Can you introduce yourself and share your pronouns?
My name is Brian, and my pronouns are they/them. I am currently pursuing a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts & Art History at York University, while also working as a communications and marketing assistant in the environmental field. As a queer person, and a queer artist, I know how important it is to see yourself reflected in the world we live in. Walking through life visibly queer, I am keenly aware of the isolation that comes with it, especially in youth. I did not have many queer mentors in my life who were able to share to their adult experiences and advise, which left me forging my own path. Knowing this void of mentorship for myself, I turned to mentoring to others to give what I had not received.
Why did you decide to become a mentor, and what does being a mentor mean to you? How has your identity as a 2SLGBTQIA+ person shaped your approach to mentorship? Why do you think it’s important for 2SLGBTQIA+ youth to have mentors who share similar lived experiences?
I became a mentor so that I can help support youth in ways that I had not received support. Navigating life as queer and trans person without any models outside of media gave me more questions than answers on what it meant to be queer. I struggled with big questions and understanding the role queerness played in the real world. Bringing that experience into mentorship, I realized just how important and impactful having real-life role models is. One of the fundamental messages most queer people, especially youth, receive is that they are “other” and that their lifestyle, choices, and existence is simply political. This makes living day to day life or even envisioning a full future very difficult as you are constantly questioning what it means to be queer and trans in the context of cis-normative and heteronormative society. Questions like: “What does it mean to be queer and have a relationship with family, supportive and unsupportive?”, “Does my queerness affect my education? My job prospects? My housing prospects?”, “What does having romantic relationships look like for queer people?”, “What does transitioning look like? Do I need to be palatable?”
All of these questions affect navigation. And without answers, or answers that give more questions, there is a scrambling to see a queer, happy future. This is why queer mentorship is so important to me, and especially trans mentorship. Having a model and the potential of to turn to someone with the questions you never got the answer to allows for a vision of a life co-existing with one’s identity. Trans and queer youth deserve to see an example of a life they can live and what queer joy, queer grief, queer celebration looks like!
Can you share a meaningful moment or story from your time with your mentee?
When I first met my little brother, I could tell he was struggling with the question of: what’s next? Approaching his final years of high school, I could see his struggle with presentation and where his identity fits into his life. With a strong sense of justice, I saw him many times make plans and goals for what the future would look like. A meaningful moment for me that we were able to share was him baking with me in my kitchen. I had moved out at 18 and spent much of that time since trying to cultivate a home that represented me, queer and transness included. My little brother coming to my home to see the world I built with my queerness in mind and on display, with my cats and built in conjunction with my partner, was a life-changing experience. He gushed to me about how beautiful my home was and how much it inspired him, but what struck me most was him saying, “This inspires me to build my life like yours.” It was a moment like that made me really solidify what mentorship meant to me- a young queer and trans person seeing me, an adult queer and trans person experiencing life successfully and unapologetically. Not only did it make me feel appreciative of my own life that I had built, but it made me feel connected to my little brother to be able to share parts of my life with him.
What’s one thing you hope your mentee learns from you? And what’s one thing you’ve learned from them?
I hope my mentee learns that your identity is not something to hide and it is something that can co-exist with you and even work with you for the rest of your life. There is no reason to make yourself palatable in your queerness, transness, and expression. The authentic you will always be the best you and I hope he can learn that from me. I had learned from him the importance of perspective. From the inside of my life, I don’t see myself as successful or as anything particularly special, but seeing the reactions of him and what it means to him to have such an example in his life, I feel very fortunate to be that and feel very grateful for the life I have built.
What would you say to someone in the 2SLGBTQIA+ community who is thinking about becoming a mentor?
Do it. So many of us queer folks forged our own path either by ourselves or with young people our age alongside us. Without answers and examples, it can be so difficult to live in a world that is working against you. Being the person you needed when you were younger for someone else is worthwhile for them, yourself, and the growth of our community.
What does Pride mean to you as a mentor?
Pride means being yourself, but beyond just the aphorism. It means celebrating your queerness, expressing your unique experience of having a queer life. Pride means crying with the community and walking alongside the community as we fight and advocate for better lives for all queer folks. Being a mentor to queer youth is a step in doing so, and that is something to have pride in.