering violence on campus. [00:26:35] Alistair: Not super traumatizing acts of violence or physical violence, but a lot of microaggressions or strange situations that your kind of have to put up with. [00:27:22] Alistair: I recently transferred to a different campus, so it's an all-new group of people. And fortunately, or unfortunately, my class is very young and inexperienced in life. It was very interesting and kind of hard for me to not get angry. We were in class, and we were talking about residential schools and their impact, specifically on Indigenous Peoples beliefs. The healthcare system, and why they don't seek out healthcare as often as, other groups of people. It has to do with medical racism and genocide. On girl, she's like nineteen and Mormon, the exact person from the cultural group that I was running away from, which is no fault of her own, she's a lovely person. Definitely represented that group for me as she spoke up after this entire discussion about how traumatizing and devastating and how horrible residential schools were, especially in regard to the medical system, like experimentation that was done on the kids and the deaths that they suffered and just so much. [00:28:58] Alistair: She literally put her hand up and was like, “I was thinking about this, and my parents sent me to boarding school and I turned out, okay?!”. And just like the silence that had followed was deafening. I could not believe that was something she had really thought about and come to this conclusion about boarding school and residential schools were somehow similar in any way. [00:31:28] Alistair: My instructors picked up on that and they, I think like once a week we watch something to do with history and, how it's informing, today's practices, which is nice. I do appreciate that part of my education because even in my undergrad, which I finished in like 2018, we didn't have a whole lot of education surrounding anything to do with Indigenous populations and they were the most prevalent, unfortunately, population that we dealt with through social services in Alberta. 73 This encounter shows how Alistair experiences microaggressions within white Western settler-colonial societies that consistently interpret their experiences seen as more significant than those of Indigenous Peoples. White Western settler-colonial societies have demonstrated a tendency to defend themselves by comparing their experiences to marginalized groups of colours. This scenario of Alistair encountering violence within a colonial compromised educational setting is the reasoning for intergenerational, which literature Meyers (2015) explains how “the majority,” meaning cisgender and gay white-middle-class folks, often embellish the severity of violence that affects them, outweighing the severity and intersectional complexities of violence that people of colour and gender nonbinary IBPOC experience (Meyer 2015). Meyer (2015) expands on this matter of middle-class cisgender and gay white communities and compares their encounters with violence to those of intersectional identity. For these reasons, Alistair is working towards confronting more white Western settlers regarding how they communicate their understanding, inquiries, questions, comments, and responses to Indigenous Persons' knowledge and histories. Alistair adds to their stories of encountering violence as a Métis trans-mask/nonbinary/left-of-centre learning individual. They expand on the impact of colonial violence against their identity and community, recounting how: [00:35:00] Alistair: Most of my experiences in terms of colonialism is being profiled, which I'm very aware of because I'm stressed anytime I go anywhere. I wanted to get a coffee at the Tim Hortons, but you have to go through the mall to get to the Tim Hortons and as soon as I walked in, I could see two security people that were standing there watching, like turning their bodies to watch me walk towards the Tims. I had to bail from the line because I had to go to the washroom, and I couldn't wait. So, I left and then they watched me walk to the washroom like fully in the opposite direction. They could not take their eyes off me. And I'm like, I'm just here trying to wake up and go to the bathroom. That's it. It's very annoying. I think it's so ingrained that they don't even think of it. [00:36:31] Alistair: I'll get security called on me in stores a lot. It's kind of ridiculous, especially as I transitioned and presented more masculine, that seems to put, or have put a bigger target on my back [...] definitely in the last three years-ish, which is when I started transitioning. [00:37:06] Alistair: Before, when I was more feminine, I'd be in like shoppers or something and looking at, I don't know, makeup and they would come and try to kick me out because they would accuse me of stealing. And I'm like, I didn't even touch 74 anything. I know better, like I'll have my hands in my pocket because they know they're watching. But now it's like I'll go into any store and they just kind of follow me around or ask what I'm doing there or like ask for receipts even though I haven't bought anything yet. It's very weird. [00:37:43] Alistair: It's similar in either province, but definitely it depends on which, like in [central B.C.], it depends which pocket of the city you're in, for sure. Like downtown I often, because there's more homeless people downtown, so they're more vigilant. But then I lived in [outskirt B.C.] for a while and its predominantly White Town. I couldn't even go to a Starbucks without people being really weird. And again, it's a lot of elderly people as well, so I know it's a general thing. I was like this is very weird, it felt like being back in Alberta. It's like a strange environment. It's quite depressing. I was expecting, because I'd never been there before, were more Indigenous People based on the name itself. [00:39:58] Alistair: It just boils down to a lot of weird passive-aggressiveness or microaggressions, which I'm thankful for. I mean, I'm thankful it hasn't escalated further than that. In Alberta, it's a bit more overt like people are not afraid to be super racist and say things, but it is, it's strange because in Alberta, and I've made this comment to my girlfriend as well, I said that there's very few Indigenous People here, like I don't see anybody often. Maybe once a week I might see one or two Indigenous people, which is weird. In Alberta, I had already felt, it [Indigenous Peoples] were a very small part of the population. [00:41:03] Alistair: Like, we’re still here, we still exist, we're still, you know, but in B.C., everywhere I've been, I'm like, where are they? Like it's very um, kind of dystopian. My girlfriend is the opposite, again, she grew up in Toronto where I guess there's no Indigenous People at all to her. So, coming here was like an upgrade for her. The stories of Alistair’s encounters within white Western settler-colonialism indicate how prevalent personal microaggressive attacks are based on their Indigenous literature, a trauma-informed therapeutic approach to help analyze participant information regarding their challenges with intersectional identity. I referred to literature by Jacqueline M. Quinless (2022), a settler-ally and sociologist who worked with Indigenous Peoples, researchers, and communities. Quinless (2022) highlights the need to cultivate awareness to practice a trauma-informed approach to qualitative research methods. More specifically, studies that include the knowledge and experiences of Two-Spirit demonstrate the prevalence of decolonial practices by “using a trauma-informed approach in which we hold space to witness and listen to participants through compassionate and empathetic techniques while gathering data in each of the 75 communities'' (115). The literature on trauma-informed approach to Alistair's stories of encountering violence in white Western settler-colonialism has increased their susceptibility to vulnerable and marginalized treatment. Alistair [00:46:36]: My upbringing, I mean the first encounter with both colonialism and violence I had was when I was super young cause my parents, my biological parent’s kind of were forced to put me in the foster system when I was like one years old, I think. I was adopted by a white family (Mormon) when I was three years old, and then from what I remember, probably like [ages] five, six, seven, from what they've told me prior to that, like [ages] three and four, I was kind of, I think a mess honestly, of the nicest way I can put that for a child. Like very, neurotic, had very interesting displays of fear and like weird tendencies that my family, my adoptive family didn't really know what to do. I don't think they understood what was going on because I was a child, but I definitely think like there were so many displays of anxiety and fear because I was so scared of being abandoned or my family leaving me (my adoptive family), because I don't think I remembered my biological family very well. But definitely that experience still imprints on your psyche, whether you remember it or not. I think it just snowballed from there. Like, I've always been quite anxious. I think the more experiences that kind of reinforce that, the more obvious it would get, of course. [00:49:03] Alistair: I did meet my biological dad, when I was eighteen, which is kind partly why I moved here, because he lives in central B.C., and I wanted to get to know him better and his current wife who had my half-sister four years ago. So, I wanted to get to know her cause I didn't have any biological family at that point. I came out here, um, yeah, to get to know them. So now I do have a better understanding of like why things happened the way that they did, and cultural understandings of who I am, which was nice because, I think growing up visibly Indigenous, but in a white family, in a white town did have a number on my identity, my security, and who I thought I was. So that's been kind of restorative and healing in its own way, but definitely not the case as a child or adolescent. Like that was probably the first thing that shaped my struggles going forward. Alistair’s stories of encountering violence are due to white Western settler-colonial practices of displaying white privilege by removing Indigenous youth from their home and biological family, assimilating them to white Western settler-colonial culture throughout their upbringing in a white settler-colonial household. Alistair’s story of being removed from their home is a colonial tactic of assimilating Indigenous youth to white Western-European settler-colonial lifestyles by removing the Indigeneity from the child, which we 76 know through Indigenous literature that “trauma directly affects individuals who attended residential schools and also affects different generations of family members who feel the effects of this trauma. [...] If the communities in which we live are experiencing high rates of trauma and other related socio-cultural impacts on the individuals who live in those communities (Quinless 2022 92). This quote explains how settler-colonial extraction of Indigenous youth from their homes placed them into a space of increased and continual violence of the residential school system, a foundational structure of white Western Christian settler-colonial enforced violence that resulted in intergenerational trauma. I inquire about Alistair’s stories of encountering violence within their healthcare/medical workspace. Alistair recounts specific moments that arise between them and their coworkers. Alistair describes the evident presence of their intersectional identity within their workspace presented through verbal microaggressive comments that target their intersectional identities. [00:05:12] Alistair: I think the identity part comes up more often. I think I'm maybe one of five queer people at my workplace. The only trans person there, so that comes with kind of being the spokesperson, which means things are often talked about and on the table. [00:05:37] Alistair: Which is both good and bad. It makes it so that everyone's on the same page and they are all respectful even if they don't fully understand. So, I've never had any issue there. Which is really lucky. Alistair recounts their relationships with coworkers by providing fundamental insight into the healthcare/medical industry and explaining how their workplace consists of five queer-identifying individuals, whereby Alistair is one of those five queer (trans-mask) identifying folks. The remaining four queer-identifying folks are all cisgender queer women, most of whom were white. Alistair describes how, although their coworkers are majority white queer-identifying cisgender women, they have been supportive and understanding of using and enforcing an individual's preferred pronouns. [00:19:53] Alistair: I had a conversation with a co-worker the other day that was kind of heated. I know she’s not trying to be bigoted or anything. She's trying to understand, but she comes off very blunt. So, I mean, we have lots of heated conversations sometimes, but she was saying like, “it just doesn't make sense that, you know, people try to change their genders” or whatever. It came down to a fundamental lack of understanding on her end on what the difference between ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ was. 77 I eventually figured out a way to get her to put the pieces together, elicited a kind of angry response from her, I said, “okay, yes, you were born female that's an undeniable fact, right?”. She's like, “yes”. I'm like, “okay, but who told you that you were a girl?” And like the gears, you could see, were turning in her head. The immediate anger of like, “well that doesn't make any sense?”