Providing dynamic training and facilitation rooted in queer, feminist, anti-oppressive values.
Providing dynamic training and facilitation rooted in queer, feminist, anti-oppressive values.
The word positionality describes the vantage points and perspectives from which we each speak as individuals, within a collective. One’s positionality is shaped by identity, culture, upbringing, traumas and harm, exposure to privilege and oppression, and innumerable other life experiences. By claiming and describing my positionality I acknowledge and take ownership of the factors that have influenced my world view and in so doing reflect to others my awareness of these influencers.
I come into this work as a white person from European decent. I was raised into the same belief systems of white culture and white supremacy that many, if not all, of us in the United States were taught to believe. I was taught to fear people of color and encouraged to exercise power and authority over Black and Brown bodies. I began my work towards racial justice when I was 22 years old and this work has shaped my understanding of how systems are accustomed to operating in hierarchical, patriarchal structures. I am also a nonbinary identified person of trans experience. I, like most, was raised with specific expectations surrounding my performance of gender. Unlike most, I consistently failed to perform to these expectations and found myself in a perpetual state of discomfort as it related to gender.
In addition to these identities, I am also a person of able body and neuro-typicality, I come from upper-middle class up bringing and maintain this economic comfort today, I identify as queer in gender and sexuality, I have acquired multiple degrees, up to master’s level.