Dr. Amelia C. Thorpe (she/her) is an Instructor and SOGI Coordinator at the University of New Brunswick. A longtime activist and community organizer, Amelia is interested in community building, accessibility and community care, knowledge sharing, and intergenerational solidarity work within 2SLGBTQIA+ communities, focusing on seniors.
Dr. Thorpe’s research occupies a queer and liminal space at the intersection of education and grassroots organizing and takes up questions of identity, memory, kinship, resistance, and community care. Through a lens informed by critical queer and crip theory, she engages in an array of research methods, including autoethnography, autotheory, participatory visual research, and action research for social change. She is the founder of ElderPride and ConneQT NB, co-founder of Illuminate Arts Festival, and a collaborator on numerous research projects focused on 2SLGBTQ+ youth and seniors. Learn more.
Research Foci
2SLGBTQI+ Seniors
Exploring ageism, ableism, intergenerational connectivity, solidarity, and community building with gender and sexually-diverse seniors.
Queer & Crip Care
Disrupting and deconstructing discourses of ableism, homonormativity, transmisia, racism, and fatphobia in community and organizing spaces.
Knowledge Sharing
Facilitating intergenerational knowledge sharing and mentorship between 2SLGBTQI+ seniors and young adults, focusing on lived experience.
Queering Schools
Queering curriculum, policy, culture, and built environments in secondary schools.
2SLGBTQI+ Mutual Aid
Weaving accessibility and mutual aid into queer, grassroots community projects.
Queer Placemaking
Exploring queer placemaking through joy, resistance, and collective experience.