. I'm like, “what do you mean nobody, told you? Like, no, think about it for a second. Take a step back, who told you like, yes, you were born female, and what does be a girl mean?” It did click to her eventually, but that initial response had just kind of confirmed... Alistair's public confrontations perpetuate a perception of skepticism and questions that communicate microaggressions against Alistair’s intersectional identity. However, Alistair mentions how they learned to enjoy confronting people who lack understanding and knowledge of race and gender identity and are threatened based on their existence of gender nonbinary IBPOC. Alistair further describes their job role in the healthcare/medical industry and the use of pronouns by queer-identifying staff versus the understanding and demeanour of older staff in another discussion on workplace, staff, and reinforcement of individual preferred pronouns: [00:08:02] Alistair I don't know what it is. It might just be a generational gap. They don’t get it. So, they default to he/him with me, which I don't mind entirely, so it's fine. [00:17:45] Alistair: I think my perspective has changed as I get more education around it [...] The mindset now is the reason that this group or groups experiences so much violence. My theory, especially when I encounter microaggressions or people that are, just kind of have weird commentary that aren't necessarily violent in nature, just kind of offhand. [00:33:33] Alistair: I had a comment at my work a couple days ago too. I wasn't really participating in the conversation, but I was sitting there and another nurse, who was white had said something, this isn't verbatim, but it was quite similar where she said like, she acknowledged how horrible colonialism and genocide was but then said, "but isn't it weird to think that like we wouldn't have what we have today if that didn't happen?" I'm like, "what are you saying?" Like, I don't know what you're talking about. I wanted to push it, but I didn't want to be like, … I work with mostly white people, so I didn't wanna be that person, which sucks to be put in that box. A trauma-informed approach to Alistair’s encounters within their workspace consists of their colleagues who identify as white queer women. The conversations that Alistair hears or confronts within their workspace are an ongoing microaggression based on their intersecting identities of race, gender, culture, and class that can perpetuate increased potential for retraumatization in Two-Spirit communities (Dixon & 78 Piepzna-Samarasinha). For many Indigenous Peoples, settler-colonial culture has been rampant in all areas of life, including governing bodies of political structures, ideologies, and socioeconomic matters (Monchalin 2016). The ongoing conflict associated with intergenerational and transgenerational trauma is rooted in the histories of Indigenous Peoples (e.g., First Nations, Métis, and Inuit). 4.3.4. Participant #4: Alex The 4th participant goes by the pseudonym Alex(they/them) and identifies as nonbinary South Asian-European, age twenty-five and under (Participant requests to omit all personal identification information, including their age to measures to ensure complete confidentiality, privacy, and anonymity when discussing their experiences with violence. Alex experiences three of three forms of violence: self-direct, interpersonal, and collective violence. Alex addresses experiences with confronting challenges in areas, including the following: a) new spaces and environments; b) identity (e.g., race and gender identities, transitioning (e.g., misgendering, public knowledge and understanding of gender identities, and public perceptions and judgments), and pronouns; c) relationships (e.g., family and intimate partner relations (e.g., biological family, adoptive family, and intimate partner), work and education (healthcare and medicine, decolonizing education, classmates/students comments, questions, and concerns, and decolonizing higher educational practices and knowledge building). I analyze Alex's encounters with potential external factors affecting their lives. Personal Safety Question: When Alex was asked, “how would you know if you’re safe or unsafe? They replied: [00:05:50] Alex: I'm somebody who is dissociative. This is something that I've more recently come into awareness around coping strategy since I was a kid. [00:06:55] Alex: I'll get really agitated. I will go into complete shutdown. I could lie on my couch and not be able to actually get up and do anything. [00:07:16] Alex: I will want to fight somebody. It's usually shortly after that I can go into complete shutdown, especially just having to exist in spaces. It's not always safe to say that you feel that way[unsafe]. [00:11:55] Alex: If I'm feeling safe in a space, I'm pretty outgoing. I will talk a lot, I'll share a lot, I'll share my opinions. If I don't feel safe, I will not say anything. I don't necessarily feel 79 welcomed or people will be offended and take it the wrong way. Usually, that's an indication of safety for me or like, not necessarily that the space is safe, this is something that I'm trying to work on currently. Alex describes the thoughts, feelings, and indicators in interpreting safe versus unsafe spaces. The reaction of Alex’s nervous system helps determine whether the spaces they occupy at that moment, which in their case, is an educational setting surrounded by white cis women and men of Western settler-colonial societies who possess ignorance and a white egoistic understanding of what a safe versus unsafe space means for gender nonbinary IBPOC. The reinforcement of these encounters has resulted in dissociation. The definition of dissociation is a multifaceted physical, psychological, and emotional detachment from spaces, including institutions such as access to higher education, whereby the demographic is majority white settler students and instructors (Malatino 2022). Literature reflecting trans/nonbinary identities and encountering violence through unsafe spaces where dissociation is as “if “being present” means occupying space with a degree of unself-consciousness, lack of anxiety, and without projections about what forms of violence might occur, then “being present” is a form of privilege that the majority of trans/nonbinary subjects lack” (Malatino 2022 35). Alex’s stories describe specifically their educational settings where they experience dissociation the most by microaggression interpersonal, self-directed, and collective violence. Interpersonal Violence The stories of Alex encountering interpersonal violence were prevalent throughout their relationship with white instructors and classmates in a counselling-related experiential learning program. Alex recounts several incidents between different parties and how these encounters affect their relations within an educational setting. For many gender nonbinary IBPOC, walking into an ambiguous space, not knowing anyone or what to expect from others who share that space. For Alex, much of their encounters with unfamiliar spaces that are said to be “safe” have demonstrated microaggressive effects targeting their gender identity. For example, Alex explains how they felt forced into coming into a women’s group, which was said to be a safe trans-inclusive space: 80 [00:08:03] Alex: I was a part of a women's group, and I had to come out as non-binary. The person who organized it said she was trans-inclusive. It's definitely not, and just trying to exist in those spaces [...] I really just had to stuff down a lot of what I was feeling and continue to be in that space. So, there's was lot of dissociation. This encounter in a space reassured Alex to be trans-inclusive. This encounter reflects Ahmed’s (2021) literature on queer and trans folks mentions how coming out is not a one-time occurrence and often involves nonbinary folks, such as Alex, feeling forced to come out in unfamiliar spaces. Ahmed (2021) explains the potential complexities queer and trans folks face when coming out, stating, “you have to keep coming out because of how the world presumes a certain kind of body. You might have to correct pronouns being used for your partner or for yourself, coming out as that tiring work of correction [...] Coming out can involve an intentional disclosure, but that’s not always how coming out happens [...] sometimes you are outed by others, and you have to deal with the consequences” (119). In Alex’s case, this was the outcome, feeling forced to come out in a new space that assured safety for queer, trans, and nonbinary but displayed the common causes for microaggressive attacks against gender nonconforming identities. In the following stories, Alex recounts their encounters with interpersonal (gender-based) violence, which reaffirms Ahmed’s (2021) literature on “coming out”: [00:21:51] Alex: The program that I'm in is an experiential learning program. [...] Of course, that comes with the risks of sharing things about yourself. And so, everybody's, I mean, you're expected to share things about yourself. I don't share anything about myself anymore [...] I used to because I came into the school feeling like I was open, but I also had prepared for this experiential learning. [00:22:47] Alex: My interview for acceptance into the school, I had spoken about previous experiences with teachers and trauma. I was told that, “oh, our teachers get training around anti-oppression, so you don't have to worry about it from the teachers, you just have to worry about it from the students”. My first day in class, I introduced myself as non-binary and said, my pronouns are they/them. Right away the teacher said something along the lines of “oh, you're the first person that I've met that has that?!,” which is a lie. I've spoken to other people who knew him. He asked for my forgiveness if he used the wrong pronouns. [00:23:11] Alex: One of the things that came up was my pronouns. I didn't say anything because that's what I said on the first day that I wasn't going to correct people. After like a couple months of being open at the start, I shared a lot about my personal life and myself. I was trying to be open to that space. After a couple months, I just got upset. I got pissed off because I had been misgendered so many times. There was just a bit of an 81 explosion that happened in class one day. It was also like passive aggression from another classmate, there were two classmates that I had conflict with. Alex addresses how their initial interactions of encountering violence influenced interpersonal relations among white instructors and classmates, who expect forgiveness from Alex after several accounts of being misgendered in a space where they introduced themselves as nonbinary with, they/them pronouns. [00:28:17] Alex: Because I was not in a great place, my check-in that morning [...] I didn't need to give context as to why I was feeling that way, but I was being honest, like “I'm in a shit place right now, but I'm still here at class,” and then one of my classmates said how she's worked with people from the queer community and one of her session suggestions is how “we can show up as good allies if somebody's being misgendered, we can correct that person, so that the person who is being misgendered doesn't have to do that work on themselves,” which I really appreciated. [00:29:52] Alex: A couple weeks later, I was misgendered by somebody, this woman, who was passive aggressive to me for having been corrected, she misgendered me, we were doing shares, and she went after me and kept saying “she” and “her” and then my classmate went up to the mic and was like, “it's they/them”. Then, of course, the defensiveness that comes up as very typical, “oh, I didn't misgender her?” I said, “whatever”. Because Alex was consistently facing misgendered by their white cis male instructor for a few months, the educational setting and those occupying a space that was said to be safe for anyone. It became a problem that required addressing because of its impact on Alex’s psychological and emotional well-being, having to be misgendered regularly by the same instructor, communicates a sign of disrespect and carelessness in not demonstrating the willingness to learn and adapt to (contemporary cultural practices) the use of pronouns for nonbinary folks. [00:44:08] Alex: I had two Black classmates who were talking about the curriculum in general and the way that they talk about trauma was very Eurocentric white centric. [00:44:34] Alex: They had privately spoken to the teacher about just how the curriculum was really not inclusive towards Black and Brown people and trauma, like racialized trauma. The teacher, passive aggressively, ended up announcing to the entire classroom that it was brought to her attention that there's not a lot of racial inclusion. So, basically, calling out the two Black students for talking to her privately without necessarily naming it. Just like passive aggressively being a white, fragile woman. She decided to add racialized trauma into the topic choices, someone who's mixed race. I felt obligated to take on stuff, especially now, all my white peers are probably not going to actually talk about stuff that's uncomfortable. [00:46:47] Alex: I decided to join that group and then the two Black students felt obligated to join that group because of that conversation they had with the teacher. Several days later, the 82 tension between the two Black students and the teacher just kept getting worse and worse. Because I was in the project group with them, I was now understanding the behind the scenes, which all my classmates didn't know about. [00:47:21] Alex: She did not talk about it at all. I think she just said the word and carried on. It got to a point, in the course where we were supposed to talk about power and privilege. And so, she had, like two days prior, said in front of the class like, named the two Black students and said, “they are going to teach us”. The context there was that they had talked to the teacher about how if they do want update curriculum and add stuff in, they would be glad to help not to be put on the spot. She's like, “now we're going to talk about power and privilege”. She called on the two Black students, and then she calls on me to join in to talk about power and privilege, and I fucking snapped. I was like, “what's happening right now is not okay”. I said to the class like, “you want an example of what power and privilege? This exactly, is an example of power and privilege where the white teacher expects students of color to teach a classroom of white students about power and privilege. This is an exertion of power and privilege,”. The teacher was like, “oh my god, why did you bring this upon me?” [...] I heard the two Black students speaking to her, she was saying how she was attacked. [...] The TA[Teaching Assistant] started talking about nonviolent communication and that the way the teacher responded was totally normal and acceptable, but the way that I responded was not okay. It was not acceptable, and it was violent. The extensiveness of Alex’s story of encountering violence between two Black classmates and one white instructor reveals a pattern of power, privilege, and control of white dominant groups upheld by an authoritative position within the structures of a white Western colonial institutional setting. In this encounter, Alex and two Black classmates were tokenized and forced into a position of being the spokesperson for Black and Brown racial identity groups. This encounter is the primary factor to personal microaggressive attacks towards race and gender identity groups that have historically been taken advantage of due to their susceptibility to vulnerable and marginalized treatment by white concurred spaces that reproduce white Western settler-colonial daily practices of racist adjacent behaviour. Self-Directed Violence [00:26:25] Alex: What ended up happening is, I had one of my classmates there, I shared too much personal stuff, because there was conflict in a WhatsApp group and this one person decided to bring it into the class space, and was like, “oh, so there's an elephant in the room and I think we need to like, deal with that”, and wanted me to unpack whatever happened with her in front of the entire fucking class. I was actually in a bad mental health state, because I self-harmed after that conflict with that one person on WhatsApp. Nobody knew that I self-harmed that day and had self-harmed for like, years. 