On July 17th, 2025, the Sex Positivity Centre (SPC) was notified by the Student’s Union Okanagan (SUO) through an email that their resource centre was now “formally deactivated, and the resources [had] been reallocated,” and that this decision was in response to “ongoing challenges around student engagement, volunteer involvement, and consistent educational programming.” In this email, they also stated that the resources provided in the SPC would now be provided in the Pride Resource Centre (PRC) and the Women’s Resource Centre (WRC).
Less than a month later, on August 7th, the SUO posted a graphic to their Instagram explaining that the SPC would be “merge[d] with the Pride Resource Centre and Women’s Resource Centre for optimal sexual health promotion on campus” which was “in response to insightful feedback from our student community.” No other motive for the deactivation of the SPC was announced publicly. In place of the SPC, a new resource centre has been opened: the Disability United Collective Okanagan (DUCO); this centre holds weekly office hours, but has not put on any events yet.
Maddy Belle, who was the Vice-President of the SPC in the 2024/2025 academic year, shared some concerns regarding the deactivation of the SPC. Belle stressed that:
“If people don’t know where to go, and people don’t feel comfortable going to certain [resource centres], it leads to misinformation and miseducation. Then, groups like the Sexual Violence Prevention and Response Office (SVPRO) get used more often, because consequentially that is what happens. We were about preventing that from happening. [...] The Sex Positivity Centre aimed to provide resources, promote healthy relationships between people, and de-stigmatize sexual conversations and conversations surrounding sexual health. So even if it is as simple as something like [distributing] condoms and pregnancy tests, or talking to someone if you have a certain problem.”
In the SUO’s Action Plan for the 2025/2026 academic year, they aim to “expand mental health services and anti-stigma initiatives,” among other important things that will benefit the student body. Providing places for students to access sex positive resources on campus is important, as it prevents physical harm, the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, and allows for spaces of open dialogue for students to feel accepted regarding their sexuality.
The SPC aimed to reduce stigma surrounding sexual conversations, and Belle stressed “[we’re] not yucking someone’s yum,” meaning to emphasize that “there should be no stigma against sexual desires as long as [it is between] consenting adults. We were not there to judge.”
Belle also stressed concerns regarding how inclusive the integration of sex positive resources would be to the PRC and WRC, and reflected on a question regarding if she thinks that students will feel uncomfortable going to the PRC and WRC for sexual education:
“Absolutely I do, there is a teeny bit of stigma with the PRC, because it feels like you have to be queer, and it feels like you have to be a part of the LGBTQ+ community. Or if you don’t identify as a woman or are not female presenting, where does that lead you? It doesn’t leave a space for everyone. As much as I’d love to focus on talking about queer sex openly, it is everything else that matters too. Where are people supposed to go for this information, and where are people supposed to feel comfortable? [...] I think this is going to lead to more miseducation.”
Despite the SUO’s promises to reallocate the resources previously provided by the SPC, Belle believes that they will not be effectively administered in the PRC and WRC without the experience and dedication the SPC executives had:
“They’re not educated in sex positivity and how to properly teach sex education and that is a problem. We can’t just give them all of our pamphlets, and say ‘now you have more paper to distribute’, they don’t know what to do with that. And it isn’t the WRC and PRC’s fault that they don’t have that information, [...] it is the SUO’s fault for not providing [the WRC and PRC] sex positivity resources, and they now have this added responsibility.”
When the SPC was notified that their resource centre was being deactivated, the SUO did not directly integrate any of their executives into the PRC and WRC. The SPC executives were told they could apply to those resource centres if they wanted to do so. The Phoenix reached out to the PRC and WRC to ask if they had received any information from the SUO regarding how they would integrate new sex positivity resources, but neither resource centre responded to the inquiry. The PRC was recently hiring for a new resource coordinator which could likely be attributed to their absent response as the resource centre gets started. The SUO has also not put out any information regarding which specific sex-positive resources are now being offered in the PRC and WRC.
