STAYING MAD DURING THE HOLIDAYS
Join us for this month’s Icarus gathering as we support each other during the holiday season. Holidays are often a time centered around family, however many families can be a source of invalidation, alienation, and trauma. For our LGBTQ siblings who are ostracized by family, face pressures of heternormativity, spending time with family during the holidays can be triggering. Families can also stigmatize and scapegoat those of us with psychiatric conditions, neurodivergence, or different perceptions of the world. Many people do not have families to spend the holidays with, making this a time of increased loneliness and stress.
The focus on Christmas, consumerism, and material gifts further highlights the problem of capitalistic systems. Care and belonging are funneled through scripted exchanges of material goods. Holidays are also centered around White American culture. Not all of us fit into these existing scripts. The culture around food-centered celebrations and societal expectations around body appearance can be triggering for those of us with eating disorders. In addition, general sensory overload when one is expected to socialize with family members and have to field conflicting demands.
Join us as we gather as a community to provide mutual support and resources. We will talk about creating ways of celebrating each other and our madness, whether that’s with family, with chosen family, friends, or with yourself during this holiday season.
EVENT AGENDA:
General Breakdown:
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our project introduction
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shared reading of our Community Agreements
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group Introductions and Safety Guidelines
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Group Discussion
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Movement Activity
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Sharing of support and resources
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Closing Activity
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Check Out
TRANSPARENCY: Though we are committed to collective liberation and are a mixed race collective, our history has traditionally brought in white, middle class people. In order to protect Queer Trans People of Color (QTPOC) from tokenization and psychic harm, we as a collective commit to prioritizing the needs of QTPOC in our public events and promoting QTPOC leadership in our collective. We acknowledge the emotional labor that QTPOC may perform in these spaces, which often go unrecognized. Therefore, we want white cisgender people to independently undo racism, gender binarism / sexism, while remaining accountable to QTPOC. We are currently engaging in an ongoing process of integrating these goals internally within our organization, among our mixed race organizers, and within the structuring of our external events. *
ACCESS ISSUES: The space is accessible for wheelchair users but does not have a bathroom for wheelchair users. We use mics to support people who are hard of hearing.
Bluestockings is wheelchair accessible, with no steps or platforms, and wide aisles between shelves. Our bathroom is not wheelchair accessible. There is a Starbucks two short blocks down the street with an accessible bathroom (at Allen and Delancey). Metered street parking is readily available in the blocks surrounding Bluestockings. Bluestockings is not a scent-free space, but we encourage visitors to please refrain from wearing perfumes, colognes or other scented products (including essential oils) and smoke far away from the entrance to the space.
And then we’ll hang out for a little while and be gone until another month. Make sure to sign-up for the mailing list at the event or email nycicarus@gmail.com.
DATE: Dec. 5th, 2018
TIME: 7pm
LOCATION: Bluestockings Bookstore, 172 Allen St, Manhattan
Hope to see you there! Mad love, Icarus Project NYC