How do we imagine recreational sports outside of the gender binary and the forms of toxic masculinity that often permeate these spaces? The Field of Dreamers Cooperative Softball Association and Sqwish recreational basketball drop in have been asking these questions for the last 5 years in Toronto. This panel will discuss the basics of creating queer and non-binary sports leagues, the political work of recreational sports, and the need for municipalities to re-imagine adult recreation post-pandemic.

Moderator:

Sam Toman is a local writer and founder of the design collaboration TryCities. He’s written for the Globe and Mail, Macleans, The Star, The Economist and several less-flashy but more-fun publications. Working as Communications Officer in the Faculty of Environment he promotes equity and sustainability work by some of the sharpest minds anywhere. To be honest, he’s not super happy with the Region these days. Follow him @MidtownKW where he punches up.

Panel:

Craig Fortier is an Assistant Professor in Social Development Studies at Renison University College. Craig is a Co-Commissioner with the Field of Dreamers Cooperative Softball Association and has played short-stop and centre field for the Humber River Hustle, Rouge River Blush, and Credit River Care Bears. They are the author of Unsettling the Commons: Social Movements Within, Against, and Beyond Settler Colonialism as well as several articles on baseball history.

LJ Robinson is a designer and illustrator who has been creating communications for resistance in Kitchener-Waterloo and Toronto for the past 12 years. They never found a place in team sports as a kid but are now a founding member and Co-Commissioner of the Field of Dreamers Cooperative Softball Association.

Amina Mohamed is the Women’s Community Program Coordinator at PASAN. She provides education, advocacy, programming and case management to incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women living with HIV. In addition she is a lead artist-facilitator with Confluence Arts Collective. With Confluence, Amina facilitates artistic creation programs in prisons and transitional residences. Amina is the co-founder of Sqwish, a weekly queer drop-in basketball night.

Mingus is a queer artist who spends his time between digital creation and community organization. In the recent past, Mingus has co-organized Sqwish, a weekly drop-in basketball night centred around queer people; cofounded Club Quarantine, a virtual community space created to foster queer community during the pandemic; co-organized community-funded cottage retreats for Black queer folks throughout last summer; and co-facilitated a Halloween candy drive in partnership with Mutual Aid Parkdale to safely deliver candy to kids in response to COVID-19. Mingus is an advocate for marginalized people in STEM, most recently collaborating on an Input article about racism within the Instagram filter community.