In the process of reaching out to the SUO Executive who oversees the resource centres, a concern appeared about the transparency of the responsibilities of the SUO Executive board. The SUO claims to operate on a principle of transparency, they state that they “share openly about [their] business practices and actions,” and in their Plan of Action they emphasize achieving transparency for the student body.
On the official SUO website, Vice-President Internal, Shreya Patnaik, is said to have the responsibility of “handling internal matters within the SUO and liaising with its Resource Centres,” but after contacting Patnaik for an interview she explained that she did not in fact oversee resource centres, and that Vice-President External, Olivia Lai, held the responsibility of overseeing the centres. This description on their website is contradicted in their bylaws and AGM minutes, which put the responsibilities of resource centre oversight in the hands of their Vice-President External. In an email asking about the decision to deactivate the SPC, Patnaik stated that Lai made the decision to deactivate the SPC. However, during Lai’s interview she stated that the Board of Directors collectively made the decision to deactivate the SPC. Lai also states that “the process was transparent as all the board discussions are public and minutes are public. The decision was even posted to [the SUO’s] Instagram,” and that the discrepancy on the SUO website is due to changes in staffing which has prevented an update in occurring.
The original Instagram post announcing the deactivation of the SPC cited it as being in response to “insightful feedback from our student community.” In an interview with Lai, she explained the method in which feedback regarding the SPC was collected from students, commenting:
“The SUO heard insightful feedback informally from students about the Sex Positivity Centre during tabling engagements like EXPO, and events like [the Sexual Health Awareness Gala]. A formal survey was not sent out but the Board of Directors made a decision that there would be greater engagement and potential from the resources we offered through the Women’s Resource Centre and Pride Resource Centre.”
Later, Lai claimed to have a survey with statistics surrounding SPC engagement, but this data was never made available to The Phoenix.
Issues surrounding free space on campus are not unfamiliar to any student, and Lai added that: “UBCO campus is very limited in space and this includes the [SUO]. We wished that we could provide the services if we had more space. Based on student feedback, we have to choose the centres that provide the greatest needs on campus and even though sex education is very important, it is not the greatest need for the greater population. The work that SVPRO is doing has seen a 30% decrease in sexual violence cases on campus. [...] Not having SPC will not affect the number because students directly visited SVPRO over SPC.”
Lai commented that some of the feedback they received was regarding “that SPC’s operations have shifted away from educational sexual health support toward content that some students found uncomfortable or unsafe, for instance, promoting sex toys on the table was not always welcoming.” No specific event this concern was raised at was mentioned. However, actions from the SUO in the past – having their executives dress up in penis and vagina costumes, or giving out cookies shaped like genitals – were actions made in similar faith with the SPC displaying sex toys at public events and should not be disregarded. These actions on behalf of both the SPC and SUO were in the name of education and de-stigmatization, showing that both organizations have similar goals in mind: to reduce stigma surrounding sexual health and wellbeing.
Another reason Lai gave for the decision was that “[the] SPC [had shown] consistently low engagement and lack[ed] consistent tabling or programming outcomes,” although Belle explained that a low number of events was due to internal conflicts between resource centres that hindered the amount of events the SPC was able to put on. The SPC was prevented from hosting specific events because they were determined to be too similar to other events that were being planned by other resource centres, which led to lower engagement than desired. In the 2024/2025 academic year, the SPC hosted 6 non-tabling events; they were not the resource centre with the least amount of events hosted. In response to this, the SUO has stated that there is “no evidence showing that someone or the SUO [has prevented the SPC] from having an event.”
There were also important financial implications that went into this decision that Lai explained. The SPC used a low amount of their yearly budget which led the SUO to believe they were not using it for optimal student engagement. It was the SUO’s hope that through merging the SPC into the PRC and WRC, the centres could use additional monetary resources they typically have left at the end of the year to cover the implementation of sexual education into their resource centres. Lai finished by stating “[the SUO is] stressing that we are not removing the service, we are just changing how we offer it.”
If any students wish to access sexual health resources on campus, they should seek out information from the PRC, WRC, SVPRO, or PICNIC’s Sexual Health and Wellbeing centre.
.png){kind=small}
