On March 31, 2021 the SPECTRUM team did a presentation on project Excelsior progress to date. This page has links to the presentation material and a video recording of the presentation itself.
SPECTRUM, Waterloo Region’s Rainbow Community Space, is helping to put together a steering committee of volunteers from the municipalities of Kitchener, Waterloo, and Cambridge to work for bylaws that would prohibit conversion therapy in our community.
Sexual orientation and gender identity and expression change efforts (SOGIECE) or conversion therapy (also known as reparative therapy or conversion practices) is any treatment, including individual talk therapy, behavioural or aversion therapy, group therapy treatments, medical or drug-induced treatments, which attempt to change, suppress or deny someone’s sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression.
We believe this type of cruel abuse has no place in Canada.
Ideally, the steering committee will include 2-3 representatives from each municipality. The committee is expected to have its first meeting by mid-April 2021. Initially, committee members would be asked to attend 3-4 meetings per month.
Survivors and allies both are welcome to join these efforts. Survivors who would be willing to share their stories with our municipal councils in person or anonymously in writing are also encouraged to reach out to the steering committee. You can share as little or as much of your story as you are comfortable with.
If you would like to join this steering committee to help advance this work, or if you have questions, please email Mark Hartburg at mark_hartburg@yahoo.ca.
For more information about the nation-wide efforts to ban conversion therapy visit https://www.noconversioncanada.com/
Jim was one of the key founders of SPECTRUM back in 2012 and served as our Board President for some years before taking on the role of Executive Director in 2018. We are extremely grateful for the countless hours and tireless work that Jim put into building SPECTRUM. He leaves our leadership at an exciting time for the organization as we engage in a year-long capacity-building project that will help SPECTRUM evolve to the next level.
We are very pleased that Jim will be able to reduce his work hours and enjoy some well-deserved time off. Jim will continue to volunteer with SPECTRUM, working on the Grand River Rainbow Historical Project, and co-facilitating SPECTRUM Prime.
Thank you, Jim! And congratulations on your retirement from everyone at SPECTRUM. We look forward to being able to celebrate this milestone with an event when the pandemic has relaxed its hold.
SPECTRUM, Waterloo Region’s Rainbow Community Space, is helping to put together a steering committee of volunteers from the municipalities of Kitchener, Waterloo, and Cambridge to work for bylaws that would prohibit conversion therapy in our community.
Sexual orientation and gender identity and expression change efforts (SOGIECE) or conversion therapy (also known as reparative therapy or conversion practices) is any treatment, including individual talk therapy, behavioural or aversion therapy, group therapy treatments, medical or drug-induced treatments, which attempt to change, suppress or deny someone’s sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression.
We believe this type of cruel abuse has no place in Canada.
Ideally, the steering committee will include 2-3 representatives from each municipality. The committee is expected to have its first meeting by mid-April 2021. Initially, committee members would be asked to attend 3-4 meetings per month.
Survivors and allies both are welcome to join these efforts. Survivors who would be willing to share their stories with our municipal councils in person or anonymously in writing are also encouraged to reach out to the steering committee. You can share as little or as much of your story as you are comfortable with.
If you would like to join this steering committee to help advance this work, or if you have questions, please email Mark Hartburg at mark_hartburg@yahoo.ca.
For more information about the nation-wide efforts to ban conversion therapy visit https://www.noconversioncanada.com/
One of the issues that often comes up when discussing stories concerning the LGBTQ2+ community is confusion between gender identity and sexuality – two terms which refer to very different things but are commonly used interchangeably. In the last ten years, there has been growing awareness of the problems faced by transgender people. But the prevalence of negative responses to things like the coming out of Elliot Page highlight how far we still have to go.
What, then, is the difference? Gender identity refers to a person’s internal sense of self and the gender they feel like inside, which may or may not align with the gender they were assigned at birth. Sexuality, on the other hand, refers to the types of people someone is attracted to.
Doctors commonly assign infants one of two binary genders – male or female. But this overlooks the existence of intersex people (people whose biology is ambiguous) and erases the existence of people with genders outside the binary. Cultures around the world have included traditions of non-binary gender for thousands of years, of which Two-Spirit Indigenous Canadians are just one example.
