SGP Breaking Gender/Sex Binaries Circle: A communities-of-practice approach to building transnational queer-feminist solidarities

Aparna: [00:06:50] How lucky are we to have this amazing group as circle members and with us today as our guests sharing their experiences. So let’s dive into our conversation. And my first question to our guests is, how has your engagement in the Breaking Binaries Circle contributed to your queer and trans activism at a local or global scale?

Tess: [00:07:17] I have been involved in the Breaking Binaries Circle under the society for Gender and Professionals for over a year now, and mainly focused on the monthly learning event. They are really interesting and I always look forward to listening and interacting with the guest speaker and the whole group in the discussion. And so the monthly learning discussion provides a safe space for the presenter and the participants to clarify and raise some challenging issues. And my lessons learned from this These discussions are enabling me to highlight and put across the non gender binary issues in my feminist mentoring scheme, and also in my involvement in the global webinars in intersectional feminism.

Lindsey: [00:08:09] As for me, my engagement in the Breaking Binaries group has really been about an opportunity to learn. I think I’ve been involved off and on for 2 to 3 years, and I came to this space because I’ve been working in this kind of more traditional gender equality space in the international development sector, that I was increasingly troubled how binary it was and how much it just, you know, made trans, non-binary folks invisible in many ways. I had a lot of questions. I didn’t really have the answers. And so this space was a way for me to come and learn. But what I really like about it, too, is that we can come and we we volunteer to facilitate a session. And so what’s been valuable for me is there’s a topic that I’m interested in I want to learn about. I’m not an expert on, but I can do some research, put together some questions and resources, bring it to the group, share it out. I’m learning in the process, and then also crowdsourcing and hearing from others. And we have a discussion and it’s very horizontal in that sense. And I found that to be incredibly helpful for me, as it’s almost like being a student where you’re doing a research project, if you’re not an expert, but you want to learn a little bit and you want to share and get feedback. And so I found that something has been really helpful for me in my own learning and journey.

Jennelle: [00:09:27] Yes, you know, all the things that everyone named so much of that is about how much of a learning space this is and just invites everyone to come where they’re at and be able to learn something new and contribute. I think particularly for me, I’m coming from a very black, queer, feminist grassroots space. And so the language used in global development and, you know, in other spaces can be very different. It has allowed me to find the bridges in that language. Right. And those bridges allow me to then communicate across place and space. And that feels really exciting for me. You know what people are calling peacebuilding in one place? You know, in my black, queer feminist lens that’s like transformative justice and conflict, harm and accountability work. And so being able to make those connections has allowed me to build further solidarity, but also communicate locally in a way that is always bridging that global gap.

Brindaa: [00:10:29] My engagement with the Breaking Binaries Circle I have been engaging with the circle for nearly two years now, and this circle has given me a space to very often test explore ideas related to my research and training work. My research work is primarily related to transgender realities from South Asia. To sort of share those experiences and to see resonance from participants from other parts of the world is such an enriching experience, a learning experience. And I have sort of organized multiple sessions as part of Breaking Binaries circle. And that is another thing, right? The space to sort of engage in that manner more easily accessible, you can easily come and say, I would like to conduct a session and share your experience and knowledge, and that is also a good opportunity for more Global South voices to be heard within gender spaces, especially trans voices or trans realities to be shared. So this has been a very important sort of a contribution to my queer and trans activism.

Cody: [00:11:42] Going what people have said before I first came to know about The Circle three years ago, 2021. And that was that was the height of Covid, Covid pandemic. So three years ago, when I had to really step outside these violent systems and explore my own gender identity and what that meant to me at that time. And through this circle, I’ve been able to listen and learn from others in a really intersectional and and transnational way, which has been really helpful and also do an internal process. Coupled with Adrienne Maree Brown’s Emergent Strategy book, and discover my gender fluidity, which I didn’t know before this circle. And so coming back over a year and asking questions about what is gender fluidity mean to me? What does it actually mean as a construct? And that’s this space. And the people in it gave me the strength, the belonging, the care to continue to explore and feel fully welcome in myself and also in this space.

Aparna: [00:12:40] This is a good segue to our next question. How has been being part of the Breaking Binaries Circle contributed to your queer feminist solidarities across communities and movements.

