CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

Toronto Family Accused Of Stealing Millions In COVID-19 Relief Money Reportedly Charged

Canada - Toronto Team 3 days ago

© Provided by Narcity

Last year, a Toronto family was accused of funnelling millions in Ontario's COVID-19 relief funds into their own personal bank accounts. Now, they have reportedly been arrested and charged.

According to The Toronto Star, the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) arrested Sanjay and Shalini Madan on Saturday, September 18, and charged both with laundering the proceeds of crime and possession of stolen property. Sanjay was also charged with two counts of fraud and two counts of breach of trust.

The charges came around after a full year's investigation orchestrated by seven detectives on the OPP's anti-rackets squad.

Sanjay was the Ministry of Education's information technology leader on the government's Support for Families program (SFFP), while Shalini worked as a Ministry of Government and Consumer Services computer manager, according to the Star.

They allegedly stole $11 million of the over $300 million in funding the SFFP sent to families all over the province during the pandemic. In November 2020, The Star reported that a large chunk of that money was sent and divided to over 400 Bank of Montreal accounts, which were all opened "in the names of the Madan respondents."

Then, in January this year, the province accused Sanjay of alleged fraud of over $30 million.

According to the Star, the province has alleged that "some or all of" the Madans and their associate, Vidhan Singh, funnelled thousands to millions of dollars into the Bank of Montreal, TD, Royal Bank of Canada, Tangerine, and India's ICICI accounts last spring. Neither Singh, nor the Madans' sons, Chinmaya and Ujjawal, were charged. The latter two also worked in the government's IT department and have been in civil court since last fall.

Both Sanjay and Shalini Madan were fired from their jobs in November and last fall, respectively. Earlier in August 2020, they were previously suspended with pay and their assets were frozen.

Narcity reached out to the OPP for confirmation on the charges and did not hear back before the time of publication.

This article’s cover image was used for illustrative purposes only.

Hundreds of strikers block road to Rome airport, disrupt flights

FIUMICINO, Italy (Reuters) - Hundreds of striking air workers blocked the highway to Rome's main airport on Friday as they called on the government to avoid job losses in the transition between Alitalia and a new carrier dubbed ITA.

© Reuters/REMO CASILLI Protest against Italia Trasporto Aereo, in Rome

© Reuters/REMO CASILLI Protest against Italia Trasporto Aereo, in Rome

The protesters sat down in the middle of the road linking Fiumicino airport to the capital as police with shields looked on. The strike action forced Alitalia and other airlines to cancel more than 130 flights, officials said.

Demonstrators also brought a fake coffin draped with European flags on a truck and left it in front of the airport, in a complaint against EU constraints on the hiring of Alitalia workers by ITA.

Negotiations between ITA - which stands for Italia Trasporto Aereo - and the unions are currently stalled but the new company is set to become operational and replace the old carrier from Oct. 15

. 

 Reuters/REMO CASILLI Protest against Italia Trasporto Aereo, in Rome

Unions say that only 2,800 out of a total of nearly 11,000 employees of Alitalia will be immediately re-hired by ITA and that the labour contract offered by ITA will be less generous than the one of Alitalia.

"The government has so far been silent in this negotiation. For us it is essential to safeguard jobs," a unions joint statement said.

© Reuters/REMO CASILLI Protest against Italia Trasporto Aereo, in Rome

ITA will initially operate a fleet of 52 planes, seven of which are wide-body, used for longer-haul routes. The number is expected to increase progressively to 105 aircraft in 2025.

© Reuters/REMO CASILLI Protest against Italia Trasporto Aereo, in Rome

Between 2,750 and 2,950 Alitalia staff members will be employed in the ITA's aviation unit this year, rising to 5,550-5,700 in 2025.

Up to 4,000 workers will likely be hired in handling and maintenance units.

(Writing by Angelo Amante; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

What does Sask.'s political history tell us about the growing popularity of the People's Party of Canada?
Laura Sciarpelletti 

© Liam Richards/The Canadian Press People's Party of Canada Leader Maxime Bernier and wife, Catherine Letarte, speak to supporters at the PPC election night event in Saskatoon on Monday.

Maxime Bernier's People's Party of Canada may have failed to win any seats in Monday's federal election, but it has gained supporters and votes throughout the election, including here in Saskatchewan.

According to data from Elections Canada, the PPC garnered 1.8 per cent of the vote in Saskatchewan during the 2019 federal election — the first election for the relatively new right-wing party.

The PPC's total percentage of the Saskatchewan vote for the 2021 federal election is not yet known, due to mail-in ballots that are still being counted and those who registered to vote on the day of the election.

However, Elections Canada says the PPC got 3.8 per cent of the vote in Regina-Lewvan, 3.7 per cent in Regina-Wascana, 6.4 per cent in Saskatoon West, and 4.9 per cent in Desnethé-Missinippi-Churchill River. Those four ridings were the province's most hotly contested on Monday.

Those numbers show that the PPC came nowhere close to gaining a federal seat in Saskatchewan, or even threatening to split the conservative vote.

But the party's growing popularity in the Prairie province is evident not only from the purple signs scattered across lawns, but Bernier's decision to host the PPC rally in Saskatoon on the night of the federal election, rather than in Beauce, the Quebec riding where he ran.

"I thought it was quite significant that he's from Quebec and he was running in a riding in Quebec. But yet he wound up having the rally last night in Saskatchewan," said Howard Leeson, professor emeritus at the University of Regina's department of politics and international studies.

That's "an obvious nod to the fact that most of the support is out here in Prairie Canada and the interior of British Columbia," Leeson said.

Throughout the campaign, Bernier was adamant on his opposition to COVID-19 vaccine mandates and pandemic lockdowns.

After projected election results rolled in Monday night, he took the stage at his Saskatoon rally to a chant of "freedom."

Bernier told supporters the PPC will only continue to gain traction in future elections and that Monday was a historic night.
Populist parties before the PPC

Leeson says the Maverick Party — formerly known as Wexit Canada — and the PPC took considerable votes in rural areas of Saskatchewan as well as in the southwest region, but those gains did not slow down the Conservatives, who once again won all 14 of the province's seats.

In fact, all eyes were on the Liberals and the NDP when it came to splitting the vote in Saskatchewan ridings, which could help the Conservatives.

While Leeson acknowledges that the PPC has gained popularity in Saskatchewan, he says the party is not unique to these pandemic times.

"People tend to forget that, especially in the rural areas of Western Canada, there are deeper, longer roots for this kind of of political movement. And we see it arising quite often throughout history," said Leeson.

"If you look at the history of Prairie Canada over the last 100 years, it's a great bastion of new parties coming and going, and they're generally populist parties of the left and of the right. So the People's Party, in that sense, is nothing new."

© Trevor Hopkin/U of R Photography Howard Leeson is professor emeritus at the University of Regina's department of politics and international studies.

Leeson points to the Social Credit Party of Saskatchewan, which first appeared in the 1935 federal election. That year the party received 20 per cent of the popular vote in the province and won two seats, in Kindersley and The Battlefords.

Leeson says the Social Credit party was a force through to the 1970s.

He also point to the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation as an example of populist party that hit Saskatchewan in the past. Leeson says the CCF was on the left wing of populism.

The CCF formed the first social-democratic government in North America in 1944, when it was elected to form Saskatchewan's provincial government. In 1961, it was succeeded by the NDP.

"The thing that [the Social Credit party and the CCF] had in common, of course, was a regional alienation — a feeling of resentment toward the eastern part of the country, which they saw as taking economic advantage of them and having most of the political power because of their numbers," Leeson said.

"So parties like the Maverick Party and the PPC out here in Western Canada, there's fairly fertile soil for that. And that tradition is not just rooted in a pandemic now, it's rooted in a long history out here."

