Hi everyone and welcome.
Thanks for joining us today.
My name is Jen McMillen.
I work as the Vice-Provost, Students.
And I'm here joined by a couple of students to talk about the Day of
Pink and what it means to us.
So firstly, I'm joined by Alexander Casucci who is a second-year
student
who does some admin support work in our Office of the General Counsel
and who is a tireless
advocate 2SLGBTQIA+ folks. And Lhexen Rabit who is a fourth-year
fashion student.
And also a member of our men's volleyball team.
Thanks very much for joining us today.
Thanks for having us. Pleasure to be here.
You know, I've started thinking about what this Day of Pink means to
me as a queer administrator.
And also of course as a university student at one point in time, and
I've thought a lot about how that's changed for me because it
certainly wasn't something that was happening when I was going to
university. And in terms of my own journey,
I actually didn't come out even to myself until about my fourth
year of university.
I kind of leapt out of the closet at that point, but it didn't happen
for me until later in my university career.
And so now, I think a lot about, as a university administrator how it
might matter to students for them to see examples of folks who
identify as part of these communities, in senior roles, and
representing hopefully the lived experience that they may also
have had.
What does it mean to you to think about the Day of Pink as you're
working your way through your university experience?
Is there anything you want to tell us about that?
Alexander let's start with you.
Yeah, I think I remember my first Day of Pink.
It was when I was in elementary school, and I remember just hearing
the story about it and about a boy being bullied for wearing pink, and
just the next day, how a group of kids came to support him and
wear pink as well.
And I remember when I was younger,
pink was my favourite colour.
And I remember when I said that to someone, there was immediate backlash.
It wasn't okay for a boy to like pink and I was breaking gender norms.
And the enforcement of those gender norms were immediate and
sweeping.
And so I immediately switched my answer to my favourite colour is blue and
that was more met with a positive response.
I think that Day of Pink is so important and I wish it just had
happened sooner, but it's good that we have it now, so that way no
matter what you prefer, whether it's something as simple as
your favourite colour, or who you love, or what you like. That
can be supported,
and I think Day of Pink is bringing a community together.
So allies can come together.
The community can come together.
And so when you're vulnerable, when you need people to support you,
Day of Pink is a reminder that we can show up and we're stronger as a
community and we can have tangible physical reminders of that.
Yeah. Absolutely.
I think and what I hear you talking about is visibility matters, and I
think that's always been true for our communities.
I think we've struggled for that visibility and
that's the importance of symbols and symbolism. Whether it be Pride
flags or other other sources of visibility. And I think Day of Pink
really picks up on that need, that sense of identifying, of belonging
and being visible in a way that is supported and positive as
opposed to tied to any negatives. Lhexen, you're involved in
really high level elite sport.
And that's not always been a place that's been super friendly or
welcoming of members of the queer community.
What's your experience been like?
It's been great ever since coming out, but there's
always an internal struggle.
I remember in first year,
I wasn't really out. My teammates never really questioned my
identity because they felt like it wasn't their place to question me.
And I remember coming out to them and they were just like no,
you should embrace yourself, and we embrace you. And I
think what's really important with our team is, we represent
diversity and we represent all the minorities, even with race and
gender. And they want to continue that culture within our team.
And I think for me it was just a matter of embracing myself more within that.
That speaks a lot to the culture that I think we strive to
create in Athletics and Recreation and all across Ryerson.
I think that one of the things I experienced when arriving here is
that I wasn't unusual.
Even as a senior level administrator. Where I came from, I was the
only out senior level administrator and that wasn't the case here,
which was really a great experience for me. As, in some ways,
I wasn't special, which was a nice change.
Where are there
other areas, you know, Athletics and Recreation has obviously been a
great support and your teammates, but are there other places in the
university where you felt like you've found sources of support or
things that have helped you sort of
live your true self and be your true self as you've gone through your
academic career?
Alexander.
Let's go back to you.
Yeah, I think something
I notice right when you get on campus, as a student
you spend a lot of time in the library, and right when you go into the SLC,
there's a big Pride flag.
And I remember in my first year I wasn't out yet.
But Ryerson was the first place where I felt safe to come out, and kind
of like what you were saying, was that it wasn't unique here.
It was perfectly normal to be queer here.
And I think that was what gave me so much comfort.
And made me feel that I was welcome, and that I wasn't
just tolerated or accepted.
It was something that I could embrace and discover here.
And so, through a lot of my classmates, I think just having
discussions with them,
a lot of them were already familiar with it because I came from a
small town.
So, being queer, wasn't really something that was talked about in kind of my
childhood.
And so I learned a lot from my peers.
I learned a lot from my classmates, and I think just seeing tangible
symbols of a Pride flag,
and even on
office hours going to professors, they had like Pride flags.
And I knew, this professor,
I could talk to them.
I was safe here.
If there was something that was happening, I could open up to them.
And so I think that really, really made me feel good.
What does allyship mean for you?
How does that make it feel safer?
What's the importance of allyship that you see within your
university experience?
I'm just going to talk about my experience with allyship
between my teammates.
I think it embraced me.
