Transphobia Has No Place in Reclaiming

[Windsmith bat Gaia]

Y'all, I am so proud of my home community, Upper Mississippi River Reclaiming (UMRR).

Of late, the Reclaiming tradition as a whole has been struggling with some issues around trans inclusion, as some well-hidden pockets of trans-exclusionary and TERF behavior are coming to the surface. Last weekend, a small group of folks from UMRR, including myself, came together to discuss this problem, and we ended up writing a short statement reaffirming that we are trans/nonbinary inclusive and that we condemn trans exclusion in our community and throughout Reclaiming.

Since it was posted at 7:00AM Central Time yesterday, at least 4,300 people have read it and, in addition to the 13 original signers, 228 individuals and groups have signed. We know of at least two other groups that have signing on as an agenda item for their next meeting (it's a consensus tradition; groups take longer than individuals), and more people are signing on by the hour.

The statement is visible here: Transphobia Has No Place in Reclaiming

If you're part of the Reclaiming tradition, I invite you and/or your community to read it, take it in, and then sign it if you are willing to abide by the message and actions it contains. If you know folks in Reclaiming, please pass this along to them.

A post about and link to the statement is also available and able to be shared on the UMRR Facebook page.

Just... so proud of the kickass witches in my community right now.

[Sollie]

That's so awesome!

[SunSister]

That's an amazingly positive development and kudos to you and the others for making this happen.

[Windsmith bat Gaia]

Thanks, folks. It hasn't been all sunshine and roses; we have a surprising number of people insisting that trans/nb folks need to sit down "in dialogue" with TERFs, which just ain't gonna happen. There's also this weird pocket of folks refusing to sign because we didn't talk about misogyny. Which, obviously, we are also opposed to misogyny, but in this particular instance we're focused on transphobia.

But we've started a lot of conversations, and hopefully opened some eyes, and finally stuck our hands in some things that our conflict-averse Midwestern butts usually refuse to touch. So I try to keep my outlook positive overall, even though some parts of this hurt like heck.

[The Troll]

I didn't really understand any of that, but people get freaked out by lunatics who don't know what clothes to wear or who want to chop off their peckers.