What's next for the PPC?

Leeson says the PPC's future popularity in Saskatchewan depends a lot on what the Conservative Party does.

"If it reverts to a much more western base, more stridently right wing, I think they'll win some of those PPC people back again," he said.

However, if the Conservatives continue to try to win Ontario seats and "are looking a lot more like the Liberals," that could spell danger for them in the west, Leeson says.

"Then I think that the Maverick Party and the PPC might grow here, along with their provincial counterparts the Buffalo Party."

However, Leeson says the PPC might need a new leader.

"[Bernier] is not kind of a natural leader of the party. I think they'll probably be looking for someone from Western Canada to lead the party. That's one change I think we'll see coming in the future with it."

In the meantime, Leeson says only the next federal election will really tell what the PPC's future holds.

SORE WINNER
Grande Prairie – Mackenzie MP criticizes O’Toole for poor Conservative showing

Chris Warkentin will keep his parliamentary seat in Ottawa for the Grande Prairie-Mackenzie riding but his party took a hit locally and federally.

Warkentin received 35,106 votes Monday night, followed by 6,200 for NDP Jennifer Villebrun, 5,263 for PPC Shawn McLean, 2,314 for Liberal Dan Campbell, 2,092 for Maverick Ambrose Ralph and 318 for Rhino Donovan Eckstrom.

Still, Warkentin’s share of votes sits at 68.4 per cent*. In 2019, he was re-elected with 84 per cent of the vote in this riding.

Justin Trudeau - despite being widely criticized for calling the $600M early election, will head up a minority government. His Liberal party received 158 seats. The Conservative party has 119, the Bloc Québécois 34, the NDP with 25, and the Green party with two.

Warkentin told Town & Country News election night the Conservative party missed a win.

“It was when our party leader started to waffle on some of the policies that we had brought forward and hadn't been clear that I believe that Canadians became uncertain and unwilling to continue to look to our party as an alternative,” said Warkentin. “I believe that that was the beginning of polls shifting back in favour of the Liberals.”

Warkentin said that Conservative party members would have an opportunity to voice their concerns and make decisions about the party leader Erin O’Toole.

He said he’s heard from other members they are concerned and believe that changes need to be made.

Warkentin said that the Liberals lost significant support by calling the election in the middle of the fourth wave of COVID, Alberta farms were dealing with drought conditions and British Columbia was facing “unprecedented forest fires.”

Warkentin doesn’t believe that this new government will last long.

“Justin Trudeau has promised during this campaign that if he was only given a minority that he would plunge Canadians back into an election within 18 months, and I don't expect that this will be a long-term government.”

Moving forward, his priorities are supporting the ag sector in northwestern Alberta.

“We've heard from farmers in most communities throughout the Peace that have faced one of the most difficult harvest seasons that they can remember.

“I will be advocating for the federal government to step up to support the provincial government to see that the supports are in place to help many of the farm families.”

He also said that his support for the energy sector would continue with advocating for building more infrastructure and stable regulations needed in the industry.

“We have a very supportive provincial government, but we have a federal government that has continually moved the goalposts when it comes to the development of the energy sector here in Alberta.”

For now, he is happy to serve the people of the Grande Prairie-Mackenzie riding.

“Tonight, I am elected by those who voted for me, but tomorrow I serve every single constituent that lives in the Peace Country.”

The Grande Prairie-Mackenzie riding had a voter turnout of 61.84 per cent.

Nationally, voter turnout sat at 58.8 per cent.

Jesse Boily, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Town & Country News

Activists, MP say Trudeau failed to act on #MMIWG. 

Will he act now?


The Native Women’s Association of Canada is urging Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to take Indigenous women’s issues seriously this time around.

The election, which resulted in a minority for Trudeau, shows that Canadians, and Indigenous women in particular, are not confident enough to give the Liberals a majority government, said Lynne Groulx, CEO of the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC).

“I believe the timing is very critical right now, where the government does need to act and pay attention,” said Groulx. “If they don't, there will be pressure not only from advocacy groups and the human rights experts, but from Canadians as well as from mainstream society.”

NWAC and activists have panned the Liberals’ federal action plan on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG), released earlier this year, as thin on details. The document outlines how the Trudeau government aims to implement the 231 calls to justice from its 2019 national inquiry into MMIWG. Trudeau has also pledged $2.2 billion in new spending over five years to address the calls to justice.

But Groulx said the action plan does not include a clear implementation strategy, and that NWAC was disappointed to learn the money behind it would be given out through a project funding structure.

The department of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs did not respond to a request for comment by the deadline.

“We don't want to see this issue being dealt with as a project. This is a very serious matter, and it needs a serious investment of resources in a comprehensive way, and we don't see that in the plan,” said Groulx.

A recent incident highlights one of the dangers Indigenous women face. Just last week, a worker was removed from the LNG Canada project site in Kitimat, B.C., the Vernon Morning Star reported after MMIWG activists raised concerns about his background check, or lack thereof.

The man had been found guilty of assaulting women in three separate incidents in 2013, 2017 and 2019, and is currently facing a charge of assaulting a police officer.

Matriarchs in Training (MIT), a group advocating for Indigenous women based in Terrace, B.C., took action to have him removed from the work camp, but this underscores the ever-present danger of such sites, said Gladys Radek, a longtime MMIWG activist and founder of MIT.

“I just reviewed the calls to justice last night, I couldn't sleep, and realized that absolutely none of those calls to justice have been implemented,” said Radek.

The national inquiry found resource development projects and the worker camps that accompany them are a threat to Indigenous women.

These camps, which can house thousands of workers — often men — for projects like LNG infrastructure, can lead to an increase in sexual assault, abductions, violence, and drugs and alcohol available to teenagers, said Radek.

“We hear horror stories about how men are driving around in vehicles after they're done work and stalking the women and girls,” she said. “There's been several near-abductions right here in this small community of Terrace.”

Affordable housing is also a key issue for women and girls, said Radek. She says when man camps come to the area, many women and girls are pushed out onto the streets because of skyrocketing rents and a higher cost of living.

Despite a lot of disappointment and broken promises and trust, Groulx is still hopeful progress on the MMIWG calls to justice can be made with the government, but Radek is not so sure.

“It's not like (Trudeau) doesn't know what's going on,” she said. “He's committing systemic racism by not doing anything about it.”

NDP MP Leah Gazan said she also lacks faith in the Liberal government to address violence against Indigenous women and girls.

To show they are serious, the first most obvious step, she says, is to implement the 231 calls to justice.

Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Carolyn Bennett’s decision to appoint a non-Indigenous man, Bruno Steinke, as executive director of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Secretariat also “needs to change,” Gazan said.

Groulx agreed. The national inquiry report says Indigenous women should be at the centre of decision-making tables because “our grandmothers, our mothers, our sisters are experts in the area,” she said.

“If you make a mistake, OK, everybody does make a mistake, then correct it and correct it more quickly.”

Groulx said there are many achievable actions the government could take in the short term to address the crisis of violence faced by Indigenous women. She acknowledges all 231 legal imperatives cannot be tackled at once, but immediately taking concrete action on some of those calls to justice is doable.

She said the government can end the political marginalization of Indigenous women by providing seats for them at decision-making tables. A similarly easy step would be to “stabilize the funding of Indigenous women’s organizations,” something she said would make a big difference and is doable in the short term.

Groulx said she thinks Canadians are starting to take reconciliation seriously and hopes this can help pressure the government, but it’s a long road.

“I've been beating the same drum for 16 years and we seem to be getting nowhere and not being heard,” said Radek. "I just urge the government to start listening to us ... there's no reason, there's no excuse for this systemic racism to continue.”