Myself, my sexuality.
And just my authentic self, in the way I didn't think I could.
I remember just them confirming
their support of me.
I played so much better and I've been able to
be my authentic self.
And I remember them saying that, oh, you celebrate
in a way that we have not seen before.
And I just remember
embracing that because it is me being me as a
representation.
It's a progress and it helps other people as well to be their
authentic self.
Absolutely.
It will, for sure. So I certainly know for me, the other part that we have
to unfortunately talk about with regards to Day of Pink, is that it was
in reaction to bullying, discrimination, and it's pretty common that
members of our community face those things.
And I certainly know that I've
experienced some specific targeted hate, that was pretty intentional,
pretty organized, and really hard to live through. And it was not long
after I graduated from university, and it was a large group of people
who kind of organized against me in terms of a campaign.
And I'm just wondering whether there's anything that either of you
would like to share about experiences that you've had in your life
that maybe can help punctuate,
this is still needed,
it is still necessary that we talked about
the reason Day of Pink happened is because someone was being hurt.
It's tough being a queer person on the daily.
And I think that, as much as we talk about progress that has been made,
in more professional environments and more academic environments,
we don't have to hide ourselves as much. But I think outside of those
environments, it can be a really different lived reality.
And I think that, for me personally, I have sometimes the benefit of
being straight passing,
so I don't experience homophobia because I think that for someone
to be discriminatory,
they have to know. And so it's always interesting when they know and
how they act.
And so, they being people who are homophobic,
I remember there was one time while I was a Ryerson student,
I was at Square One in Mississauga, and I was on a date with my
partner at the time.
Just sitting, just existing, just two people
who care about
each other, holding hands.
And
sometimes it feels really safe, it feels really comfortable, holding your
partner's hand.
It's just an expression of your affection for one another. And that
expression was enough to threaten someone in our vicinity. Who just
happened to be walking by and they felt so threatened by that, that
they decided that it was appropriate for them to attack.
And so they started accosting us, they started approaching us and
they were telling us how we're an abomination.
How this is
obscene, how we're going to hell,
how, you know, this is this not going to be good for us,
we're sinners.
I'm really sorry to hear about that experience that you and your
partner had.
I think the other piece that is hard, for sometimes people to
understand, is the impact that those incidents can have on your
daily life.
I had one
not that dissimilar just a couple days ago. And so unfortunately,
they're not rare, but it impacts me sometimes where I think about,
am I going to wear a tie today, right?
It puts me out in a way that is visible. It gives
some people,
they feel like permission to comment on who I am or what I'm doing in
the world. And sometimes I have to think about,
Am I strong enough today?
Am I strong enough to put myself in in that way?
Or do I want to pull back?
Do I want to make a difference?
Do I want to make a change?
And I think the impact of us being the ones to make the change every
time, as I think, we give away a little piece of ourselves.
Because we have to make the change to be safe.
Lhexen. Is there anything you want to share?
I think I'm pretty grateful that I haven't really faced the type of
discrimination like LGBTQ community face. But I think sometimes, when I
remember being a kid and not knowing a lot about being gay and
what it's like to be gay, and I
I think the first hand you experience most homophobia,
I would say from my family. And sometimes, because you're
uneducated about this type of topic,
you don't know that you're experiencing homophobia or any type of
negativity or discrimination.
But I just remember some family members saying to me that I
cannot be gay, and I cannot do this,
You don't realize that until you've learned your identity or you've
learned the experience of others or even knowing just the definition
of homophobia.
And I think that created a little fear,
I would say, as I was growing up.
Yeah and what I hear you talking about is the impact of those micro-
aggressions. Right, those things that we hear every day, whether it's
blatant, violent, homophobia, or whether it's just heterosexism.
So, we talk to students all the time about,
you don't need to say,
hey, have you got a girlfriend, to someone who identifies as male.
You can say, hey, is there someone special in your life.
There are ways we can think about changing our language.
That opens the door and makes it more inclusive for everybody.
I think those micro aggressions are things that we really need to
think about because they can also have a cumulative impact.
The work we do in my world as we try and support students,
sometimes, is trying to deliver on three things that sound fairly
simple.
One, we want students to show up and see themselves represented in their
community, in their administration, in their faculty.
We've talked a lot about that sense of belonging today, Two, we want people to
find a friend.
We all do better when we have a friend, right?
Whether it's at work, or in school. And three, we want people to know
where to go to get help because we all need help from one point or
another in order to find the path that's going to help us be most
successful. And what I hear you talking about is that you've managed to
do all three.
So I really want to thank you both for spending time.
I'm so impressed and grateful for your wisdom and your thoughtfulness
and for sharing so openly
with me and with our whole community, I think it will make a real
difference.
I think talking about the Day of Pink, celebrating it in a way that
helps all folks feel comfortable about where they are and who they
are and how they fit really is important.
As we as we try to make sure that here at this institution,
everyone has a strong sense of belonging.
So thank you so much for what you do, who you are and how you show up
in our communities.
Every single day, you make a difference, and I'm really grateful for
that.
Thank you.
Thanks for having us.