keep safety, make places safer for all young people, and successfully operate an all-gender program, an all-inclusive program, regardless of what points of marginalisation(s) you’re trying to help ease for people. T at is my hope. Vikki: In terms of possibility, how does this make more transformational and liberatory spaces of justice (Lacey, 2005)? When marginalised folks like yourself – like you said, you have privilege, but you have points of oppression – carve out space, there’s more space for others. I’m wondering about how the hard work everybody’s done to shiſt the culture at Peak House, in terms of gender diversity, sexual orientation, and diversity, can be used to make more just spaces for indigenous folks, to acknowledge white supremacy and racism? Taking on oppression on all fronts. T is requires we face the discomfort that is required to address privilege and actually do justice in practice (Kumashiro, 2004; Heron, 2005; Reynolds, 2014). It’s exciting, because we start to co- create more spaces of justice, right? James: Again, that is the history of Peak House, long before I came. T is piece of work is a perfect fi t in the continuum of work the house has done and will continue to do.


Context 155, February 2018


In terms of what’s next or what’s coming, everything is next and everything is coming: right now, our work is to address white privilege. T at has been infl uenced by the space created for trans and gender-diverse folks and at costs to racialised people. Creating space and openness there, is creating space and openness in other areas. We’ve got some training coming for our team to look at body politics, and fat politics. We’re working as a team and with youth around oppressive languages and ideas around bodies, body shaming, fat-phobia. James: If you have the opportunity to be in a privileged position, please use it, especially if you’re in a position where youths benefi t, or you have the opportunity to mentor youth. Not everyone has that or is in a safe-enough place to use it but, when we do, it’s so important. We oſt en take for granted everyone is as informed or has access to the same information as us. It is not the case. I oſt en chat with youth from rural communities, for instance, and they inform me they have never seen a trans person, or had the opportunity to meet another person like themselves. Not everyone has internet access. Never underestimate the impact you


have on someone’s life. It can be a two-second interaction that you think is nothing. You might have thought you had this fantastic check-in with someone for two hours, but they might never remember; it didn’t stick for them like it did for you. But that one minute interaction, where you said something positive or negative, can really stay with people. So, I think that is one piece. And the other piece is for folk to shake up their organisations. T e way things have been done doesn’t need to be the way that they are. T ey don’t need to follow our model, but there’s a lot of creative thinkers out there. T ere’s a lot of ways to do things diff erently that create more space for everybody. Vikki: I teach a lot and people get inspired when I speak about Peak House. But the goal is not for everybody to come try to work here. We’re all not just trying to serve folks, right? Or accommodate youth to lives of oppression. We are actually commit ed to the project of transforming our societies (Kivel, 2007). T e goal is for people to align with those collective ethics and start where they are, because it’s all interlocking oppressions. Take on whichever one you’ve got some access to power to shiſt and change – that transformative or


39


Beyond trans tolerance and trans inclusion: Contributing to transformative spaces in an all-genders youth, live-in, substance-misuse programme


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64