For most people, the gender they identify as aligns with the gender they were assigned at birth and they experience attraction to members of the “opposite” binary gender. Because of the stigma against LGBTQ2+ in our society, this presumption of binary gender assigned at birth and heterosexuality is seen as the norm in our culture, while anyone who deviates from those norms of gender and sexuality is seen as deviant. The physical and emotional violence experienced by people with stigmatized genders and sexualities has long kept them silent, which only contributes to the illusion that such experiences are uncommon and abnormal.
Unfortunately, it’s impossible refute these assumptions with data. Governments are only just now beginning to consider the existence of LGBTQ2+ people in their data-gathering efforts. Statistics Canada recently concluded a consultation on the wording of a new question about gender identity and sexuality for the 2021 census, which would mark the very first time a Canadian census has gathered information about transgender, 2-Spirit, and non-binary people. But looking at smaller and more regional surveys of our region and Ontario as a whole shows that LGBTQ2+ people make up between 7% and 13% of the population.
And yet, many schools do not teach the difference between gender and sexuality until grade 8, well after the age in which most people have formed a firm sense of their gender identity and sexuality. And even then, parents have the ability to opt their children out of this curriculum, further contributing to the idea that even talking frankly about the existence of LGBTQ2+ is dangerous and an inappropriate conversation to have with children.
Sadly, the violence experienced by LGBTQ2+ people can never change as long as we continue to enforce ignorance of their experiences in our schools and community.
Basic resources to learn more about gender and sexuality:
Gender: More than just Pink and Blue
SPECTRUM’s LGBTQ2+ 101 Terminology and Reference Guide
On March 31, 2021 the SPECTRUM team did a presentation on project Excelsior progress to date. This page has links to the presentation material and a video recording of the presentation itself.
For Immediate Release
February 11, 2021
Federal dollars help to build capacity of local LGBTQ2+ community space in Waterloo Region.
Today, Ministers Bardish Chagger and Maryam Monsef announced approximately $15 million in funding for 76 LGBTQ2+ community-led projects across Canada through the LGBTQ2+ Community Capacity Fund. This includes $279,782 for SPECTRUM, Waterloo Region’s Rainbow Community Space.
Serving people across Waterloo Region, SPECTRUM maintains an inclusive space in downtown Kitchener. SPECTRUM provides both social programs and services including peer support for the rainbow community, and rainbow diversity training for businesses and organizations.
“SPECTRUM has done some amazing work with volunteer power,” says Cait Glasson, President of the Board of Directors, “but in order to meet the needs of as many LGBTQ2+ people as possible in our community we need to become a larger, more sustainable, and more inclusive organization.”
This grant funds Project Excelsior, which will strengthen the capacity of SPECTRUM to advance LGBTQ2+ equality by improving board governance; developing a strategic plan; and focusing on sustainability, succession, and financial planning. The project will also increase access to evidence, data, information, and knowledge sources by performing an environmental scan to assess community needs; and will build the capacity by offering skills training as well as sensitivity training opportunities.
“This project is extremely exciting!” says Jim Parrott, Executive Director. “We’ve hired a wonderful team of three people who have been at work since the beginning of January. I’ve been very impressed with their work thus far and can already see that SPECTRUM will be a vastly different organization by the end of the year.”
“We see Project Excelsior as a jumping off point for what will become SPECTRUM 2.0,” says Melissa Paige Kennedy, Development Officer, “the next stage in SPECTRUM’s evolution as an organization supporting the rainbow community in Waterloo Region.”
Media Contact:
Kristy Skelton, Assistant Executive Director
info@ourspectrum.com
About SPECTRUM:
For specific information about SPECTRUM’s programs and services visit the SPECTRUM website by clicking here.
View the complete list of recipients by clicking here for news release.
Federal dollars help to build capacity of local LGBTQ2+ community space in Waterloo Region.
