August is a very special month for Ottawa; while the official Pride months ends with June, we get to celebrate a special bonus pride month!
IXF is lucky enough to be a safe haven for many queer staff members and students. We’re very proud of how much our community values diversity and inclusivity, and we’re absolutely stoked to celebrate Second Pride with you this month!
Our playlist for the month is Loud & Proud! What does pride mean to you? What makes you feel empowered? What movement expression best reflects your innermost self? No matter your age, who you are, or who lights a fire in your chest, take the chance to explore those feelings with our Very Gay, Very Millennial-inspired playlist!
Our non-fiction book of the month is The 2000s Made Me Gay by Grace Perry.
“Today’s gay youth have dozens of queer peer heroes, both fictional and real, but Grace Perry did not have that luxury. Instead, she had to search for queerness in the teen cultural phenomena that the early aughts had to offer: in Lindsay Lohan’s fall from grace, Gossip Girl, Katy Perry’s “I Kissed A Girl,” country-era Taylor Swift, and Seth Cohen jumping on a coffee cart. And, for better or worse, these touch points shaped her identity, and she came out on the other side, as she puts it, gay as hell.
Join Grace on a journey back through the pop culture moments of the early 2000’s, before the cataclysmic shift in LGBTQ representation and acceptance―a time not so long ago, that people seem to forget.”
Our fiction book of the month is Black Water Sister by Zen Cho.
“Jessamyn Teoh is closeted, broke and moving back to Malaysia, a country she left when she was a toddler. So when Jess starts hearing voices, she chalks it up to stress. But there’s only one voice in her head, and it claims to be the ghost of her estranged grandmother, Ah Ma. In life Ah Ma was a spirit medium, the avatar of a mysterious deity called the Black Water Sister. Now she’s determined to settle a score against a gang boss who has offended the god–and she’s decided Jess is going to help her do it.
Drawn into a world of gods, ghosts, and family secrets, Jess finds that making deals with capricious spirits is a dangerous business. As Jess fights for retribution for Ah Ma, she’ll also need to regain control of her body and destiny. If she fails, the Black Water Sister may finish her off for good.”
