Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Thesis Format

Monograph

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy

Program

Gender, Sexuality & Women’s Studies

Supervisor

Knabe, Susan

Abstract

Numerous studies over the last decade have explored the high rates of suicide among queer men (Hottes, Ferlatte, & Gesink, 2015), queer women (Azra, 2022), and trans people (Veale et al., 2016), which are intensified for people of colour (Sutter & Perrin, 2016) and Indigenous people (Polonijo, 2022). For example, suicide is estimated to have surpassed AIDS-related illness as the leading cause of death of queer men in Canada (Hottes, Ferlatte, & Gesink, 2015). This dissertation explores queer archives of AIDS activist history to examine how intersectional direct action activism might be revived for contemporary queer suicide prevention activism. This work uses Mbembe’s (2003) theory of necropolitics, the power to confer premature death onto populations, to conceptualize suicide through a structural lens. Much of suicide prevention is done through individualized services such as suicide helplines. This work critiques neoliberalism in the queer suicide prevention initiative, the It Gets Better Project, as failing to relieve the traumatic conditions causing queer suicidality. This dissertation explores the challenges of the non-profit and charity sectors and discusses how social movements might draw on these sectors strategically, without getting subsumed into them. Combining existing individual approaches with a renewed emphasis on structural activism, this work uses trans studies scholar Dean Spade’s (2015) notion of trickle-up social justice praxis as a means of addressing the needs of the most marginalized suicidal queers first. This dissertation uses Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) (Kretzmann & McKnight, 1993), a means of drawing on a community’s strengths to ameliorating its challenges, to examine six areas in which queer livability might be enhanced: (1) familial homophobia and transphobia, (2) poverty, (3) healthcare, (4) education, (5) lateral violence, and (6) administrative violence. These areas are a launching point for future research that may explore each of the six areas more deeply and add other necropolitical areas impacting queer livability. This work ends with a discussion of the power of queer hope.

Summary for Lay Audience

Suicide is estimated to have surpassed AIDS-related illness as the leading cause of death of gay and bisexual men in Canada (Hottes, Ferlatte, & Gesink, 2015). Queer women have higher rates of suicide than heterosexual women (Azra, 2022), and trans people have exceptionally high suicide rates (Veale et al., 2016). These are intensified for people of colour (Sutter & Perrin, 2016) and Indigenous people (Polonijo, 2022). Much of suicide prevention is done through individualized services such as suicide helplines. This dissertation explores AIDS activist history to examine how direct action activism might be used for queer suicide prevention activism. This work discusses how, often suicide prevention initiatives focus on helping individuals in crisis, rather than working to end the social factors of oppression such as homophobia that create suicidality in the first place. This dissertation explores the challenges of the non-profit and charity sectors and discusses how social movements might draw on these sectors strategically, without getting subsumed into them. Combining existing individual approaches with a renewed emphasis on structural oppression, it explores six areas in which activism might help to lessen queer suicidality: (1) familial homophobia and transphobia, (2) poverty, (3) healthcare, (4) education, (5) lateral violence, and (6) administrative violence. These six areas are a launching point for future research that can explore each of the six areas more deeply and add other areas that impact queer suicidality. This work ends with a discussion of the power of queer hope.

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