Today, Ministers Bardish Chagger and Maryam Monsef announced approximately $15 million in funding for 76 LGBTQ2+ community-led projects across Canada through the LGBTQ2+ Community Capacity Fund. This includes $279,782 for SPECTRUM, Waterloo Region’s Rainbow Community Space.
Serving people across Waterloo Region, SPECTRUM maintains an inclusive space in downtown Kitchener. SPECTRUM provides both social programs and services including peer support for the rainbow community, and rainbow diversity training for businesses and organizations.
“SPECTRUM has done some amazing work with volunteer power,” says Cait Glasson, President of the Board of Directors, “but in order to meet the needs of as many LGBTQ2+ people as possible in our community we need to become a larger, more sustainable, and more inclusive organization.”
This grant funds Project Excelsior, which will strengthen the capacity of SPECTRUM to advance LGBTQ2+ equality by improving board governance; developing a strategic plan; and focusing on sustainability, succession, and financial planning. The project will also increase access to evidence, data, information, and knowledge sources by performing an environmental scan to assess community needs; and will build the capacity by offering skills training as well as sensitivity training opportunities.
“This project is extremely exciting!” says Jim Parrott, Executive Director. “We’ve hired a wonderful team of three people who have been at work since the beginning of January. I’ve been very impressed with their work thus far and can already see that SPECTRUM will be a vastly different organization by the end of the year.”
“We see Project Excelsior as a jumping off point for what will become SPECTRUM 2.0,” says Melissa Paige Kennedy, Development Officer, “the next stage in SPECTRUM’s evolution as an organization supporting the rainbow community in Waterloo Region.”
Media Contact:
Kristy Skelton, Assistant Executive Director
info@ourspectrum.com
About SPECTRUM:
For specific information about SPECTRUM’s programs and services visit the SPECTRUM website by clicking here.
View the complete list of recipients by clicking here for news release.
SPECTRUM was shocked and saddened to learn of the apparent transphobic motivated violent attack perpetrated against a student attending Ecole Heritage Park Middle School in the Mission Public School District, Mission BC, and the lack of support or intervention that that student received. We at SPECTRUM Waterloo Region’s Rainbow Community Space stand in support of the transgender members of our community and condemn the hatred and ignorance that led to this attack. SPECTRUM wants every possible effort taken to put an end to all acts of violence and bullying and to support ways to address their cause.
SPECTRUM is researching this specific incident and conducting conversations with community members and partners in order to compose a more detailed response in the near future.
Jim Parrott
Executive Director
SPECTRUM Waterloo Region’s Rainbow Community Space
Melissa Paige Kennedy
Development Office, Transgender Support Program Manager
Waterloo Region’s Rainbow Community Space
On behalf of all the members of the SPECTRUM Board, SPECTRUM Volunteers, SPECTRUM employees and our community at large who do not and will not tolerate such acts of violence and abuse.
Spectrum acknowledges the truth that we are situated on the Haldimand Tract, which is the land of Haudenosaunee and Mississauga Anishinaabe nations, and the traditional territory of the Chinonton Peoples, a people entirely eliminated by the colonisation of this land.
The land on which we meet, live, love, and work is land that was originally shared with open arms by the Indigenous peoples who have always called this place home with the settlers of this region. We recognise that our presence here has disrupted thousands of years of culture and belonging. The very land upon which the Spectrum space exists is at the edge of a great wetland that served as a hunting ground and overwintering space, and is no more than a short distance from villages, feast and ceremony grounds, and settlements.
We also acknowledge that the Indigenous Peoples of this land recognise Two Spirit as a sacred way of being, an individual who carries in them the medicines and teaching of many genders and sexualities. We recognise that this traditional regard for Two Spirit peoples has set them apart in their knowledge but also that they have been always regarded as important, respected, and fully accepted members of their communities. We recognise that the histories and teachings of Two Spirit peoples have always influenced and added to Indigenous ways of knowing.
This territorial acknowledgement alone cannot accomplish justice and we are committed to working towards reconciliation and ensuring that our programs, services, and practices are culturally relevant and accessible to Indigenous peoples in our community.
This territorial acknowledgment was drafted in consultation with a paid Indigenous Two Spirit
consultant, Terre Chartrand.
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