BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//wp-events-plugin.com//7.3.3//EN TZID:America/Toronto X-WR-TIMEZONE:America/Toronto BEGIN:VEVENT UID:191@sds.utoronto.ca DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20260306T160000 DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20260306T180000 DTSTAMP:20251204T114412Z URL:https://sds.utoronto.ca/events/trans-queer-resistance-9th-annual-queer -directions-symposium/ SUMMARY:Trans & Queer Resistance: 9th Annual Queer Directions Symposium DESCRIPTION:\n\n\n\n\n\n\nWhen: March 6\, 2026\, 4PM - 6PM\nWhere: UC140\ , University College\, 15 King's College Circle\n\nQueer Directions is an annual symposium at The Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies address ing pressing issues in queer and trans studies\, politics\, and culture. T his year’s theme is Trans &\; Queer Resistance with speakers Karma Ch ávez\, Charlene A. Caruthers\, Sayan Bhattacharya\, and Emi Koyama. This symposium focuses on creative\, intellectual\, activist\, and grassroots o rganizing traditions and social justice and movement work that both addres ses the ongoing harms and material violences of everyday life\, but also o rganizes toward and imagines the possibility for queer\, trans\, black\, b rown\, and indigenous lifeworlds. Our esteemed panelists will join us to r aise similar questions\, press on other ones\, and bring their own work to bear on what it means to do this work now.\nRegister on Eventbrite\nIf yo u have any accessibility needs or requested accommodations\, please email sexual.diversity@utoronto.ca. \n\nThis event will have ASL interpreters an d live transcription available. \n\n \;\n\nSpeaker Bios\n\nKarma R. Ch ávez is Chair and Bobby and Sherri Patton Professor in the Department of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies at the University of Texas - Austin. She is author of Queer Migration Politics: Activist Rhetoric and Coalitio nal Possibilities (University of Illinois Press\, 2013)\; Palestine on the Air (University of Illinois Press\, 2019)\; and The Borders of AIDS: Race \, Quarantine\, and Resistance (University of Washington Press\, 2021). Sh e is a cofounder of her campus Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine. \n\nCharlene A. Carruthers (she/her) is a writer\, filmmaker\, community o rganizer\, and Black Studies PhD Candidate at Northwestern University. Her work spans more than 20 years of community organizing across racial\, gen der and economic justice movements.\n\nA practitioner of telling more comp lete stories\, her work as an artist is to honor ancestors across the dias pora and interrogate ongoing work towards collective liberation. Charlene wrote and directed The Funnel\, a short film\, which received the Queer Bl ack Voices Award at the 35th Annual aGLIFF Prism Film Festival. Charlene a lso directed La Salida\, a short film co-written by Deivid Rojas and produ ced by Full Spectrum Features. She is an inaugural Marguerite Casey Presid ential Freedom Scholar\, 2024 Northwestern University Presidential Fellow\ , and 2024 Center for Racial Justice Fellow at the University of Michigan. \n\nShe is the founding National Director of BYP100\, a national organizat ion of young Black organizers working through a Black queer feminist lens. In addition to being a highly sought-after speaker\, educator\, and facil itator\, Charlene is author of the bestselling book\, Unapologetic: A Blac k\, Queer and Feminist Mandate for Radical Movements (Beacon Press). She i s an enthusiastic global traveler and believes that food is the best way t o learn about people and culture\n\nSayan Bhattacharya is an assistant pro fessor in the Harriet Tubman Department of Women\, Gender and Sexuality St udies\, University of Maryland\, College Park. Their current manuscript in progress is an archival and ethnographic exploration of of various improv isatory and innovative strategies that Indian trans communities deploy to make life in an environment saturated by violence. Sayan stages conversati ons between anthropology of violence\, trans\, queer and critical disabili ty studies scholarship on care and anti-caste literatures to study the eff orts needed to reproduce an everyday that can be inhabited. Their research has appeared in Cultural Studies\, Radical History Review\, Global Public Health\, Transgender Studies Quarterly\, South Asian Multidisciplinary Ac ademic Journal\, QED and GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies\, Anthr opology and Humanism among others. Sayan is the recipient of the 2023 Sylv ia Rivera Award in Transgender Studies for their essay "Inhabiting the Sta te Subjunctively: Transgender Life-making alongside Death and a Pandemic". Sayan also volunteers with community-led trans and disability rights orga nizations in West Bengal in India.\n\nEmi Koyama is a multi-issue social j ustice activist and writer synthesizing feminist\, Asian\, survivor\, dyke \, queer\, sex worker\, intersex\, genderqueer\, and crip politics. Koyama has written and presented extensively about these issues\, and is especia lly known for her critiques of the anti-trafficking movement and mainstrea m survivor support services. She is the author of "The Transfeminist Manif esto\,” a founder of the advocacy group Intersex Initiative\, a former b oard member of the Survival Project (a now-defunct organization serving in tersex and transgender survivors of sexual abuse and domestic violence)\, an advocate for the decriminalization of sex work\, and a member of the Co alition for Rights and Safety for People in the Sex Trade.\n\n\n\n\n\n ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://sds.utoronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/Queer Directions2026-Poster-websmall-scaled.jpeg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:America/Toronto X-LIC-LOCATION:America/Toronto BEGIN:STANDARD DTSTART:20251102T010000 TZOFFSETFROM:-0400 TZOFFSETTO:-0500 TZNAME:EST END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE END:VCALENDAR