Angel presents an argument I have heard countless times - and almost always in resistance to exclusive programming - that women won't come into the space/volunteer during hours that are NOT exclusive, which is certainly NOT true in our experience at Bike Pirates. We have been running Women & Trans* Sundays for the past 8.5 years with great success and big support from our non-cis-dude community :)

There will always be women-identified or trans-identified folks who don't get excited about an exclusive space or who want to help out on other days/with other projects. AND you will also find that offering exclusive programming will help draw folks into the space who NEVER felt comfortable coming in before, and they may then become important members of your organization.

As for what do you call it and who do you serve - every organization addresses this differently. I think determining where the need lies and what your limitations are is important - i.e. if you can offer programming for women/trans/non-cis-dude folks, AS WELL AS programming for LGBTQ2S (etc.) AS WELL AS programming for Black folks/POC, (and so on) you should provide whatever you can. It will be utilized by the communities that need it! Our programming is called Women & Trans* Sundays and is open to anyone who identifies as a woman or trans person, and that is specified to include non-binary/gender-fluid/non-conforming folks as well, and we ask folks if they feel like the space is *for them* on Sundays, rather than asking them how they identify.

Tegan, we never see eachother! Come to Toronto and visit Sundays and we can chat :)

ainsley.

On Wed, Mar 29, 2017 at 6:26 PM, Angel York <aniola@gmail.com> wrote:
(where by "women's night" I mean any of the dozens or hundreds of variations people have come up with, many of which have "women" somewhere in the title)


On Wed, Mar 29, 2017 at 3:22 PM, AMS Bike Co-op <info@bikecoop.ca> wrote:
P.s. there have been several think tank threads over the years addressing this ongoing conversation, it might be helpful to look in the archives! 

On Wed, Mar 29, 2017 at 3:22 PM, AMS Bike Co-op <info@bikecoop.ca> wrote:
Hi Tegan,

nice to hear that you are trying to work on this at B!KE. 

First to respond to JF, the LGBTQ2I Night at the Bike Kitchen was started as a way to engage more with Pride Collective on campus and not in relation to any of the politics around W&Q ;)

After working on similar programming for the last ten years, I can say the following about my own experience in relation to the questions you posed:

1) The intention of the program is not to include women or any other identity based group, but to exclude cis straight men. I think it helps to be up front about this and clear about why you think it is important to do this (or more generally - be clear about what your goal is and create your programming in a way that responds to that). I think this addresses your first question about 'combining two groups' because you are talking about more than two groups (trans, nb, queer femme, women, etc). All people have different needs, but the need it sounds like you are trying to address is 'there are too many straight cis men dominating community bike shop spaces.' 

2) To address your second point, I think the answer is a resounding 'no' to part a and a big 'yes' to part b, but it depends on what you mean by 'getting their needs met'. Spaces created for women-only often become dominated by white women and straight women and cis women, in a replication of the same power dynamic that there was an attempt to address in the first place. 

3) This really depends on your local demographics, but there will be a fair amount of time spent doing this! I would recommend some brief literature on the subject in the form of a pamphlet or zine that you can have available during the programming, and make a little bit of space to answer questions about the literature if needed, and in accordance with your own boundaries (for example after hours only, during hours only, email only, phone only, etc.) There are examples of literature that exist in queer + trans youth outreach so you would not have to reinvent the wheel. 

4) I strongly caution against creating a space that specifically excludes trans people! Woman-identified is a very complicated terminology and mostly outdated at this point in my opinion. 

These thoughts are based on my experience having been the only non-dude bike mechanic in the city that I am from (circa 2007), and the long struggle to train up other non-dude mechanics over the years.  

x
sunny


Sunny Nestler, Programs Manager
AMS Bike Co-op
University of British Columbia
604-822-2453 | bikecoop.ca | @ubcbike

On Wed, Mar 29, 2017 at 1:00 PM, Jean-François Caron <jfcaron3@gmail.com> wrote:
The Bike Kitchen at UBC used to have Women's Night which explicitly included "anyone who identifies as a woman."  Being located on a university campus the response was mostly positive and we didn't have to explain too much (2nd hand info, I'm a cis man who never ran or attended the night).  There is something obviously problematic about offering a Women's Night that does not include trans women.  

We ended up broadening in a less-obviously-grounded way by making it Women and Queer Night, where now explicitly "anyone who identifies as a woman and/or queer", and by queer we mean LGBTQ.  This is partially to boost numbers and get a regular attendance going.  Our previous Women's Night sometimes had only one or two people attending (including the coordinator), which wasn't a negative experience for the participants, but isn't the best use of volunteer+staff+shop time.

More recently we added an LGBTQ2I night, which obviously has a partial overlap of identities with the Women and Queer night.  I haven't been active since this night was added, so I'll let others contribute.  My guess is that this night was added to make W&Q night more for the W again.

Btw:  I'm like 99% sure that the inconsistent acronym use is accidental and that W&Q night does not exclude two-spirit and intersex folk.

Jean-François

On Mar 29, 2017, at 14:07 , Tegan Moss [B!KE] <director@communitybikeshop.org> wrote:

Hi All,

After 10 years of teaching time that serves everyone B!KE is finally endeavoring to carve out a space just for women! We have often managed to strike a pretty excellent gender balance in the shop but interestingly recent growth has the shop feeling very male dominated. We are adding a bunch of hours for the on season and planning to make some of that time specifically for women. 

As a cis-gendered female mechanic, I feel pretty confident about hosting space, and defending the need of a space, that is for women only. I know that many other shops combine their women only time with trans/non-binary/femme time and I am feeling a bit concerned about a few things. How do you addresses these things:

1) Why combine these two groups? Don't they have different needs?
2) Do trans & non-binary people get their needs met? Or are they still second to women?
3) How much time is spent explaining gender identity and pronouns to baby boomers?
4) Is it better to have a women only time that excludes trans folks OR a women, trans, non-binary night that sort of includes them all?

The language I am currently leaning toward is that this shop time is for "all women-identified people". I am curious what issues and resolutions have been found in other shops.

Please share with me about your knowledge and experience in this matter!

Best,
Tegan

--
B!KE: The Peterborough Community Bike Shop
293 George St, Peterborough ON
(705) 775-7227
communitybikeshop.org

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University of British Columbia
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University of British Columbia
6138 Student Union Blvd | Vancouver, BC | V6T 1Z1

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