Mission, Vision & Values
Mission
QT’s mission is to (i) uplift the voices of queer writers and artists, especially from underrepresented communities (e.g. trans and BIPOC creators) and (ii) create a shared space that is welcoming for and led by women and gender minorities.
Vision
QT was started in response to the criminal shortage of Canadian queer literary magazines. This is one of a number of challenges impacting the queer community today. Through our Vision we identify some of these issues and how we hope to address them.
Recognizing that disappearing social spaces for queer women and gender minorities is a real phenomenon, QT aims to...
- Prioritize placing queer women and gender minorities in leadership positions.
- Prioritize safety and prevent retraumatization by ensuring none of our material features superfluous overtly traumatic content particularly violence against women.
Recognizing the pervasive underrepresentation of queer writers in mainstream media, QT aims to...
- Value art making especially for marginalized communities, often as a tool for processing trauma specific to their identity.
- Uplift emerging writers to create a space where everyone, and queer women and gender minorities in particular, feel confident using their voices.
- Create a space where queer people can have their work validated and understood by people who understand them.
Acknowledging that there is no space for queer women and gender minorities to feel comfortable experimenting with artmaking for art’s sake, QT aims to...
- Reframe the function of art to include the cultivation of identity and by extension community.
- Create a space for emerging writers to experiment with and develop new ideas.
- Embrace anger.
- Make space for work that is emotional, even if it isn’t polished.
Understanding that issues affecting the queer community are both criminally underreported and linked to tangible social, political, and economic harms, QT aims to...
- Bring to light pressing issues affecting the queer community in Toronto and beyond.
Recognizing that literary and academic worlds are entrenched in systemic heteropatriarchy that by their nature exclude non-dominant voices, QT aims to...
- Provide a space to publish and discuss work that is not gatekept by institutional blockades.
Values
QT is a space that values:
- Intersectionality
- Inclusivity
- Safety
- Anti-racism
- Collective ownership/participation
And that manifests in our actions through:
- Providing content warnings
- Decolonizing epistemology (“no gatekeepers' space”)
- Passing the microphone to creators with marginalized identities
- Prioritizing the role of emotions
- Maintaining a non-hierarchical organizational structure
- Allowing contributors to maintain ownership over the pieces they submit
- Creating a culture of accessibility and openness
- Creating a space for growth and learning
- Adopting a ‘call-in’ culture
- Holding each other accountable as an act of love
- Emphasizing that writers may publish anonymously or under a pen name (we are not in the business of outing people).
Our Commitment to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
We will prioritize marginalized people in leadership positions and in writers.
We will put concentrated effort into sourcing and prioritizing writers from marginalized communities.
We will prioritize the safety of the most marginalized members of our community.
Recognizing that membership is a privilege, violation of the above Mission, Vision & Values may result in termination of membership. These situations will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis by the Board of Directors.