research

I am interested in how gender and sexual outlaws navigate shifting landscapes of precarity in urban and suburban space.

My thesis research explores how queer and trans* youth in suburban Toronto build connection and community in their everyday lives. I employed go-along interviews and participatory photography to study queer place-ecologies of the Greater Toronto Area and investigate how alternative forms of social infrastructure address endemic patterns of isolation and loneliness among queer and trans* youth.

In addition, I partnered with peer-led community organizations working across the GTA to understand the tensions in provisioning institutionalized social infrastructure for this vulnerable group. My thesis provides a critical counterpoint to public health research on LGBTQ2S mental health, contributes to emerging accounts of queer suburban life, and brings queer and trans* youth geographies in dialogue with current conceptual developments in gender and sexuality studies.

My doctoral research continues this line of study, exploring the everyday lives of trans youth in Toronto and its inner-ring suburbs.