Tess: [00:12:55] The issues raised in this monthly discussion really reminds me, and also refreshes me about the challenging issues of the intersecting discrimination, exclusion, and oppression faced by the gender minorities. At the same time, it is increasing my knowledge of the nuances of discrimination in their different contexts because they are talking about their lived experience. And also I am learning about the profound humanity, the resilience and the struggle those gender minorities as an individual, their families, their communities and their movements. Their voice is authentic. And this truly inspires me. And and I upload their voice to be heard. It increases my solidarity with them, and I am determined to continuously engage in carcerality issues such as theirs and amplify this intersectionality issue in the feminist platform.

Aparna: [00:14:00] Thank you Tess, and the discussion that Tess has referred to was focused on the violence against transgender people in Pakistan, particularly directed to them by extremist groups. So if you sign up for the circle, you’ll be able to access notes from that discussion.

Brindaa: [00:14:20] Being part of Breaking Binaries has given me the opportunity to connect with feminist feminist scholars, researchers, and other gender professionals working across other other parts of the world who do similar work, like the session that we did as a CSV parallel event was with a scholar focused on Bangladesh, for instance. That is an opportunity that presented itself because I’m active within LGBT spaces as well as the Breaking Binaries. I had the opportunity to learn about Bangladesh while also, you know, co-presenting. I don’t have that kind of opportunity to very easily access gender professionals from Bangladesh in other contexts. Otherwise, although I do cross country work, it’s not easy because of the sort of political unrest between the countries. So in that sense, the fact that the space is also an online space sort of breaks those binaries and makes it a lot more fluid and accessible for us to connect with people. SGP sort of presents that space to connect with people. Like I had the opportunity to again connect with a professor from another panel again. Breaking Binaries event. And you know, to say that I’m interested in working with her. And she showed interest in my PhD proposal. So those kinds of opportunities also present themselves, you know, to network and sort of share work.

Jennelle: [00:15:59] I think something very unique about the circle is that it really breaks down this barrier between the person that we’re learning from and like us as the learners. Sometimes we go to webinars and we’re like, oh, let’s capacity build or let’s learn something new. But then we are never able to really feel that we can connect to the people that we’re learning from. And I think that the circle, it’s folks really coming and being like, I’m passionate about this thing. This is my life’s work. And I’m like, offering it to y’all so generously, so vulnerably. Right? And I think they’re always open to be like, oh, email me, reach out all these things for us to actually be building in solidarity, like actively not just knowing and being like, oh, awareness, that’s solidarity, but actually building relationship. So it’s such a door and a portal to true solidarity work. And I think, I think an interesting way that I wasn’t personally expecting this has been building different types of solidarities in my world is so my community and most of my community in the US are like, you know, immigrant folks of color communities like first and second generation folks in the US.

Jennelle: [00:17:10] And I think sometimes they can feel so far from their home cultures, especially when it comes to maybe like feminist or activist lenses, they’re like, oh, actually, you know, when I visit home, these are all the ways that my identities are in conflict, right? Like they’re not getting these spaces that are like maybe identity affirming inside of their cultural context. And I’m able to take recordings from Breaking Binaries and different things and being like, oh, watch this and oh, this thing. And I’m feeling closer to them through other people’s work, and then they’re also being brought into. Relationship to work that they can call like at home and like people who. Are doing work and speaking similar language, even though they haven’t been able to even experience their own cultural identities in that way yet. And so I think that has been really beautiful solidarity work. And like them wanting to get involved and build those relationships and being like, oh, the next time I go to Pakistan, the next time, you know, there’s someone I can reach out to or the, you know, the different things like that. So I think that is really beautiful.

Lindsey: [00:18:11] I want to build on that, because when Janelle was talking about sharing recordings, that speaks to a way that this has contributed to my queer feminist solidarity and that there’s real value in the material, the documentation of what happens here, the notes, the presentation, the the resources that are co-created, which I know gets to one of our values, that then we come to this space, we discuss, we learn, and then we have tools and and Documentation of things we can share out as needed. As we’re confronting pushback on different gender issues. For example, there’s this fabulous resource that this group came up with. This was before I got involved, the Gender Inclusive Language Resource Guide, where the group crowdsourced different information about gender inclusive language in 30 different languages from around the world. And it’s still being updated. And this has been a really critical resource for me when I do gender equality trainings for folks in more like traditional development spaces. And, and we talk about LGBTQ issues and we talk about not non-binary and going beyond the binary. And people say, oh, but that’s so Western or or this language. We don’t have the language to talk about it. I’m like, oh, well, here is this document. And, and this is, this shows that it kind of helps to debunk the myth that this is a Western phenomenon. And I’ve found that to be incredibly useful to me and is a way that I can respond to some of these myths and pushback, those sort of resources have been really powerful for me and showing up in that way. And I just I want to add, I have to give a shout out to our fabulous organizers because really, truly Aparna and Bren, the way they keep everything organized and make sure things are documented is is really critical. It is a co-creation group. It is a in many ways horizontal. But still that role is really important and they do it phenomenally and I’m very grateful for that.

