Meet the Team
The Faces of Our Organization
Nick Crawford
He / Him
Director of Operations / Copywriter
Emily Albanese
She / Her
Graphic Designer
Community Stories
The Faces of Our Cause
Madison Zinger
She / Her
“In my experience, clothing and queerness go hand in hand. When I get dressed in the morning, I am able to express myself, celebrate my body, and provide the outside world a glimpse into my identity. I aim to attract other members of the queer community and to signal that I am a safe person. When it comes to vintage and thrifted clothing, I get to set gender binaries aside and experiment with shapes, fits, colours, and fabric until I arrive at an outfit that is perfectly me. I value the privilege of expressing myself through clothing and the way that expression brings me closer to my community.”
Emma Flintoft
She / Her
“I have always been someone who struggled with my clothing, mostly because I have always occupied a larger body type. My size, coupled with the constant critique on anything “girly” or made for women in a patriarchal society (a rant for another day!), has always made me drift towards covering up, and steering clear of anything remotely feminine, wanting to avoid any real (or perceived) ridicule. However, after coming out as bisexual in my early twenties, and fully embracing myself as queer, I have finally been able to lock down on my own clothing and style preferences, outside of my own insecurities. My acceptance of my own queerness has allowed me to feel freer in my clothing decisions - I can feel comfortable in my own skin now, and that has allowed me to move past the voices telling me I’m too fat to wear tighter clothing, or cropped clothing, or god forbid: patterns (I do love me a good horizontal stripe and floral design!
Because of my acceptance of my bisexuality, I have been able to feel more comfortable in taking more risks with my clothing choices, and to stop forcing myself to accept the patriarchal dismissal of clothing and style as being inherently feminine and therefore not important or not worth putting effort into.”
Maha Bellazzi
They / She
“As students we’re at the age where we are forming our outward personas in how we present ourselves, whether that be with makeup, hair, clothing, the way you carry yourself, etc. and for me clothing has been a big part of that. I was hyper feminine in high school, and I didn’t know what it meant to have my own style or that I could choose what to feel comfortable wearing. When I went to university, I realized that through the clothing I wore
I could present myself as who I wanted people to see me as, rather than who I thought I was supposed to be seen as. As an actor, and someone who wants to join the film industry I’ve also realized that not being a carbon copy of every other person is an asset and can set you apart from others. The reason why I wanted to begin acting in the first place was
because I found so much comfort and solace in the characters. On television, there would be characters that present themselves in the way that I wish I presented myself. That is one
of the main reasons as to why I want to act, I want to be the representation for young queer kids to see themselves portrayed in the media because I didn’t have much of that growing up.”
