Farrah Khan leaves TMU after seven years

By Asha Swann

After spending seven years at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU), Farrah Khan is now taking time to discover what brings her joy.

Khan joined TMU in November 2015 as the coordinator of Consent Comes First (CCF) at the Office of Sexual Violence Support and Education. She became the manager of CCF in 2017, delegating a team of master’s of social work students and a volunteer, peer-led program called the Consent Action Team. Both the Consent Action Team and CCF created advocacy campaigns at TMU.

Khan has been central to CCF, providing TMU students with “free, confidential, trauma-informed, healing-centred support,” according to their website.

Her departure was announced on Jan. 26 through CCF’s Instagram account.

“Under her leadership, CCF created a healing-centred support service for TMU community members affected by sexual violence and gender-based violence, including case management, system navigation, court support, and safety planning,” the post read. “She worked tirelessly to create opportunities for people affected by violence to cultivate safety, healing and leadership on their terms.”

Khan explained that her decision to leave “wasn’t taken lightly.” She described feeling burnt out, with CO-

VID-19 restrictions limiting what resources the CCF team could provide.

“Some of those requests were complicated and had a lot of needs that we couldn’t meet because of the pandemic at the time, because social services were not available or things were shut down,” she said. “It took a toll on our whole team.”

Khan said after much discussion with the CCF team, she knew she had to take some time away.

“I love my job,” she said. “I love waking up and knowing that I get to connect with students that are going through such a challenging time but trust themselves enough to get support.” with my kid, spend time with my partner, spend time with my community,” she said. “I want to celebrate the things that are really wonderful about doing this work.”

Though she’s spent many years at the school, Khan’s career didn’t start at TMU. She has over two decades of experience behind her, previously working as a youth anti-violence coordinator at METRAC Toronto, a coordinator for the young Muslim women’s program at the Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic and serving as co-chair of the provincial roundtable on violence against women and more.

One project that particularly stands out to TMU alum and CCF member Lidija Projkovski is #HighSchoolToo, a project that ran from 2021 to 2022, which she described as her favourite project under Khan’s mentorship.

Carolan said it was surreal watching people he could see on campus enjoying his music and that he was recognized at TMU the next day. “It was really nice seeing a whole bunch of just familiar faces get involved in the scene.”

Berner Trail emphasized the long history and strong prevalence of queer trailblazers in Toronto’s music scene, naming icons such as Jackie Shane, Beverly Glenn Copeland and Sara Ellen Dunlop.

“People need to be educated on all facets of our artistic history, especially the lesser told history of Toronto’s then-marginalized groups,” the band said in their email signed by Aaron Lusch, Spencer Desilva and Nate Murray.

Though the pandemic connected 2SLGBTQIA+ youth through expansive online spaces, many students are just now getting acquainted in real life. When lockdowns lifted and Toronto’s music scene began reviving, Reid said being able to “clock” others as queer brought them joy.

“To me, the queer youth has always been at the forefront of a lot of the music scenes,” said Reid.

Queer folks, especially those who are genderqueer, are often forced to conform to societal norms and thus, are involuntarily performing. “It’s super liberating to take that and be able to perform in a way that you do have control over,” said the musician.

Despite their success and a growing team of over 150 members, EngOut does not have an office at TMU.

“We don’t have a safe space,” said Temelkos, who has also resorted to storing EngOut materials in “a trash bag in [their] closet.”

But they’re hoping to continue growing in the coming years. “This event went really well and we’re aiming to do even better every single year. We welcome everyone, not just queer students,” said Temelkos. “I can tell you right now, this is not the end of it.”

Khan created the Consent Comes First Office of Sexual Violence Support and Education at TMU in 2015

Khan said it’s “been an honour” to be a part of the CCF team because of the resilience of the students at the university.

Ever since the beginning of the winter break, she’s been focusing on what makes her happy. She described falling in love again with Toronto’s public library system and wanting to be present in her four-year-old son’s life. She said her favourite form of self-care at the moment is cooking and spending time with her family.

“I just want to really just have joy every day right now and spend time

Projkovski graduated from TMU’s child and youth care program in 2022. During the second year of her undergrad, in 2019, she joined the CCF’s Consent Action Team, helping create self-care guides during the pandemic and advocating for sexual violence awareness at the university. The team also started #HighSchoolToo to promote consent education and policy change in secondary schools across Ontario.

Khan served as a feminist mentor for the program. Projkovski said throughout both #HighSchoolToo and CCF, Khan always made her feel supported while working on projects.

“I never felt like I asked a silly question, I never felt like my ideas weren’t heard,” Projkovski says. “Farrah really heard everyone and made sure everyone had a chance to talk and everyone had a chance to share.”

Khan said she finds it hard to pinpoint just one moment in her time at TMU that stands out the most. Like Projkovski, she described facilitating #HighSchoolToo with pride.

“[It] was amazing to get to talk to high school students and get to see consent action team members learn about policymaking,” Khan said with a smile. “They created press confer- ences, they did huge media talks, they created a policy platform.”

Another project Khan loved working on was Healing Comes in Waves (2022), a podcast meant to aid sexual assault survivors who weren’t able to find justice through the legal system.

“So often survivors are taught that the only way to get justice is through the criminal legal system,” she said. “[Healing Comes in Waves] is a seven-part podcast about healing from sexual violence, recognizing that so many people—so many survivors—never go to counselling…it’s just not available to them.”

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