2SLGBTQI+ Youth, Challenges, Resilience and Empowerment

2SLGBTQI+ Youth – Challenges, Resilience and Empowerment

• April 9, 2025 | 12 – 2PM
• SFU Harbour Center, Room 2200

Register and learn more: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/2slgbtqi-youth-challenges-resilience-and-empowerment-tickets-1296071748489?aff=oddtdtcreator

In a round table discussion, we will shed light on the current challenges facing 2SLGBTQI+ young people. 2SLGBTQI+ young people often experience discrimination and rejection on the street, at school, at work, from peers and from their parents. They also live in a world in which homophobia, transphobia and misogyny are on the rise and threaten achievements already made in society, law and health. The aim of the workshop is to develop visions for the creation of spaces of empowerment and strategies for strengthening resilience for 2SLGBTQI+ youth.

Speakers

Jen Marchbank is a Professor of Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies at Simon Fraser Uuniversity where she reseaches 2SLGBTQIA+ issues for older adults and youth. She is also co-founder and facilitator of the 2SLGBTQIA+ youth advocacy group Youth 4 A Change.

Travers is a Professor of Sociology at Simon Fraser University. Their recent book, The Trans Generation: How Trans Kids (and Their Parents) Are Creating a Gender Revolution, situates trans kids in Canada and the US, white settler nations characterized by significant social inequality.

Elizabeth Saewyc is a Professor, Distinguished University Scholar, and Director of the School of Nursing at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. She also leads the multidisciplinary Stigma and Resilience Among Vulnerable Youth Centre at UBC. For 30 years, her research has focused on how stigma, discrimination, violence, and trauma influence adolescents’ health and coping behaviours, and what environments, relationships, policies, and interventions can help foster resilience and improve health equity for young people, especially those who are marginalized, including 2SLGBTQ+ and Indigenous youth.

Emylee Todd has worked in community with queer youth for the last 10 years, as a youth and onward into their professional life. They have spent the past few years working at QMUNITY running weekly youth programming, the gender supportive wear program and planning QMUNITY’s annual queer prom for youth. Emylee holds a Bachelors of Social Work from the University of British Columbia and is a registered social worker.

Antoine Coulombe is an Assistant Professor of Teaching at UBC’s School of Social Work. Much of his research centers on understanding the experiences of 2S/LGBTQI+ students and improving social work education to better support queer communities. Early in his career, he organized resources for 2S/LGBTQI+ youth in Quebec City and coordinated awareness initiatives to fight homophobia. Additionally, he has been instrumental in promoting queer rights, contributing to the first anti-homophobia policy for the Quebec Government.

Melanie Groß is a Professor of Social Work/Youth Work in Germany (FH Kiel) and visiting researcher at SFU Department of GSWS. She reports on the positive legal changes for 2SLGBTIQ+ young people in Germany and the challenges and perspectives that exist in social work/youth work as a result.