Category: Gender
Should a trans masc (me) play women’s sports?
Conservatives are obsessed with trans people playing sports, especially women’s sports. This is very weird to me, as… The typical advice from trans allies is that trans people should play sports in the category that aligns with their gender. So trans women should play women’s sports. And trans men should play in men’s sports. But…
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Mountain Voices: Creating Our Own Mountain Culture
Mountain Voices is about a century of change in the mountains of Western Canada through photography and stories.
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What the Rock Warrior’s Way taught me about climbing and fear
What the popular mental training program for climbers taught me about fear.
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How to include trans and non-binary people in your women’s group (2026)
Women’s outdoor groups provide safe and nurturing spaces for many women to make connections and push their limits. As awareness about trans and non-binary issues rises, some women are starting to question how to make their groups more welcoming to trans people. These women realize how lucky they are to have safe spaces and they…
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Mt. Shuksan via Fisher Chimneys
I learned to climb on Mt. Shuksan years ago. This course gave me a taste into a hyper-masculine culture where I did not belong. It was powerful to return to this same route on this mountain as a leader under my own terms.
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My experience starting a queer outdoors group
Last year, I was feeling good about my mountaineering accomplishments. And with my work getting more women out climbing and on trips with the Alpine Club of Canada. But as someone who doesn’t even feel like a woman half the time, I was sorely missing queer community. I am not the kind of person who…
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Walking the Camino as a solo female
The only way I wanted to walk the Camino was solo. Like many women, I have spent much of my life putting other people’s needs before my own and compromising. So I decided that it was time for me to know what it feels like to make my own decisions and deal with whatever happened…
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What’s a queer ex-Catholic doing on the Camino de Santiago?
We’ve just finished a communal dinner at a volunteer-run hostel in a small village in Spain. Our hosts are volunteers from the Netherlands who welcome new pilgrims every day. We are walking the Camino de Santiago, an ancient 800 km pilgrimage across northern Spain. It was one of the most important Christian pilgrimages in the…
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Going solo. Does that mean alone?
One of the first questions people ask me about my upcoming 5-month round-the-world adventure is who I am going with. When I tell them I am not going with anyone, they usually look horrified. “So you’re going be ALONE the whole five months?!?” I don’t even know to respond to this. For one thing, when…
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No, social media is not ruining hiking.
When you say “social media is ruining hiking” what a lot of people hear “people like you don’t belong outside.”
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A photo essay: Why we need women only trips
But can you imagine a man saying that it took him four years before he climbed a mountain with another man? I cannot. As reflected on how I got here, I noticed a pattern. Let’s see if you can see what I noticed.
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