-------------------------------------------------------------------- TINGS Women -- Planning Group Meeting at GHC Trans Intersex Nonbinary Gender-nonconforming Senior Women's Group -------------------------------------------------------------------- TINGS Women is a new social/support/advocacy group at the Gender Health Center (GHC) for women who are Trans, Intersex, Nonbinary, and/or Gender-nonconforming seniors. Another term for us could be "sex/gender variant senior women." We are a very diverse population, and can learn a great deal from one another as we share in discussions, build friendship networks, and maybe take part together in educational and advocacy projects. Each of the groups represented in TINGS Women is itself amazingly diverse, and these groups can often intersect and overlap: (T)rans women identity with a sex and/or gender other than that designated or assigned at birth, and often experience social and/or medical transitions in a vast range of patterns. (I)ntersex women are born with bodies deemed outside the patriarchal sex binary of female/male, and struggle at once to end nonconsensual infant and childhood surgeries (Intersex Genital Mutilation or IGM) and other medical abuse; and to affirm their right to define their own binary or nonbinary gender identities and to transition if desired. (N)onbinary women identify outside the conventional female/male or woman/man binary, while identifying at least in part as women. They may be either intersex or endosex (nonintersex). Some nonbinary women also identify as trans (e.g. "nonbinary transfeminine"), and some may choose medical and/or social transitioning. (G)ender-nonconforming (sometimes GNC for short) people additionally include people who may identify with their sex and/or gender as designated or assigned at birth, but have a gender expression outside traditional feminine/masculine expectations, with Butch and Femme as examples. Trans, intersex, and nonbinary people may also be gender-nonconforming (e.g. a Butch trans woman). (S)enior women of the TING or sex/gender variant communities face ageism and ableism in addition to sexism, homophobia, transphobia, interphobia, and binarism, as well as for many racism, classism, and other oppressions. At the same time, we have much wisdom and experience to share with each other, with younger sex/gender variant or TING women, and with our communities at large. And we may have special perspectives to contribute to organizations such as the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) and its evolving Standards of Care (SOC), as well as to the larger Women's and Lesbian/Queer Women's Communities. ---------------------------------------- Proposed Membership Guidelines for Group ---------------------------------------- Currently it is proposed to define "senior" as meaning "55 years of age or older," and to invite all TINGS people who identify at least partly as women and are comfortable in participating in what will be a woman-oriented group. These guidelines can be negotiated and refined as our group gains experience as we get a better sense of our needs and those of our community. -------------------------------------- Invitation to a TINGS Planning Meeting -------------------------------------- The best way to find out exactly what TINGS should be is to get sex/gender variant senior women together to explore the possibilities and choose some options as agreeable starting points. For example, how often shall we meet: monthly, every two weeks, or weekly? How many TINGS women are interested? -- as the group gets established, of course, we might grow bigger. If we do get bigger, might we want to introduce some small group process into our meetings where we break into smaller discussion groups and then come back together to compare notes? How about committees on areas and topics of interest, or affinity groups for people living in the same neighborhood or interested in a given focus for activism? We could also invite guests to some meetings devoted mainly to presentations or workshops of special interest to sex/gender variant seniors. For example, how might the liberating Narrative Therapy techniques developed by David Nylund and Alex Filippelli, and often used by and in support of trans youth, be used by and for sex/gender variant seniors? How do our experiences tie in with the feminist movement? While group members are the experts on our experiences and group process, we could also invite counsellors and therapists of the Gender Health Center who are not themselves TINGS women to help as co-moderators and offer supportive perspectives. Would this be congenial to group members? At the TINGS Planning Meeting, we'll consider these and other possibilities, with your imagination, creativity, and compassion as a vital factor in determining what the group becomes. Margo Schulter 20 August 2017