Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Resources: Gender & Sexuality

“We are born as who we are. The gender thing is something that is imposed on you.” — Laverne Cox

DEI has compiled this list of resources; as time permits, please use the resources on this list to build your awareness of multiple perspectives through which gender and sexuality can be understood.

Note: Some of the linked reviews may require a subscription.

Web Resources

Speak up: Responding to everyday bigotry. Southern Poverty Law Center.
The Southern Poverty Law Center gathered hundreds of stories of everyday bigotry from people across the United States. They told their stories through e-mail, personal interviews and at roundtable discussions in four cities. People spoke about encounters in stores and restaurants, on streets and in schools. No matter the location or relationship, the stories echo each other.

Microaggressions: Power, privilege, and everyday life.
This blog seeks to provide a visual representation of the everyday of “microaggressions.” Each event, observation and experience posted is not necessarily particularly striking in and of themselves. Often, they are never meant to hurt - acts done with little conscious awareness of their meanings and effects. Instead, their slow accumulation during a childhood and over a lifetime is in part what defines a marginalized experience, making explanation and communication with someone who does not share this identity particularly difficult. Social others are microaggressed hourly, daily, weekly, monthly.

Reading of 10,000 Dresses. 6 minutes.
Sir Derek Jacobi reads "10,000 Dresses." Editor's note: You may receive a notification that this website contains "adult material." I promise, this is a children's book. This presentation is from The Museum of London's "Schools and Family Day."

Podcasts: Find your new favorite podcast at Gender Podcasts.

Fact sheet: Pronoun fact sheet. Society for the Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity, American Psychological Association. 3 pages (PDF).
Did you know the new APA style guidelines require the use of the singular "they"? Read this fact sheet to find out more and make sure you’re using all pronouns correctly. As a note, the authors are queer and/or trans psychologists who work with trans and gender diverse clients. Also, the language and content in this fact sheet reflect current, culturally-specific information and will be updated over time.

Books

Bad Feminist, by Roxane Gay. Chicago Tribune review. 336 pages.
A collection of essays spanning politics, criticism, and feminism from one of the most-watched young cultural observers of her generation, Roxane Gay.

Black Trans Feminism. Purchase at your local independent bookstore or via Bookshop.org. 304 pages.
In Black Trans Feminism Marquis Bey offers a meditation on blackness and gender nonnormativity in ways that recalibrate traditional understandings of each. Theorizing black trans feminism from the vantages of abolition and gender radicality, Bey articulates blackness as a mutiny against racializing categorizations; transness as a nonpredetermined, wayward, and deregulated movement that works toward gender’s destruction; and black feminism as an epistemological method to fracture hegemonic modes of racialized gender. In readings of the essays, interviews, and poems of Alexis Pauline Gumbs, jayy dodd, and Venus Di’Khadijah Selenite, Bey turns black trans feminism away from a politics of gendered embodiment and toward a conception of it as a politics grounded in fugitivity and the subversion of power. Together, blackness and transness actualize themselves as on the run from gender. In this way, Bey presents black trans feminism as a mode of enacting the wholesale dismantling of the world we have been given.

Dear Ijeawele, or a feminist manifesto in fifteen suggestions. New York Times review. Purchase at your local independent bookstore or via Bookshop.org. 80 pages.
A few years ago, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie received a letter from a childhood friend, a new mother who wanted to know how to raise her baby girl to be a feminist. Dear Ijeawele is Adichie’s letter of response: fifteen invaluable suggestions—direct, wryly funny, and perceptive—for how to empower a daughter to become a strong, independent woman. Filled with compassionate guidance and advice, it gets right to the heart of sexual politics in the twenty-first century, and starts a new and urgently needed conversation about what it really means to be a woman today.

Half the Sky. HuffPost review. Purchase at your local independent bookstore or via Bookshop.org. 320 pages.
With Pulitzer Prize winners Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn as our guides, we undertake an odyssey through Africa and Asia to meet the extraordinary women struggling there, among them a Cambodian teenager sold into sex slavery and an Ethiopian woman who suffered devastating injuries in childbirth. Drawing on the breadth of their combined reporting experience, Kristof and WuDunn depict our world with anger, sadness, clarity, and, ultimately, hope.

I am not your perfect Mexican daughter. National Book Award. Purchase at your local independent bookstore or via Bookshop.org. 368 pages.
Perfect Mexican daughters do not go away to college. And they do not move out of their parents’ house after high school graduation. Perfect Mexican daughters never abandon their family. But Julia is not your perfect Mexican daughter. That was Olga’s role.

