I trust participants will do what you need to do to take care of your needs. If that means you arrive late or leave early, I respect that and am glad you can come for the time you can. If you have to step away for any reason, or be off camera, that’s cool too.

If we want to tear down the patriarchy, we can’t be upholding the standards that help define it.

Please note that your presence is welcome, as you are. If you want to listen or communicate in the chat, that is OK. I may offer inquiry questions or follow-up questions, and responses are always optional.

How we ensure a low-stress, non-performative, enriching, and generative environment:

• Speak only for yourself.

• Bring good faith in relationship.

• Don’t assume understanding or intent.

• BE CURIOUS and stay open.

• Welcome differences.

• Assumptions of authority are discouraged.

• Be responsible for your own feelings.

• Be quiet and reflective instead of reactive.

• Dehumanizing or invalidating behavior is considered unsafe and unwelcome in this space.

• Complaining can be cathartic—give space for this, move on when appropriate without being dismissive.

• Conflict is not abuse, is it necessary?

• Disagreement doesn’t have to feel like conflict.

• Being uncomfortable does not mean unsafe.

• Lead with friendship and kindness.

• We are future building.

While we can't guarantee safe spaces, we can work to foster safer spaces that align with our values. You do not need to be chronically ill and/or disabled to take part, but be a co-conspirator and accomplice to disability justice and the dismantling of white supremacy patriarchal structures. Regular respirator-wearing people only, please. Gatherings will be on Zoom and limited to the people who meet the needs of the group.

Social Location

“While social location will often be acutely obvious to people who have been oppressed by social systems of domination because of their day-to-day lived experience, many people in more dominant identities may not even be conscious of their social locations. For example, in societies where the standard is “white” and only those who are not white carry a racial identity, many white people may not think much about their identity or the power and rights afforded to it. Having lived a lifetime of having their identity normalized by society and their power perceived as just the way things are, people with dominant identities may not be aware of their positions within hierarchical societies until it is either pointed out to them, or they otherwise do some conscious learning about it.” Social Location Mapping Wheel

You can learn more about this and where you are positioned in the Social Location Mapping Wheel. This helps us become more aware of potential power deferentials in our personal interactions.

We will actively de-center the power structures as being normative, and center identities and perspectives further away from the dominant identities.