We’re so excited to share the first season of the Possibility Seeds Podcast! This is a podcast for anyone interested in gender justice activism in Canada, hosted by Farrah Khan and produced by Vocal Fry Studios.
We created this podcast to amplify stories of folks doing the good, challenging, intersectional work of gender justice activism. These are multi-generational conversations between student leaders who are newer to this work, and long-time activists who’ve been involved in some of Canada’s most historic organizing.
All these leaders inspire us and fuel our belief that positive change is possible. Join them as they discuss what’s changed in gender justice organizing, what different generations of activists can learn from each other, and what gives them joy and hope. This is a documentation of local feminist histories and a celebration of new futures being created!
Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts:
Episode 1: Healing-Centered Organizing
In this episode, Casandra Fullwood, Bronte Ibbotson, and Pamela Cross join us to talk about the importance of centering healing, joy, and self-care in the movement against gender-based violence.
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Although there are no descriptions of sexual violence on this podcast, any conversation about sexual or gender-based violence can be hard to hear. Listen in a way that feels safe for you. If you need support, there are resources like sexual assault support centres in your community that you can reach out to. See our list here of supports available by province.
Further Learning:
For a great resource on student organizing that includes tools on self-care and healing, check out Courage to Act’s toolkit, Courage Catalysts: Creating Consent Cultures on Campus.
You Matter Too by Farrah Khan is a helpful list of self-care apps, books, talks, podcasts, and more.
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Casandra Fullwood (she/her) is a Scarborough-born, Afro-Caribbean woman residing in Tkaronto. Her feminist politics are largely focused within the socio-economic realities of Black women, navigating feelings of bodily unsafety, collective grief, and creating spaces for community healing. Casandra is a harm reduction worker and the founder of We Heal Together, a Black survivor space that focuses on collective community care. She is in her fourth year of Arts and Contemporary studies at Toronto Metropolitan University. In her free time, Casandra likes to create art that centers Black intimacy, matrilineal lineage, Black spirituality and Zami love.
Bronte Ibbotson (she/her) is a first year U of T student from Niagara, Ontario. After witnessing gender-based violence and cultures of disrespect in her community and highschool, she helped found Project Breakaway in 2021: a feminist Instagram account aimed at educating, empowering, and providing a safe space for women and youth. She is now involved in organizing with the High School Too movement, using her voice at the national level to speak up against gender-based violence and create necessary change.
Pamela Cross (she/her) is a feminist lawyer and well-known and respected expert on violence against women and the law for her work as a researcher, writer, educator and trainer. She works with women’s equality and violence against women organizations across Ontario. As the Legal Director of Luke’s Place Support and Resource Centre in Durham Region, she leads the organization’s provincial projects including research, training and advocacy. With Luke’s Place, Pamela has written a number of papers on the topic of violence against women and family law. With funding from the federal Department of Justice, she led a team that conducted research into the use of family violence screening tools for family law practitioners. The final report, entitled “What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You: The importance of family violence screening tools for family law practitioners”, includes a draft screening tool.
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Read the episode transcript here.
Episode 2: Trans-Affirming Gender-based violence services
In this episode, Keneisha Charles, Jiaqing Wilson-Yang, and Rosalyn Forrester join us to discuss gender-affirming care, and how we can centre trans and non-binary experiences in gender-based violence movements and support services.
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This episode discusses transphobia and gender-based violence. Although there are no descriptions of sexual violence on this podcast, any conversation about sexual or gender-based violence can be hard to hear. Listen in a way that feels safe for you. If you need support, there are resources like sexual assault support centres in your community that you can reach out to. See our list here of supports available by province.
For peer and crisis support, Trans Lifeline is a great resource.
Further Learning:
For more on trans-affirming gender-based violence services, see Courage To Act’s Resources For Gender Justice Advocates To Affirm And Support 2SLGBTQIA Gender-based Violence Survivors On Post-secondary Campuses.
trans-LINK Network is a wonderful resource with great guidelines for gender-affirming care.
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Keneisha Charles (they/them) is an organizer and artist who strives to dream and co-create liberation through all they do. As a fat, Black, queer, nonbinary, second-generation Caribbean, intersectionality is at the heart of their praxis. Their community work centres around Black liberation, collective care, environmental justice, disability justice, queer-trans liberation, and gender equity. As a poet, storyteller, and musician, they’re also passionate about the role of art in revolution.