Sabrina & Corina. New York Times review. Purchase at your local independent bookstore or via Bookshop.org. 240 pages.
Kali Fajardo-Anstine’s magnetic story collection breathes life into her Indigenous Latina characters and the land they inhabit. Against the remarkable backdrop of Denver, Colorado - a place that is as fierce as it is exquisite - these women navigate the land the way they navigate their lives: with caution, grace, and quiet force.

Sissy: A coming of gender story. Washington Post review. Purchase at your local independent bookstore or via Bookshop.org. 352 pages.
As a young child in North Carolina, Jacob Tobia wasn't the wrong gender, they just had too much of the stuff. Barbies? Yes. Playing with bugs? Absolutely. Getting muddy? Please. Princess dresses? You betcha. Jacob wanted it all, but because they were "a boy", they were told they could only have the masculine half. Acting feminine labelled them "a sissy" and brought social isolation. It took Jacob years to discover that being "a sissy" isn't something to be ashamed of. It's a source of pride. Following Jacob through bullying and beauty contests, from Duke University to the United Nations to the podiums of the Methodist church - not to mention the parlors of the White House - this unforgettable memoir contains multitudes. A deeply personal story of trauma and healing, a powerful reflection on gender and self-acceptance, and a hilarious guidebook for wearing tacky clip-on earrings in today's world, Sissy guarantees you'll never think about gender - both other people's and your own - the same way again.

The stars and the blackness between them. Goodreads. Purchase at your local independent bookstore or via Bookshop.org. 320 pages.
Told in two distinct and irresistible voices, Junauda Petrus's bold and lyrical debut is the story of two black girls from very different backgrounds finding love and happiness in a world that seems determined to deny them both. Junauda Petrus's debut brilliantly captures the distinctly lush and lyrical voices of Mabel and Audre as they conjure a love that is stronger than hatred, prison, and death and as vast as the blackness between the stars.

The transgender teen: A handbook for parents and professionals supporting transgender and non-binary teens. Purchase at your local independent bookstore or via Bookshop.org. 356 pages.
Is it just a phase, a fad, or a real issue with your teen? This comprehensive guidebook explores the unique challenges that thousands of families face every day raising a teenager who may be transgender, gender-variant or gender-fluid. Covering extensive research and with many personal interviews, as well as years of experience working in the field, the author covers pressing concerns relating to physical and emotional development, social and school pressures, medical options, and family communications. Learn how parents can advocate for their children, find acceptable colleges and career paths, and raise their gender variant or transgender adolescent with love and compassion.

Textbooks

Global women's issues: Women in the world today. Aragon & Miller.
This is a high-quality, open-source textbook that is actually pretty interesting. It can be read for free online or downloaded. There is no need to "sign in" to use this book. You can just select "read book" or "download this book" to read as much or as little as you would like to read. The chapters are somewhat short and the language is reader-friendly. If you choose "Read book" in order to read online, look at the upper left corner of the page that opens. Click on the triangle next to "Contents" so you can access the Table of Contents (TOC). From the TOC, you can click to whatever section interests you.

Introduction to women, gender, sexuality studies. Kang, Lessard, Heston, & Nordmarken.
This is a high-quality, open-source textbook that is also pretty darn interesting. It can be read for free online or downloaded. There is no need to "sign in" to use this book. You can just select "read book" or "download this book" to read as much or as little as you would like to read. The chapters are very short and the language is reader-friendly.

Documentaries

Out & Around. It Gets Better project. 1 hour, 20 minutes.
When Jenni and Lisa first fell in love, they vowed to follow a life of adventure. The couple had no idea that their promise would lead them to leave their 9-5 jobs, pick up a video camera, and travel to fifteen countries through Asia, Africa, and South America for one year.

The mask you live in. The Representation Project. Click here to rent and stream the video or to purchase the DVD. 1 hour, 37 minutes.
"The Mask You Live In" follows boys and young men as they struggle to stay true to themselves while negotiating America’s narrow definition of masculinity.

Sex trafficking in America. Frontline. 53 minutes.
This 2019 documentary tells the stories of young women coerced into prostitution – and follows one police unit that’s committed to rooting out sexual exploitation.

TED Talks

Fifty shades of gay. iO Tillet Wright. 18 minutes.
iO Tillett Wright has photographed 2,000 people who consider themselves somewhere on the LGBTQ spectrum -- and asked many of them: Can you assign a percentage to how gay or straight you are? Most people, it turns out, consider themselves to exist in the gray areas of sexuality, not 100% gay or straight. Which presents a real problem when it comes to discrimination: Where do you draw the line?

