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Queer communities are at the forefront of intersectional advocacy, often in spaces created in direct conflict with our liberties and freedoms. This past year has highlighted the need for action beyond representation in Canadian politics. Acknowledging Queerness as a dimension wherein one invents and creates alternative worlds for survival, Out On Screen ED, activist, educator and former running councilman Brandon Yan meets with Queer politicians taking on the unnerving task of being Queer in politics.
This conversation has been pre-recorded.
Amita Kuttner
Amita Kuttner holds a PhD in astronomy and astrophysics from the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC). Their research focused on black holes, wormholes, quantum effects, and the early universe. Amita co-founded the UCSC chapter of 314 Action, an organization dedicated to electing scientists and STEM professionals to public office, and ran the Canadian organization effort for Scientists for Future. Amita served as Critic for Science and Innovation for the Green Party of Canada from September 2018 to February 2020, bringing forward policy on artificial intelligence and emerging technologies, and ran for leadership of the party in 2020.
Morgane Oger
Morgane Oger is the founder of the Morgane Oger Foundation, which works to narrow the gap between our country’s laws and the experience of people impacted by systemic discrimination through education, advocacy, and legal means. Morgane ran for public office in provincial and municipal elections and has served as vice-president of a provincial political party that was in government at the time. In 2019 Morgane Oger won a precedent-setting human rights case against an anti-LGBT activist confirming that protection from discrimination on explicitly-prohibited grounds includes transgender persons and that someone’s right to live free from discrimination is equal to another person’s right to free expression or religious belief. Morgane lives in Vancouver, Canada where she is raising two teenagers while working in tech management. She writes through a blog she maintains and through her Twitter account.
Nathan Pachal
Nathan Pachal is a Langley City Councillor and advocates for creating sustainable and accessible communities. He was first elected to Council in 2016. Nathan has worked to bring awareness to the intersecting components of sustainable, safe, and accessible community design for more than a decade.He is also one of the only openly gay councillors and one of a handful of people of colour on councils in Metro Vancouver.
Brandon Yan (Moderator)
Brandon (he/him) has collaborated with the Ministry of Education, BC Teachers’ Federation, UBC Faculty of Education, and the ARC Foundation to address the needs of LGBT2Q+ youth through policies and practices that foster inclusive and more supportive school environments. Growing up as a mixed-race queer kid in Langley, he never saw role models who looked like him on TV or in film, and if he did they were never queer. If they were queer, they were never Asian. Brandon understands that representation of diverse and complex intersecting identities is important, and it is this conviction and his experience as an activist, advocate, and educator that led him to run for Vancouver city council in 2018. Though he didn’t win, it brought forward important conversations on representation, race, sexuality, and politics.
