Lukas Walther

Lukas Walther

Lukas Walther has lived an extraordinary life full of peril and resilience. His remarkable stories would make a captivating, inspiring series for those able to stomach the earlier episodes. Lukas is an articulate and passionate wearer of many hats. His resume includes community counselor, group facilitator, mentor, advocate, educator, resource developer, and consultant. These experiences accommodate his ongoing drive to identify and bridge critical gaps in care outreach. His front-line mental health work spans 50 years, 25+ specializing in gender diversity. 

Lukas plays a unique role alongside local clinical specialists, supporting and informing BC’s trans youth and adults, their loved ones, care providers, employers, and schools. Since 1997, he has donated his time to countless doctors, teachers, and mental health professionals. His comprehensive, compassionate way of articulating trans identity issues has made deep inroads into the ability of these professionals to work effectively with trans populations. In 2006, he was awarded international recognition for a lifetime of activism and advocacy for the trans community. In 1998, he established a still-active discussion group for transmasculine adults. In 2004, while coordinating BC’s Transgender Health Program, he established a peer-led support network for trans-identified people involved in survival sex work, and in 2012, he established a support network for parents struggling to understand and support their trans kids, including those parents with deeply-rooted faith- and cultural-based conundrums.

Well-known for his impactful, customized workshops, Lukas is also a repeat invited speaker at numerous post-grad institutes, in their nursing, social work, and psychology programs. He utilizes aspects of his own lived experience to provide context for the more polarizing aspects of trans identity and gender dysphoria, interweaving common threads of human experience to ignite his audience’s empathy and understanding on these particularly complex matters.

LatesT Posts by Author

Standing Up for Trans Folks at 19th Annual Arts and Health

Trans Inclusion and human rights for trans members of our community was the focus of QUIRK-E’s celebration at the 19th Annual Arts and Health Showcase Gala on May 30 at the Roundhouse Community Centre in Vancouver. Lukas Walther moved the listeners to tears with a story about struggling to survive as a trans youth and … Read more

Candle in the Window

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix . . . Allen Ginsberg from Howl and Other Poems This is the opening stanza to a poem I read while headed to my own negro streets, also … Read more

Stand Up for Mental Health 2025 Winter Debut

QUIRK-E member Lukas Walther made his courageous comic debut at SMH. What’s so funny about mental health? As far as Stand Up For Mental Health is concerned – everything!Founded by award-winning counsellor and stand-up comic David Granirer who himself suffers from bipolar, Stand Up For Mental Health teaches stand-up comedy to people with mental health … Read more