Please join the Office for Human Rights and Equity (HREO) and the Centre for Women’s and Gender Studies (WGST) for “Talking Back, Talking Together: A Community Town Hall on Gender-Based and Homophobic Violence.”
This Town Hall is being held in response to recent issues of gender-based violence and violence affecting 2S&LGBTQI+ communities in St. Catharines, and will provide an opportunity for students, faculty, and staff to ask questions, learn about Brock and community-based supports and resources, and share their perspectives and concerns. Community organizations based in St. Catharines will also be attendance to table, share resources, and participate in the community conversations that will take place.
Thursday, November 12, 2026, from 4:00pm to 5:30pm
Goodman Atrium at Brock University
Join us to:
- Build on Brock’s activist roots: Understand past student mobilization and identify next steps.
- Take collective action: Hold institutions accountable and challenge systemic violence.
- Build community safety: Mobilize across student, staff, faculty, and local networks.
- Access resources: Discover campus supports and Niagara community partner organizations.
Free food will be provided!
To register and learn more, visit the event page on ExperienceBU!
Discussion will be moderated by Farrah Khan, Dr. Ryan Persadie, and Carissa Taylor.
Learn more about our moderators:
Farrah Khan is recognized globally for over twenty years of groundbreaking work supporting survivors of gender-based violence, collaborative advocacy, and leading innovative systemic change. She is dedicated to advancing progressive policies on access to stigma-free healthcare, consent education, 2SLGBTQIA rights, sexual harassment, and comprehensive sexual health education in Canada and globally. She has worked as a frontline worker, trauma counsellor, educator, policy advisor, and consultant. Farrah founded one of Canada’s first campus sexual violence offices and co-led Courage to Act, Canada’s national project on gender-based violence at colleges and universities, a model since replicated in the EU, Australia, and New Zealand. She has shaped policy at all levels of government, including an inaugural member of the Gender Equality Advisory Council for the G7 Summit, where she insisted, before an audience of world leaders, that concrete action on gender equity is necessary to create a thriving, sustainable, and peaceful world.
Dr. Ryan Persadie is an interdisciplinary social justice researcher, award-winning educator, and the Sexual and Gender Diversity Advisor at Brock University. He comes to Brock University with over ten years of experience as a high school teacher, university course instructor, curriculum developer, and LGBTQI+ youth engagement specialist. Since 2017 he has also worked as a community organizer to facilitate safe spaces of belonging, community development, and solidarity among diasporic queer and trans of colour communities with multiple community groups based in Toronto and NYC. He completed his PhD in Women and Gender Studies and Sexual Diversity Studies at the University of Toronto in 2025. Through his research practice, he carries subject matter expertise in transnational and women of colour feminisms, anti-oppressive pedagogies and research methodologies, queer and feminist of colour social movements and theory, queer migration, transnationalisms and diasporas, critical masculinity studies, queer performance and popular culture, and Afro-Asian relationalities and solidarities in the Americas.
Carissa Taylor is a Métis intersectional feminist. She is a former student activist on gender-based and sexual violence at Brock University, where she completed her MA in Social Justice and Equity Studies. Carissa currently works as a CUPE Local Community Organizer in Victoria, BC, and has contributed as a research representative and campaigns coordinator, focusing on advocacy initiatives. Her work history includes campaign coordination, contributing to public awareness campaigns, and member engagement. Carissa’s earlier work at Brandon University and Brock University included roles as a teaching assistant, research assistant, peer tutor, student ambassador, and as president of the Brandon University Students’ Union.