The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board invited students, staff and families for a virtual 2SLGBTQ+ Interfaith Panel Discussion, held on Wednesday, February 9, 2022, from 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. This webinar helped participants know more about gender, sexuality and faith.
Participants heard from Kusha Dadui, former OCDSB Trans and Gender Diverse Student Support Coordinator, and a panel including El-Farouk Khaki - queer Imam and co-founder of Salaam Canada, Caro Ibrahim - BIPOC Christain faith-based counsellor and Orev Katz - 2SLGBTQ+ gender fluid Hebrew Priestess who has done a lot of work with incarcerated people.
You can watch the session recording below:
This event is part of OCDSB’s ongoing commitment to supporting trans and gender diverse students in our District through ongoing staff training, parent and student workshops, virtual drop-in groups and school library texts.
If you have a question, you can refer to OCDSB’s Gender Identity & Expression FAQs. For more information and resources, please visit OCDSB’s 2SLGBTQ+ Supports webpage. You can also reach out to your child’s school for more information.
Know more about the panellists at this webinar:
Orev Katz (they/she)
Chaplain Orev Reena Katz haKohenet practices spiritual care with people who are currently and formerly incarcerated in the Upper Canada Treaties regions of Southern Ontario and unceded Coast Salish territory. Orev served as a Jewish, Mental Health and Site-based Correctional Chaplain in the federal prison system for four years, where they provided advocacy, one-on-one counselling, and progressive, social justice-based spiritual education. As the only out LGBT Chaplain in Corrections Canada, Orev worked one-on-one with incarcerated people, staff and families in their community to ensure their specific needs were articulated, understood and
met. They have also provided spiritual care for 2-Spirit, queer and trans people transitioning back to the community at the Prisoner AIDS/HIV Support and Action Network (PASAN) and participated in various movements for self-determination, racial justice and Right of Return/Land Back in Turtle Island and Palestine. Currently, Orev serves on the Transformative Justice Collective at Rittenhouse, the LGBTQ+ Chaplain at the Immigration and Holding Centre in Surrey, BC, and works with Yorktown Family Services, providing mental health therapy to youth involved in hate groups.
Orev is ordained as a Hebrew Priestess through the Kohenet Institute, and holds a Masters of Pastoral Studies, with a specialization in Spiritual Care and Psychotherapy from Emmanuel College, University of Toronto. Orev is honoured to live and work as an uninvited guest in multiple Indigenous territories, including the unceded land of the Coast Salish peoples, the shared traditional territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish), Tsleil-Waututh, and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nations. To know more, visit: www.orevreenakatz.ca
Caro Ibrahim (he/him)
Caro identifies as a queer, Christian, trans-man, Arab-African, migrant of colour, Psychotherapist and Spiritual Health Practitioner. Caro was born in the Coptic (Egyptian) Orthodox Christian faith. At the age of eleven, Caro chose to commit to the Christian faith and teachings. Caro practices psychotherapy through a spiritually integrated, intersectional, community and person-centred lens.
His practice Just Healing Psychotherapy is informed by experiences of forced migration, racialization, whiteness, marginalization, religious violence, and sexual and gender journeys. For Caro, healing is an act of resistance, reclamation of one's existence, and reconciliation of the many dimensions we hold and held by. It is a personal journey towards self-realization and/or restoration, in the sense of coming home to oneself.
El-Farouk Khaki (he/him)
El-Farouk Khaki (he/him) is an intersectional human rights and dignity activist, public speaker, writer, author & media commentator on: Islam, LGBTIQ/human rights, refugees, politics, racism, HIV, & queer parenting.
Since 1993, his law practice has focused on refugee claims based on sexual orientation, gender, gender identity/expression & HIV. El-Farouk is the founder of Salaam: Queer Muslim Community (1991), and co-founder & imam of el-Tawhid Juma Circle: The Unity Mosque (2009). He is ordained as a Reverend and officiates marriage for people of all religions, orientations and genders. He is a co-owner of the Glad day Bookshop, the world’s oldest LGBTIQ bookshop.
He is featured in a biopic ‘The Accidental Activist’ by the Canadian Race Relations Foundation (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drjBVKhiOfs&t=784s ) and is a TedX speaker (We Resist. A Queer Muslim Perspective. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXydVaieYdo&t=708s).
His awards include the “Excellence in Spirituality” Award – Pride Toronto (2006), The Canadian Bar Association SOGIE “Hero Award” (2007), the Canadian Centre for Victims of Torture Trevor Batram Award (2016) and the Community One Steinert & Ferreiro Award. In 2020, he was inducted into the ArQuives National Portrait Collection, and also received the Lifetime Achievement Inspire Award 2020.
El-Farouk’s writings include a children’s book titled “Moondragon in the Mosque Garden” co-authored with Troy Jackson, and a chapter on Muslim Chaplaincy and LGBTIQ+ Muslims in “Mantle of Mercy: Islamic Chaplaincy in North America”.
He is currently working on a book exploring Islam, intersectional identities, global issues, sexuality, refugees, social justice and spirituality.