The future evolution of human sexuality. Peter Tatchell. 12 minutes.
Peter shares some speculative ideas on the subject. He delivers a very interesting view on sexuality and where society might be heading in terms of evolution of human culture pertaining to the acceptance of LGBT people.

How a truck driver sees and saves people on America's highways. John McKown. 11 minutes.
Human trafficking is a little known and practically invisible problem plaguing highways across the US. Truck driver and former police officer John McKown has made it his mission to be an activist on the road and implores all drivers of vehicles big and small to join him in protecting the approximately 293,000 children at risk of enslavement. In this eye-opening talk, McKown passionately advocates for others not to turn a blind eye and shares some easy ways to get you started as an ally on America's highways.

How sexism affects us all. Julia Hardy. 14 minutes.
Julia Hardy tells us how she uses humor to combat endemic online sexism and explains how the actions of this small percentage of men not only adversely affect and change women’s behavior, but actually cause detriment to other men.

How to talk (& listen) to transgender people. Jackson Bird. 6 minutes.
Gender should be the least remarkable thing about someone, but transgender people are still too often misunderstood. To help those who are scared to ask questions or nervous about saying the wrong thing, Jackson Bird shares a few ways to think about trans issues. And in this funny, frank talk, he clears up a few misconceptions about pronouns, transitioning, bathrooms and more.

Sexual diversity in nature. Dr. Joan Roughgarden. 15 minutes.
Dr. Joan Elizabeth Roughgarden (born March 13, 1946) is an American ecologist, evolutionary biologist, and author. She is also one of the most notable transgender scientists in American history, and some of her work has included scientific criticism of scholarship that affects sex and gender minorities. Roughgarden is known for her criticism of Charles Darwin’s concept of sexual selection, arguing for the alternative “social selection.” She has also criticized Richard Dawkins’ concept of the “selfish gene,” proposing instead the “genial gene.” Editor's note: Dr. Roughgarden is not a very dynamic speaker, but the ideas she shares in this video may lead you to understand gender and sexuality in new ways.

Violence against women and the law. Dr. David Richards. 16 minutes.
What do you know about how the law sees domestic violence? What about in other countries? Do you think domestic violence is a public or private issue, or something in between? This talk explores how we stand on domestic violence, and what we can do to get to improve it.

Why gender equality is good for everyone, men included. Dr. Michael Kimmel. 16 minutes.
Yes, we all know it’s the right thing to do. But Michael Kimmel makes the surprising, funny, practical case for treating men and women equally in the workplace and at home. It’s not a zero-sum game, but a win-win that will result in more opportunity and more happiness for everybody.

Why we need gender neutral bathrooms. Ivan Coyote. 12 minutes.
There are a few things that we all need: fresh air, water, food, shelter, love ... and a safe place to pee. For trans people who don't fit neatly into the gender binary, public restrooms are a major source of anxiety and the place where they are most likely to be questioned or harassed. In this poetically rhythmic talk, Ivan Coyote grapples with complex and intensely personal issues of gender identity and highlights the need for gender-neutral bathrooms in all public places.

Videos

Gender inequality and female empowerment: A guide to global issues. Global Citizen. 2 minutes.
In this Global Citizen guide to global issues, find out more about female empowerment and gender inequality. Girls and women are essential to building healthier, better-educated and sustainable communities, yet they’re too often afflicted with some of the harshest aspects of poverty.

It's time for equal nationality laws. Global campaign for equal nationality rights. 3 minutes.
Despite significant reforms to end legal discrimination against women, today approximately 50 countries maintain nationality laws that discriminate on the basis of gender. 25 countries deny women the right to confer nationality on their children on an equal basis with men.

PSA/Short film on gender identity. 3 minutes.
A Public Service Announcement regarding Gender Identity/Transgender awareness.

Sam: A short film about gender identity and LGBTQ bullying. 11 minutes.
"Sam" is a short film about gender identity and LGBTQ bullying written and directed by Sal Bardo. Synopsis: After being bullied at school for dressing as a boy, Sam escapes into the fields surrounding his house, where he's forced to choose between who he is and who society thinks he should be.

Two spirit people. Frameline. 23 minutes.
An overview of historical and contemporary Native American concepts of gender, sexuality and sexual orientation. This documentary explores the berdache tradition in Native American culture, in which individuals who embody feminine and masculine qualities act as a conduit between the physical and spiritual world, and because of this are placed in positions of power within the community.

Why study gender, sexuality, and women's studies? 3 minutes.
Three SFU professors from the Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies (Lara Campbell, Habiba Zaman, and Coleman Nye) discuss studying and working in GSWS.