83 In this scenario, Alex explained their encounters with self-directed violence fueled by a white cis female classmate who exposed their online group conversation to the class. Alex acknowledges their history of self-harm and how they communicated that they were not in the best headspace during this time, especially after the initial encounter over an online group chat. Therefore, the perpetrator, a white cis woman, who was made aware of what transpired, but still chose to expose the specifics of a private online group conversations. In this case, and in Alex’s previous encounters, white cisgender folks are quick to assign themselves the role of “the victim” in all incidents within spaces dominated by a heavily white presence. These spaces are shown to result in harm, distress, and microaggressive attacks towards Alex and their peers, targeting their race and gender identities, with consequences going on the Oppressed by encounters imitated by the Oppressor. Collective Violence The stories of Alex encountering collective violence are focused on the primary area of violence in their life until they graduate from their program. Alex's interpretations of their encounters with collective violence within their educational setting include white cisgender instructors and the complicit classroom behaviour of white students who remain silent because of their race and gender not being the normative dialogue. Alex describes their stories of encountering violence within their institutional/educational setting. [00:23:50] Alex: This white woman who ended up being passive aggressive to me for the entire three months I was in her course, and then says along the lines of like, she wants me to teach her, just that kind of crap. People expect you to teach them and right away, I'm like, “you expect me to educate you?” I just said, “no, I'm not going to do that. [...] I'm here, I'm paying to be in school. I'm not being paid to educate the teacher and classmates”. The teacher was the first one to put the impression out and the expectation that I was supposed to educate him and my classmates [all white cisgender women]. There was one other person of color in that class, and she was very much like the model minority type, but also to quote/unquote, “I'm not a political type of person”. Alex describes how they were misgendered and being indirectly called upon by their white cis male instructor, at the time, for not being inclusive of a white cis female student, which he viewed as a threat creating an unsafe space for that individual. 84 [00:29:54] Alex: I hate the concept of nonviolent communication just to like to note that. [00:30:03] Alex: I think nonviolent communication is very much, whoever is being oppressed needs to speak kindly and gently to the person who is being violent towards them [...] And I'm like, you're asking an oppressed person to speak kindly and gently tell the person who is the oppressor. [00:31:16] Alex: The teacher decided to use his nonviolent communication and stated he was using nonviolent communication to try and say that the woman who was interrupted for misgendering me was not being included in this space. He was trying to use the language of inclusion, talking about inclusivity and inclusion and if we can't include these other women, then it's unsafe. I piped up and was like, “so what you're saying is that the privileged person needs to be included. The concept of inclusion here is about a privileged person being at the center and me, who was misgendered, has to go sit on the outside. That's inclusion to you?! I had several classmates, bless them all, come forward and they were pissed about it. There was a huge fight. The teacher got super defensive about it, he got replaced. [00:32:18] Alex: So, I was seen as an exploding volcano, and we know that volcanoes destroy things. What he said is that I was the queer person of color and that I was a danger to the classroom. And he's the white man who came in and saved the class from the person of color. [00:35:20] Alex: The whole concept of inclusion is very much assimilation. It's like you need to get in line with everybody else and like the privileged people need to feel safe. [00:35:46] Alex: You can be included, but the privileged people are still going to be at the center and need to be safe. I feel like even the language, like the term ‘inclusion’, should just be called assimilation. It's the same thing with equality, treating everyone equally when you know someone's disability. The stories of Alex encountering violence are seen predominantly within educational settings and interpreted through brownness, which Muñoz (2020) argues, exists within the brown being, that “brownness in relation to everyday customs and everyday styles of living that connote a sense of illegitimacy [...] brown by law insofar as even those who can claim legal belonging are still increasingly vulnerable to profiling and other state practices of subordination. People are brown in their vulnerability to the contempt and scorn of xenophobes, racist, and a class of people who are accustomed to savagely imposing their will on others” (3). Brownness becomes a common effect interpreted through Alistair’s and Alex’s stories. The stories that Alex recounts are representative of the minority groups within their classroom setting(s), as they mention how they are one of four people of colour in that space, whereby the rest are white cisgender folks who have imposed their white ideologies, cultural passiveness 85 aggressiveness, defensiveness, and privileges to the students of colour sharing that space (Muñoz 2020). Alex’s encounters provide a highly contextualized understanding of settler-colonial culture that continues to emerge through personal microaggressive attacks. 86 Chapter 5: Discussion and Conclusion 5.1 Key Findings The key findings for this study are four themes among participants' stories of encountering violence as gender nonbinary IBPOC. These themes included 1) microaggressions, 2) gender-based violence, 3) family and relations, and 4) workspaces. These key themes interpret how gender nonbinary IBPOC participants perceive and understand their race and gender identity through personal stories of encountering violence that is prevalent throughout all four participants' oral history storytelling sessions. These key themes also provide an understanding of how the stories of gender nonbinary IBPOC participants encountering violence are communicated and displayed through personal microaggressive attacks induced through their relationships with family and relations, colleagues within workspaces, classmates and instructors in educational settings, and white Western settler-colonialism. These key themes are throughout participants' stories of encountering violence as gender nonbinary IBPOC and supported by the theoretical framework and literature review. 5.1.1 Microaggressions Microaggressions are “brief, daily assaults on minority individuals, which can be social or environmental, verbal or nonverbal, as well as intentional or unintentional” and “interpersonal exchanges involving microaggressions may not be perceived as discriminatory by perpetrators, who may believe their actions to be innocent or harmless and may not understand the potential impacts of these behaviours on recipients'' (Balsam et al. 2011; Sue et al. 2007). For the participants, personal microaggressive attacks were communicated through repeated misgendering, minimizing experiences, and surveillance. Three participants recounted several accounts of being misgendered through their relations with family, colleagues, instructors, and classmates) regularly whether at home, in workspaces, or within an educational setting. The three participants encounter being misgendered predominantly through interactions or having to share space with white cisgender groups, who repeatedly using incorrect pronouns to address them. Through participant encounters, there is a pattern of white Western settlers who 87 do not want to use pronouns because it does not affect their lives and those who do not want to understand the significance of correct pronoun use to marginalized communities such as gender nonbinary IBPOC. Two participants expressed their concerns about encountering violence in public spaces by being profiled based predominantly on their racial identity and then their gender identity second. Both participants felt surveilled by many white elderly cisgender settlers residing in densely populated areas of white Western-European settler-colonial groups and white cisgender security guards and law enforcement officials. For example, they recounted two separate encounters, the first being in British Columbia, when they decided to move to an area that they presumed as a city with more Indigenous Peoples, based on the name itself and considering it is a territory of the First Nations community. However, they quickly realized the demographic was mainly wealthy white elderly cisgender settler communities, who stared profusely at them when walking into a Starbucks to grab a coffee. This encounter is similar to Barbara Cameron story titled: “Gee, You Don’t Seem Like An Indian From the Reservation," which provides insight into the similarities between the study participant encounters and those documented in published contemporary Indigenous literature (Moraga & Anzaldúa 2015). Barbara Cameron addresses the specific encountering with white Western-European settler groups and how their understanding is like the study participants. Barbara Cameron describes their thought process and feelings when encountering white Western-European settler-colonialism expressing that “it wasn’t the white skin that I hated, but it was their culture of deceit, greed, racism, and violence. During my first memorable visit to the white town, I was appalled that they thought of themselves as superior to my people” and how “white people seem so surprised to find brown people who can speak fluent english and are even perhaps educated” (Moraga & Anzaldúa 2015 41-43). This story supports the interpretation of encountering violence through microaggressive comments by a white cisgender woman, who approach the participant to "compliment" them on how well-spoken they were in the English language, implying the foreignness of Indigenous Peoples and the possibility of them speaking the language of white Western settler-colonialist. The same participant stated they "encountered microaggressions or people that kind of have weird commentary that are not necessarily violent in nature kind of offhand”. The frequency of these personal microaggressive attacks 88 displayed as a part of white Western settler-colonial socio-cultural norms, whereby the dominant narrative is allowed to voice their opinions if roles reversed and gender nonbinary IBPOC were to make those same comments, they would most likely be viewed as a passive-aggressive attack on the already-always privileged group of white Western-European settler-colonial communities and reaffirms Barbara Cameron stories of being seen as other (Ahmed 2021; Moraga & Anzaldúa 2015). 5.1.2 Gender-Based Violence Western settler-colonial society has indoctrinated this ideology of heterosexuality as the social norm, and anything that falls outside of that norm is deemed a threat to the dominant narrative. These Western ideals uphold heterosexuality and the indoctrination of the gender binary as the norm. Spade (2015) argues that threats towards others[communities of colour] and are complicit to the central that are not considered as outsiders "the circulation of norms creates an idea […] that the national population (constructed as those who meet racial, gender, sexual, ability, national origin, and other norms) must be protected from those “others” (those outside of such norm) who are portrayed again and again in new iterations at various historical moments as “threats” or “drains" (5). This argument articulates how white Western settler-colonialism assimilated marginalized groups, especially with religion (Christianity), to comply with white Western cultural norms, including enforcement of the gender binary/norm. A queer of colour approach interprets participants encounters with interpersonal gender-based violence through varying degrees of personal microaggressive attacks. Ferguson (2004) discusses and “presumes that ideal ideology occludes the intersecting saliency of race, gender, sexuality, and class in forming social practices. Approaching ideologies of transparency as formations that have worked to conceal those intersections means that queer of colour analysis has to debunk the idea that race, class, gender, and sexuality are discrete formations, apparently insulated from one another” (4). Ferguson’s (2004) queer of colour analysis is interpreted through another participant stories of encountering violence, which addressed similar events of consistently being misgendered on several separate occasions, within an institutional[educational] setting, by an instructor who was a white cisgender man, and whose willful ignorance reflected through his inability practice, understand, and adapt to contemporary language and gender identities of students. The 89 stories of Participant 2’s story of encountering violence by white folks who grew up only knowing and growing accustomed to the gender binary through verbal microaggressions against their gender identity. Participant 2 encounters with microaggressions targeting their intersectional identity as a Black trans individual. A queer of colour analysis of Participant 2 accounts of being misgendered resonates with Ferguson’s (2004) literature which describes how “Black queer male formations during the 1980s and 1990s implied such an understanding of history and society, one that upheld the intersections of race, nation, and class as an extension of the epistemic maneuvers of Black feminist formations” (142). Ferguson’s (2004) literature describes the importance of a queer of colour approach stemming from Black feminist formations, which paved the way for recognizing Black queer males and mirroring the intersections of race, gender, sexuality, and class. 