What is the Pride Working Group?
Pride Month is June 2025! George Brown College is committed to creating spaces and initiatives that celebrate our diversity and contribute to a sense of belonging among our 2SLGBTQIA+ community members.
To do this, we're creating an opportunity for 2SLGBTQIA+ and allied community members to get involved in planning initiatives that meet our community's needs.
What does the working group involve?
This working group will focus on creating GBC's Pride initiatives reflective of the needs of 2SLGBTQIA+ GBC community members. From February to March, the focus will be on consultation and ideation. For the lead-up to Pride Month, we'll work on implementing these ideas.
We are asking for a commitment of about two to four hours per month, with regular hybrid meetings. If you can't attend all meetings, no worries — we'll also make the info available online afterwards so everyone can engage.
How can I participate?
The Pride Working Group is open to all 2SLGBTQIA+ people and allies at George Brown College, including students, support staff, faculty, and admin.
You do not have to disclose any specifics of your identities. Just affirm that you’re committed to increasing inclusion and countering homo-, bi-, and transphobia wherever they may arise.
How do I apply?
If you’re interested, please review this page in detail, then fill out the form to apply (GBC sign-in required). Although we would like to welcome all interested in joining the Working Group, if we have more applicants than possible, we will have to narrow down the membership based on applications.
Applications close Monday January 27.
For more information about the Pride at GBC Working Group, please contact Wren Alden at wren.alden@georgebrown.ca or diversity@georgebrown.ca.
About the Pride at GBC Working Group
- A living community
The Pride Working Group must be continually responsive to the needs of its members and the communities it aims to represent and work in solidarity with. Accordingly, these Norms are a “living document” and open to change based on input from the Working Group community. Your input and insights are welcome!
- Solidarity
The Pride Working Group recognizes that people are not solely defined by their 2SLGBTQIA+ identities. Specifically, the Pride Working Group recognizes how gender essentialism is rooted particularly in eugenics, racism, and colonialism. Attention to intersecting oppression is crucial for the Pride Working Group and anti-oppression work as a whole.
- Diverse lived experiences
The Pride Working Group focuses on improving conditions for 2SLGBTQIA+ people in all our embodiments and experiences. We will not tolerate discussion of who “really counts” as queer or trans but rather consider “2SLGBTQIA+” as an evolving term that attempts to capture the wide diversity of orientations and gender modalities beyond cisgender, heterosexual norms towards all-encompassing attraction, family, and gender liberation.
- Impact vs intent
Anti-Racist, anti-oppressive, and inclusive work requires ongoing commitments to unlearning behaviours, attitudes, and assumptions that pervade society. As we actively co-create inclusive and equitable spaces, we may make mistakes and cause harm. It is important that we take accountability when harm is caused and commit to learning from those experiences.
When we experience harm or other negative impacts from other members, we commit to raising these issues as promptly as possible. This enables us to understand the conduct at issue and its impacts on our community and take responsibility for changing our conduct to create spaces where all are welcomed and valued as their whole selves.
- Get comfortable with discomfort
The Pride Working Group’s mandate is related to addressing oppression and privilege at systemic and community levels. This means that we may find ourselves uncomfortable with our positionalities and, at times, culpable of harm. We seek to identify and address harms to support our ability to do the work involved in this mandate. We understand calling in as an opportunity for growth rather than shame. Ignorance and difference of opinion is understandable; intolerance will not be tolerated.
- Overlapping interests
Due to the nature of anti-oppressive work, members are likely to have interests in overlapping advocacy and community projects. We welcome these opportunities for collaboration and knowledge-sharing. We ask that members note these overlapping interests if they become relevant to a particular project.
- Community gaps
We recognize that there is currently no dedicated space for 2SLGBTQIA+ community members at George Brown College to express and seek support around issues specific to our trans, Two-Spirit, and queer experiences. This Working Group is not that space. While such experiences are likely to be raised and relevant to the Working Group, the Working Group itself is not resourced to provide a peer support group.
If you have experienced discrimination, harassment, or sexual violence, please reach out to our Advisors at diversity@georgebrown.ca
