“The Land's Been Queer Longer Than the Colonizers Have Been Here. Hiy Hiy.” Impacts of Anti‐Queer and Trans Policies and Resistance Through Art, Queer Joy, and Worldmaking Among Youth

ABSTRACT This study explores how 2SLGBTQ+ youth in Alberta, Canada—the country's most Conservative province—mobilize queer joy as a form of resistance amid rising anti‐queer and anti‐trans policies under a settler colonial, cisheteropatriarchal regime. Drawing from youth‐produced collages, we demonstrate that this visual arts‐based participatory method revealed the complex temporalities, spatialities, and affective textures of queer life. Our findings articulate three interrelated strategies: (1) navigating pervasive shame and identity management within an “apocalyptic” political climate while fostering hope beyond oppressive governance; (2) grounding queer and trans identities in permanence through connections to land, queer ancestry, and Indigenous cultural frameworks, challenging dominant narratives that position queerness as new or unnatural; and (3) cultivating affirming community spaces—both literal and metaphorical—where queer joy becomes a generative practice of self‐actualization and political resistance. Drawing on critical queer theory and Indigenous scholarship, we contend that queer joy functions as a deliberate and powerful form of resistance—a refusal to accept linear narratives of progress or erasure. This work highlights the vital need for institutional support for 2SLGBTQ+ youth while emphasizing that resistance entails not only survival but also the sustained presence of joy as enduring defiance.