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. http://www.bikecoop.ca/programs/wqnight/ http://www.bikecoop.ca/programs/wqnight/
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. http://www.bikecoop.ca/programs/lgbtq2i-night/ http://www.bikecoop.ca/programs/lgbtq2i-night/
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:
- Why combine these two groups? Don't they have different needs?
- Do trans & non-binary people get their needs met? Or are they still second to women?
- How much time is spent explaining gender identity and pronouns to baby boomers?
- 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 http://communitybikeshop.org/
The ThinkTank mailing List <a href="http://lists.bikecollectives.org/options.cgi/thethinktank-bikecollectives.org">Unsubscribe from this list</a>