BU Queer Lunch and Learn: Unsettling Trans Rights with Dr. Leon Laidlaw

BU Queer is hosting our next Lunch and Learn on February 3, 2026 at 12:40pm at the Gathering Space in the John E. Robbins Library.

The event will feature guest speaker Dr. Leon Laidlaw with his talk, Unsettling Trans Rights: Gender as a Basis of Indigenous Solidarity. This talk explores how settler-Indigenous solidarity can be pursued on the basis of gender. This talk begins by contextualizing the roots of gender oppression and gendered colonialism in the Western gender binary and reflects on the different pathways that Two-Spirit and trans resistance movements may take. This talk concludes with a conversation about decolonizing trans rights to better align with Indigenous struggles for sovereignty and self-determination.

Dr. Leon Laidlaw (he/they) is an assistant professor in Sociology and Gender and Women’s Studies at Brandon University. They are a white settler trans scholar who does intersectional and decolonizing work on the topics of gender, rights, and justice.