WHAT

WAVAW is launching a 3-year project which will expand WAVAW’s services to serve trans, Two Spirit, and gender diverse survivors of sexual assault to increase access to services and support for healing and justice.

WHY

We recognize that Two-Spirit, trans, and gender diverse community members are at a particularly high risk of violence due to interacting systems of oppression.  In fact when it comes to the spectrum of sexualized violence we know that in 2015 70% of transgender youth in Canada (aged 14-25) had reported sexual harassment while 25% reported they had been raped in the last year.

With such high rates of violence and discrimination comes an urgent need for support services for Two-Spirit, trans, and gender diverse survivors of sexual violence. As there is no organization in Vancouver that currently provides sexual assault support specifically to these members of our community, WAVAW is excited to share with you all information about this project!

Anti-violence work must also be against transphobia, homophobia, biphobia, sexism, misogyny, transmisogyny, racism, anti-Blackness, Islamophobia, anti-Indigeneity, ableism, class oppression, state violence, and police brutality.

WHEN

Throughout the next year we will be focusing on relational work, building connections across organizations and communities to ensure that all who are interested will have a role in informing inclusive approaches to anti-violence work that are reflective of community need and accountable relation-building. We believe that the best way to address the gaps in specialized sexual assault services for trans, gender diverse, and Two-Spirit survivors is to build strong and reciprocal relationships with community partners across sectors and services.

In the second year we will begin offering services.

In the third year we will focus on reflection, outreach, knowledge sharing, and continuation of services into the future.

HOW

We would love to hear from you about your capacity in partnering, how you or an organization you work with may wish to be involved, and how to make this work accessible to Two-Spirit, trans, and gender diverse communities. We look forward to hearing from you all and building community-based practices that reflect survivors’ needs.

Focus Groups

• • WAVAW will be facilitating conversations that reflect anti-oppressive approaches to relational work with communities of Two-Spirit, trans, or gender diverse survivors and those that love them. As an anti-oppressive and trauma-informed organization, we know that systems of oppression impact our experiences of sexualized violence differently based on our intersecting identities. How we organize focus groups will reflect this reality (i.e.  QTBIPOC, Two-Spirit people).

 

Talking Circles

• Acknowleding that, through colonization, Indigenous people of this land have had traditions and ceremonies taken from them, Talking Circles will be offered in a traditional way that allows for Two-Spirit, trans and gender diverse Indigenous people to be able to speak to their experience in culturally centred ways.

Online Submissions

• WAVAW would like to create space and hear from as many voices as possible, while acknowleding that not everyone can make it out in person.

Advisory Committee

• WAVAW values relational work, building connections across organizations and communities to ensure that we will have inclusive approaches to anti-violence work that are reflective of community need and accountable relation-building. We look forward to working with community leaders who will help steer the work in a good way.

Join us to create spaces as trans, Two-Spirit and gender diverse communities!

If you have any questions, please email [email protected].
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