Toronto helped lead the world in its embrace of diversity when the first same-sex couple to be legally married in North America was wed here in 2003. That local tradition of re-examining legal attitudes to gender issues will carry on as York University Professor Nancy Nicol [Faculty of Fine Arts] has received $1 million in funding to study the criminalization of sexual orientation and gender issues across the globe, wrote the weekly online news magazine Yonge Street April 6:

The funding, to be delivered over five years, comes courtesy of the federal government's Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. According to the announcement of the award, Nicol will lead a 22-member team to "explore how LGBT and human rights groups resist criminalization of sexual orientation and gender identity," especially in the developing world of the global south.

"Our work will combine documentary and participatory video with qualitative interviewing, focus groups, legal data research and analysis, and a limited use of surveys," Nicol says in a release. "We plan to make a unique contribution to documenting and analyzing criminalization, asylum and resistance to criminalization within and beyond regions."

The project also received coverage April 1 in the Windsor Square.

A complete overview of the Envisioning Global LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) Human Rights project and its partners is available in the Research News archives. The project is based in the Centre for Feminist Research at York.

Posted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer, with files courtesy of YFile– York University’s daily e-bulletin.