Jiaqing Wilson-Yang (she/her) is a mixed-race (Chinese & Irish) trans woman and gender-based violence worker. She has worked with survivors of all genders, trans women affected by HIV, LGBTQ youth labelled with intellectual disabilities, trans youth and their parents, and under-housed youth for nearly 15 years. She is the award-winning author of Small Beauty (Metonymy, 2016), and is currently employed at Consent Comes First, the Office of Sexual Violence Support and Education at Toronto Metropolitan University. She loves cats, dogs, all things Star Trek, and nerding out about gender-based violence.
Rosalyn Forrester walks with several identities: she is a woman of colour who was born with transexualism, a single mom of two beautiful daughters, a woman living with chronic pain, a woman loving women femme, an activist, a Pagan, an educator, a caregiver. Presently, Rosalyn works at Embrave, a VAW agency in Mississauga; as well as at East Mississauga Community Health Centre. She has organized a number of events for trans communities and spoken across Canada. Rosalyn has also been forced to become well-versed in Human Rights Law and Family Law as it pertains to people from within the Greater Trans Communities.
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Read the episode transcript here.
Episode 3: Rooting Indigenous Feminist Resistance
In this episode, Aubrianna Snow, Audrey Huntley, and Alannah Mckay join us to discuss occupying colonial spaces as Indigenous women, justice for MMIWG2S, and the healing power of auntie laughter.
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This episode discusses the epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, trans and two spirit people. Although there are no descriptions of sexual violence on this podcast, any conversation about sexual or gender-based violence can be hard to hear. Listen in a way that feels safe for you. If you need support, there are resources like sexual assault support centres in your community that you can reach out to. See our list here of supports available by province.
Further Learning:
Courtney Skye’s Courage To Act webinar, Anti-Colonial Approaches to Addressing GBV with Indigenous Communities; and worksheet, Answering Calls for Justice within PSIs from the National Inquiry on MMIWG, are wonderful resources.
For more great Indigenous feminist resources, see:
Violence on the Land, Violence on Our Bodies, from Women's Earth Alliance & Native Youth Sexual Health Network
Red Women Rising: Indigenous Survivors in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, by Carol Muree Martin & Harsha Walia, Downtown Eastside Women's Centre
You Are Made of Medicine, A Mental Health Peer Support Manual for Indigiqueer, Two-Spirit, LGBTQ+, and Gender Non-Conforming Indigenous youth, from the Native Youth Sexual Health Network
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Aubrianna Snow (she/her) is a k'taqmkuk lnu'skw visitor in Treaty Six, where she has lived for most of her life. A recent graduate of MacEwan’s Bachelor of Communications program, gender-based violence prevention and community building are passions she’s explored during her time in postsecondary. During her second term as Vice President Student Life at the Students’ Association of MacEwan University (SAMU), Aubrianna founded the Student Voice on Violence Elimination Committee as a means of advocacy to SAMU and to university administration. Prior to her time as an elected student leader, Aubrianna volunteered as a MAVEN Peer Educator on consent and sexual violence with MacEwan’s Office of Sexual Violence Prevention, Education, & Response.
Audrey Huntley (she/her) is a licensed paralegal who works with survivors of violence at Aboriginal Legal Services. She is a storyteller and the co-founder of No More Silence, working with other Indigenous women, trans and two-spirit people. Audrey finds strength in the strong community networks No More Silence is building across Turtle Island and beyond. One of her recent works, the short film Not Just Another Case: When Your Loved One Has Gone Missing or Been Murdered was created to empower Indigenous community members and provide alternatives to the mainstream institutions that fail them. Smudge, Don't Judge: Assisting Trans and Two-Spirit Survivors of Violence, a collaboration with Monica Forrester of Maggie’s Sex Worker Action Project and Trans Pride Canada, is geared to service providers and addresses the homophobia and transphobia that prevents many Indigenous people from reporting or seeking assistance.
Alannah Mckay (she/her/kwe) is an Anishinaabe-Anishininew Ikwe with roots from Berens River, Manitoba and Muskrat Dam, Ontario. She is a daughter, sister, auntie and advocate based in Treaty 1 territory in Winnipeg, MB. Alannah is a student at the University of Manitoba, where she is pursuing an undergraduate degree in Indigenous Studies & Criminology. She is the former Chairperson of the Canadian Federation of Students, where she represented over half a million post-secondary students on a national level. Alannah is the Policy Capacity Coordinator for the Canadian Roots Exchange, a national Indigenous youth-led organization; and a board member for the North Point Douglas Women's Centre, a women-led community non-profit that provides healing and matriarchal leadership in the core of Winnipeg. Alannah’s passion is community building and advocacy work to create safer spaces for Black, Indigenous and People of Colour at the grassroots and national levels.
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Read the episode transcript here.
