Dr. Travis Salway is a social worker and social epidemiologist who tries to understand how and why queer people experience higher rates of mental distress (including suicide and anxiety) as compared with heterosexual people. He is an Assistant Professor of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University, where he is supported by the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research. He works in collaboration with the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control the Community Based Research Centre and the Centre for Gender and Sexual Health Equity. In 2019, Travis gave testimony to the Canadian House of Commons’ Standing Committee on Health, specifically calling for a reexamination of “conversion therapy” practices in Canada. He has since worked with conversion therapy survivors to better describe where, how, and why conversion therapy continues to occur in Canada. You can find more about Travis here and on Twitter. Here is an example of Travis' writing on conversion therapy.
In this episode we talk about Travis' work on highlighting the harms of conversion therapy. We talk about queer mental health and suicide, how common conversion therapy is (answer: very!), and discrimination as the tip of the iceberg of how people are devalued. We talk about needing to move beyond 'tolerating' to celebrating LGBTQ persons. We plead for Dan Levy to come on this show as a podcast guest because we are in love with how Schitt's Creek's imagines and models LGBTQ acceptance. We talk about comprehensive sexuality education as an opportunity to reach LGBTQ youth and let them know they are wanted, seen and valued. We also discuss gems of wisdom Travis is inspired by, and shout out future dream podcast guests.
Episode hosted by Dr. Carmen Logie. Original music and podcast produced by Cozmic Cat. Supported by funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovationand Canada Research Chairs program.