Fighting for Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies

Join us for a conversation on the beginnings of women studies and feminist activism at SFU.

In 1971, Simon Fraser University offered Geography 404: “The Geography of Gender” — a course that made way for the first Women’s Studies Program in Canada and what would become today’s vibrant, interdisciplinary department of Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies (GSWS) at SFU.

Come hear from someone who was there! Cyndia Cole was a student in "The Geography of Gender" in 1971 and was also the TA in the first two courses in the new GSWS department.

Registration is required. Light refreshments will be served.

About Cyndia Cole

Cyndia Cole moved from New College in Sarasota, Florida to Vancouver in 1970. She attended SFU and then UBC throughout the 1970s. She was active in the BC Women’s Studies Association and helped found GSWS at SFU. She wrote her master’s thesis, Reframing Womanhood, as an analysis of forces shaping her own life. Cyndia came out as a lesbian at 26 in 1976. Her writing appears in Together We Stand: Queer Elders Speak Out, Basically Queer: An Intergenerational Introduction to LGBTQA2S+ Lives, Making Room: Forty Years of Room Magazine, Sharing Our Journeys and Breakthrough.

Cyndia has been interviewed for the 1969 and Beyond and An Army of Lovers exhibits. Daisaku Ikeda taught her that words change people’s hearts. She is honoured to have worked with others to found or to develop: Tillicum Food Co-op, Vancouver East Housing Co-op, REACH Community Health Centre, QUIRK-E the Queer Imaging and Riting Kollecitve for Elders, QMUNITY, and SGI Vancouver Buddhist Pride Group. She has learned that creating community keeps us alive.

Host or Publisher SFU Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies