gate keepers and gate crashers: both bad

[sistawendy]

I went to Lambert House last night to do the quarterly report, and afterwards I told the director about a couple of observations I've made about the trans group that I'm one of the facilitators for. Namely, even though the total size of the group has gone up significantly in the last couple of months, youth of color have all but disappeared, and the average age has fallen.

The director suspects that at least some of these better-off, younger AFAB folks aren't really trans, and it isn't the first time he's said something like that. But we have an obligation to give them the benefit of the doubt, and judging from what I've heard in the groups, at least some of those folks really do suffer from gender dysphoria at times. Sometimes, though, they show up to group full of giggling, squirming, and whispered conversations; in other words, they act like middle-school girls without much in the way of worries when there are, or were, trans kids - especially trans kids of color - with serious problems they're trying to deal with in group. I've tried gently to discourage that kind of disrespect, maybe too gently. I wish I had The Answer.

Oh: no time for Sybil last night. Le sigh.

Comments

[audrey_eee]

Does your group use explicit participation guidelines? I went to an anti-oppression facilitation workshop a while back where we talked about this sort of thing (more oriented around adults though).

[sistawendy]

Nothing too detailed: what's said in the room stays there, no gossiping, and treat each other with respect. What's been happening lately violates that last part.

[bork]

Feel free to come down harder on them. As an AFAB in middle school, yeah - we were horrid little things. In my Girl Scout troop meetings, we had troop leaders who would take no gruff.

Are there breakout groups that ever happen? I know that Ingersoll has those; it might be better to have a special breakout group that's just them, so that they can sort out their feelings around gender better in a more isolated spot.

Also, maybe remind them that this is a support group, not a social group. Socializing can be done at another time.