How Queers Can Save the World

It’s Pride Week in Cape Breton. I live in a small city with an aging population and an island mentality which tends to keep residents thinking and behaving like they are about fifteen years in the past. And yet [does some quick math] that puts Cape Breton in 2003, which [does some quick history research]…

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Transforming Potluck

The potluck is at S’s boss’s house. The house used to belong to a different colleague, a fact which reflects the two-tiered world of Cape Breton: the academic haves trade resources – projects, homes – while the local-born blue-collars cling to a shrinking raft. But the neighbourhood kids don’t distinguish; they have invaded the potluck,…

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Transforming Therapy

I have never shied away from therapy. Psychology ought to be universally available and free from stigma. While therapy requires patience, I’ve always found it valuable in helping me to make decisions, and cultivate habits, that benefit me and mine. But it also bears remembering that, like all other branches of medicine, psychology comes with…

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Transforming Kindergarten: Au Revoir

At the end of X’s first term, we agonized over whether to stay enrolled in public maternelle or transfer to a tiny, fledgling Montessori school with a more flexible pedagogical style and a higher student-teacher ratio. Neither solution removed the greatest obstacle in adapting to French school – not the language, but the cultural gap.…

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