5.1.3 Family and Relations Three of the four participants discussed their chosen distance from family and relatives. The outcome of participants coming out, acting in a noninformative manner to what Western settler-colonial expects, according to the dominating narrative that continues to strive to sustain the social norms of white settler societies. According to Muñoz (2020), parents and guardians of queer people of colour often communicate the lack of significance in practicing to use of gender-inclusive language, titles, and use of preferred pronouns, “family can often be a place of conflict and potential violence, it is also one where ethnicity and cultural difference are produced and nurtured” (73) Queer people of colour must account for race, gender, class, and cultural identity, whereas, white queer communities are prevalent and normalized amongst white Western settler-colonial families. 5.1.4 Educational Settings and Workspaces Three participants stories described encountering violence through the oppression imposed on them by dominant groups, who have historically held positions of power and control within Western settler-colonial societies. Many of these encounters were microaggressive attacks initiated by white cis settlers. For example, one participant described their encounters with xenophobic attacks within a majority white 90 cisgender educational setting, explaining how, "xenophobia that was happening because of COVID was still pretty present. One student how she felt conflicted about supporting xenophobia and what was happening. She is [East Asian TA] said “the Asian community has not shown up for the Black community, so why should we show up for the Asian community? [...] you said that Asians are not often supporting Black folks. I am like, here was a prime example of our Chinese TA [...] not defending any of us, not speaking up [...] as I said, there is a lot of power differentials that were going on with that”. The pattern in educational settings and workplaces were demonstrated in three out of four storytelling use throughout participants session had different extents and degrees to personally targeted microaggressive attacks within educational settings and in workspaces institution space founded by white Western settler-colonial. 5.2 Recommendations and Future Directions This study provides two recommendations by participants and includes socio-cultural changes instead of suggestions to potential policy recommendations, responses to the study consent form and the necessity of providing personal identification information to participants. Socio-cultural changes instead of suggestions towards potential policy recommendations, one highly participant recommended (Alex). These recommendations provided by participants who identify as gender nonbinary IBPOC are essential to initiate dialogue around socio-cultural changes by acknowledging the voices of intersectional identity groups. With all participants encountering at least one throughout their life was perpetrated willfully/unwilfully, it is the premise of all four participants association with nonconformity, and thus, goes against the grain of the dominating narrative, who throughout Western settler-colonial history, have caused chaos, violence, and death to marginalized race and gender identity groups such gender nonbinary IBPOC, all to preserve their white heteronormative Western settler-colonial heritage and ideals. The study consent form was exhaustive to some participants, and it the difficulty to attain three emergency contacts in case of potential risks for harm, distress, or death. At the beginning of each storytelling session, I asked participants why the consent process was too long, as they felt that 91 completing the consent form required the capacity to read, understand, and provide all the necessary personal identification and emergency contact information. All participants were made aware of the consent form and to pose their questions or concerns regarding the overall study, the consent process, and their role in this study. Based on this study was reviewed by UBC BERB, who deemed this to be of “high-risk” for harm, distress, or death against human participants. 5.3 Limitations and Benefits This study had four main limitations concerning the recruitment process. The first limitation was the inability to hang recruitment posters around campuses, including Kwantlen Polytechnic University (KPU) (Richmond, Surrey, Civic Centre, Langley, and Cloverdale, a recommendation to avoid this situation would be to allow KPU Alumni to recruit students from all five campus locations and credit KPU for their support towards this study. Similarly, limitations to recruitment occurred with UBC’s Vancouver campus, whereby regulations on hanging recruitment posters were only allowed in designated signage areas around campus. UBC regulations involving recruitment by hanging posters around campus were permitted. As a designated person with disability status, the ability to recruit potential students on-campus was disrupted and affected the study recruitment process. A recommendation to better accommodate and alleviate the stress on student researchers with disabilities is by providing funding towards implementing resources such as support by campus staff or volunteers to hang posters at either limited to no additional cost. The second limitation was the intent to recruit up to twenty gender nonbinary IBPOC, ages eighteen to twenty-five years old, who had stories of encountering one of three types of violence (self-directed, interpersonal, or collective). Four participants were recruited for this study based on the participant eligibility criteria. Given the limited timeframe to complete my master’s program, the PI decided to stop the recruitment process for four participants. However, I did receive several replies and direct messages of interest through the queer dating/friendship/events app, LEX, whereby queer and trans people of colour were interested in participating but were over the participant age criteria of twenty-five years old. This demographic of interest was between the age range of twenty-eight years old to thirty-eight years old. For potential future directions for research in this area of study, I recommend broadening 92 the age range of participants to eighteen years old to thirty-five years old, allowing for more diverse insights into stories of gender nonbinary IBPOC and the ability to recruit more participants. A third limitation was the inability to recruit participants online by emailing universities/colleges nationwide alongside their academic services, and community organizations, groups, and programs relevant to the demographic of interest. An email with the Recruitment Poster (Appendix L) attached addressed if recipients were interested in supporting the study recruitment process by sharing details, bringing awareness to the study, and reaching out to those interested in participating. For an exhaustive contact list of academic institutions and community organizations, refer to List 1: Recruitment Contact List - Organizations, Groups & Programs List 2: Recruitment Contact List - University/Colleges and Academic Services. A future recommendation for online recruitment would be to send a follow-up to academic institutes and community organizations to ensure that the study Recruitment Email Script (Appendix F) and Recruitment Poster (Appendix L) together will receive more feedback from all recipients. A fourth limitation was assuring a funding source to purchase research materials and providing each participant with a $50 VISA e-gift card as monetary compensation for their time, knowledge, and contributions. Without available funding, this project cannot demonstrate the honour and gratefulness of participant engagement without available research funding. This project also cannot ensure the measures incorporated to avoid the potential of retraumatization in participants, such as providing self-care kits, without the confirmation of available funding. Receiving funding is a crucial element of the research process. Therefore, I will take the necessary steps to apply for grants and scholarships, including federal research funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. The benefits of conducting and publishing this study allow for potential future research to draw on key findings to strive for greater awareness, interpretation, and understanding of participant stories of encountering self-directed, interpersonal, and collective violence. This study provides insightful details on gender nonbinary IBPOC encountering violence displayed different portrayals of violence within individuals who belong to more privileged identity groups such as white Western settler-colonial 93 societies. This study also benefits from participants’ oral history storytelling sessions that allowed participants to recount and report their stories in a direct and uninterrupted dialogue format, avoiding the likelihood of misinterpreting or misrepresenting the stories of gender nonbinary IBPOC. This study also benefits from a feminist-based anti-oppressive approach which identifies existing gaps of knowledge and understanding of the current literature that focuses on the stories of gender nonbinary IBPOC encountering violence while contributing to contemporary literature on the socio-demographic of this study. The study shows how participants expressed their appreciation, gratitude, and compassion for researching this topic of interest and the contribution to scholarship in the area of study. All four participants addressed the need for more contemporary research on marginalized communities such as gender nonbinary IBPOC. Through direct quotes from all four participants’ oral history storytelling sessions, mention the following: [00:53:31] P2: Thanks for putting out, and to like to get more of this information, because I feel like a lot of the research on this is not the greatest, so I'm glad. [00:53:05] Alistair: I'm impressed and happy that you're doing this study. I thought it was really cool. [01:02:32] Alistair: I wanna try and get some people to help you out. [01:02:41] Alistair: I know how hard it's to do research. It's not, it's, yeah. [01:45:13] Alex: I'm glad that I could share some of my story and hopefully, what I shared is helpful. [01:50:01] Alex: If we like to expand out and look at the large picture, it can be very overwhelming. So, it's like, well what can we do on like the macro or the micro level rather than focusing on like the macro? Because we can make small implements and make changes in that way versus like, we might not change the entire system, but on a small level we can make shifts and changes with the work that we do. Thank you so much. 94 5.4 Conclusion This study determined four key findings from the stories of gender nonbinary IBPOC participants encountering violence, theoretical framework, and literature review. With consistently evident and blunt encounters of oppression against gender nonbinary IBPOC and displayed key characteristics of white Western settler-colonial societies' reactive responses to contemporary gender nonbinary identities. There is a need for white Western settlers-colonial societies to learn, take accountability, and enhance their knowledge around queer and trans people of colour. More specifically, the aggression and hostility, defamatory remarks and comments, defensiveness of being educated or corrected on existing knowledge, minimizing the existence and identity of the stories of gender nonbinary IBPOC encountering violence through personal microaggressive attacks against their race and gender identity. Participants agreed that based on their encounters with violence as gender nonbinary IBPOC then there must be recommendations made on a larger scale that encompasses Western societies within Canada and the U.S., suggesting potential policy recommendations allow for systemic cultural changes in how white cisgender groups of Western-European settler-colonial descent perpetuate, receive, interpret, and express their existing non-fact based knowledge on queer and trans of colour communities and the associated stories of gender nonbinary IBPOC encountering violence. 95 References Ahmed, S. (2021). Complaint!. Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781478022336 Ahmed, S. (2004). The Cultural Politics of Emotion. Edinburgh University Press. Ali, A. (2020). The experiences of Black LGBQ Canadians within the workplace. Kwantlen Open Resource Access. Baker, S. J., & Lucas, K. (2017). Is it safe to bring myself to work? Understanding LGBTQ experiences of workplace dignity. 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H., & Bilge, S. (2020). Intersectionality (2nd ed.). Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. de Vries, K. M. (2015). Transgender people of color at the center: Conceptualizing a new intersectional model. Ethnicities, 15(1), 3-27. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468796814547058 Ghaziani, A., Brim, M. (2019). Imagining Queer Methods. New York University Press. Maynard, R. (2017). Policing Black Lives: State Violence in Canada from Slavery to the Present. Fernwood Publishing. Meyer, D. (2012). An Intersectional Analysis of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) People’s Evaluations of Anti-Queer Violence. Gender & Society, 26(6), 849–873. https://doi.org/10.1177/0891243212461299 Povee, K., Bishop, B., and Roberts D. L. (2014). “The Use of Photovoice with People with Intellectual disabilities: Reflections, Challenges, and Opportunities,” Disability & Society, 29(6), 893-907. http://www-tandfonline-com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/doi/pdf/10.1080/09687599.2013.874331?needAccess=true Ristock, J., Zoccole, A., Passante, L., & Potskin, J. (2019). Impacts of colonization on Indigenous Two-Spirit/LGBTQ Canadians’ experiences of migration, mobility and relationship violence. Sexualities, 22(5-6), 767-784. https://doi.org/10.1177/1363460716681474 Simpson, L. B. (2017). As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom Through Radical Resistance. University of Minnesota Press. https://doi.org/10.5749/j.ctt1pwt77c Stryker, S. (2017). Transgender History: The Roots of Today's Revolution (Second ed.). Seal Press. 104 End Notes 1. Extended Acknowledgements: I would like to recognize the following individuals, organizations, institutions, and healthcare facilities across Canada and parts of the United States, who voluntarily helped with this research recruitment process: Aeliyah Lynch (Adler University of Chicago, IL) Brandon Logan (University of Winnipeg, MB) Cameron Mccaw (Peter A. Allard School of Law, the University British Columbia, BC) Dr. Rita M Atake (University of Fraser Valley, Chair Race and Antiracism Network, BC) Gordon Yusko (Simon Fraser University, Indigenous Student Centre B.C., BC) Haoming Nao (NSCAD University, Office of Student Experience, NS) Jose H. (Community-Based Research Centre, BC) Jude Goodwin (What’s on Queer BC, BC) Kevin (University of Waterloo, Office of Indigenous Relations, ON) Magdalene Benita (Health Promoter at Grand River Community Health Centre, ON) Marie-José (Université Laval, Bureau de L’EDI, QC) Neha Sayomina Tholar (Concordia University of Edmonton, Graduate S.A. President, AB) Processor Co-organizer (UFV Scholarly Sharing Intimate, BC) Rachell (Pride Office at University of the Fraser, BC) Sabrina Singh (University of Calgary, The Student Union Centre 210, AB) Sarah Deblois (Laurentian University, L. Communications Office, ON) Tina Athena (Ambit Gender Diversity Consulting, BC) Tyler Murnaghan (Pride Prince Edward Island, PEI) Vale Warren and Cameo (LGBT Youth line Operations Coordinator, ON) 105 List 1: Recruitment Contact List - Organizations, Groups & Programs United States Organizations: 1. Black Trans Femmes in Art 2. INCITE! 3. Stand with Trans 4. The Samaritans, Inc. 5. The Trevor Project 6. Transgender Law Centre 7. Trans Student Educational Resources 8. Trikone BayArea British Columbia, Canada Organizations: 1. 2-Spirit Collective (UNYA) 2. 2 Spirit in Motion Society 3. Access Youth Outreach Services 4. Alliance of BC Students 5. Anti-Oppression Educator Collective 6. Battered Women’s Support Services (BWSS) 7. BC Crisis Centre 8. Burnaby Pride 9. Canada World Youth (CWY) 10. Chilliwack Pride 11. Chimo Community Services 12. Community-Based Research Centre (CBRC) 13. Cornbury Society 14. DIVERSEcity Community Resources Society 15. Fraser Valley Pride Association 16. Fraser Valley Youth Society 17. Foundry BC 18. Love Intersections 19. Love Organization 20. Lumara Grief & Bereavement Care Society 21. MOSAIC 22. New West Pride 23. PACE Society 24. Pain BC 25. Pender Island Pride Society 26. Pflag Surrey 27. Prism Services 28. QMUNITY BC’s Queer, Trans, & Two-Spirit Resource Centre 29. Queer Muslims in Okanagan Region 30. Respect Network 31. Sher Vancouver 32. St. Mary’s First Nations 106 33. Support Network for Indigenous Women and Women of Colour (SNIWWOC) 34. Surrey Pride 35. The Youth Space of South Surrey/White Rock 36. Trans Lifeline 37. WAVAW Rape Crisis Centre 38. WISH Drop in Centre Society 39. Vancouver Pride Society 40. Victoria Pride Society 41. YouthCO Groups: 1. Broadway Youth Resource Centre (BYRC) ○ Indigequeer and Two-Spirit Healing Circle 2. Creating Accessible Neighbourhoods ○ Chronically Queer 3. Foundry Virtual BC ○ Chronic Pain 101; Let’s Talk Substances; MindMe; Queer Café; Two-Spirit Peer Healing Circle 4. Open Door Group 5. PLEA Community Services Society of BC ○ Gen-Out 6. QMUNITY BC’s Queer, Trans, & Two-Spirit Resource Centre: ○ Asexual & Aromatic Social Support Group (Aces & Aros); Authentically “Other”; Autistic Queer Peers; BiFocus-Vancouver; Gloriously Queer; Queer Love: QMUNITY’s Non-monogamy peer support group; Rainbow Light Meditation; Trans + Loved Ones; Transgathering; Transgathering: Medical 7. Trans Care BC ○ Trans Adult Online Support Group Programs: 1. 2-Spirit Collective - Urban Native Youth Association 2. Four Feathers Society 3. PACE Society o Gender Self-Determination Project 4. Pacific Community Resources Society o Indigenous Youth Victim Services Services: 1. Ambit Gender Diversity Consulting 2. Fernie Pride Society 3. Queer Arts Festival 4. PoCo Pride Public Art 5. The Queerdresser (VPS) 6. What’s On Queer BC Libraries: 1. Vancouver Public Library 107 Ontario, Canada Organizations: 1. 2-Spirited People of the 1st Nations 2. 2slgbtqi+ Circle of Windsor-Essex 3. African and Caribbean Council on HIV/AIDS 4. Anti-Racism Resource Centre 5. ARCH-HIV/AIDS Resources & Community Health 6. Asian Community AIDS Services 7. Assaulted Women’s Helpline 8. Atlohsa Family Healing Services 9. Black Coalition for AIDS Prevention 10. Black Queer Network 11. Black Legal Action Centre 12. Black Women in Motion 13. Brantford Advocacy Transgender Alliance 14. Brantford Pride 15. Central Toronto Youth Services 16. CK Gay Pride Association 17. Fem’aide 18. Gender Mosaic Inc. 19. Hamilton Transgender Community 20. Intersex London ON 21. Kingston Pride 22. MAX Ottawa 23. METRAC Action on Violence 24. Oxford County Pride 25. Pride Niagara 26. Pride Toronto a. THRIVE 27. Queering613 28. Rainbow Health Ontario 29. Rainbow Railroad 30. Resource Centre on Domestic Violence 31. Sex & U 32. The Native Women’s Resource Centre of Toronto (NWRCT) 33. Windsor Pride Community & Education Resource Centre 34. Youth Opportunities Unlimited Programs: 1. Alliance for South Asian Aids Prevention 2. Centre for Spanish Speaking Peoples-HIV Prevention Program 3. Hope + Me 4. OK2BME 5. Sheena’s Place 6. Trans Health Services: 1. Across Boundaries 2. Bricks and Glitter 3. Colour Me DRAGG 4. Good For Her 108 5. House of Anansi Press 6. Public Energy Performing Arts 7. Shameless Magazine 8. The Love of Drag 9. Toronto International Porn Festival Alberta, Canada Organizations: 1. Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity 2. BIPOC Foundation 3. National Black Coalition of Canada 4. Sexual Assault Centre of Edmonton 5. Skipping Stones 6. Trans Equality Society of Alberta Quebec, Canada Organizations: 1. Édiges 2. Fierté Canada Pride 3. Trans Outaouais Manitoba, Canada Organizations: 1. Pride Winnipeg Saskatchewan, Canada Organizations: 1. OUTSaskatoon 2. Regina Public Interest Research Group 3. Regina Sexual Assault Centre New Brunswick, Canada Organizations: 1. QT Fatties in NB 2. Safe Spaces Moncton Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada Organizations: 1. Pride Newfoundland and Labrador Nova Scotia, Canada Organizations: 1. AIDS Coalition of Nova Scotia 2. Black Artists Network of Nova Scotia 3. Coverdale Courtwork Society 4. South House Sexual and Gender Resource Centre 5. The Youth Project 6. Valley Youth Project 7. Wabanaki Two Spirit Alliance 109 Programs: 1. Proud Pairs Prince Edward Island, Canada Organizations: 1. Peers Alliance 2. PEI Pride 3. PEI Transgender Network 4. Pflag Canada 5. Rainbow Hub Nation-wide, Canada Organizations: 1. Salaam Canada 2. United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization 110 List 2: Recruitment Contact List - Universities/Colleges and Academic Services British Columbia, Canada 1. Alexander College ○ Student Life 2. Capilano University ○ Indigenous Student Services; Student Affairs 3. City University - Vancouver 4. College of New Caledonia 5. Coquitlam College 6. Douglas College 7. Emily Carr University of Art + Design ○ Student Wellness Advocate 8. Justice Institute of British Columbia (JIBC) ○ Justice Institute Students’ Union 9. Kwantlen Polytechnic University (KPU) ○ Faculty of Arts; Media and Communications 10. Langara College 11. Okanagan College (OC) ○ Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Social Justice (EDISJ); Indigenous Services 12. Quest University ○ Student Life 13. Simon Fraser University (SFU) ○ Sexual Violence Support & Prevention Office 14. Thompson River University (TRU) ○ Advertising; Media Relations and Communications 15. Trinity Western University (TWU) 16. University of British Columbia (UBC) ○ Alma Mater Society (AMS); Centre for Accessibility; Centre for Teaching, Learning and Technology; Department of Asian Studies; Department of Psychology; Department of Sociology; Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies (G+ PS) (Graduate Studies and Graduate Student Community); Graduate Student Association-UBC Vancouver; Graduate Student Society (GSS); IBPOC Nonbinary People within STEM at UBC; Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice; Interdisciplinary Studies Graduate Program; Law and Society; Middle East Studies; Peter A. Allard School of Law; Public Humanities Hub; Sexual Violence Prevention and Response Office (SVPRO); UBC Atlantic-Transgender Action Community; UBC Pride Collective; UBC CampOUT!; UBC Disabilities United Collective; UBC Equity & Inclusion Office; UBC Social Justice Centre 17. University of Canada West 18. University of Fraser Valley (UFV) ○ Anti-Racism Office; Indigenous Student Centre; Pride Community Group; Student Services 19. University of Northern British Columbia ○ Graduate Student Society 20. University of Victoria (UVIC) ○ Communications + Marketing; Office of Student Life 21. Vancouver Community College (VCC) ○ Indigenous Education and Community Engagement; Students’ Union of Vancouver Community College (SUVCC) 22. Vancouver Island University 111 ○ Accessibility Services; Human Rights; Services for Aboriginal Students; Thrive 23. Western Community College (WCC) - Abbotsford Ontario, Canada 1. Brock University ○ Accessibility Centre; Anti Racism; Sexual Violence Response and Education Coordinator 2. Carleton University ○ Carleton University Students’ Association; Department of African Studies; Department of Criminology; Department of Law and Legal Studies; Equity and Inclusive Communities; Gender and Sexuality Resource Centre; School of Public Policy & Administration 3. Laurentian University ○ Communications; Student Success Centre 4. McMaster University ○ Equity and Inclusion Office; MSU Pride Community Centre; Sexual Violence Prevention and Response Office 5. Mohawk College ○ Social Inc. 6. Ontario College of Arts and Design University (OCADU) ○ Office of Diversity, Equity and Sustainability Initiatives; Research Office of OCADU 7. Queen’s University ○ Human Rights and Equity Services; Yellow House 8. Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly known as Ryerson) ○ Equity and Community Inclusion; Student Life and Learning Support 9. Trent University ○ Communications; Indigenous Enrolment Advisor 10. University of Guelph ○ Cultural Diversity Team; Guelph Queer Equality; Indigenous Student Centre (ISC); Indigenous Student Society (ISS); Office of Diversity and Human Rights; Student Experience; Student Volunteer Connections (SVC) 11. University of Ottawa ○ Communications; Department of Criminology; Department of English; Department of Feminist and Gender Studies; Department of Political Sciences; Department of Sociology; Department of World Literature and Cultural Graduate Studies/Modern Language and Literatures; Graduate Student’s Association des Étudiants Diplomé; Student Rights Centre. 12. University of Toronto ○ Anti-Racism and Cultural Diversity Office (ARCDO); Inclusive Design Research Centre; Queer and Trans Research Lab; Mark S. Bonham Centre Sexual Diversity Studies; The Centre for Women and Trans People 13. University of Waterloo ○ Glow Centre for Sexual and Gender Diversity; Office of Indigenous Relations; QTPOC KW; Racial Advocacy for Inclusion, Solidarity, and Equity (RAISE); UW Drag Club 14. University of Western Ontario ○ Accessible Education 15. University of Windsor ○ Director of Sexual Violence Prevention, Resistance, and Support; Director of the Office of Human Rights, Equity and Accessibility; Student Accessibility Services 16. Wilfred Laurier University (WLU) ○ Brantford Queer Sphere 17. York University 112 ○ African Students Association at York; Centre for Feminist Research; Community Engagement Centre; Faculty of Graduate Studies News and Events; Go Safe; Institute for Social Research; Sexual Assault Survivors Support Line; York First Student Centre 18. Wilfrid Laurier University ○ Executive Assistant to Vice President, Student Affairs; Indigenous Student Services Alberta, Canada 1. Alberta University of Arts ○ AU Arts Students’ Association; Graduate Studies; The Lodgepole Center 2. Ambrose University 3. Burman University ○ Student Association 4. Concordia University of Edmonton ○ Concordia Student Association; Graduate Student Association 5. University of Alberta ○ Community Relations Officer; First Peoples’ House 6. University of Calgary ○ Alberta Civil Liberties Research Centre; Graduation Students’ Association-Gender and Sexuality Alliance (GSA^2); Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI); The Q Centre-Students’ Union; Vice-Provost of EDI Manitoba, Canada 1. University of Manitoba ○ Sexual Violence Resource Centre (SVRC) 2. University of Winnipeg ○ Human Rights and Diversity Officer; Marketing and Communications; Sexual Violence Response Team Saskatchewan, Canada 1. University of Regina o Campus Life University of Regina Student Union; Graduate Studies; Member Services; Sexual Health; Tatawaw Student Centre 2. University of Saskatchewan o Indigenous Association; Student Outreach Quebec, Canada 1. Concordia University ○ ArcadiBlack Perspectives Office; Community Engagement Indigenous Student; Indigenous Student Engagement Coordinator; SHIFT Centre for Social Transformation 