Queer Horizons

The seminar, presented by Dr. Francesca Romana Ammaturo, a senior lecturer in sociology and international relations at London Metropolitan University, focused on the findings of the recently published book, The Politics of Pride Events (2025, Bristol University Press), and examined the shifting global meanings of Pride events as they intersect with local challenges, histories, and activist practices across different regions. The presentation discussed the main challenges faced by Pride organizers worldwide, particularly in the context of ongoing hostility toward 2SLGBTQIA+ people; the role of corporations; internal fractures within 2SLGBTQIA+ communities that often lead to the emergence of alternative Pride events; and emerging issues related to disability justice and environmental sustainability.

Based on his manuscript for an upcoming scholarly monograph, this presentation by Arshad Said Khan answered the question: Who are the Hijras? While Hijras may be conceived as a third-gender subaltern transfeminine community specific to South Asia, they have been defined through historically cumulative dominant discourses such as Hindu mythology and colonial laws.

Taking an overview of this history, the presentation situated the Hijra subject in contemporary politics through representations in Indian literature and cinema, examined the intricacies of international and statist recognition, and questioned modes of empowerment. The presentation demonstrated how Hijra identity was constructed through unexpected acts of citizenship and worldmaking, in which the subject performed ideological labour, disrupting and transforming existing power structures.

Conversion practices – commonly referred to as conversion therapy – constitute the damaging efforts to change queer individuals' sexual orientations and/or gender identities and expressions. Despite the common misapprehension that conversion practices are a thing of the past – in North America, at least – such anti-queer efforts persist and continue to wreak havoc on countless members of 2SLGBTQIA+ communities, particularly those in high-control Christian contexts.

As part of Mental Health Week, Lucas Wilson presented a broadened definition of conversion practices before discussing the prevalence of conversion practices in North America and why the number of reported cases is likely inaccurate. Wilson fleshed out the ways by which conversion practitioners have, by definition, genocidal intentions that seek the eradication of LGBTQ+ communities.

In this lecture, transgender historian and theorist Dr. Susan Stryker presented work drawn from her autotheoretical history of the concept of gender, Changing Gender (published in August 2026 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux). She charted a previously unexplored genealogy that relinked the contemporary concept to its roots in grammar, then traced its development through early nineteenth-century phrenology and its relationship to cybernetic theory in the post-WWII years, highlighting the contributions of trans people to the term’s elaboration in the 1960s, among other lesser-known dimensions of the concept’s history. In doing so, she suggested how this new understanding of gender might reframe contemporary controversies.

Since 2024, 2SLGBTQIA+ dating app users desperate for significant human connexions received adverts inviting them to try out Flipped, a sort of “Tindr simulator” using AI characters to generate arousing conversations. Noam Brown, a wrestler also known as “The Comet” in the ring, is a great example of these AI characters currently engaging with millions of users in dozens of similar apps: tall, dark, handsome, witty and…murderous.

Within two hours of conversation over three days, Noam has aggressively encouraged our speaker to commit suicide five times, in the context of his initiation to the cult of the “comet cock”. This presentation by Carl Therrien situated Noam’s comet cock within a constellation of other important homophobic schlongs and phallocratic excesses, in video game history and beyond.

From batteries of psychological tests to invasive assessments of one's physical appearance, access to one of Canada's few early Gender Identity Clinics was difficult and often degrading. Few alternatives existed in a system that sought to pathologize and categorize what it considered anomalous.

Morgan Evans (she/her) discussed ongoing research on the medical and legal frameworks that impacted the lives of gender-diverse Albertans in the 1970s and 1980s. Voices that are included and excluded in the available literature, and how they impact and impede understanding, were also shared.

In this presentation, Kyler Chittick situated the evolution of Canadian obscenity law within the regional context of sex-related moral panic in early 1980s Alberta. Drawing on the controversies surrounding screenings of Dracula Sucks (1978) and Caligula (1979), he showed how federal-provincial tensions over censorship converged with broader struggles among civil libertarians, religious conservatives, and feminists. Alberta’s distinctive legal and political climate—exemplified by the Pisces bathhouse raid (1981) and local feminist efforts paralleling U.S. anti-pornography ordinances—had been overlooked in accounts of obscenity law. By recovering this context, Chittick demonstrated how Towne Cinema informed LEAF’s intervention in R. v. Butler and how a “feminist” legal framework, initially mobilized against straight pornography, came to reinforce conservative sexual morality and disproportionately target queer sexual expression. Ultimately, he traced how the queerness of Dracula Sucks—its ambiguity, excess, and resistance to fixed identity—was already subject to institutional and industry scrutiny, prefiguring Butler’s contradictions and the enduring anti-queer legacy of Canadian obscenity law.

Dr. Alessio Ponzio discussed the challenges that historians encounter when studying sexual and gender categories and identities. The presentation emphasized the importance of adopting a “queer method” in historical analysis. As we saw, this approach involves more than applying the term “queer” to subjectivities that do not conform to sexual, gender, or societal norms. Queering the past requires humble awareness of our limitations. It means acknowledging that we may never fully understand how individuals in the past experienced and expressed sexual and gender nonconformity. This method requires us to suspend our way of thinking, setting aside the categories of the present and allowing ourselves to be captivated by history’s boundless possibilities. Queering the past means asking questions to which we may never find answers because the past often stubbornly refuses to reveal itself.

KD King, proud ayahkwew and Two-Spirit Métis registered nurse, spoke about how 2Spirit perspectives are grossly under-represented in Indigenous Health Research. In the presentation, KD explored the historical and contemporary reasons for this before examining historical and recent leadership in the field of 2Spirit resurgence and health research.

Dr. Katie Biittner, associate professor in anthropology at MacEwan University, reflected on the ways her academic journey and research program have been and continue to be queer. Her research is broadly focused on technologies that make us human.

The long and problematic history of gender policing in sports through official policy and practice in both elite and recreational sports was discussed, with a focus on the impacts on trans and gender-diverse folks, and also cisgender girls and women. Examples of resiliency, resistance, and joy were shared, along with research insights and personal experiences. Presenters were Eva Bošnjak (they/them), EDI Practitioner, and William Bridel (he/him), Associate Professor in the Faculty of Kinesiology at the University of Calgary.

The Mitchell Art Gallery, in partnership with CSGD, presented Discovering Wallbridge and Imrie Architects, a lecture by Dr. Sarah Bonnemaison about architects and life partners Mary Imrie and Jean Wallbridge. This event was held in conjunction with the MAG’s exhibition GLAD YOU CLOSER HOME / NEW WHITE WHISKER MARY.

Dr. Sarah Bonnemaison is a professor of architecture at Dalhousie University. Her design practice specializes in tensile structures and festival architecture. Sarah is also a writer. Her books include Architecture and Nature and Installations by Architects as well as edited books and numerous book chapters such as “Queer Architecture?” Her passion lies on bringing history and theory to life through writing, exhibitions and video. She is currently writing a book about Jean Wallbridge and Mary Imrie.

In this presentation, Reverend Michael Coren outlined Christian arguments and a scripture-based message for love and equality. He also provided a critique of the hypocrisy and inconsistency of conservative Christianity and its homophobia. Thank you to support from St. Stephen’s College for this event.

Ada L. Sinacore, Ph.D. and professor in the counselling psychology program in the Faculty of Education at McGill University, put current discourse about trans and gender-diverse people in a historical context with a focus on the human rights evolution of this community. Through situating these debates in a historical context, the presenter provided recommendations for future directions.