gender...what?

Women. Womxn. Everyone but cis men. People Of Marginalized Genders. Binary Nonbinary Enby? Genderqueer Genderfluid Men Safe Space Safer Space Patriarchy heteropatriarchal cisnormative transgender trans, or is it trans*? AFAB AMAB AGAB...

Yeah, I know, and it's complicated, and the rules keep changing. You want to be inclusive. You know that gender is more than men and women but...there are so many possibilities. Even people who ARE in that world sometimes have a hard time keeping up. You want to do the right thing. You want to include good people and not ones who will make a mess of your group dynamic. And you want to do it well. You just don't know where to start. Join me for a 90 minute beginner class. We'll go over what the heck the language is right now, (hint: womxn is not it), and how to figure out what you should say or do for your event or class.

women? womxn? enby? get a fun, gentle introduction and stop worrying about your gender inclusion language... Join me!

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what's inside

  • 01

    Chapter 1: Introduction and Full Video

    • Welcome From Your Instructor

    • Introduction

    • In or Out: Gender Inclusion Beyond the Binary (full video)

    • Gender Inclusion Video: Timestamps
  • 02

    Chapter 2: Definitions

    • What is Gender?

    • Who (and what) do you really want?
  • 03

    Chapter 3: Communication

    • SWYM (Say What You Mean)

    • Community Agreements
  • 04

    Chapter 4: Actions and Conclusions

    • Followthrough: They showed up, now what?

    • Conclusion and Final Tips

    • Next Steps
  • 05

    Chapter 5: Resources

    • Worksheet: What to Ask Yourself

    • Gender Inclusion Full Class Outline

Instructor

Instructor Bio:

Who am I? (and why should you listen to me?) I'm Rev. Leela Sinha. I'm queer, nonbinary, genderqueer, trans-identified, middle-aged, and a person of color. I'm also a UU minister with 30 years of experience running workshops and about the same in (mostly underground) sexuality education. I can be serious, but mostly I like to get there by laughing. I work primarily as a coach with intense founders and executives on developing good practices with leadership and power. Inclusion is an ethics, leadership, and power center in almost every context. So is self-awareness. So is money. I address all those things--a lot--so we can make deliberate choices about them.

Leela Sinha

Is this for you?

  • Who is this for?

    This is for good people who want to do the right thing and are running events or organizations. It's for people who want to be inclusive and ethical and moral about they way they describe, design, and include (and exclude) people...in this case specifically about gender..and don't know what to do to make that happen. This is for beginners. People who have heard that this stuff is out there but don't know how to be effectively and deeply inclusive. People who don't know if using women or womxn is correct. People who know they need to get current on gender concepts and inclusion but don't know how. This is for people who are influencing and choosing language and event structures. I will be assuming that you have the power to make decisions. I will not be navigating "how do I get my organization on board with this" although I will suggest that the work of CB Beal or the work of the Transforming Hearts Collective might be useful in that case.

  • Who is this not for?

    This is not for people who already know this landscape. That means if you already know your way around trans and nonbinary language and culture, this is not for you. Attendees might say hurtful things by accident, and you don't need that in your world. Also, you'll probably be bored or want more nuance than I'm going to get into. This is also not for people who don't want to learn/be changed. I'm not going to engage arguments about whether this is right or wrong or valid or any of that. If you don't think trans and nonbinary inclusivity is right, then please don't sign up.

Accessibility and Format

We had a live (human) captioner for the original class, and those captions are available in the video file. All short supplementary videos have subtitles as well. Worksheets are in fillable PDF format, use no graphics, and are in a commonly-used font. Nearly all typed comments in the chat are spoken out loud in the voice track. The primary video class is a recording of a 90 minute live class with a mix of instruction and discussion; there was one short breakout session which was not recorded and is not included. Slides onscreen are bullet points of the content only; no additional information is presented visually.
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photo credits

photos from pexels.com

header image: friends outdoors by Helena Lopes; second image: open barn door by Harrison Haines; portrait of Leela Sinha by Leela Sinha; final image: running dog by Matthias Zomer