Nature in Transition: Trans, Non-Binary and 2slgbqia+ Outdoors Group

01/27/2022

What better way to celebrate Winter Pride than a BIG GAY HIKE with Nature in Transition!

Winter Pride's BIG GAY HIKE with Nature in Transition🌈🌿

Join us outside for a community hike to help beat the blues and break up the stress in our bodies through nature, movement, and connection!

Save the date: Saturday, February 12th, 2022 | 1:00 - 3:00 PM OR 2:00 - 4:00PM | STARKEY HILL

We are excited to open up this hike to 2SLGBTQIA+ folks across our communities to help us come together through this very strange times and in celebration of Winter Pride!

We will meet at the Starkey Hill Conservation Area at the trailhead beside the parking lot. From there we will have a brief check-in about the safety measures, social distancing, expectations, goals, and desires of the group, as well as additional resources available in the community and ways to get involved.

There will be two separate groups leaving at 1:00 PM and 2:00 PM respectively to reduce group size and potential exposure. All attendees must register for the event to ensure small group sizes and for contact tracing.

All attendees must register in advance and arrive at their groups start time (1pm or 2pm respectively). We have limited groups to 10 attendees (two hosts and eight attendees).

To RSVP and for more details, including accessibility information visit:
https://www.eventbrite.ca/.../winter-prides-big-gay-hike...

For more information about Guelph Pride
and the full schedule of events visit: www.GuelphPride.com

February 5 is an important anniversary in local LGBTQ history - it has been exactly 40 years since the Toronto Bathhouse Riots. ​ "On 5 February 1981, patrons of four bathhouses in downtown Toronto...

04/10/2019

A self-described “fat, femme, q***r, former indoor kid” Jenny Bruso’s second-ever hiking excursion took place on her 30th birthday, as a first date. It became the thing she did, instead of partying and dancing in clubs at night (she was working as a DJ at the time).

“Through hiking, I felt like I was getting a lot of clarity and inspiration that I felt I’d been lacking in my life. Before finding this path, I wasn’t somebody who enjoyed exercising,” she says. “I resent the way exercise is marketed in our culture, especially to women, as a way to fix our bodies—implying that we shouldn’t like ourselves the way that we are.”

Bruso noticed she kept seeing a very specific “type” of person out on the trail: young, thin, and white. She began joining social media groups aimed at outdoorsy people. And, she kept being bombarded with pictures of the same types of people, often sporting expensive gear while enjoying epic endeavors. “It’s exciting seeing photos like that, but it wasn’t a realistic representation of myself, and it felt a little painful,” she says. “I wanted to be a part of the culture, but many of these social media accounts were leaving a lot of people out of their narrative of ‘who is enjoying the outdoors.’”

“Unlikely Hikers” busts up notions of who belongs in the wilderness

04/08/2019

"To me, place-based learning promotes a more sustainable environment, encourages development of a lifelong relationship, health-enhancing habits, appreciation of nature, and really stimulates learners to discuss issues, particularly the democratic issues that are central to our civic life. It’s a lifelong process, and with it comes greater engagement and better stewardship of the environment."

Our panel runs down the challenges, including the unwaveringly white face of adventure media

04/05/2019

Science is learning more about the health benefits of going outside—at a time when access to wild spaces is ever-more unequal.

“That goes to this issue of who has access to nature, and who can gain access,” says Michael Dorsey, the senior program officer for sustainability at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. “The decline is differential, based on socioeconomic differences, on race, and on class.” As more people move to urban areas, nature gets farther away. And it’s easier to get to the nature if you have the money to pay for the gas to drive there, for the park entrance fee, for camping gear. When coming up with prescriptions for nature, Dorsey says, “we also have to do that in a political economic context.”

That means making nature available for people who can’t trek to the mountains—making it part of people’s day to day lives. Williams brings up Frederick Olmsted, the designer of Central Park. “His greatest lasting legacy,” she says, “is what he understood about how human communities really need nature, not just to make us feel better. We need these green spaces for democracy. It becomes a ground for the mixing of different classes, different ethnicities. It wasn’t just about the aesthetics—it was about what it meant for the way we socialize with each other, the way we live together.”

Science is learning more about the health benefits of going outside—at a time when access to wild spaces is ever-more unequal.

04/01/2019

1 - TEACH the FULL HISTORY
2 - MAKE ALL VISITORS FEEL WELCOME and SECURE
3 - CREATE UNDERLYING POLICIES ON DIVERSITY and FAIRNESS
4 - INCREASE ECONOMIC ACCESSIBILITY to CREATE MORE ACCESS POINTS for ALL
5 - MAKE OPEN SPACES MORE REPRESENTATIVE, CULTURALLY RELEVANT, and COOL

HONESTLY, I couldn't agree with these more! Take a look and learn all about it -

We gathered experts from every discipline and asked them one question: What would you do to make the outdoors more inclusive? What they came up with was a five-step action plan.

03/29/2019

"Broadly speaking, trauma-informed schools maintain a framework whereby the entire school staff maintains awareness of the impacts of toxic stress and trauma, and strive to ensure that all students feel safe, supported, and connected. Such awareness and motivation among educators and caregivers to promote such a framework presents multiple opportunities to change the lives of students and help them thrive."

Important stuff, even/especially within the context of nature education and immersion! 🌿❤️

The promotion of trauma-sensitive and trauma-informed schools has grown tremendously in education. Broadly speaking, trauma-informed schools maintain a framework whereby the entire school staff maintains awareness of the impacts of toxic stress and trauma, and strive to ensure that all students feel...

03/29/2019

This looks amazing!

Resilience Outdoor Conference is about decolonizing outdoor education for People of Color & the LGBTQ communities. We strive to provide support that is centered around our community and fosters a meaningful foundation for diversity.  It is an investment in community knowledge expansion in outdoor e...

03/08/2019

Can't bear the winter cold anymore? Consider for a moment, this photograph of a woman climbing a glacier in a billowing Victorian skirt. As it turns out, there were more than a few females who braved the ice in petticoats and traversed the world's harshest environments at a time when wearing trouser

02/20/2019

"This is really important gap, especially when there is a risk that investments in conservation and development could disadvantage women."

As well as the different values that are placed on ecosystem services by men and women, the study also shows how they are inherently embedded within cultural and traditional gender roles, as well as in the institutions and governance of the natural resource systems.

Men and women value, access and use resources from the natural environment in distinct and different ways, a new study has shown.

02/07/2019

Ah, such incredible work by the folks at The Venture Out Project!

“Every day, trans and nonbinary people wake up to have our very existence up for debate,” says Cohen. “Even kids can’t escape it. Venture Out is in no way an escape. We are an incubator. With all that is going on and the constant assault of news and information, everyone needs a place to share stories, talk about issues, and build strength to go back into the fight.”

Camps and wilderness expeditions offer a refuge from prejudice and political battles, giving trans kids the tools they need to face future challenges