Queer People of Color & Allies Host Kim Katrin Crosby at The University of Texas at Austin

I'm overwhelmed at my experience at Kim Crosby's Intersectionality and Community Organizing Workshop. So overwhelmed, that all I can do is share this video, share the Prezi In Fierceness & Vulnerability: Deconstructing and Resisting Femmephobia, share my main take away, and share my notes. Some of my notes are directly from the presentation, and some include my own interpretations.

Kim Katrin Crosby at Slutwalk in Toronoto, 2012

Community organizing should not be about production, it should be about creating relationships. Take the time to make space for multiple truths. Create space to be present with your community. Self care should be done within the context of community, not alone. Just "loving yourself" is not enough- it is irrational because we need each other. Adorn yourself- it is okay to feel insecure in a world that tells you you're not valuable. When someone tells you they enjoy your work, ask them if they want to hug about it.

• Acknowledge your privilege and your oppression because they occur simultaneously
• View identities as a kaleidoscope, not a spectrum. Spectrums create binaries
• Discuss meanings, not definitions. Definitions are limiting and binary. Feminine
• Another's experience does not invalidate your own, but it should and necessarily does complicate your own
• Interrupt acts of oppression- that's solidarity
• Don't treat others the way you want to be treated. Treat others the way they want to be treated. ASK. And keep asking, because people are constantly evolving. You don't "just know someone."
• It is no one's responsibility to educate you but your own. Allow yourself to be humbled. Listen and actively seek knowledge.
• When someone checks you, don't discredit their experience. Being checked is an opportunity to be a better person and to treat each other more kindly. Listen.
• Guilt is the least productive emotion around oppression work. You have an opportunity to make it better. Do something about it. Listen.
• Take up less space- fall back. Allies should be peripherial. 
• Collect your folks- correct people who share your privileges.
• Inquiry- ask to learn more, not to invalidate someone else's experience. Be empathetic.
• Resolution can be tangible. If you spend 45 minutes being transphobic, give that person 45 minutes of your time- do their laundry, make them dinner. Oppression makes lives difficult- make it easier
• If anti-oppression work feels good, then you're doing it wrong
• Systemic Power & Systemic Advantages vs. Relational Power and Relational Advantage
• Increased visibility does not mean things are getting better 
• It's okay to be insecure in a world that tells you you're not valuable
• Be conscious of the media you consume
• "Just love yourself" is irrational because we need each other to love ourselves
• Create space to just be present in your community
• Decolonize
• make a boundary, and use your community to enforce it
• respect a boundary
• engage in an economy without money- create direct access to resources
• trust your struggle; your oppressors will not validate you
• take up space
• rest
• don't apologize for your emotions
• make space for multiple truths- reject the idea of one sole truth

The Insight Project: Kim's Story
February 8, 2013: QPOCA's 2nd Annual Gloria Anzaldúa Luncheon