“Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose.”
— Zora Neale Hurston
Since our inception The Centre has been dedicated to ensuring that the voices of gender-marginalized people are heard. One way of ensuring that the issues addressing our communities are handled is to produce research, reports and statistics.
As far back as the 1980s, The CGSJ produced reports such as our “campus safety audits” which surveyed potential safety concerns for women on Trent University’s campus, where assaults had become a major concern. These audits opened the door to meaningful communication with the administration and even resulted in tangible changes such as increased lighting around walking paths. Today, we use community surveys, feedback forms and formal research projects conducted by community members in order to inform our programming goals. Our research is just one of the ways we remain dedicated to ensuring our work accurately represents the people we serve.
BIPOC Community Outreach Survey
The BIPOC Community Outreach Survey was conducted in 2020 by Rhea Shahe and aims to better understand the experiences and barriers facing gender-marginalized Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour living in Peterborough. This report used narrative research to better understand intimate lived-experiences of community members and has been used to inform the BIPOC Outreach Program.
Trans Community Outreach Survey.
The Trans Community Outreach Survey was conducted in 2020 by Alex Heigh-Roper and aims to better understand what issues are most urgently affecting Transgender individuals living in Peterborough using existing data regarding the socio-economic issues affecting Transgender Ontarians. Participants were asked to fill out a survey ranking how urgently these pre-identified concerns affected their lives and were given space to comment on how they’d like these issues addressed.