“People are aware, people are waking up, and it's time that they started taking a good look at what's going on around them. And if you see injustices happening, deal with it, don't just say, ‘Oh, that's not up to me.’ It's up to everybody. It's up to everybody.”

Natasha Bulowski, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Canada's National Observer

Pollster says youth vote was likely quite evenly split

Young people were almost as likely to vote Conservative as Liberal in the 2021 federal election, Abacus Data polling numbers from just before Monday’s vote show, while the NDP trailed in third place among voters aged 18 to29.

“There was not a big age or generational divide in this election,” the polling firm’s chief executive David Coletto said in a post-election briefing on Thursday, comparing it to a sharp divide by age in 2015, when the Liberals surged to a majority victory.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s party had the support of around a third of voters across age groups, he said, while the Conservative vote was concentrated more among older voters but improved among the under-30 crowd as the campaign progressed, to end with around 27 per cent support in that demographic compared to as low as 12 per cent earlier in the campaign.

The NDP had the support of just under a quarter of those aged 18 to 29 who intended to vote, with its support slipping lower among those aged 30 to 44, and dipping into the teens among voters older than that.

The divide was much more noticeable between urban and rural voters, Coletto said, while also suggesting fear that a spike in COVID-19 cases would trigger fresh lockdowns may have contributed to the failure of the Conservatives to make inroads in the Greater Toronto Area, which endured the longest period of restrictions in the country.

“This is where I raise that flag about increased polarization between urban and rural communities, and the fact that if that doesn’t change, if that gets locked in and further enforced then minority governments will continue to be the norm,” he said, noting that such a configuration didn’t bother a large chunk of the electorate.

Canada had three successive minority governments elected in 2004, 2006, and 2008, and another after the 2019 election.

Asked to choose their top two issues from a long list of options, a third of those polled by Abacus put reducing their cost of living in that mix, while a quarter wanted an improved health-care system, and around one in five wanted to grow the economy (22 per cent), deal with climate change (21 per cent), or get more people vaccinated so as to return to normal quicker (19 per cent).

“I don’t think there’s one answer to what this election was about,” he said. “I don’t think it was about nothing, but it was about a few different things depending on who you were.”

Some 40 per cent of climate voters choose the Liberals, the data shows, a solid 15 point advantage over the NDP.

“The Liberals have done an amazing job of becoming known for and being seen as the party that’s best able to do something on climate change,” Coletto said, noting that the collapse of the Greens also aided the Liberals on this front.

Abacus’ campaign polling (of around 2,000 people a week) showed that despite a general unease with the Liberal government calling the early election during the fourth wave of the pandemic, most voters still thought they would win, suggesting strategic voting (one-third of NDP supporters said they would vote Liberal to keep Conservatives out of power) didn’t play an oversized role.

Coletto pointed out that of the 15 per cent of those polled who said the election call made them somewhat less likely to vote Liberal, four in 10 did back the party anyway. (Almost half said it didn’t change their intention, a fifth said it made them not vote Liberal, and 17 per cent much less likely to do so.)

“Which tells me this argument could only take the opposition parties so far,” he said. “It did hurt the Liberals, it pierced the armour of Teflon Trudeau, but it didn’t bring them down because there still wasn’t that desire for change.”

“In litigating the unnecessary election argument, both (Jagmeet) Singh and (Erin) O'Toole were successful in getting people to see this election as not necessarily needed or wanted, but they didn’t fully convince people that this government needed to be defeated, particularly in and around suburban and urban areas in Ontario, in British Columbia, in parts of Atlantic Canada, and Quebec.”

The Abacus data showed that interest in the campaign waned as it progressed, which is atypical, with a third of those polled at the end of the campaign saying they were only a little interested, and 13 per cent saying not at all.

Some 35 per cent said they’d prefer the Liberals were in charge if the pandemic got worse (and worries about COVID-19 spiked around the time the writ dropped after a more relaxed summer), yet a quarter of that group ended up voting for another party, which Coletto attributed to the widespread belief that the Conservatives were unlikely to win.

“To fear something and then change your behaviour you have to believe it’s likely to happen,” he said.

Morgan Sharp, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Canada's National Observer

Chinese game makers vow to cut effeminacy, limit underage players

Issued on: 24/09/2021 - 

Gaming firms in China have pledged to tackle addiction and "politically harmful" content, as the government cracks down on the industry 

GREG BAKER AFP

Beijing (AFP)

Hundreds of Chinese video game makers have vowed to police their products for "politically harmful" content and enforce curbs on underage players, as the government cracks down on the entertainment industry.

The 213 gaming firms, including top industry players Tencent and NetEase, promised in a joint statement dated Thursday to ban content that was "politically harmful, historically nihilistic, dirty and pornographic, bloody and terrifying", and to resist "money worship" or "effeminacy" in their games.

They also pledged to "put all efforts into anti-addiction work" and strictly enforce limits on children's screen time through facial recognition and other identification technology.

Chinese authorities have in recent weeks imposed strict curbs on the country's multibillion-dollar gaming industry, restricting players under 18 to only three hours of gaming time a week and ordering businesses to remove "sissy" depictions of men from their apps.

Top firms were also ordered by regulators this month to stop focusing on profit and gaining fans, with enterprises that are seen as flouting rules threatened with punishment.

This has come amid a broader rollout of regulation aimed at reining in the country's influential tech sector, including tough new data security and online privacy laws and rules limiting the power of app algorithms to shape users' online activity.

At the same time, the country's Communist government has gone after celebrities and music idols, blaming them for promoting "abnormal aesthetics" and unhealthy values among Chinese youth.

The firms said in their statement on Thursday that they would not place ads featuring celebrities who had "broken the law or were unethical".

The companies have already stepped up restrictions on minors, with Tencent rolling out a facial recognition "midnight patrol" function in July to root out children masquerading as adults to get around the curfew.

But determined young gamers continued to find ways around the rules, using gaming accounts registered in adults' names -- a practice the companies said on Thursday they would put an end to.

© 2021 AFP

Why cosplay can be so liberating for trans and non-binary folks

For many, dressing up as their favourite characters is the first safe opportunity to play with gender

By V.S. Wells • July 8, 2020 9:00 am EDT


Credit: alblec/iStock/Getty Images Plus; Coprid/iStock/Getty Images Plus; Batareykin/iStock/Getty Images Plus; Hemera Technologies/PhotoObjects.net/Getty Images Plus; Francesca Roh/Xtra


My first cosplay wasn’t one I would have chosen for myself. Like many things I tried in my teens, I got into it because my friend was doing it.

It was 2010 and Susie was attending her first fan convention in London, U.K. She wanted to dress up as characters from the short-lived webcomic Hanna is Not a Boy’s Name. That’s the heart of cosplaying: the act of dressing up as beloved characters—often from television shows, comic books or games—typically for fan conventions. Susie was cosplaying Conrad Achenleck, a prissy vampire mocked for his snaggletooth and love of argyle. My hair was short and blond like Doc Worth’s, so she roped me into dressing as him—a back-alley medical professional with an Australian accent and a cigarette perpetually hanging from his mouth.

To become Worth, I sewed faux fur onto a lab coat I stole from my brother and painted stubble onto my face with shimmery brown eyeshadow. I’d been to conventions before, but I had never cosplayed. Our costumes were incredibly specific, and yet we met some strangers who were cosplaying characters from the same webcomic. Suddenly, I had a new group of friends.

For the next year of my life, my cycle of school and depression and gigs was punctuated by semi-regular cosplay meet-ups at conventions across the U.K. And though Worth was skeezy and a total jerk—like if Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock or Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark had none of the genius to back up their bad attitudes—I kept dressing up as him. He wasn’t a character I would have chosen to step into, but I loved him nonetheless.

