IRN North America

The IRN-North America serves as a clearing house to access and share LGBTIQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer) information, research, and imaginative and practical resources and to connect academic, community-based, and independent researchers, activists, artists, policy makers, service providers, teachers, and others.  Even as we identify the site in this way, we strive neither to foster nor critique identity.  We challenge transphobia, are antihomophobic, feminist, and heterofriendly, and we are working toward a world of respect for, and  acceptance of, diverse sexualities and genders. 

We promote activism, creative work, mentoring relationships, engaged scholarship, information exchange, and policy analyses that illuminate, question, and transform the place of LGBTIQ people in social relations, economic life, cultural production, and politics. While these interests are primarily focused on North America, we are members of a global network of IRN regions and we recognize that decision making on nomenclature about sexuality and gender, as well as priorities for regions and for interaction with each other, is decentralized.

Our priorities include:

• Linking university-based LGBTIQ, gender and sexuality programs and research centers with similar non-academic centers and related initiatives;
• Enabling NGOs and CBOs to deliver resources and tools to communities and constituencies;
• Creating partnerships between researchers, policy advocates, and funders;
• Providing a site where members can self-archive and circulate their own work;
• Building an activist/researcher bulletin board;
• Encouraging comparative and interdisciplinary research, partnerships across cultures, and inclusivity in relation to resources for the production, transmission, comprehension, and utilization of knowledges pertaining to sexualities and genders.

Presently, the IRN-NA covers LGBTIQ resources and information in Canada and the United States.

To begin your participation in the IRN-NA please visit the following site and register as a user:

http://www.irnweb.org/en/register

Once you have registered, you may begin to share your efforts and seek others.

If you would like to share specific material with the IRN-NA that will appear on the IRN-NA website homepage, please feel free to send us all material at irn.northamerica@gmail.com. 

Jessica Carson is the IRN North America Regional Coordinator and Website Administrator.

Current IRN North America Regional Board Members

• Mark Blasius - Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Graduate Center and La Guardia Community College of the City University of New York, USA
• Brenda Cossman – Faculty of Law, Director of the Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies, University of Toronto, Canada
• Donald W. McLeod – Sexual Diversity Studies, Robarts Library, University of Toronto Libraries, Canada
• Debra Moddelmog –Professor of English, Co-Coordinator of Sexuality Studies Program, and Co-organizer and Director of the Diversity and Identity Studies Collective at OSU (DISCO), Ohio State University, USA
• Susan Stryker – Associate Professor of Gender and Women's Studies, University of Arizona, Director of the UA Institute for LGBT Studies, USA
• Kimberley Vance – Founder and Co-Director, ARC International, Canada
• James (Jim) Wilson – Executive Director, Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies, USA