Aparna: [00:20:05] Thank you so much, Lindsay, for the shout out. All right. This takes us to the values of the Breaking Binaries Circle.

Bren: [00:20:14] The Breaking Binaries Circle values are belonging, care, co-creation and curiosity.

Cody: [00:20:22] I’ll start with belonging. We intentionally create spaces for members to bring their whole selves and participate honestly in conversations.

Lindsey: [00:20:31] Next is care. We offer healing, camaraderie, and support to one another, acknowledging that it can be hard and exhausting to share our experiences and strive to be restorative instead of depleting.

Tess: [00:20:44] Another group value is co-creation. We create a participatory, non-hierarchical community space and collective knowledge to deconstruct gender and sex binaries and curiosity.

Jennelle: [00:21:00] We adopt a growth mindset to learn dialogue and ask questions about the lived experiences of people with multiple identities who live outside of gender and sex binaries.

Aparna: [00:21:14] In my next question, I wanted to request our guests to share 1 or 2 of the group values that you really connect with, or that seem embodied when you’re engaging with the circle activities or the circle members. Lindsay, would you like to get us started?

Lindsey: [00:21:33] Sure. And I So the two that jumped out to me was co-creation and curiosity. And I’ve talked about co-creation already in terms of whether it’s like formal products that are created in the group or just the learning sessions where folks can come share their knowledge, whether it’s a lot or it’s just they’re brand new to, you know, did a little bit of research and wanted to discuss it and then opening it up for discussion and, and learning from each other. And I think that also goes into curiosity. And I’ll give an example. I work as a contractor, and I had a client once push back at me when I was supposed to do like a women’s economic empowerment webinar, and I was bringing in trans issues, and I got some pushback, and they referenced the SDGs, the Sustainable Development Goals. And so then I really wanted to go and understand why that was being used for this pushback against why we need to focus on this. They didn’t actually say it like that, but that was basically what they were saying. The cisgender woman category. And so I brought it to the group and I didn’t know very much about. And I did some research. I put together a PowerPoint presentation. So it really embraced that curiosity that I had about where are these gaps? And there’s research that’s been done out there. And so I pulled that together and then shared it with the group. And then we had a discussion. And I really value and appreciate that space where I can explore a question that comes up in my regular work. I can come to this group.

Aparna: [00:22:59] Thank you. Lindsay. That was such a great session.

Jennelle: [00:23:02] I would also say curiosity. I feel like that’s what’s feeling super resonate in my spirit. Also, I think this is a space because of, I don’t know, colonial attachments to like rightness and knowing. I think sometimes it’s hard to find online spaces where you don’t have to know everything. I think I think people are very unforgiving of not knowing, especially online, when there’s like barriers and not necessarily sharing community more intimately. And so I think this is a space where folks are really coming with questions. People are really coming, maybe just not knowing. Right, and just being like, oh, here’s the question. Here’s another question. And I think that’s really exciting to know that the folks who may be feeling distant from gender marginalized and sex marginalized communities can can move towards being responsible in their work, move towards true solidarity. It also is really important to hear where people are curious, right? Because I think that’s also where the work is. Like people are not understanding this. Oh, this region actually is not holding this collective, like holding a strong grasp of what this identity is. What does that mean for anti gender activists. What is the misinformation that they’re spreading. How is that being communicated. And I think we learned that through people’s curiosities, people being like, well this is what’s happening in my context. Can you make it make sense? I think sometimes folks are coming with that energy, and I think that’s really important for us to be able to troubleshoot what’s not working and what needs to be addressed. And and I think that all comes from the freedom and the safety that comes with curiosity and learning and not knowing.

