Revisiting GBA/GBA+: Innovations and interventions

A Framework for Enhancing Access to Equitable Home Care for 2SLGBTQ+ Communities

“…According to Hulko et al [ 4 ], an important critique of EDI and GBA+ relates to the challenges in operationalizing the model across multiple categories of difference, and attending to corresponding forms of interlocking oppression simultaneously, with current assessments of the model suggesting that some identity categories may become prioritized over others for several reasons. This has raised concerns among feminist, antiracist, and 2SLGBTQ+ activists and advocates that the realities of all marginalized people, including diverse racialized and gender and sexual minority groups may become minimized or ignored in the policy agendas of some institutions, particularly when there is no attention to issues of representation of these groups at the decision-making table [ 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 ]. In addition, institutions in which there is no, or little incentivizing for change, limited resources directed toward both implementation and evaluation, and an absence of support from management may be unmotivated to undertake access and equity evaluations and to adapt practices [ 7 , 10 ].…”

Responding to inequities in public policy: Is GBA+ the right way to operationalize intersectionality?

“…Evaluations of GBA+ in Canada have reached similar conclusions (Cameron and Tedds 2020;Hankivsky and Mussell 2019;Findlay 2019). For example, Findlay (2019) observes that the "+" in GBA+ is resulting in an additive approach which intersectionality seeks to correct, and that even when GBA+ extends beyond considerations of gender, it leaves out or rarely considers other important factors such as language, marital status and sexual orientation.…”

“…Evaluations of GBA+ in Canada have reached similar conclusions (Cameron and Tedds 2020;Hankivsky and Mussell 2019;Findlay 2019). For example, Findlay (2019) observes that the "+" in GBA+ is resulting in an additive approach which intersectionality seeks to correct, and that even when GBA+ extends beyond considerations of gender, it leaves out or rarely considers other important factors such as language, marital status and sexual orientation. Moreover, in a truly intersectional approach, the combinations of relevant factors of difference and how they interact with one another is a context-specific question, meaning the centrality of the gender axis is not assumed, as it is in GBA+ (Hankivsky and Mussell 2019).…”

“…This framing is because ultimately the root cause of this violence is necessarily constructed as gender (“gender‐based violence”), not the intersection of experience produced by the mutually constitutive structures of setter colonialism, sexism and structural racism. In contrast to deficit discourses, the Native Women’s Association of Canada clearly argues for the need to position women as “agents of change”’ (2010: 7; Findlay 2019).…”

Canada's GBA+ framework in a (post)pandemic world: Issues, tensions and paths forward

“…Though GBA+ is intended as a form of intersectional analysis, a key criticism of the approach is that it constitutes a co‐option rather than a successful integration of intersectionality (Christoffersen & Hankivsky, 2021). In particular, scholars have taken issue with the framework's additive integration of intersectional approaches (Christoffersen & Hankivsky, 2021; Findlay, 2019; Hankivsky & Mussell, 2018; Hunting & Hankivsky, 2020), noting how sex and gender have been prioritized as the analytical “starting point” and other identity factors only added as secondary considerations, if they are assessed at all.…”