2. McGill University ○ Communications 3. Université de Sherbrooke 4. Université de Montréal 5. Université du Québec à Montréal 6. Université Laval 113 New Brunswick, Canada 1. Crandall University 2. Mount Allison University ○ Black Student Advisor and Diversity Educator; Indigenous Engagement; Office of Research Services; Sexualized Violence Response Equity Diversity and Inclusion Consultant; Student Life 3. St. Thomas University ○ 2SLGBTQIA+ Wellness Coordinator; Campus Sexual Assault Support Advocate (CSASA); Students’ Union 4. University of New Brunswick ○ Communications Officer for the Muriel McQueen Fergusson Centre for Family Violence Research (MMFC); Human Rights and Positive Environment Office Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada 1. Memorial University of Newfoundland ○ Indigenous Student Resource Centre (ISRC); Missy Power; MUNSU Advocacy Services; Sexual Harassment Office; Trans Support NL; Women’s Resource Centre Nova Scotia, Canada 1. Acadia University ○ Indigenous Student Society; Indigenous Student Advisor 2. Cape Breton University ○ CBU Students’ Union (SU); CBUSU Multicultural Hub Coordinator; Dean of Library and Cultural Resources; Human Rights Officer; Indigenous Events and Projects Manager; Marketing and Communications; Student Development Officer for Students of African Nova Scotian and Canadian Descent at CBU 3. Dalhousie University ○ DalFeminist Legal Association; DalOUT LGBTQ2S+ Student Society, Human Rights and Equity Service; The Get REAL Movement-Dalhousie Student Union 4. Nova Scotia College of Arts and Design University 5. University of King’s College ○ Associate Director, Communications; Equity Officer; Sexualized Violence Prevention and Response Officer (SVPRO); Student Support Advisor Prince Edward Island, Canada 1. University of Prince Edward Island ○ Black Culture Society of PEI; BIPOC USHR; Marketing and Communications; UPEI Pathways to Academic Success (PAS) Program Facilitator Canada and the United States 1. Adler University ○ Centre for Diversity and Inclusion; Student Affairs United States 1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) ○ LGBTQ + Services: An Intercultural Campus Resource for Diverse Gender, Romantic, and Sexual Identities 114 Appendices Appendix A: Consent Form Department of Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice Buchanan Tower 1097-1873 East Mall Vancouver, BC Canada V6T 1Z3 Tel: 604-822-9171 grsj.programassistant@ubc.ca CONSENT FORM: Encountering Violence: The Stories of Gender Nonbinary Indigenous, Black and People of Colour (IBPOC) I. STUDY TEAM Who is conducting and contributing to the study? Principal Investigator (PI): Dr. Christopher B. Patterson; Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice; The University of British Columbia Co-Investigator (Co-I & Primary Contact): Aliyah Ali; Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice; The University of British Columbia This study is part of a course-based project (GRSJ 520B 001: Thesis) for a graduate degree program in Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice at UBC. The results will be available on UBC cIRcle for educational use (e.g., research materials, teaching, conferences, or papers). II. SPONSOR (not applicable) III. INVITATION & STUDY PURPOSE What is the purpose of the study? Why should you join? You are eligible to participate in this study because you identify as a Gender Nonbinary IBPOC between the ages of 18 to 25 and have experience(s) with violence. Research Questions: Your experiences will help respond to the following: 1) How do you, as a Gender Nonbinary IBPOC, perceive and understand violence? and 2) How does violence affect your relationships (e.g., friendships, family, intimate partner(s) or colleagues and supervisors) and access to healthcare and support services? 115 Purpose: Responses will help fill in gaps in the current literature on Gender Nonbinary IBPOC. The final stages of the project will be for your suggestions on potential policy recommendations on equitable treatment of Gender Nonbinary IBPOC and safe access to federal public/private services and facilities (e.g., hospitals, correctional facilities, post-secondary institutions, etc.). IV. STUDY PROCEDURES What is involved? Schedule a session using the contact details on the 1st page of this form. The Co-I will ask you to recount/explain the meaning behind experiences of violence as a Gender Nonbinary IBPOC. Risk Assessment: This survey helps determine eligibility based on risk of exposure to harm, distress, and suicide. Please fill out the form before your session. Save a copy of the form for your records and send a copy to the Co-I via email for the study team’s records. Storytelling: You choose a storytelling format for your session to share your experiences. Oral History: Verbal storytelling session - Recount your encounters with violence (1 hr). Photovoice: Visual storytelling session - Take 5 photos (30 mins) and describe each photo's representation of encountering violence (30 mins). Participants’ Choice: Fine arts-based storytelling session - Create art using an artform (e.g., animation, drawing, painting, poetry, etc.) and take 5 photos of your artwork (30 mins) and describe each photo's representation of encountering violence (30 mins). Camera required: (only for Photovoice and Participants’ Choice) Use a personal camera phone to take photos. A disposable will be available upon request. Disposables must be returned by post to the Co-I after 5 days of receiving it by post (postage fees incl.). Alternative to photos: Create a QR Code: https://www.qr-code-generator.com Duration: 1hr 10 mins per participant Language: You must speak, write, and understand English. Compensation: $50 VISA Gift Card will be sent via email by the Co-l after your session. Response Time: 1 week - Please read and consider the risks associated with this study. Location: Online via Zoom or phone. Participation Period: 12-01-2022 to 02-01-2023 Contact Information: Please send any questions about the project or your role in the study to either Aliyah Ali or Dr. Christopher B. Patterson for further details. 116 V. STUDY RESULTS What are the outcomes of the study? Results will be available to the public in a graduate thesis research project and online through UBC cIRcle research database. The results could be published in academic journal articles or used for educational purposes (incl. class lectures, conferences, and other publishable materials). VI. POTENTIAL RISKS Ethical considerations Medium-risk: This study is medium-risk and examines experiences of violence. The potential to cause risk for harm may be greater than those encountered in everyday life. You must be aware of the risks associated with this study and its mitigating measures. Voluntary Participation Your participation is completely voluntary. You have the right to withdraw from this study at any time without any negative consequences. Primary method of consent is written signature. Secondary method is verbal consent guided by a script read aloud by the Co-I at the start of your session, and periodically throughout to avoid potential risk for harm and involuntary participation. You will be informed on any new details that may develop that could impact your participation. Confidentiality Your data will be kept private by both parties' written and verbal consent. The study team will have access to your data. You are advised to find a private room for the session and consider the convenience, accessibility, and privacy of information (avoid being overheard by third parties). Third-Party Protocol: Third-party consent is not required as photos of third-party individuals or groups will not be used/released. You are responsible to not photograph yourself, the study team, family/friends, or any other individual. Zoom Privacy & Enhanced Privacy: Zoom link and password will be sent via email, if chosen, and should not be shared with anyone. Enhanced privacy options: 1) Login with a nickname, pseudonym (made-up name), or a research code; 2) Turn off your camera and/or mute microphone (optional); and/or 3) The Co-I will store audio files in Cloud storage. Retraumatization By consenting to join this study, you fully understand the potential for retraumatization. To avoid potential for retraumatization, you are asked to fill out a Risk Assessment Survey Form. You are responsible to report any signs or concerns of potential risks to the Co-I. The Co-I is required to minimize any potential risk. Emergency contacts will be notified if you need immediate medical attention. If contacts are unavailable, the Co-I is required to call police under Canada’s Mental Health Act to get you to the nearest emergency room for medical attention. A self-care package will be sent via email that includes professional community support services and resources (e.g., healing circles, cognitive behavioural therapy, clinical counselling, etc.). 117 Information Security The Co-I will transcribe the session audio file on their password-protected and encrypted computer. A copy of the audio file and transcription will be sent to the PI via UBC encrypted email for accuracy assurance. All electronic data (e.g., consent forms, audio files, typed interviews (transcripts), images etc.) will be sent via UBC encrypted email from the Co-I to the PI’s computer to store. All hard copy data (e.g., handwritten notes, printed transcripts, pseudonyms, etc.) will be sent via UBC encrypted email from the Co-I to the PI’s computer to print and stored in a key lock cabinet in the PI’s UBC Vancouver office. Your personal details will be stored for a minimum of 5 years until the PI deems them of no further use. Electronic data will be deleted from the PI’s computer. Hard copy data will be discarded using the shredder in the main office for GRSJ at UBC Vancouver campus. The Co-I will notify you when results are available online on UBC cIRcle. The results have the potential to be published in academic articles. For more details on UBC cIRcle, read section X. VII. POTENTIAL BENEFITS OF THE STUDY What are the benefits to participating? Your experiences will help current and future research on Gender Nonbinary IBPOC, and your suggestions on potential policy recommendations will increase support for the community. VIII. CONFIDENTIALITY How will your identity be kept confidential? The study team will have access to your data. Your personal details will be kept confidential by both parties' written and verbal consent. A pseudonym (made-up name) will replace your legal name in all written publications. Location: Online via Zoom or phone. You are advised to find a private room for your session (and avoid being overheard by third-party). Anonymity: Photos identifying you, the study team, family/friends, or any other individual will not be used/released. Avoid photos with common characteristics (e.g., portraits, areas of your home, your workplace, schools, etc.). The study team will have access to your photos. Transfer of Electronic & Hard Copy Data: Electronic data (e.g., consent forms, audio files, transcripts, and photos) transferred from Zoom, audio-recorder, or camera phone and stored on the Co-I’s password-protected computer. Hard copy data (e.g., handwritten notes, transcripts, etc.) will be locked in a key lock cabinet in the UBC office of the PI. Pseudonyms will be stored separate from other materials in the cabinet. Storage: Your data will be stored for a minimum of 5 years until the PI deems it of no further value. The results will be disseminated and available online through UBC cIRcle. IX. LIMITS OF CONFIDENTIALITY Confidentiality could be broken if the Co-I become aware of incidents of child abuse. The Co-I is required to report to the police. By providing consent, you agree to keep personal details private. The Co-I cannot guarantee that your data will remain private. 118 X. OPEN ACCESS Results will be available on UBC cIRcle. Once results are published you cannot withdraw your data. UBC cIRcle is a data repository for published/unpublished research and publications of UBC (and partners) faculty, students, and staff for educational use (e.g., research materials, teaching, conferences or papers). XI. PAYMENT Compensation and Reimbursement A $50 VISA eGift Card will be sent to you via email after your session. No reimbursements. How to withdraw from the study? Your participation is completely voluntary. You have the right to withdraw at any time without negative consequences and still receive compensation. If you wish to withdraw, please contact the Co-I or PI. Your data will be deleted from devices and discarded using the office shredder. XII. CONTACT FOR INFORMATION FOR THE STUDY Who to contact regarding your questions about the study? For questions on study procedures and your role contact the Co-I (details on page-1 of this form). XIII. CONTACT FOR COMPLAINTS Who to contact about your concerns and/or complaints about the study? If you have any concerns or complaints about your rights as a research participant and/or your experiences while participating in this study, contact the Research Participant Complaint Line in the UBC Office of Research Ethics at 604-822-8598 or it long distance email RISe@ors.ubc.ca or call toll free 1-877-822-8598. IX. PARTICIPANT CONSENT AND SIGNATURE What are you consenting to? ● Complete Risk Assessment Survey Form ● Audio-recording session online via Zoom or by phone using a handheld audio-recorder. Alternative: The Co-I take handwritten notes. ● Receive/return disposable cameras by post (postage fees incl.), if necessary. ● Use/release of photos for educational purposes. Photos identifying any individual or third party will not be used/released. ● Permission to call emergency contact(s) if at-risk for harm. If unavailable, the Co-I has a legal duty to report to the police under BC’s Mental Health Act (RSBC 1996, c. 288). ● Notice of results and feedback via email. No guaranteed use of results for future research. Contact Information: Please fill in all your details below. _______________________________________________ ______________ Full name (or preferred name) Pronouns _______________________________________________ ______________ Address Date of birth _______________________________________________ ______________ Email address Phone number 119 Emergency Contacts: Please fill in all details in sections 1 and 2 below. Section 1 _______________________________________________ ______________ Name of primary emergency contact Phone number _______________________________________________ ______________ Name of secondary emergency contact Phone number ________________________________________________ ______________ Name of third emergency contact Phone number Section 2 _______________________________________________ _____________ Name of Physician or General/Family Practitioner Phone number Permission to contact on your behalf if in a high-risk/emergency? YES / NO Once you have read the document, or the document has been read and explained to you, and you had the chance to pose questions or concerns, please sign below if you agree to join this study. X_________________________________________________ ____________ Signature of Participant or Legally Authorized Representative Date X_________________________________________________ ____________ Signature of Person Obtaining Consent Date Signed copies of this consent form must be 1) retained on file by the Principal Investigator and 2) given to the participant for their records. 