Episode 4: Centering Black Survivors in Gender-Based Violence Work
In this episode, Fechi Onyegbule, Chloe Kemeni, and Notisha Massaquoi join us to discuss uprooting anti-Blackness in mainstream gender justice movements, designing GBV support systems to centre Black survivors, and creating communities of healing.
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This episode discusses anti-Black racism, misogynoir, and gender-based violence. Although there are no descriptions of sexual violence on this podcast, any conversation about sexual or gender-based violence can be hard to hear. Listen in a way that feels safe for you. If you need support, there are resources like sexual assault support centres in your community that you can reach out to. See our list here of supports available by province.
Another resource we love is We Heal Together: A Colouring Book for Black Survivors, from TMU's Consent Comes First and Carlton University's Sexual Assault Support Centre. Created in collaboration with Casandra Fullwood, with illustrations by artists Ashanti Fortson and KeZna Dalz.
Further Learning:
Roots and Resistance is a great webinar by Yamikani Msosa on the connections between sexual violence, state violence, and healing from collective and individual sexual abuse and trauma for Black survivors.
For lots more, see Courage to Act’s Resources for Gender Justice Advocates to Challenge Anti-Black Racism.
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Chloe Kemeni (she/her/elle) is currently a law student at McGill’s Faculty of Law. Chloe graduated from the same university with a major in Sociology and a minor in Gender, Sexuality, Feminist and Social Justice Studies, where she heavily participated in student government while spearheading equity initiatives on campus. For the last 6 years, Chloe has dedicated her time to supporting and developing racial justice campaigns, social policy development, and sexual violence prevention.
Fechi Onyegbule (she/her) is a first year student at Toronto Metropolitan University pursuing a career in psychology and social innovations. While attending Holy Cross Secondary in St.Catharines, Ontario, she co-founded Project Breakaway, an organization aimed at confronting the issue of gender-based violence and sexual assault within local school communities. Fechi is also a proud member of High School Too, which organizes with high school students to advocate for better consent education in secondary and elementary schools.
Dr. Notisha Massaquoi (she/her) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health and Society at the University of Toronto, Scarborough, with a graduate appointment in the Factor Inwentash Faculty of Social Work. She holds a BA in Psychology from Western University and an MSW and PhD in Social Justice Education from the University of Toronto. Her early career established several organizations which served Black communities in Canada, including Africans in Partnership Against AIDS, and Taibu Community Health Centre. She designed the health and research programs and served for two decades as the Executive Director of Women's Health in Women's Hands Community Health Centre in Toronto – the only Community Health Centre in North America that provides specialized primary healthcare for Black and racialized women.
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Read the episode transcript here.
EPISODE 5: SUPPORTING INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS
In this episode, Radhika Gupta and Deepa Mattoo join Farrah to discuss intersections of gender and migrant justice, their different experiences as South Asian women, challenges that international student survivors face on Canadian campuses, and their shared love of dance.
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Although there are no descriptions of sexual violence on this podcast, any conversation about sexual or gender-based violence can be hard to hear. Listen in a way that feels safe for you. If you need support, there are resources like sexual assault support centres in your community that you can reach out to. See our list here of supports available by province.
Further Learning
For a comprehensive resource on supporting international students affected by GBV, see Courage to Act’s toolkit, Supporting International Students Affected by GBV: A Customizable Tool for International Students, Post-Secondary Administrators, and Frontline Workers.
MOSAIC BC also has a wonderful International Student Safety Guide specific to gender-based violence.
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Radhika Gupta (she/her) is a creator, educator, and speaker whose work focuses primarily on harm reduction + prevention of GBV, mental health education + de-stigmatization, menstrual justice and education, and creating open, accessible movements and information. We’re lucky to have Radhika involved in Possibility Seeds’ Courage to Act project as part of our International Students Community of Practice. She has also worked with the UTSC Women’s & Trans Centre, Bleed the North (an Ontario-based menstrual rights organization), and now Creating Freedom Movements in the Bay Area.
Deepa Mattoo (she/her) is currently the executive director of the Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic. Her work revolves around the criminalization of women, sexual violence and the precarious status of women, risk assessments of gender-based violence, as well as interdisciplinary case management. She has represented hundreds of clients at tribunals and courts including the Supreme Court of Canada; and has trained thousands of service providers for best practices and legal education to work with forced marriage survivors, racialized non-status women, and immigration law clients.
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Read the episode transcript here.
Created by Possibility Seeds. Project team: Farrah Khan, Emily Allan, Anoodth Naushan, Laura Murray, and Chenthoori Malankov-Milton. Produced by Vocal Fry Studios. Graphic design by Kitty Rodé with elements from Zoie Haider.