Gerry Kasten loves food! He is a cis-gender settler queer, born to a farming family. He still helps his brother bring in the harvest each year. He has an Honours Diploma in Commercial Cooking and has both Bachelors and Masters degrees in Nutrition. His Master’s research was on food choices amongst gay men. He worked in Public Health in BC for thirty years, has led the boards of directors of both Dietitians of Canada and the BC Agriculture in the Classroom Foundation, and served as the seventh Empress of Edmonton, Alberta. Gerry is currently a Lecturer in UBC’s Dietetics program, and also teaches a course on Critical Analysis of Food Choice. Gerry’s chequered past has led him to a critical analysis of the constructions of gender, particularly as they are enacted through food. He wants to live in a world where people celebrate food, sharing it with those they love, taking its pleasure without restraint because its flavour saturates their most sensuous appetites.
Across the nutrition profession, collectively we are trying to work towards creating a culture of equity, which includes learning and understanding power imbalances that contribute to nutrition inequities that exist in the field of nutrition, nutritional practice and research, and within the food system. For example, in Canada, dietitians are trained and practice through a set of professional competencies, known as the Integrated Competencies for Dietetic Education and Practice (ICDEP), and are mandated to "practice within the context of Canadian diversity," which is noted to include gender and sexual orientation. This session aims to discuss gender diversity and sexual orientation priorities within the fields of nutrition and will challenge cis- and hetero-normativity to address the needs of gender and sexually diverse groups such as the 2SLGBTQ+ communities Learning Objectives: By the end of this panel, the learner will be able to: Recognize the implications of cis-hetero-normativity within the principles and practices of the nutrition profession. Identify strength-based approaches to address inequalities faced by 2SLGBTQ+ communities. Understand what being an ally in fields of nutrition means.