120 Appendix B: Verbal Consent Script Read by: Co-Investigator (Co-I) to Participants’ This verbal agreement will be read to you by the Co-I before your storytelling session and periodically throughout your session to avoid potential risks for harm and triggers. Do you consent to participate in this study through storytelling and explaining your experiences with violence as a Gender Nonbinary IBPOC? Do you agree to provide your electronic signature on a digital consent form in agreement to participate in this study? I [the Co-I] will sign and return the consent form to you. Do you voluntarily consent to participate in this study? Do you understand that you have the right to contact the study team before or after the session and before the project is complete? Do you understand that you have the right to withdraw from this study without any negative consequences, except once the study results are uploaded and published to the UBC cIRcle research database? Do you understand how to withdraw your information from the study (e.g., audio files, transcripts, notes, and photos) will be removed from all devices and destroyed using a shredder located in the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice’s main office at UBC? Do you consent to your name and all identifying aspects not being used, released, or shared with anyone but the study team? Do you consent to your identity remaining confidential and private by using a pseudonym (e.g., a made-up name) in all written publications? Photos that identify third-party individuals or groups will not be used or released. You have a responsibility not to take photographs that identify you, study team members, family, friends, or any other individual. Do you consent to the Co-I taking handwritten notes and using a digital handheld audio recorder to record your session? Does the study team have your permission and consent to document personal details and call your emergency contacts if you need medical attention? If your contacts are unavailable, the Co-I must report to the police under BC’s Mental Health Act (RSBC 1996, c. 288). Do you want the study results to be uploaded, stored, and made available for educational purposes (e.g., classroom use, conference presentations, and academic papers) through UBC’s cIRcle research database? 121 Appendix C: Risk Assessment Survey Form This survey is both transferable and universal. Purpose: This survey will be used to assess your potential risk of harm, distress, and suicide. The results from this survey will help determine your eligibility based on the likelihood of exposure to potential risk of harm. Duration: 10 minutes Location: Online via Zoom or phone What is involved? 1. Before the session - Please fill out this form (10-minutes) 2. Save a copy of this risk assessment form for your records. Who is considered at-risk? If you have or more of these conditions, you may be ineligible to participate in this study: ● Underlying medical conditions (e.g., pregnancy, epilepsy, seizures, etc.) ● Chronic illness (e.g., chronic pain, heart disease, cancer, depression, diabetes, generalized anxiety, Crohn's disease, bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, schizophrenia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, attention deficit disorder, narcolepsy, etc.) ● Process of transitioning, reassignment therapy, hormone replacement therapy, or sex reassignment surgery. ● Have you experienced thoughts of self-harm or suicide in the past 3 months? ● Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) or losing someone/a loved one to suicide. Distress & Suicidal Protocols: The Co-I will have your Consent Form and Risk Assessment Survey Form on hand during the session. In case of an emergency that requires medical attention, provide your location details for the duration of the session. This information will be given to your emergency contacts if an emergency arises. If in distress or at risk for harm, the Co-I will stop audio-recording the session to prioritize your health and safety. Your participation is voluntary. You have the right to request to withdraw at any time and not face any negative consequences. The Co-I will inform you of new information that could potentially impact your ability to join. You are responsible for reporting any signs or concerns to the Co-I. You have the right to contact the study team at any time before the completion of the project. Once the study results are finalized and published, you cannot change or remove any information. If the study team cannot minimize the risk, the Co-I has the Duty to Report and provide you with emergency assistance under BC’s Mental Health Act (RSBC 1996, c. 288). 122 ● Voluntary admission (medical attention) The Co-I will call the nearest hospital to inform them of your situation and that you are on your way, either by taxi (paid) or by emergency contact. The Co-I will call again to check if you are safe and admitted. ● Involuntary admission (medical attention) At-risk with intent, means, or plan to cause harm but refuse medical attention. The Co-I will call your emergency contacts. If unavailable, the Co-I must call the police. Third-Party Protocols: Third-party consent will not be required because photos identifying third-party individuals or groups will not be used or released. You are responsible for pictures identifying you, study team members, family, friends, or any other individual. Print Your Name Here: I __________________________________ consent/do not consent (circle one) knowing your potential risks for harm from the results of your study risk assessment survey form will help determine your participation and potential risks. X_______________________________________________ _____________ Signature of Participant or Authorized Legal Representative Date 123 Appendix C.1: Risk Assessment Survey Completed by: _________________________________ Date: _____/_____/______ Questions Yes No Comments 1. Do you have any underlying medical conditions? (e.g., pregnancy, epilepsy, seizures, etc.) [] [] 2. Do you have any chronic illnesses? (e.g., chronic pain, heart disease, cancer, depression, diabetes, generalized anxiety, Crohn's disease, bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, schizophrenia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, attention deficit disorder, narcolepsy, etc.) [] [] 3. Are you in the process of transitioning, reassignment therapy, hormone replacement therapy, or sex reassignment surgery? [] [] 4. Have you experienced thoughts of self-harm or suicide in the past 3 months? [] [] 5. Are you diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)? [] [] 6. Have you lost someone or a loved one to suicide? [] [] 124 Appendix C.2: Risk Assessment Table Instructions: 1. Add the number of check marks in the “Yes” column of Appendix C.1 Risk Assessment Survey Form to determine your total score out of 6. 2. Your total score will indicate your potential risk for harm and the corresponding mitigating measures using the Risk Assessment Table below. Risk for Harm Description of Risk Level Mitigating Measures [] Low (1 out of 6) Minimal likelihood of injury in the near future Use of current mitigating measures [] Medium (2-3 out of 6) Some chances for injury that may require first aid Potential need for other mitigating measures [] High (4-5 out of 6) Likelihood of injury that requires medical attention Mitigating measures placed before risk occurs [] Extreme (6 out of 6) Likelihood of permanent injury or death Consider alternatives to a risk factor or add other mitigating measures Scores of High/Extreme potential risks for harm are required to complete the following: You are responsible to ask 1 of your emergency contacts before your session if they could be available upon request during your scheduled session in case an emergency occurs that may require immediate medical attention without the involvement of policing services. Save a copy of this completed form for your records, and please send a copy to the Co-I via email for the study team records. The Co-I will send a Professional Resources document to keep on hand, if you wish to seek professional help. 125 Appendix D: Initial Contact Email Script Date: / / Dear [name of recipient], I hope that this message finds you well. I am writing to offer you to join my thesis research project titled "Encountering Violence: The Stories of Gender Nonbinary Indigenous, Black and People of Colour," completed by a Graduate Student at the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice (GRSJ) UBC. Research Questions: This study will answer two questions: 1) How do Gender Nonbinary IBPOC perceive and understand violence? and 2) How does violence affect your relationships (friends, family, intimate, workplace, etc.) and access to healthcare and support services? Purpose: Participant response(s) will help fill in gaps to the current literature on Gender Nonbinary IBPOC. Participant involvement in the final stages of the research to make suggestions on potential policy recommendations, including but not limited to Gender Nonbinary IBPOC receiving equitable treatment and safe access to federal public/private services and facilities (e.g., hospitals, correctional facilities, post-secondary institutions, etc.). What is involved? You will book a storytelling session with the Co-I to recount and explain the deeper meaning behind your experiences with violence as a Gender Nonbinary IBPOC. Risk Assessment: This survey helps determine eligibility based on risk of exposure to harm, distress, and suicide. Storytelling: You choose a storytelling format to share your experiences. Oral History: Verbal storytelling session - Recount your encounters with violence (1 hr); or Photovoice: Visual storytelling session - Take 5 photos (30 mins), and describe each photos representation of encountering violence (30 mins); or Participants’ Choice: Fine arts-based storytelling session - Create art using an artform (e.g., animation, drawing, painting, poetry, etc.) and take 5 photos of your artwork (30 mins) and describe each photo's representation of encountering violence (30 mins). Duration: 1hr 10 mins per participant Language: You must speak, write, and understand English. Compensation: $50 VISA Gift Card (Co-I will email the gift card once the session is complete). Response Time: 1 week - Please read and consider the risks associated with this study. Location: Online via Zoom or phone. Participation Period: 12/01/2022 to 02/01/2023 126 Thank you for taking the time to read this letter. If you agree to join this study, I would like to hear about your experiences. Sincerely, Aliyah Ali (she/her/they/them) Graduate Student University of British Columbia Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice The unceded, occupied, and ancestral territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) nation. 127 Appendix E: Invitation Letter Aliyah Ali Graduate Student Christopher B. Patterson Assistant Professor Date: / / Dear [name of recipient], I hope this message finds you well. I am a graduate student at the University of British Columbia (UBC). You are invited to participate in my course-based MA thesis project titled “Encountering Violence: The Stories of Gender Nonbinary Indigenous, Black and People of Colour (IBPOC)” at the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice (GRSJ) at the University of British Columbia. This study is part of a course-based project (GRSJ 520B 001: Thesis) for a graduate degree program at the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice at UBC. Research Questions: This study will answer two questions: 1) How do Gender Nonbinary IBPOC perceive and understand violence? and 2) How does violence affect your relationships (friends, family, intimate, workplace, etc.) and access to healthcare and support services? Purpose: Participant response(s) will help fill in gaps to the current literature on Gender Nonbinary IBPOC. Participant involvement in the final stages of the research to make suggestions on potential policy recommendations, including but not limited to Gender Nonbinary IBPOC receiving equitable treatment and safe access to federal public/private services and facilities (e.g., hospitals, correctional facilities, post-secondary institutions, etc.). What is involved? You will book a storytelling session with the Co-I to recount and explain the deeper meaning behind your experiences with violence as a Gender Nonbinary IBPOC. Risk Assessment: This survey helps determine eligibility based on risk of exposure to harm, distress, and suicide. Storytelling: You choose a storytelling format to share your experiences. Oral History: Verbal storytelling session - Recount your encounters with violence (1 hr); or Photovoice: Visual storytelling session - Take 5 photos (30 mins), and describe each photos representation of encountering violence (30 mins); or Participants’ Choice: Fine arts-based storytelling session - Create art using an artform (e.g., animation, drawing, painting, poetry, etc.) and take 5 photos of your artwork (30 mins) and describe each photo's representation of encountering violence (30 mins). 