I loved making strangers happy when they recognized my niche cosplay choice. I loved my ragtag cosplay group that incestuously dated each other before drifting apart (it was, after all, where I met my first two girlfriends). But most of all, I loved that my cosplay replaced my body as the primary signifier of my gender; that, at a convention, my physical form mattered less than the physicality of my character.

The author, left, and their friend, Susie, in cosplay from the webcomic 'Hanna is Not a Boy's Name.' Credit: Courtesy V.S Wells; photo by Ruben Willis-Powell

Cosplaying as a character whose gender is different from your own is often known as “crossplaying”—a term I’m not fond of, due to its associations with cross-dressing and the assumed cis-ness of all involved. But discussions of identity and gender in this context matter. The 2018 erotic comic book Crossplay by Niki Smith complicates this simple idea: Characters engage in gender-bending cosplay to explore their own identities.

In the book, Alexis and Sierra are girls who cosplay as boys because it makes them happy. J is in awe of them, until a non-binary character helps him understand his own identity as a trans man. And there’s an unnamed assigned-male character wearing a princess dress, which their partner has lovingly sewn. By including trans and non-binary characters, Smith represents a surprisingly common experience: that of gender-questioning people using cosplay to feel out their identity.

That’s the beauty of cosplay; unlike drag, which implies having stage and performance chops, it’s low-stakes. Performing for judgment is optional. Instead, you exist in a sea of other folks. People don’t question your gender if you’re dressed as a character of another gender. Fellow convention-goers don’t make snap judgments about your sexuality or identity the same way the general public might. The collective agreement—that people dressed up as characters are indulging in something playful and make-believe—means that it can be easier for gender nonconforming and trans people to try on things that they’ve always wanted to wear. You can defend it as being “just for fun,” even if it sparks something much more serious in your heart. And for many, it’s a safe way to play with gender for the first time.

The term “cosplay”—a portmanteau of “costume” and “play”—was coined by Nobuyuki Takahashi in a 1983 magazine article, after he witnessed droves of fans at conventions masquerading as their favourite fictional characters. The practice has long had roots in pop culture dress-up, all the way back to the 1930s. But nowadays, it has evolved into a subculture rooted in queerness and gender-bending. A 2013 paper by Jason Bainbridge and Craig Norris has gone as far as to call cosplay “post-human drag.” By cosplaying, they argue, you create “sutures” between this real world and the fictional one of your character.







What the academics don’t realize is that cosplay can create sutures within a person, too—between the fiction of other people’s perceptions of you and the reality of who you truly are.


“The idea that crossplayers might actually be trans people exploring or affirming their gender isn’t really talked about—for the most part, trans and non-binary folks aren’t part of the conversation”

Kayla Hammond, a cosplayer from Washington, used to dress up as their favourite characters to help them figure out they were agender. “I went through a period where I only wanted to do female characters, to the point where even if I had a male character, I would sort of gender-bend them into a girl,” they tell me. “I thought I just didn’t look as good as a boy.”

As they thought more about their gender, they started moving toward cosplaying as more masculine characters. “I thought, okay, I’m going to crossplay and do boy characters because I like it.” This lasted “maybe two or three years before I actually started to question my actual gender identity,” they say. But as Hammond came to identify as agender—without, they say, “any strong emotional connection to any gender at all”—their cosplay shifted, too. These days, they cosplay as both masculine and feminine characters. “I’m just as comfortable trying on different aspects of femininity as I am of masculinity, and I tend to just fall somewhere in the middle,” they say.

Hammond spending years “crossplaying” before considering their gender identity shows how pervasive cisgender narratives are in cosplay spaces. The idea that crossplayers might actually be trans people exploring or affirming their gender isn’t really talked about—for the most part, trans and non-binary folks aren’t part of the conversation.

“Many discussions of cosplay and gender seem to elide discussions of queer, trans or non-binary cosplayers,” writes researcher and cosplayer Emerald L King in a 2015 article. “That’s born out both in academic studies of cosplay, and in cis-dominated cosplay spaces online.” A Grinnell College resource on queer theory echoes that sentiment: “Though people outside of anime fandoms and the cosplay community often stereotype crossplayers as closeted queer folks, the reality is that the majority of crossplayers are cisgender heterosexual individuals,” it reads. The insistence that most crossplayers are cisgender ends up straightwashing queer narratives out of sight. Another paper, “Gender, Sexuality and Cosplay: A Case Study of Male-to-Female Crossplay,” focuses entirely on straight men cosplaying as female characters. The only mention of transness is a throwaway comment explaining how these straight male crossplayers resent assumptions of transness.

And out of the dozens of papers I read on cosplay and gender, only one even considered the possibilities of trans people participating. It was a dissertation on gender-creative Harry Potter cosplay—written by Charles Ledbetter, a trans man. Through his research, Ledbetter found that “cosplay decentered gender as a primary category of identification.” As he explains over email, “Some people did use it [cosplay] as a playground for gender exploration, but in talking to cosplayers I realized that gender was secondary to inhabiting character.”

In some ways, the gender of my first cosplay was a non-factor. I was dressed in costume because it was something my friends liked doing. I thought it didn’t matter to me who I was, so long as it was fun. Cosplaying as characters I admired initially felt separate from exploring my gender identity.

I also spent much of my teens obsessing over fictional male characters, like Tamaki from the anime series Ouran High School Host Club and Howl from the Studio Ghibli film Howl’s Moving Castle—two peacocking blond boys whose maleness was never called into question, despite their vanity. They lived in a world of feminine masculinity that I wanted to stick a straw into and drink up. My cousin offered to help me with both their outfits, but we never had time to make it work. Those were my first twinges of genderqueerness, but it was easy to stamp them out: Tumblr was full of girls who cosplayed as boys, often those who they were attracted to. I assumed my love of Tamaki and Howl was heterosexual fangirling and nothing more, despite the fact I’d been identifying as bisexual since age 12.

The first time I cosplayed as Worth, I realized how much I liked embodying his uncomplicated masculinity. When I looked around at Susie and my new female friends who cosplayed as men, I wondered if they all felt like I did—like living in this imaginative place made them feel more real. Cosplay was the first space where I felt like being somewhere in between male and female was where I was most comfortable.

The author in cosplay. Credit: Courtesy V.S. Wells; photo by Ruben Willis-Powell

For my girlfriend Marcy, the world of cisgender crossplayers was especially confusing. She stumbled upon cosplay as a teenager on the online message board 4chan, several years before she started admitting her gender dysphoria. “I had a huge amount of respect and maybe even deification of people who did crossplay,” she tells me. “There were no male characters for whom I was like, ‘Wow, that’s so cool, I want to be them.’ But there were lots of female characters.”

Crossplay created a space where she felt like she could fit in: Her admiration for men who crossplayed as female characters made it feel like she could do that, too. Crossplaying as female characters was fine, the internet said, so long as you didn’t think you really are a woman. The first time she wore a skirt in public, she cosplayed as Ryko Matoi from the anime Kill la Kill. At the time, she identified as a cross-dresser—because that was the terminology her internet spaces used.


“Just because cosplaying is a comparatively safe space doesn’t mean it’s perfect—transphobia is still prevalent”

For Marcy, crossplaying in public also provided positive feedback from other people. “You’re actively celebrated for who you’re being and how you’re presenting yourself. I think it’s an incredibly affirming sort of space,” she tells me. “It definitely helped me reinforce those presentation ideas, like, ‘Yes, I’m not strange to want to present myself in a more feminine way.’”

