Windsor educator named to key post at Canadian Museum for Human Rights

Walter Cassidy, who spent years researching and educating Windsor space residents concerning the historical past of 2SLGBTQIA+ rights, will take these efforts to the nationwide degree for the subsequent two years because the educator-in-residence on the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.

The place goals to “foster and help the event of human rights schooling for younger learners,” the Winnipeg-based museum stated in a launch.

Cassidy, who might be on a two-year secondment from his place as a highschool instructor with the Better Essex County District College Board, is worked up on the alternative to take his analysis to the nationwide stage.

“A social media good friend of mine stated ‘Hey, you need to apply,’” stated Cassidy. “I learn it and I went, ‘Oh my god, that’s precisely the kind of work I need to do.’”

The museum stated Cassidy “will deliver many years of expertise highlighting queer and trans points to this nationwide function. An educator, historian and activist, his work has helped handle the underrepresentation of 2SLGBTQIA+ individuals in faculties and communities throughout Canada.”

The museum is predicated in Manitoba, however Cassidy will work remotely from Windsor. Considered one of his first duties is to hitch a touring exhibit known as the LGBTQ Purge, being ready by the museum.

The exhibit will spotlight makes an attempt by the Canadian authorities to purge 2SLGBTQ+ members from the Canadian Armed Forces, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the general public service from the Nineteen Fifties to the Nineties.

Cassidy is undecided but whether or not the exhibit will come to Windsor.

The expertise he has gained engaged on the realm’s historical past of queer and trans points might be invaluable, Cassidy stated.

“There’s little or no details about queer and trans historical past in Windsor,” he stated.

He highlighted an 1842 incident by which troopers in Fort Malden had been arrested and tried in Sandwich and given the loss of life penalty for being homosexual. Finally, their sentences had been commuted to life in jail.

“Nobody acknowledges that it was our neighborhood the place it occurred,” he stated. “That’s vital to know that historical past and know that it’s native.”

In making use of for the place, Cassidy stated his efforts on native historical past was “one of many issues that basically caught their eye, how I used to be attempting to provide visibility to smaller communities.

“I need to take these expertise that I needed to develop myself and unfold that all through the nation so different communities and college students may additionally take part and discover that historical past.”

However people who find themselves attempting to analysis the historical past of queer and trans points would have a tough time utilizing serps as a result of the terminology for 2SLGBTQIA+ points was completely different in these instances, he stated.

“Queer and trans individuals have at all times existed. They’ve at all times been there. The distinction is that now, particularly on the subject of gender expression, gender id, that’s a human proper.”

Requested if he has seen rising scrutiny of 2SLGBTQIA+ points creeping into Canada from the U.S., the place, for instance, a Bud Mild social media promotion of transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney resulted in a drop within the model’s gross sales, and Ford Motor Firm’s Satisfaction-themed rainbow truck video created a backlash, he stated that’s certainly occurring.

“The issue is now that it’s extra mainstream, individuals … with out figuring out that historical past … they convey ahead a number of miscommunication and misunderstanding,” Cassidy stated.

The important thing aim for his two-year time period is “visibility, in order that queer and trans youngsters will see themselves of their curriculum and really feel they’re a part of the mosaic of Canada.

“That they’re included, celebrated and acknowledged with that understanding of historical past.”