Arielle Twist speaks to a crowd of people at Carlton Comprehensive Public High school at the GSA Summit on Saturday. (Ian Gustafson/paNOW Staff)

By Ian Gustafson

Unity in Community

Prince Albert school hosts Gay Straight Alliance Summit

Nov 24, 2019 | 1:58 PM

The fourth annual Saskatchewan Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) Summit was held Saturday at Carlton Comprehensive Public High School.

UR Pride and OUTSaskatoon worked together with the Saskatchewan Rivers Public School Division to bring the event to the city. The summit is meant to provide knowledge and skills regarding the 2SLGBTQ2 community.

Wendy Li, Fyrefly Saskatchewan Coordinator for OUTSaskatoon and the coordinator for the event explained they had a few streams for attendees to join during the day-long event. These included advisor streams for teachers and staff who want to start a GSA in their school or how to support students. There were also student streams with five options: skill building, 2SLGBTQ identities, sexual health, creative arts and talk it out. In the evening there was a queer prom for students to attend.

“[We have] a lot of different types of streams for the youth to build community with one another and learn from their peers of what they’re doing in their school,” Li said.

“We’re seeing the need for education and safer places, not just for Saskatoon and Regina but in all areas in Saskatchewan. We also understand that it is difficult being a queer person from a small town in Saskatchewan finding resources and even just a sense of community,” she explained.

Raising awareness

MADD Prince Albert launches 37th annual Project Red Ribbon

8h ago

Court proceedings

Crown stays sexual assault charge against Waskesiu business owner

13h ago

Elevate Your Self-Care Game With These Smart Lifestyle Moves

Nov 15, 2024

The keynote speaker for the occasion was Arielle Twist who is a Nehiyaw two-spirit trans woman originally from George Gordon First Nation. She is now based out of Halifax, Nova Scotia.

According to her website, the 25-year-old is an author and an artist and has had her work published. Her poetry as well as other types of art has been displayed in galleries all over Canada.

She is currently on tour and was presenting to students on Saturday about art, sexual education, and her experiences.

“I guess I never really thought that I was going to be successful,” Twist said.

“When I started my art career, I just went in thinking about my own integrity and how I think of my job as an artist. And what my mentor taught me was to take the work from the people who came before me, consume it, create art for the people who will come after me.”

Her book Disintegrate/Dissociate is a book of poems she wrote about grief, sexuality, sexualized violence and what it means to be an Indigenous trans woman in Canada.

“It’s pretty rough, it’s an intense read but it also has a lot of love and hope,” Twist explained.

Twist told paNOW she hopes the students on Saturday learned to be more patient with themselves.

“To allow them to have room to grieve and that it’s okay to grieve,” she said. “I feel like what I just said about grieving, these small things that seem frivolous to people who don’t understand it that it’s okay to grieve everyday things that happen to queer and trans people.”

–

Ian.gustafson@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @iangustafson12