But just because cosplaying is a comparatively safe space doesn’t mean it’s perfect. Transphobia is still prevalent—as affirming as it is to dress however you want, having strangers see through your cosplay can be hurtful. And due to the prevalence of cisgender people who cosplay, it’s not uncommon to refer to cosplayers as the perceived gender of the cosplayer instead of that of the character. Marcy remembers the first time she wore her Ryko cosplay at a fan convention in London. “Someone in one of the merch stands was giving cosplayers free little badges based on their costumes, and they gave me a ‘cross-dressing boy’ pin,” she recalls. “It made me feel kind of shitty. At the time, that’s what I thought I was, but it still made me feel shitty.”

Kyler Williams, a trans person from California, struggles to correct people at conventions who assume he’s female. “Me and the character I’m cosplaying as are two different entities,” he says. “But I normally don’t have the heart to correct people on my pronouns, because that involves having to come out and I hate doing that.”

And while he identifies as non-binary and sometimes cosplays as female characters, he’s not entirely comfortable with how onlookers assume gender based on his costume. “Part of me doesn’t mind [if] people think of me as a woman because my character is. But if they think me as a person is a woman, then it just makes me feel shitty.”

For many, the potential drawbacks of cosplaying are outweighed by the positive experiences they have in costume. Maxel Riverin, a trans man from Quebec, first started cosplaying in 2014 while he identified as genderfluid. His first cosplay was Kuroko, the eponymous basketball prodigy from the manga series Kuroko no Basuke.

“It was liberating! It felt like I was able to look like what I imagined in my head,” he says. “I guess I fell in love with the idea of becoming the characters I relate to for a while.”

Riverin has long been a fan of sports anime, a genre that revolves around (typically) male characters excited to play various high-school sports. Often, athletics takes a backseat to the relationships that happen between characters on the team. “All the fandoms I’ve been in are welcoming,” Maxel says. “There’s no toxicity.”

Kayla Hammond, the cosplayer from Washington, felt that cosplaying at conventions was a safe space to try out different gender presentations. “It’s comfortable to be able to express myself as male, especially in the context of cosplay,” they say. “If you’re not totally out to other people or out to yourself yet, it’s safer to be like, ‘I’m going to dress as a boy because it’s cosplay, it’s just for fun.’ I’m not going to have to have anybody necessarily question what my gender actually is.”

“Being in the cosplay made me feel really masculine, and any doubts I had about myself was thrown out the window”

While assigned-female people have a certain amount of social leeway for dressing more masculine, the same isn’t true for assigned-male people. My girlfriend found that cosplaying was like a baptism of fire. “I know, for a lot of people, there’s a lot of initial fears about going out presenting as your gender for your first time,” she says. “I feel like cosplay softened a lot of that for me because I’d already gone so extreme.” Her outfit for anime character Ryko involved “a tiny skirt and crop top showing your entire tummy.” By contrast, going out during the day in feminine clothing was less scary.

Williams found that cosplay was what helped him tap into his masculine side. Cosplaying as Noctis from the game Final Fantasy XV made him feel more confident. “Being in the cosplay made me feel really masculine, and any doubts I had about myself was thrown out the window, because I really enjoyed dressing up as him,” he says. “Noctis […] makes me ooze masculinity.”

Ididn’t come out as non-binary until I was 20, long after my teenage cosplaying days were behind me. I never wore a binder, because the physical discomfort of binding H-cup breasts outweighed my social discomfort of looking too female.

The last time I cosplayed was in 2017, shortly before moving to Canada. Marcy dusted off her Ryko cosplay, and I roped one of our housemates into helping me make an outfit for Ryko’s ditzy love interest, Mako Mankanshoku. I’d cosplayed girls before, when I still identified as female. Cosplaying as Mako once I identified as non-binary was freeing. She was just another costume to slip into.

Now that conventions are cancelled for the foreseeable future, I’ve started wondering about cosplaying again. If there are no social gatherings for the next year, that might be enough time to learn how to sew—or find a blue jacket I can repurpose into Tamaki’s blazer.



More From This Contributor
V. S. Wells is a British writer living in Vancouver, B.C., with bylines in Slate, VICE and Autostraddle. Please stop asking them about Brexit.

Queer and Trans Cosplayers: “We’re Here, We Exist”

The Importance of Representation and Allyship in the Cosplay Community
July 6, 2020

by Joey Phoenix
Image: Brandon the Shapeshifter (Left), Lee Clever (Right)

Content Warning: Sexual Harassment, Transphobia, Homophobia

Click here for a list of North Shore LGBTQIA+ Resources

The world of Cosplay is one that allows you to temporarily become someone else. Individuals can don costumes, put on fanciful makeup, and embody characters from all branches of culture, be it popular or not. But for Queer and Transgender Cosplayers, Cosplay can often become a way for people to feel fully themselves.

Unfortunately, even with the freedom the hobby (read: lifestyle) can provide, Transphobia and Homophobia runs rampant in many communities, and the Cosplay community isn’t excluded from that. While many people find their social homes at Cosplay Conventions or “Cons,” and herald the inclusivity of that space, things are easier for some than for others. And it’s not just issues attached to Gender Identity, Non able-bodied cosplayers have had their share of difficulties, and older and plus-sized cosplayers have faced similar gatekeeping challenges.

While cons have been working to make their spaces more inclusive and accessible to all genders, there is still a long way to go, especially when globally recognized icons aren’t speaking inclusively themselves.
Becoming Mr. Clever

“One of us needs to control this head. We’re too well-balanced.” – Mr. Clever, Doctor Who

Lee Clever (he/they) had never fully considered being a Cosplayer until he started watching the reboot of Doctor Who, and even then, it wasn’t until the 11th doctor Matt Smith portrayed the Cyber Doctor Mr. Clever in Nightmare in Silver that everything finally clicked in his head.

“I tried cosplaying as ‘Town Called Mercy‘ 11. I tried the ‘Let’s Kill Hitler‘ green coat. I tried the standard purple coat sans Cybernetics. Eh. Wasn’t for me. I didn’t like it. Like all the other costumes before, I just didn’t get the appeal. I couldn’t understand why ‘those people dressed up’. Try as I might, I couldn’t be a Malfoy,” Lee said in a blog post on his website.”

But when Mr. Clever appeared onscreen in “Nightmare in Silver,” he just knew that’s what he wanted to Cosplay.

“I just thought, oh my god, this is my character. This is like the greatest character I’ve ever seen,” Lee said.

Photo by Vignette Lammot Portraits

But when Lee had this realization, he hadn’t yet come out publicly as Transgender. For him, it wasn’t really the point, at least not yet. At the time, the focus was more on how to create the costume well – something he had never done before.

One of the biggest challenges of putting it together was deciding how to incorporate the cybertech face piece using materials that Lee wasn’t allergic to, as most prosthetics have latex or silicone.

“I realized that I had to make something that was mostly edible,” he said. “I sat in my kitchen and felt like I was a kid making playdough, and it worked. Although at the time I thought it was something I was going to do once.”

Lee Clever debuted Mr. Clever at Arisia in 2014, which, being the fiftieth anniversary of the popular series, was a Dr. Who-Centric year at the con.

“People kept saying they had never seen anyone cosplay Mr. Clever before, and [that weekend] I was bombarded with people. I’ve never experienced anything like that,” he recalled. “And then, my friend took a photo of me, and that picture ended up going viral.”
Cosplay and Gender Identity

“But the only measure that [Sauron] knows is desire, desire for power; and so he judges all hearts,” – Gandalf

Jude (He/Him), a North Shore-based Trans cosplayer, was attending an all women’s liberal arts college in Raleigh, North Carolina five years ago when he realized he didn’t identify with the gender he was assigned at birth. With the support of friends “and a lot of help from Tumblr,” he was able to come out as Nonbinary and begin exploring different gender identities.

