The stratification of privilege in the queer community is an important thing to remember. Folx who break away from heteronormative self expression experience more violence than others. The wheel of privilege helps us locate both ourselves and other identities to approximate the priveleges or unearned social benefits of people.

It seems so bizarre at first but then if you think about the social climate at the time, it makes perfect sense why folks did not feel safe about publishing at this time period.

I recently read Malcolm Gladwell's Revenge of the Tipping Point where he discusses the mid-90s resurgence of homophobia around the time that Bill Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in 1996 after the don't ask don't tell policy in 1993 allowing members of military service to serve, so long as they conceal their identity. Gladwell goes on to discuss how the sitcom Will & Grace premiered in 1998 and the intentional characterization of Will as largely heteronormative with a deeply caring relationship with the other main character, Grace. Will's character was a counter-narrative to the pervasive homophobic societal expectation at the time that gay people were not capable of deep relationships in a same sex union. Gladwell's point in the book was that it took only a few years for a critical mass to shift (the tipping point he describes as a critical third) and we see that playing out in 2003 under George Bush, that the United States Supreme Court striking same-sex intimacy. While in 2004, Massachusetts became the first state to permit same-sex marriage. (American Queer History)

In 1992, Canada ended the prohibition on gay and lesbian service members, and in 1995 The Supreme Court recognized sexual orientation as a protected ground under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. By 1996, sexual orientation was added to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. By 2005, the Civil Marriage Act provided for the legalization of same-sex marriage across the whole of Canada.

I am curious what your perspective is on the use of an umbrella term to represent a constellation of identities. Personally, I find it empowering to reclaim a term that has been weaponized in the past; however, I acknowledge that that term was never wielded on me. I am curious if all members of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community of all ages reclaim this term or feel as though it is minimizing a wide range of social experiences into a singular identity.

I am immediately reminded of this social justice representation in relation to the work that is still required in post-secondary spaces in the platformatization (van Dijck et al., 2018) constraints of the higher ed. We are all hoping to see changes for a more equitable and just educational system for all learners.

In my own lived experience, I have learned that a very difficult challenge that queer learners face is the autonomy of using their preferred name on learning management systems that are populated by IT administrators. The same challenge is experienced at all levels of education for queer individuals, acting as a systemic and pervasive misnomer. Not only is this difficult to contend with in their LMS, it creates social challenges and alienation.

This quote is incredibly telling. Nothing challenges hegemony more than diversity of thought.

This attack on diversity of thought is paralleled by the political climate we are witnessing in the united states under this administration.

It seems that there is a mounting war on knowledge (and diversity in all of its manifestations; race, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, and diversity of thought**). Both covertly and overtly attempting to silence and defund post-secondary institutions while also threatening our public's opportunity for development and access to objective and subjective information. Completely erasing all progress in EDI(ID) going as far as DOGE deleting archival photographs and records of aircrafts with the word gay in it's name.

This same sentiment seems to be echoing across boarders. Alberta and Ontario are also under attack in a multitude of ways. Ontario is now moving toward a one year program for training teachers, while the standard for the professional certification in other jurisdictions remains a 60 credit hour program including 24 weeks of practicum. Alberta teachers are experiencing unprecedented working conditions with enrollment outpacing new teaching positions, resulting in ballooning class sizes and the teacher strike in 2025

Timnit Gebru was a co-lead researcher in Ethical AI at Google who was fired in 2020 for raising issues of discrimination in the workplace. I am connecting to Kimberly Krenshaw's views on intersectionality in that prior to this year, I did not recognize her name; despite Timnit being named as Nature’s Ten people who helped shape science and one of TIME 100’s most influential people.

I am reminded of the importance of seeking out diverse perspectives and scholars of colour is more important than ever, in the age of AI and the distillation of information.

I am pausing on this word. Again, I find that it both unsettling and nuanced. In this context it is describing the baked in biases inherent to the data for which it was trained (then eluding to how Elon Musk attempts to unwoke Grok, but that comes later).

Merriam-Webster defines instantiating as to represent (an abstraction) by a concrete instance. Synonyms such as embody, incorporate, manifest, or express do not create the friction necessary for the reader to take pause and feel the weight of what is being described. This is more than a matter of left and right wing politics, it is describing the cultural erasure of under told and misrepresented human histories.

I am in awe of the power of a word.

This is incredible, and I truly hope that a similar effort can happen across Canada to head the TRC's 13, 14, and 15th Calls to Action to preserve endangered Indigenous languages. I also cannot stress enough how important it is for Indigenous data governance and architecture to be a the centre of these efforts.

In Treaty 2, we have several distinct dialects of Annishnabeemowen, Michif, and Dakota languages. There are few fluent speakers and far fewer with access to knowledge keepers and language speakers who can provide access to youth attending school in urban settings. Across Canada 50% of Indigenous youth attend school off reserve. I cannot express how important it is for Indigenous communities to be the architects and designers of Indigenous language preservation efforts.

An incredible Annishnabee woman, Danielle Boyer, has created Skobot, a wearable robot who helps teach Anishnabeemowen.

I want to bring Karen Hao's book Empire AI into conversation here. If you have not yet read this book, might I recommend listening to the audiobook narrated by the author via this link

In this book, she has gathered first hand accounts of over 300 interviews of both executives and employees of Open AI, Anthropic, Google, and other Big Tech companies, in addition to interviewing global south contractual employees of data cleaning and annotation companies hired by Open AI to ensure the "safety" of the LLM developed by Open AI. It was shocking to learn about the generational harm that has occurred in the development of LLMs and that those who benefit from this technology seldomly are made to live with the consequences.

The stochastic parrot paper leading the the dismissal of Timnit Gebru was the canary in the coal mine for the lack of ethical oversight at Google. The irony is not lost on me that I am using Google Chrome at the moment.