ARTICLES

Toronto Star Katharine Lake Berz Toronto Star Katharine Lake Berz

‘My hope was taken away’: For some, like Katie Dudtschak, pandemic delays in gender affirmation surgeries made the pain even worse

Katie Dudtschak was not comfortable being a boy from the time she was five years old. She remembers spending hours rummaging through her mother’s jewelry box and clothes drawers, putting on her sister’s bra and panties and wearing them under her clothes to play outside — preferring skipping with the girls to soccer with the boys.

Read More
Toronto Star Katharine Lake Berz Toronto Star Katharine Lake Berz

Afghan women desperate to escape Taliban rule: ‘We don’t know how long we can hide’

Maryam Said Anwar’s says her body still bears the scars from the beatings with a screwdriver she endured at the hands of her husband. Forced to marry when she was 13, Anwar says she was drugged, beaten and tortured by her husband. “Even as l lay full of pain and blood on the ground, he would hit my face and remove my nails with heavy-duty pliers.”

Read More
Toronto Star Katharine Lake Berz Toronto Star Katharine Lake Berz

Trauma and the Taliban: How their return to power has thousands of Afghans in Canada reliving horrors of the past

Ahmed Fadozai can still remember the moment the knife was plunged into the man’s neck.Fadozai, now an entrepreneur in Houston, was in Kabul’s Ghazi soccer stadium in 1998, waiting to watch a soccer match with friends. Instead, military trucks rolled in, soldiers jumped out, hoisted up a man and then decapitated him.

Warning: This story contains descriptions of violence.

Read More
The Globe and Mail Katharine Lake Berz The Globe and Mail Katharine Lake Berz

Canadian leaders must cooperate and develop cyberresilience

Last week, the Winter Olympics were taken offline by a cyberattack. This week, hackers breached the German government's computer network. Every day, the volume and velocity of cyberattacks are increasing. From threats to our democratic processes to theft of credit-card information, managing cyberrisk is a necessary priority for all public and private organizations.

Read More