Jude as First Age Sauron

His whole life, from growing up in Kansas where transgender identities just “weren’t really a thing,” to going to college, he had never been traditionally femme. “I was always a tomboy as a kid running around playing in the mud getting dirty,” Jude remembered. “I played with Hot Wheels, I had action figures, a lot of my toys were things that girls traditionally weren’t supposed to like or play with.”

For Halloween when he was 7 or 8, he asked his mom if he could dress up as Harry Potter. She said no, and Jude, seeing no other option, dressed like Hermione instead.

“When I started going through puberty, I was cursed by a very large chest size,” he said. “So I’ve always been very unhappy with that part of me specifically, and I was always really unhappy when my ‘time in the month’ came around, because it just made me feel disgusting, which is something a lot of Trans people I know have experienced.”

Originally, cosplay was a way for him to start exploring the boundaries of gender. Some favorite cosplays have included First Age Sauron from Lord of the Rings, Michael Langdon from American Horror Story, and the Crow. He doesn’t consider himself to be a “con cosplayer,” mainly because cost and timing has always prevented him from attending larger events.

Jude as Michael Langdon from American Horror Story

When he moved to Boston for grad school in 2017, the first time fully away from his parents, he started experimenting more with gender and realized that he was male.

“I’ve been living socially as a guy for three years now. I’ve been out in Salem [for that time], but I didn’t really come out to my parents until February,” he said. “I still haven’t told them that I’m on hormones.”

Jude made the decision to transition this year thanks to the help of a friend who, after seeing some negative posts Jude made on social media, decided to intervene.

“They said ‘You don’t live in the south anymore. Let me take you to Boston, to Fenway Health.’” Jude said. “And they did. They showed up and brought me to Fenway. It took me another month after that initial appointment to actually get the prescription. But without them, I don’t know if I would have been able to ‘man up,’” he said, pun intended.
An American LGBTQIA+ Horror Story

“Once again…welcome to my house. Come freely. Go safely; and leave something of the happiness you bring.” – Bram Stoker, Dracula

Brandon the Shapeshifter (He/Him) is a Black, queer, cisgender male cosplayer who has become a well-known face not just on the North Shore but in Cosplay across the Eastern seaboard. His wildly creative costumes have ranged from traditional horror like Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Stephen King’s It to supernatural creatures from his own novels.

The Master of Time and Space

Many of his costumes can be classified as high-femme, with intensely detailed pieces he made himself.

“Cosplay allowed me to find an oasis of creativity,” he said when asked about queer inclusivity in the cosplay community, “[Creative people] try to find safe havens so that we’re not having constant hate being directed towards us.”

He said that while the broader world may not be so accepting of Queer identities, he’s been lucky to have found the connections he has through Cosplay, because his experience so far has been mainly positive.

“A lot of people have their toxic moments and their really not so great moments,” he said. “But I’ve just had positive reinforcement up until now.”

Brandon came out to his parents as gay when he was 18, which they were ultimately indifferent to. To this day, part of him wishes he hadn’t done it.

“I hate the fact that you can go up to a person and say ‘This is who I am, I hope you can accept me. And then they have the power to say ‘No I don’t,’” he explained. “In sharing something so personal you’re giving them the power to just shut you down. It’s not fair.”

One of the biggest issues Brandon has come up against in Cosplay is that he’s been forced to create a lot of original characters (OC) because there just isn’t a lot of LGBTQIA+ representation, especially Black representation, in pop-culture. And in the horror genre, there is hardly any.

“I want to change that,” he said. “It’s something that needs to change in mainstream media like yesterday, like last year, and I’m going to be part of what changes that. I’m working on a book right now, it’s called Memoirs of an Immortal Witch” It’s the fifth installment in his Dark Mysteries of the Paranormal series, which you can read in ebook form.

Other ways for this to change is for not just Cosplay communities, but also Pride organizations, and Social Justice organizations to become more inclusive of their BIPOC Queer community.

“It’s important because the country is on fire right now with the whole Black Lives Matter movement. And I feel like Black people won’t like me saying this, but I’m Black, so I’m talking about members of my community,” he said. “They love to shout and scream Black Lives Matter, except for when it comes to black people of the LGBTQ community.

“They do this all the time. They seek to end racism and then turn around and say [that they] hate gay people or that we have mental illnesses or that we choose to be gay. It wasn’t a choice for me, and they are being willfully ignorant,” he added.

For him, it starts with representation. If people don’t see Black Queer Werewolves in their stories, or Black Queer Trans Womxn in their Pride parades, their world can remain heteronormative and white-centric.

“I can’t stress this enough,” he said. “It’s important for us to have Pride, to be visible in our communities. We’re saying ‘Like, Hello! We’re here, We exist. You can’t ignore us.’”
The Importance of Allyship in Cosplay Communities

“For my ally is the Force. And a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we… not this crude matter. You must feel the Force around you.” – Yoda, Star Wars

While Cosplay communities on the whole tend to be more inclusive of people in general, problematic behaviors can arise when transphobic, homophobic, racist, fatphobic, ageist, and ableist voices find a platform for their views.

After Lee Clever’s Mr. Clever cosplay went viral after Arisia in 2014, another photographer put a photo of Lee’s Mr. Clever on Reddit, which wasn’t received well at all. Not only did people harshly criticize Lee’s choice of cosplay with Mr. Clever, a character not particularly well-loved in the Whovian fandom, but the comment section was also rife with transphobic threats and sexual harassment.

“One person told me if they ever saw me at a con they would key my car. Another person threatened to ‘spit on me.’ Another said they would take me in an alleyway,” He said.

Since then he has been kicked out of a couple of public cosplay groups, which he believes was not only because he was Trans, but also because of his speaking out against gender binaries in general. “It wasn’t just about me, it was about non-binary people and my other Trans friends too.”

He also has noticed a general trend in regards to non-inclusivity in cosplay communities towards Trans individuals.

“If I use the hashtag #transcosplayers, I will get half the interactions [on social media]. It’s really frustrating to know that someone can just look at you and have no problems with you, but when [they realize] that you’re trans, they want no part of you,” he said.

A Misti-Con-troversy

Cat Benjamin (she/her), a cisgender female cosplayer and cast member of Intramersive Media, LLC who identifies as Queer/Bisexual, has witnessed some of the effects Transphobia can have on cosplay communities she’s been a part of.

For example, J.K Rowling has been all over the news recently for the Transphobic comments she’s made in personal blog posts, public interviews, and on Twitter. While the reactions to these comments are currently trending, they’re not new to her or to some of her fans.

Misti-Con, the region’s largest Harry Potter convention held in New Hampshire every other odd year, dealt with controversy in 2015 when a notable Cosplayer in the community started making their own Transphobic comments.

Cat, a self-identified Griffindor who frequently cosplays Luna Lovegood, specifically Christmas Party Luna, remembers how the events played out.

Photo by Cassandra Murkison

“They quickly became very aggressively Transphobic online and in conversations with certain people,” Cat recalled. “And there was a big kind of divide in the community of Misti-Con because there was a huge backlash, and a movement to try to ban this person from attending the con, which was successful.”

The person in question hasn’t been able to attend Misti-Con since 2015, and while this is a triumph for the LGBTQIA+ community and a testament to the staff’s ability to make inclusive choices that promote the safety of guests at the convention, the event continues to be divisive for a number or reasons.

“There was a contingent of people from the con who sided with this transphobic person,” Cat went on to say. “And that created a weird divide within the con because those people have been staples of Misti-Con for a while as well. It was weird to see this kind of fissure within the community that I’d felt really safe and comfortable in before.”

For Cat, Cosplay has always been a mostly inclusive community where LGBTQIA+ community members can find their footing and experiment with gender expression in a fun way. It’s also part of the reason she’s been drawn to the Sailor Moon franchise, which famously boasted one of Anime’s first queer-positive couples, and to Miyazaki films, which feature a lineup of strong female protagonists.

