LGBTQ+ Refugee Stories of Resilience Jervis Stone

Описание: Making a Life and a Living: LGBTQ+ Refugee Stories of Resilience
D3 - AM - Session 1 - Room C
Presented by: Jervis Stone

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This 15-minute storytelling presentation from The 519 explores the lived experiences of LGBTQ+ refugees and newcomers of colour striving to “make a living” in Canada amid systemic racism, xenophobia, homophobia, and transphobia. Drawing from frontline service work and anonymized client stories, we spotlight how individuals who have fled persecution abroad must now navigate economic exclusion, housing precarity, and discrimination in employment once they arrive in Canada.

Participants in our programs frequently express a shared reality: while they may find physical safety in Canada, survival remains a daily struggle. Many face rejection in formal labour markets due to language barriers, unfamiliar credentials, or the demand for “Canadian experience.” Employers and institutions often treat refugee claimants with suspicion or dismiss their professional histories. As a result, many turn to survival strategies: under-the-table work, informal caregiving, catering, or creative entrepreneurship such as drag performance, hair braiding, or cultural cooking.

Through this presentation, we directly engage the conference’s core themes:

Equity & Emancipatory Entrepreneurship: We challenge narrow definitions of entrepreneurship by showing how economic survival—through informal work, creative hustle, and mutual aid—is an act of resilience and resistance. These practices represent emancipatory entrepreneurship in action: the creation of new ways to live and earn outside oppressive systems.

Community & Connection: Each story shows the vital role of chosen family, peer networks, and community-based support. From housing co-ops to WhatsApp job tip groups, our clients rely on collective care to survive and thrive.

Knowledge & Storytelling: These stories hold both pain and wisdom. They highlight systemic gaps, but also offer rich insight into how queer and trans refugees innovate, adapt, and create new economic models rooted in culture, trust, and self-determination.

Joy & Confidence: Despite the hardship, joy endures. Whether through a dance class-turned-wellness-business or the laughter of shared meals in community kitchens, these moments remind us that making a living can be a liberatory act when it centers dignity, creativity, and communal growth.

By centering voices often excluded from mainstream entrepreneurship narratives, this presentation challenges us to rethink who gets to be called an entrepreneur—and on whose terms.