Queering Youth, Peace and Security
Advancing LGBTQI+ perspectives in peace and security
The Canadian Coalition for Youth, Peace & Security (CCYPS) works to advance LGBTQI+ perspectives within the Youth, Peace and Security (YPS) agenda. While LGBTQI+ youth continue to face exclusion, violence, and barriers to participation, they are also organizers, advocates, and peacebuilders whose experiences and leadership strengthen efforts to build inclusive and sustainable peace. CCYPS has made Queering Youth, Peace and Security a priority area of work by producing policy analysis, developing practical resources, and engaging with national and global policy spaces to push for more inclusive peace and security frameworks. This builds on our longstanding commitment to meaningful youth participation and to challenging the limits of traditional peace and security agendas.
CCYPS leverages the intersection between LGBTQI+ rights and the Youth, Peace and Security agenda to push for more inclusive peace and security policy and practice. We do this by bringing LGBTQI+ experiences into YPS advocacy, highlighting the ways sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, and sex characteristics shape experiences of insecurity, exclusion, and participation. Rather than treating LGBTQI+ issues as separate from peace and security, we work to show that queer and trans youth are already part of these spaces and must be recognized as legitimate stakeholders, knowledge producers, and peacebuilders.
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Our approach combines coalition-building, policy engagement, and resource development. Through this work, CCYPS has helped advance practical guidance on integrating LGBTQI+ perspectives into YPS, contributed thematic analysis to global processes, and supported stronger linkages between Canadian and international conversations. We also continue to foreground the importance of partnerships, reciprocity, and meaningful participation, particularly in contexts where LGBTQI+ youth are too often tokenized or left at the margins of policy processes.
Insights and conversations
CCYPS advances Queering Youth, Peace and Security through research, dialogue, and knowledge exchange across academic, policy, and community spaces.
Video conversation: Queering YPS in practice
Watch this conversation with Alexandria Bohémier, Chair of Queering YPS, on relational power, partnerships, and the role of queer youth in shaping peace and security agendas.
New publication: Building Relational Power
Katrina Leclerc’s 2026 article, “Building relational power: queer youth, partnerships and the YPS agenda”, published by the Journal of Gender Studies, builds on this work through a dialogue with Alexandria Bohémier. The article explores how the Partnerships pillar can serve as a transformative entry point for advancing queer perspectives in peace and security, highlighting the importance of trust-based collaboration and moving beyond tokenistic inclusion toward co-creation.
Our leadership and impact
CCYPS has played a leading role in advancing LGBTQI+ perspectives within YPS spaces in Canada and globally.
Our policy brief No Peace Without Pride sets out practical recommendations for integrating LGBTQI+ perspectives across the five YPS pillars and underscores the need for inclusive policies, meaningful representation, and sustained engagement with queer communities.
More recently, the thematic paper LGBTQI+ Youth at the Margins was prepared as a contribution to the Second Independent Progress Study on Youth, Peace and Security. The paper examines how LGBTQI+ youth experience conflict, exclusion, and participation in peacebuilding, while calling for more inclusive frameworks that reflect the diversity of youth experiences.
CCYPS also plays a global leadership role by co-chairing the LGBTQI+ Working Group of the Global Coalition on Youth, Peace and Security, helping to shape collective advocacy and knowledge exchange across regions.
In Canada, this work connects to broader advocacy on Women, Peace and Security (WPS). Alexandria Bohémier contributed a chapter to the Women, Peace and Security Network-Canada volume "Foundations for Peace" in Turbulent Times: Analysis of Canada’s Third National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security, bringing a queer and trans lens to analysis of Canada’s third National Action Plan on WPS.
Policy influence in Canada and beyond
CCYPS monitors how LGBTQI+ issues are reflected in peace and security frameworks, in Canada and globally.
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In many contexts, LGBTQI+ youth continue to face significant structural barriers, including criminalization and heightened insecurity. Despite growing recognition of youth diversity, LGBTQI+ perspectives remain largely absent from global peace and security frameworks. None of the UN Security Council resolutions on Youth, Peace and Security explicitly reference LGBTQI+ youth, and only a small number of National Action Plans (NAPs) include related commitments.
Among existing YPS NAPs and regional frameworks, only a few make explicit reference to LGBTQI+ youth. While some countries have adopted broader LGBTQI+ equality strategies, these are rarely connected to peace and security dynamics.
Canada as a policy entry point
Canada’s third National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security (CNAP3) presents an important—though still evolving—entry point:
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21 mentions
References to LGBTQI+/2SLGBTQI+ communities signal growing recognition and create openings for stronger accountability and implementation.
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