128 Duration: 1 hr 10 mins per participant Language: You must speak, write, and understand English. Compensation: $50 VISA Gift Card (Co-I will email the gift card once the session is complete). Response Time: 1 week - Please read and consider the risks associated with this study. Location: Online via Zoom or phone. Participation Period: 12/01/2022 to 02/01/2023 Thank you for taking the time to read this letter. If you agree to join this study, I would like to hear about your experiences. Sincerely, Aliyah Ali (she/her/they/them) Graduate Student University of British Columbia Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice The unceded, occupied, and ancestral territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) nation. 129 Appendix F: Recruitment Email Script Date: / / Hello [name of recipient], My name is Aliyah Ali. I am a graduate student at the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice at UBC. I am seeking participants who identify as Gender Nonbinary Indigenous, Black and People of Colour for my thesis project titled “Encountering Violence: The Stories of Gender Nonbinary Indigenous, Black and People of Colour (IBPOC)”. Is it possible to forward this information or recruitment poster to those who may be interested? Research Question: This study will answer two research questions: 1) How do you perceive and understand violence? and 2) How does violence affect your relationships (e.g., friendships, family, intimate partner(s) or colleagues and supervisors) and access to healthcare and support services? Purpose: Participant response(s) will help fill in gaps to the current literature on Gender Nonbinary IBPOC. Participant involvement in the final stages of the research to make suggestions on potential policy recommendations, including but not limited to Gender Nonbinary IBPOC receiving equitable treatment and safe access to federal public/private services and facilities (e.g., hospitals, correctional facilities, post-secondary institutions, etc.). What is involved? You will book a storytelling session with the Co-I to recount and explain the deeper meaning behind your experiences with violence as a Gender Nonbinary IBPOC. Risk Assessment: This survey helps determine eligibility based on risk of exposure to harm, distress, and suicide. Storytelling: You choose a storytelling format to share your experiences. Oral History: Verbal storytelling session - Recount your encounters with violence (1 hr); or Photovoice: Visual storytelling session - Take 5 photos (30 mins), and describe each photos representation of encountering violence (30 mins); or Participants’ Choice: Fine arts-based storytelling session - Create art using an artform (e.g., animation, drawing, painting, poetry, etc.) and take 5 photos of your artwork (30 mins) and describe each photo's representation of encountering violence (30 mins). Duration: 1 hr 10 mins per participant Language: Participants must speak, write, and understand English. Compensation: $50 VISA Gift Card (Co-I will email the gift card once the session is complete). Response Time: 1 week - Please read and consider the risks associated with this study. Location: Online via Zoom or phone. 130 Participation Period: 12/01/2022 to 02/01/2023 Contact Information: Please ask any questions to Aliyah Ali; or Dr. Christopher B. Patterson Thank you for taking the time to read this letter. Sincerely, Aliyah Ali (she/her/they/them) Graduate Student University of British Columbia Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice The unceded, occupied, and ancestral territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) nation. 131 Appendix G: Online Recruitment Advertisement Text Instructions: Copy and paste the text below to your social media platforms such as Facebook or Instagram. “Please note, if you "like" or "follow" this post you may be publicly identified with the study.” 132 Appendix H: Referral Instructions & Message Template Instructions: 1) Use the message template below to ask a potential participant (people invited to help create content) if they are interested in joining a study that focuses on “Encountering Violence: The Stories of Gender Nonbinary Indigenous, Black and People of Colour (IBPOC)”. 2) Both the message and recruitment poster must be sent together via email OR download the recruitment poster to your device as a pdf or jpeg and attach it to your message. 3) Do not provide the study team with the contact information of potential participants unless permission is granted by the potential participant themselves for matters of confidentiality and privacy. Message Template: Hey [name of recipient], I hope this message finds you well. I recently participated in a study titled “Encountering Violence: The Stories of Gender Nonbinary Indigenous, Black and People of Colour (IBPOC)”. Would you be interested in joining the study? Research Questions: This study is to answer two research questions: 1) How do Gender Nonbinary IBPOC perceive and understand violence? and 2) How does violence affect your relationships (friends, family, intimate, workplace, etc.) and access to healthcare and support services? Purpose: Participant response(s) will help fill in gaps to the current literature on Gender Nonbinary IBPOC. Participant involvement in the final stages of the research to make suggestions on potential policy recommendations, including but not limited to Gender Nonbinary IBPOC receiving equitable treatment and safe access to federal public/private services and facilities (e.g., hospitals, correctional facilities, post-secondary institutions, etc.). Online Recruitment Advertisement Text: Copy and paste the text below to your social media platforms, such as Facebook or Instagram. “Please note, if you "like" or "follow" this post you may be publicly identified with the study.” If you want more information or prefer to contact a study member directly, I have attached the research poster for more details and the contact information of study members at the bottom of the study recruitment poster. Best, [Name of participant] 133 Appendix I: Message of Appreciation - Email Script Date: / / Dear [name of recipient], Thank you for dedicating time and demonstrating interest in participating in this study. With careful consideration of ethical research practices and recruiting potential participants according to the study eligibility criteria, I regret to inform you that the study team cannot offer you a role as a participant in this study. Your interest in this study will be recorded anonymously as part of the gathered research data. I appreciate you taking the time to read this letter and desire to engage in this study. Please, contact me if you have any questions or concerns using the details below. Sincerely, Aliyah Ali (she/her/they/them) Graduate Student University of British Columbia Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice The unceded, occupied, and ancestral territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) nation. 134 Appendix J: Session Guide Oral History: 1. How do you know if you are safe or unsafe? 2. What makes you feel safe, and how? (i.e., specific spaces, places, people, items etc.) 3. Do your encounters with violence impact how you view or think about violence? 4. How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected you personally? How has it affected your view on violence? 5. Do your encounters with violence impact how you view your identity (i.e., race and gender)? As a Gender Nonbinary IBPOC, how do your encounters with violence impact your productivity and performance? 6. Do you have experience reporting incidents or filing a victim impact statement? If yes, what was this process like for you? What lifestyle choices or changes, if any, have you made because of your experiences? 7. What have you learned as a Gender Nonbinary IBPOC from your encounters with violence? 8. Do your encounters affect your mental or physical health? If yes, what are some challenges to believing your identity? What does this type of violence look, sound, and feel like for you? 9. Do your encounters with violence affect your work relationships? (i.e., management, co-workers, supervisor, etc.). If yes, are there challenges you believe are tied to your identity? What does this type of violence look, sound or feel like for you? 10. Violence can take many forms in close relationships, including intimate partner and domestic/family violence. Violence directed at friends, colleagues, law enforcement, the medical system, and community support services can be detrimental. If yes, are there specific challenges intertwined with your identity? What does this type of violence look, sound or feel like for you? Photovoice: 1. What made you decide to tell your story through a photovoice approach? 2. What have you learned as a Gender Nonbinary IBPOC from your encounters with violence? 3. Can you describe to me what the deep meaning is behind your photo? What does it say about you or your encounters with violence? 4. Can you describe to me what is happening in your photo? 5. How does your photo relate to the lived experiences of another Gender Nonbinary IBPOC? 6. What does your photo say about your gender identity? 7. What does your photo say about your racial and gender identity? 8. How does this photo affect multiple areas of your life (e.g., health, relationships, finances, and work)? Participant Choice: 1. What made you choose to tell your story through a participants’ choice approach? 2. What made you pick this specific art form to tell your story? 3. What do you see in this photo of your art piece? 4. What is happening in this photo of your art piece? 5. What does the photo say about your art piece say about your encounters with violence? 6. How does your art piece relate to the lived experiences of another Gender Nonbinary IBPOC? 7. What does the photo of your art piece say about your gender identity? 8. What does the photo of your art piece say about your racial identity? 9. How does the photo of your art piece affect multiple areas of your life (e.g., health, relationships, finances, and work)? 10. How did the participants’ choice approach work for you as a storytelling method? 135 Appendix K: Professional Resources 1. Access & Assessment Centre (AAC) - Vancouver General Hospital (VGH) Services: Free non-life-threatening mental health and/or substance use support. *For residents ages 17+ in Vancouver experiencing mental health related issues. Address: Joseph & Rosalie Segal & Family Health Centre, 1st Floor, 803 W 12th Avenue, Vancouver, BC Phone: 604-657-3700 Email: aac@vch.ca Web: http://www.vch.ca/locations-services/result?res_id=1186 Hours: Everyday, 7:30am-11:00pm 2. Canadian Mental Health Association, North and West Vancouver Services: short-term, low-cost, confidential, and one-to-one support. *For residents on the North Shore, BC. Address: Suite 300 - 1835 Lonsdale Avenue, North Vancouver, BC Phone: 604-987-6959 Email: northshore@cmha.bc.ca Web: https://northwestvancouver.cmha.bc.ca Hours: Tuesday to Thursday, 9:00am - 4:00pm 3. Dragonstone Counselling Services: Offers community-based individual, relationship, and family counselling services. *For residents of all ages and genders in Vancouver Address: 4676 Main Street, Vancouver, BC Phone: 604-738-5496 Email: dragonstone.counselling@gmail.com Web: https://www.dragonstonecounselling.ca Hours: Everyday, 10:00am-8:00pm 4. Eagle Wellness Services: A Registered Social Worker (RSW) offering counselling and therapy services for anxiety, depression, grief and loss, and trauma. They also offer an LGBTQ Counselling Centre and relationship/family counselling. Fees: One-hour individual session ($160); 90 min relationship/family counselling session ($225). Address: Suite 413 - 119 W Pender Street at Beatty, Vancouver, BC Phone: 604-706-4906 Email: info@eaglewellness.ca Web: https://www.eaglewellness.ca/counselling-vancouver-bc Hours: Tuesday and Wednesday, 12:00pm-6:00pm 5. Hope for Wellness Helpline - Online Counseling Service Services: Free confidential, non-judgemental, crisis intervention, counselling services, and more. *For Indigenous peoples across Canada Address: 10 Rue Wellington, Gatineau, QC Phone: 1-855-242-3310 Web: https://www.hopeforwellness.ca Hours: 24 hours, 7 days a week 136 6. Mental Health - Raven Song Community Health Centre Services: Community-focused health services, mental health support, and youth health services. *For all age groups Address: 2450 Ontario Street, Vancouver, BC Phone: 604-709-6400 Web: http://www.vch.ca/locations-services/result?res_id=1365 Hours: Monday to Friday, 8:30am-4:30pm; Weekends, 10:00am-6:00pm 7. REACH Medical Clinic Services: Free virtual counselling sessions covered by MSP. Community-based health care offering social work services, health care, and programs and resources. Address: 1145 Commercial Drive, Vancouver, BC Phone: 604-251-3000 Web: https://www.reachcentre.bc.ca Hours: Monday to Friday, 9:00am-5:00pm; and Saturday, 9:00am-1:00pm 8. Richmond CHIMO Community Services Services: Free, confidential, non-judgemental professional counselling programs. Address: Suite 120 - 7000 Minoru Boulevard, Richmond, BC Phone: 604-279-7077 Email: chimo@chimoservices.com Web: https://chimoservices.com Hours: Monday to Friday, 9:00am-4:30pm 9. Three Bridges Community Health Centre - Prism Services (VGH) Services: Information and referral service for individual or group counselling services. *For lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, Two-Spirit and queer + (LGBT2Q+) communities. Address: 1128 Hornby Street, Vancouver, BC Phone: 604-331-8900 Email: prism@vch.ca Web: http://www.vch.ca/Locations-Services/result?res_id=184 Hours: Monday to Friday, 8:30am-6:30pm 10. Two Spirit Connection: Building Resilience Through Community Services: Virtual and in-person mental health and wellbeing support, clinical counselling, support worker, connections to elders and peers through activities and culture. *For Indigenous youth ages 11 to 30; 2Spirit youth Address: 1618 E Hastings, Vancouver, BC Phone: 604-379-5133 Email: 2spirit@unya.bc.ca Web: https://unya.bc.ca/programs/2-spirit-collective Hours: Monday to Friday, 9:00am-5:00pm 137 Appendix L: Recruitment Poster
Thesis/Dissertation
eng
Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice
Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
Graduate
Patterson, Christopher B.
Encountering violence : the stories of gender nonbinary Indigenous, Black and people of colour (IBPOC)
Text