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Gwen Benaway is a Canadian poet and activist. As of October 2019, she was a PhD candidate in the Women & Gender Studies Institute at the Faculty of Arts & Science at the University of Toronto.[1] Benaway has also written non-fiction for The Globe and Mail and Maclean's.[2]
Gwen Benaway | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1987 |
| Occupation | Poet |
| Language | English |
| Nationality | Canadian |
| Citizenship | Canadian |
Benaway, who claims Anishinaabe and Métis descent,[3] is an advocate for the rights of transgender Indigenous people.[4] However, her claims to Indigenous identity have been called into question.[5]
She has spoken publicly about the healthcare system and transphobia.[6] Benaway has said, ″I guess I can't tell the difference between living and writing, the social and the political, the body and the voice, the binary and the limitlessness of my heart. I'm trans, and by that I mean I'm beyond what the world can contain."[7]
Benaway was one of the most prominent activists against the Toronto Public Library's decision to allow the feminist writer Meghan Murphy and the Radical Feminists Unite group to hold a speaking event at the library in 2019.[8] She protested against the event to express her objection to comments Murphy had made about transgender people and Murphy's opposition to the establishment of transgender rights legislation.[9] In an interview, Benaway said she had been "kettled in the library" by the Toronto police during the protest.[clarification needed][10]
Benaway's poetry reflects her experience as a transgender woman, and often speaks about the ongoing realities of colonial violence.[11] Scholar of LGBT and Two-Spirit Indigenous literatures Lisa Tatonetti described Benaway's work as "aesthetically beautiful" and wrote of Benaway's Passage that "while an incredibly personal book from a self-described feminist confessional poet, Passage, in its lyric beauty, its bravery, and its testament to survival and rebirth, is a gift to readers as well."[12] The peer assessment committee for the Governor General's Literary Awards described Holy Wild as "lyrical rhythmic and fierce. It was an extraordinary experience reading this burning, honest manifesto."[13]
Benaway has published three poetry collections to date, with one further announced:
- Benaway, Giles (2013). Ceremonies for the Dead. Chippewas of Nawash First Nation: Kegedonce Press. ISBN 978-0-9868740-5-5.[14]
- Benaway, Gwen (2016). Passage. Chippewas of Nawash First Nation: Kegedonce Press. ISBN 9781928120087.[15]
- Benaway, Gwen (2018). Holy Wild. BookThug. ISBN 9781771664394.
- Benaway, Gwen (2020). day/break. Book*hug.[16]
Benaway curated the following collection of short fiction:
- Benaway, Gwen (2019) Maiden, Mother, and Crone: Fantastical Trans Femmes [17] ISBN 978-1-988715-21-6
Benaway's writing has been featured in the following collections:
- Love beyond body, space, and time: an Indigenous LGBT sci-fi anthology (2016) Winnipeg: Bedside Press ISBN 9780993997075
- NotYourPrincess: Voices of Native American women (2017) Toronto: Annick Press. ISBN 9781554519576
- Refuse: CanLit in ruins (2018) Toronto: Bookhug. ISBN 9781771664332
- "Finding refuge in trans sisterhood" Xtra, November 20, 2019.
- "A Body like a Home", HazLitt, May 30, 2019 (a long-form essay about her gender-confirmation surgery)[18]
- "Repair", Guts Magazine, May 3, 2019[19]
- "The real price of transphobia", (Opinion) Xtra, February 12, 2019.
- "Pussy", carte blanche, December 12, 2018 (essay on trans women's bodies and transmisogyny)[20]
- "Being loved back with Boy Meets Girl", Xtra, November 16, 2018.
- "Decolonial Love Letters to Our Bodies", Tea & Bannock, April 28, 2018 (a collaboration with Anishinaabe artist Quill Christie-Peters). Archived 2018-12-21 at the Wayback Machine [21]
- "trans girl in love Archived 2019-10-28 at the Wayback Machine", Room Magazine (a long form essay about sexual violence, abusive relationships, and being a trans girl in love)
- "Dreaming of home" (a short essay on losing her "virginity").
- "Ahkii: a Woman is a Sovereign Land", Transmotion 3, no. 1 (2017) [22]
- "The power-and the violence-of being an Indigenous trans woman", Maclean's. June 21, 2017.
- "No Contact Rule", carte blanche, June 12, 2017, (an essay on Canadian literature).
- "What Junot Diaz Doesn't Say", Flare Magazine, April 23, 2013 (an essay on the price that women pay to further men's self development).[23]
In 2015, Benaway was the inaugural winner of the "Legislative Assembly of Ontario Speaker's Award for Young Authors" for Ceremonies for the Dead[24][25] In 2016 she received the Honour of Distinction from the Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ writers.[26]
She won Prism International's Creative Non-Fiction contest in 2017 for her piece "Between a Rock and a Hard Place".[27]
In 2019 Benaway won the Governor General's Literary Award for English poetry for Holy Wild.[28] The collection of poems look at the intersection of Indigenous and transgender identities.[1] The book was also shortlisted for the Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Poetry at the 31st Lambda Literary Award,[29] the Trillium Book Award for Poetry, and the Publishing Triangle Award for Trans and Gender-Variant Literature.[10]
In 2019, Benaway's essay "A Body Like a Home" won a Gold medal in the 42nd National Magazine Awards in the Personal Journalism category.[30]
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