Photo by Nate Buchman

Photo by Nate Buchman

“There’s something about the con environment that does feel really welcoming,” she said. “It’s a weird combination of people being themselves but also we’re all dressed up like somebody else, but we feel really comfortable. It’s a way for us to be authentically ourselves.”

Editor’s Note – you can catch Cat reading the Hobbit on Tuesday afternoons on Creative North Shore.
Speaking up for Inclusivity

“There are things that you cannot solve by jumping in an X-wing and blowing something up.” – General Leia Organa

Arielle Kaplan (she/her), known as Inevitable Betrayal Cosplay, is a Jewish cisgender woman professional cosplayer who identifies as Bisexual, and like Cat, is also a cast member with Intramersive Media, LLC.

She was recently named the Diversity and Inclusion Officer both for Alderaan Base, part of the New England contingent of The Rebel Legion, and 501st New England, the “bad guy” counterpart to the Rebel Legion, an elite charitable Star-Wars costuming organization. She’s also part of Pride Squadron, an LGBTQIA+ component of that community.

At first, she wasn’t sure she would be the best fit as Diversity and Inclusion Officer. “I felt a little weird about it because as someone who is [bisexual] and has experienced a lot of bi-erasure throughout the years,” Arielle said.

Vex’ahlia from Critical Role
Image by Nerd Caliber

“I had the fleeting feeling that I wasn’t gay enough presenting to be taking on this role. And he said, ‘Well, if you don’t do it, no one else is going to accept,’ so I did.”

For her, despite rampant bi-erasure in pop-culture and in many LGBTQIA+ circles, cosplay has always been accepting and welcoming. Some of her favorite cosplays have been either historical in nature or gender bends of famous characters like Mal from Firefly and King George III from Hamilton

Arielle as King George III from Hamilton

“More and more characters and actors have been coming out [as queer] and not adhering to a binary, which I think is really positive for everybody that falls under the LGBT umbrella,” she said. “I find that the cosplay world also opens up so much creativity as far as what type of character you want to present and what version of that character you want to present.”

For her, because she’s white, straight-passing, and very visible in the cosplay community, it’s very important that she uses her privilege to speak up for community members who don’t necessarily have the ability to do that safely for themselves.

Arielle as Femme Mal from Firefly

“Over the past few weeks I’ve lost some followers on Instagram, which is where I do most of my cosplay stuff, because I’ve been moving the conversation off of myself and into the people who need their voices amplified within the Black Lives Matter movement, the Trans Cosplayers movement, and the Trans Pride movements.

“And I know I wouldn’t be able to [use my platform] without the work of everyone who came before. People forget that cosplay, especially in the queer community, is such a communal act.”

The Cosplay community has a long way to go before it can truly call itself inclusive and diverse, but it’s making strides in that direction. Conventions like Anime Boston, Misti-Con, and Arisia have incorporated elements like better accessibility, gender-neutral bathrooms, and security and staff that pay attention to the concerns of attendees.

But many Cosplayers argue that things like normalization of pronoun uses on badges, panels dedicated to issues of inclusivity, and specified LGBTQIA+ safe spaces would be also helpful additions to cons all over the country.

“We need to have safe spaces, we need to be able to use the bathroom safely, and we need to have security take us seriously when we’re being harassed,” Lee said.

Author’s Note: For me, Cosplay became my door to exploring my gender identity. When working with a Princess Party company in 2018, I got a chance to work at a children’s birthday party as Peter Pan, a character I had idolized since I was a child. Getting into character, embodying the mischievous pixie teenage boy, felt like the most natural thing. For one of the first times in my adult life, I felt fully, completely myself. And it shocked me.

Not long after that I came out publicly, and here we are. I’m a very out non-binary faerie (Peter Pandrogynous) willing to offer my allyship to those in the Cosplay community who aren’t yet given the inclusivity they rightfully deserve.

I also recognize that in this article I’m gonna get it wrong, I’m still learning. So if you notice anything problematic, feel free to reach out and let me know at joeyphoenix@creativecollectivema.com

Joey Phoenix is a nonbinary, queer performer and cosplayer who wants to talk to you about your experiences. Send them a message at joeyphoenix@creativecollectivema.com
#BlackLivesMatter

UN General Assembly Adopts Anti-Racism Resolution, Israel & US Boycott Meeting

The participants who were recalling the 2001 Durban anti-racism conference had earlier drafted a declaration that denounced Israel's treatment of Palestinians.

United Nations General Assembly Hall | AP

Published: 23 Sep 2021

The UN General Assembly has pledged to redouble efforts to combat racism around the world, commemorating a landmark but contentious 2001 anti-racism conference by holding an anniversary meeting once again riven with divisions.

Looking back on the two decades since the conference in Durban, South Africa, the assembly Wednesday adopted a resolution that acknowledged some progress but deplored what it called a rise in discrimination, violence and intolerance directed at people of African heritage and many other groups — from the Roma to refugees, the young to the old, people with disabilities to people who have been displaced.

At a meeting focused on reparations and racial justice for people with African heritage, the assembly pointed to the effects of slavery, colonialism and genocide and called for ensuring that people of African descent can seek “adequate reparation or satisfaction” through national institutions.

“Millions of the descendants of Africans who were sold into slavery remain trapped in lives of underdevelopment, disadvantage, discrimination and poverty,” South African President Cyril Ramaphosa told the gathering via video.

He urged the UN to take up the question of reparations for “one of the darkest periods in the history of humankind and a crime of unparalleled barbarity.”

President Felix Tshisekedi of Congo said reparations, however they might be provided, should reflect not only historic wrongs but also “the scars of racial inequality, subordination and discrimination, which were built under slavery, apartheid and colonialism."

The assembly's resolution also noted ills caused by religious prejudices, specifically including anti-Muslim, antisemitic and anti-Christian bias.

But Israel, the United States and some other countries boycotted the meeting because of continued grievances about the Durban meeting 20 years ago. There, the US and Israel pulled out because participants drafted a conference declaration that denounced Israel's treatment of Palestinians.

And Jamaica, while joining Wednesday's meeting, said there weren't sufficient calls for slavery reparations in a new political declaration that was being drafted.

Still, the event — coinciding with the assembly's annual meeting of world leaders — spotlighted the cause of racial equality at a time when the coronavirus pandemic has underscored inequities, and as the 2020 police killing of George Floyd in the US has re-energized racial justice movements around the world.

The disparity in vaccine availability around the world “clearly does not demonstrate equality between the countries and peoples of this world,” Tshisekedi said. Only about 1 in 1,000 people in his country have gotten at least one shot.

He and others praised some developments since the 2001 conference, including some national-level legislative efforts and the assembly's new Permanent Forum of People of African Descent, meant to promote their rights and inclusion.

But “we, as a global community, have not done enough to tackle the pervasiveness of racism, racial discrimination, intolerance and xenophobia," said assembly President Abdulla Shahid, who is from the Maldives.

The 2001 Durban conference aimed to usher in “a century of human rights,” one that would see “the eradication of racism...and the realisation of genuine equality of opportunity and treatment for all individuals and peoples,” according to its declaration.

But work on the document was rocked by tensions over how to address the legacy of slavery, complaints from multiple groups who felt their cause was getting short shift, and a clash over Israel.

With Arab states keen to condemn the Jewish state over its conduct toward Palestinians, the draft declaration decried “racist practices of Zionism” and accused Israel of practices of racial discrimination.

After the American and Israeli walkout, the wording was changed to recognize the “plight” of the Palestinians, and the document was eventually adopted.