Cody: [00:24:58] Building off of the curiosity. And I appreciate really what both of you shared so far. When I was mentioning earlier about exploring my personal gender identity SGP and also Bren were set in motion. It’s like a broader phenomenon, which we call the Covid cocoon of people stepping outside of systems of violence and and being have the space to explore and question and not know and how that process led to like an internalization process that then, you know, when we were able to go back to work in different contexts of like use different pronouns, where different articles of clothing, like gender expression might be different and identity might be. So to kind of lean into that. This is a new phenomenon, and gender and sexuality shifts over time in understanding and how we understand it in ourselves. And as a society and culture. I feel like that space allows for like the breathing room of learning to really embrace, like it’s we’re all figuring this out together with solidarity.

Brindaa: [00:26:03] I am actually going to talk about belonging and care. I began engaging with SJP in November of 2022 because Aparna reached out to me finding my research online for me to be a part of a Breaking Binaries panel. Aparna is not someone I have known for a long time. Neither Bren, but I say belonging and care because I think I’ve made friends for life with the two of them are so. And I think that’s what SGP offers as a space, particularly these two people. And you’re not allowed to edit this part out of the podcast because I’m talking about you. And that’s why I slipped it in in between. Right. Making it hard for you to edit because yeah, I know, audio editing. So I’m being very strategic about this. It’s, I think that sort of kindness. I think Aparna and Bren are two of the many people you will meet at SGP. Because there’s this common sense of kindness across SGP that you will find. And this they just also giving Breaking Binaries as a space has really been a safe space for me over the last two years, recovering from a lot of mental health issues as well. So for me, engaging with SGP itself and My primary engagement has been a lot with only Breaking Binaries because simply because of my work, I do. So that has been so critical to my recovery in the last year and a half as well. And I think that’s so important. I think ultimately, when you’re talking about solidarity and activism and all of that, ultimately it comes down to the individual. We are individuals, human beings first and then gender professionals. That part of first speaking to me as a human being, that’s how Breaking Binaries in that sense, has touched my life beyond just my work as an activist or researcher or trans activism.

Tess: [00:28:11] Yeah. I’d like to add to what my colleagues have said, my two group values that really resonate me now are belongingness and also belongingness, partly because to me, this is a professional platform and at the same time a personal platform. In my case, because this resonates with my values around intersectional justice. And also it provides me with new professional connections and expand an online global network. So that is at the professional level. Linked to that, as a professional platform, we cannot underestimate the powerful space safe space that this platform is offering to our colleagues, to our non-binary feminists, for example, that discussion last week from the Pakistani activists where activists, it really resonates me because the struggle in the country, they are not able to talk freely. Those challenges and those issues and their struggle within their families, within their communities, and also at the country level. And so having this free space is really critical for them, and also to have an audience who resonates with them and also supporting in terms of their solidarity and in terms of the personal level. I had been active for the last 30 years and I was a jet setter, and my contract ends with you in women in 2022.

Tess: [00:29:50] And I proceeded my second master’s on global diplomacy. And then after my master’s, I was ill for quite a long time, and even when I was ill, I need to be connected globally. I have five minutes from different parts of the world, but I long for something lived, experience authentic voices from the grassroots level and this really provided me the opportunity. And it is a gift and I couldn’t thank enough. So thank you. The other thing is, and it’s also part of my healing process. It’s not only the physical, but also professionally. It’s the connection, and it gives me the realization that the connection doesn’t have to be in the formal world. It has to be the informal. And these are the realities at the ground level. So this is very powerful in terms of my healing, in terms of my professionalism and in terms of my solidarity. The other one that resonates with me is curiosity. I like the discussion approach. I’m really upload just guest speakers for sharing their lived experience. I like evidence of issues raised, but also the emotional angle. And this is an excellent opportunity to influence the hearts and the minds of the audience. And I’m one of the audience.

Aparna: [00:31:17] Thank you. Thank you so much, everyone, for your time today. The circle is really a circle. It’s it’s all of us together in it. As a community, I deeply appreciate just your your sheer presence, your your honesty and your heart. And now I’m so happy to introduce our next guests, Bren, whom you’ve already met, and Alma, who also co-founded the Circle with Bren.

Alma: [00:31:52] Thank you. Aparna. My name is Alma Aguilar. My pronouns are she her. I’m originally from Abya Yala, Colombia. I’m a trans activist working for the rights of women and trans and gender non-conforming people for around nine years already. Um, particularly in Abya Yala, Colombia, but also at the global level. Thank you both for having me today.