1. I think combining women & trans is mostly just to keep the numbers up.  And because there's (in my experience) typically a limited number of volunteers available to run these shifts.

2. It seems like it.  There's usually fewer people at these shifts which means more 1 on 1 time.

3. Nothing much should really need to change from an organizational perspective, that is, if all the other teaching time at B!KE is truly serving everyone, gender identity and pronouns are already integrated into everyone's everyday discourse.

4.  What's needed in your community?

Further thoughts: The reason for women&cetera nights is to fill a need in the larger community outside the shop.  I would NOT start any kind of women's night to address the problem of a male-dominated shop.  In my experience (and I think I have seen this happen more than once), women's nights mean that the limited women volunteer hours end up being spent on covering the women's nights and the rest of the shifts become even more male-dominated, which creates a feedback loop that ends up with a heavily male shop. 

Starting a women's night to rebalance gender in a shop is like making a baby to save the marriage.  Start a women's night when your shop has a healthy gender balance and you have the resources to stay gender-balanced during all shifts.

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.
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/

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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