The US still faults “the anti-Israel and antisemitic underpinnings of the Durban process and has longstanding freedom of expression concerns” with the results, UN Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said in a statement Wednesday explaining her country's decision not to participate in the anniversary meeting.

Thomas-Greenfield, who is African American, said combating racism is a top priority for her and for the Biden administration. She said the US would continue working on the issue in “more inclusive” settings, without detailing what she meant.

Israeli Ambassador Gilad Erdan lambasted “the radical antisemitism” of the Durban conference in remarks at a competing, virtual meeting organised by a professor at Touro College in New York.

At least 19 nations skipped the assembly's event Wednesday, by Israel's count.

The meeting focused on reparations and racial justice and equality for people with African roots, while reaffirming the entire Durban declaration.

Calling the Durban conference a highlight of her life, Suriname-born Dutch activist and former politician Barryl Biekman complained of a “structurally persistent negative campaign to defame and undermine” the declaration, called the DDPA for short.

“Without the DDPA, we would not have been as close as we are today in having a global platform position to recognise the unfulfilled rights of Africans and people of African descent, at the United Nations and in global society,” she said.

COLD WAR 2.0 

US Vice-President Harris ‘suo moto’ refers to Pakistan’s role in terrorism

US ALLIES WITH INDIA ARYAN SUPREMACY

RUSSIA CHINA ALLY WITH PAKISTAN

NO MENTION OF IMPERIALIST AGGRESSION AGAIONST KASHMIR

PTI Washington | Updated on September 24, 2021



Says terror groups working in the country

US Vice-President Kamala Harris, during her maiden meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has “suo moto” referred to Pakistan's role in terrorism, saying that there were terror groups working in the country and asked Islamabad to take action so that it does not impact on America and India's security.

Prime Minister Modi held the meeting with Vice-President Harris at the White House on Thursday during which they decided to further cement the Indo-US strategic partnership and discussed global issues of common interest, including threats to democracy, Afghanistan and the Indo-Pacific. “When the issue of terrorism came up, the Vice President suo moto referred Pakistan's role in that regard (of terrorism),” Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla told reporters when asked if the issue of Pakistan's role in terrorism came up during her meeting with Prime Minister Modi.

Also read: PM Modi, US VPKamala Harris discuss bilateral ties, Indo-Pacific

According to Shringla, Harris said that there were terror groups that were working in Pakistan. “She asked Pakistan to take action so that this will not impact on US security and that of India. She agreed with the Prime Minister's briefing on the fact of cross border terrorism, and the fact that India has been a victim of terrorism for several decades now and on the need to rein in, and closely monitor Pakistan's support for such terrorist groups,” Shringla said.

Harris said that it is incumbent on the two nations to protect democracies in the best interests of people of the two countries. “As democracies around the world are under threat, it is imperative that we defend democratic principles and institutions within our respective countries and around the world. And that we maintain what we must do to strengthen democracies at home and it is incumbent on our nations to of course protect democracies in the best interests of people of our countries,” she said.

Their meeting comes a day ahead of the maiden bilateral meeting between Modi and President Joe Biden and the Quad Leaders' Summit at the White House on Friday.

Published on September 24, 2021

1. What Are Suo Moto Cases? – Juris Centre

   https://juriscentre.com/2021/05/28/what-are-suo-moto-cases

   2021-05-28 · The Latin maxim suo moto connotes ‘on its own motion’. Ideally, a complainant, petitioner or an aggrieved person files a suit before the court of law in order to seek justice; however, the Indian Judiciary, particularly Supreme Court and the High Courts; are vested with an inherent power to take up suits on their own, without any party filing it in the first place, thereby promoting suo moto …

VP Harris holds historic meeting with Indian PM Modi



Vice President Kamala Harris made history Thursday, becoming the highest-ranking U.S. official of Indian heritage to welcome an Indian prime minister as she met with Narendra Modi. 

 Photo by Yuri Gripas/UPI | License Photo

Sept. 23 (UPI) -- Vice President Kamala Harris met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday, becoming the highest-ranking U.S. official of Indian heritage to welcome the prime minister.

Modi hailed the election of Harris, whose mother was born in India, as "an important and historic event" describing her as "the source of inspiration for so many people across the world."

"President [Joe] Biden and yourself took up the leadership of the United States in a very challenging atmosphere, challenging times, but within a very short period of time you have had many achievements to your credit," Modi said.

He praised the United States for taking very important initiatives on COVID-19 and climate change.

Harris responded by hailing India's commitment to democracy as she declared that "democracies around the world are under threat" and the United States and its allies must work to defend them.

"I know from personal experience and from my family of the commitment of the Indian people to democracy, and the work that needs to be done, we can begin to imagine, and then actually achieve our vision for democratic principles and institutions," she said.

Harris also noted that India was a "vital source" of vaccines for other countries at the start of the pandemic, while the United States, in turn, provided support to India as it experienced a surge in cases.

Earlier in the day, Harris met with Ghana's president, Nana Akufo-Addo, where she said the United States will send an additional 1.3 million doses of Pfizer-BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine to the country in coming weeks.

"None of us have been immune to the ravages of the pandemic," she said. "We recognize our shared responsibility to collaborate, to share resources to not only continue to address the effects of COVID-19, but to prepare for the next pandemics."

Akufo-Addo added that Ghana hopes to vaccinate 20 million people -- two-thirds of its population -- by the end of the year.

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"We're grateful for the support that the United States government has given us in trying to deal with the virus, the COVAX facility, which America has been very strongly participant and the support we've had through the donation of 1.2 million doses of the Moderna and the promise that you've made that more is on the way."

You Are A Source Of Inspiration For So Many People All Around The World: PM Modi To US VP Kamala Harris

During his first meeting between US Vice President Kamala Harris, Prime Minister Narendra Modi seemed optimistic about India-US relations under the Joe Biden-Kamala Harris government.

Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi (Left) and Vice President of The United States Of America, Kamala Harris (Right) | Twitte


Published: 24 Sep 2021, 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has described US Vice President Kamala Harris as a "source of inspiration" for people around the world and expressed confidence that India-US bilateral relations will touch new heights under her and President Joe Biden's leadership.

The Prime Minister was sitting in a joint press appearance with Harris at the White House on Friday ahead of their bilateral meeting.

"You are being elected as the Vice President of America has been such an important and historic event. You are the source of inspiration for so many people around the world," Modi said.

Kamala Harris, 56, is the first-ever person of Indian origin to be elected as the vice-president of the United States of America.

Her biography on the White House website states that Harris is also the first woman, the first Black American, and the first South Asian American to be elected Vice President, as was the case with multiple other offices she has held.

"I am so confident that under President Joe Biden and your leadership, our bilateral relationship will touch new heights," the prime minister said.

Modi also extended an invitation to Vice President Harris and Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff to visit India.

"Continuing on your journey of victory, Indians would also want you to continue that in India and wait for you to come to India and therefore, I extend to you an invitation to visit India," he said.

Recalling his conversation with Harris in June during the second wave of the pandemic in India, Modi said, "A few months ago, we had an opportunity to talk to each other over the phone. We had a detailed discussion at that time and the way you spoke to me so warmly and naturally, I will always remember that."

"It was a very difficult time. India was confronted with the second wave of the pandemic but like a family, the sense of kinship and so warmly you extended a helping hand."

"The words that you chose when you spoke to me, I will always remember that and I would like to thank you from the botoom of my heart," he said.

"Like a true friend, you had given a message of cooperation and full of sensitivity and immediately we found that the US government, corporate sector and the Indian community all came together to help India," he added.

Harris was born to two immigrants a Black father from Jamaica Donald Harris, and an Indian mother Shyamala Gopalan, acancer researcher and civil rights activist from Chennai.

(With PTI Inputs)

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