ABSTRACT
While academic labs can inadvertently maintain the colonial, cisheteropatriarchal order that they emerge from, the Transgender Media Lab (TML) at Carleton University strives to disrupt oppressive power structures while acknowledging that the lab cannot escape them entirely. The TML was formed to build the Transgender Media Portal, which aims to make audiovisual work by trans, Two Spirit, nonbinary, intersex, and gender-nonconforming people more available. This chapter discusses the TML’s work to create a lab that is fair, caring, transparent, and in line with trans, anti-racist, anti-colonial, feminist, queer, and crip values. Inspired by the feminist anti-colonial environmental lab CLEAR, the TML created a lab handbook to articulate the lab’s collectively determined values, as well as guidelines and protocols for putting these values into action. The TML also strives to be responsive and accountable to Black, Indigenous, and People of Color trans communities. By following the lead of social justice activists, the TML aims to align their lab’s actions with their values at all levels of their work.
