How am I working to make you all feel safe?
First, I want to acknowledge that all of my branding is around “queer” dating coaching. If you identify with being part of the LGBTQIA+ community, this space is for you! I use “queer” as a shorthand for the LGBTQIA+ community and try as much as possible to be sensitive to the fact that some folks don’t identify as queer even while my business uses that word a lot!
Let’s take a moment to talk about the elephant in the room: I’m a white, straight-sized, well-educated, non-disabled person from an upper-middle class background with a nice smile telling people what to do largely based on my own experience. Experiences I might have had because of my privilege. That being said, I have coached queer and trans folks who have been affected by many intersecting systems of oppression.
Though I will never know what it’s like to walk in your shoes, I continue to educate myself as much as possible because I want you to feel really taken care of in the space I create. I’m currently receiving a Graduate Advanced Certificate in Columbia’s School of Psychology in Sexuality, Women, and Gender with a concentration in LGBTQ issues and a lot of my current course work is about seeing the interdependence of systems of oppression that affect the queer community in addition to us being sexual minorities.
Working alongside my studies, here are the other business practices I have to keep you all as seen and safe as possible.
Content Warning: naming systems of oppression below
Business Practices
I have written transcripts for all podcasts I speak on which are all posted on my website.
I work to dismantle fatphobia and expose its origins of colonization and capitalism as it relates to unlearning “hotness” and what that means in the dating space.
I work to have all images in my ebooks and on my instagram reflect the actual bodies in the queer community (when it’s not pictures of me).
When outsourcing work for my business I prioritize hiring other queer folks, but also make it a point to research BIPOC folks, queer or not, who are providing similar services.
I have ongoing monthly donations set up for various organizations.
If I space for 1:1 clients, I give away one free session per month (new clients only), am open to skill shares related to inclusion and accessibility, and offer one work exchange slot per month (usually involves reviewing an automated Otter transcription for a podcast episode I’ve done.) Inquire via email for any of these options.
Date Better Bootcamp Initiatives
Payment plans.
Captioned video modules.
ASL interpreter on standby for group coaching (please let me know if you need this ahead of time).
Downloadable PDFs that you can enlarge
The community platform is accessible via screen reader, and my curriculum addresses ableism.
The curriculum was reviewed by a very thorough DEI/sensitivity consultant.
I leave space at the top of all new coaching calls for you to ask me any personal questions you may have for me that will make you feel more comfortable during our conversation.
I give you a run down of my space and where my eyes might be during coaching calls so you know what is going on on my side of the screen.
I really care that if something is not sitting right with you in this program, that you have a way to communicate that with me. Of course you can always come to me directly, but also there is a disabled accessibility coordinator in the group that you can speak to and an amazing trans indigenous mediator on call as well. Both of their contact information will be made available at the start of our course, so if at any time you’d like to talk to someone besides me about how the experience can be more supportive for you, or if you want to call me in and don’t have the space/desire/resources to do that yourself, these folks are who you will talk to for support.
As mentioned, there is an accessibility coordinator in the group with us, so if at any time if you have a specific accessibility need taken care of, there's someone on my team to help.
Really firm guidelines for how we use the group platform and instructions on using trigger warnings and content warnings.
This is read at the top of the course followed by a detailed plan of how call-ins will happen in the context of group coaching. This is from Project Nia (an organization that works to end the incarceration of children and young adults by promoting restorative and transformative justice practices) who adopted it from a conference called Free Minds Free People.
"We believe that at the center of liberation is radical love for each other and for ourselves. That love pushes us to try to create a better world. Because of that, we are working to minimize the amount of harm that occurs in our spaces. White supremacy, misogyny, ableism, classism, homophobia, and transphobia exist everywhere, even in radical spaces. They are some of the breads out of which normative society is woven and it is hard to untangle them.
So if you’re called out today...in some way for perpetuating any of these, please understand it is not because you are unimportant, or that we wish to exclude you, instead we’re trying to demonstrate compassion and care and do the least amount of harm for people in our communities, particularly those with marginalized identities. We recognize that we are all entrenched in systems of oppression and that we all have work to do. We invite everyone to be accountable for their participation within these systems of oppression. We ask everyone to challenge themselves and to fight against it in these spaces. If you enact displays of power and oppression, we will talk to you. We will invite you to educate yourself and to relearn how to interact with others in the space without enacting harm. If you cannot or are unwilling to address it we will ask you to leave. We need both love and rage in every part of our lives to continue dismantling oppression. Both can be part of radical resistance to the destructive world in which we live today if we put in the effort to truly learn from, and care about each other. We seek to forge stronger bounds and to create a community we can rely on rather than systems of violence, so being accountable to each other for our behavior is a really good way to start."
On the application I also ask folks if there’s anything they need that I haven’t addressed!
If you have the space, I am always open to being called in, and always open for suggestions on how to be better related to this list or not. I know how to take a note, and I’m eager to show up in the best way possible for the community I care about most.
Additionally, if you are someone who has not seen your queer experienced talked about and want to have a call to collaborate on something, or if you feel inclined to meet with me to share some of your own experience so I can better serve people like you, please feel free to reach out.
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