Wild places: Interstices of queer and trans* possibility in suburban Toronto

Sharp, Wiley. 2025. “Wild places: Interstices of queer and trans* possibility in suburban Toronto.” Social and Cultural Geography (forthcoming): 1–21.

How do queer and trans* youth survive and thrive in the precarious landscapes of the colonial–modern metropole? This paper explores the suburban interstices – in-between places – where youth create community beyond the discipline and surveillance of public space. Drawing from interviews and participatory photography with queer and trans* youth across the Greater Toronto Area, I argue that wild places on the urban periphery, such as abandoned buildings, cemeteries, urban forests, overlooked lakeshores, and overgrown interstices, afford queer and trans* youth the capacity to experiment with socialities, intimacies, and embodiments that exceed what the feminist philosopher María Lugones describes as the colonial–modern gender system. By bringing queer geography into dialogue with recent theories of wildness and the interdisciplinary literature on (settler) colonial power, I aim to expand its scope of inquiry to overlooked places across the metropolitan region where everyday practices of dwelling sustain precarious queer and trans* life. From these interstices of possibility, I contend, the seeds of alternative worlds can take root.