Side Quest Coach

Finding my way to safer learning spaces....

Content warning for LGBTQIA+phobia

I love learning. I love to understand more. I love to deepen my knowledge of myself and all people. I love to grow, and change, and heal with all the new information I gain. I fully embrace the opportunities to learn from people with lived experience, to be grateful for their sharing, to encounter so many beautiful and rich people in all of the learning spaces. It has taken me a long time to recover from the trauma of learning in school as an unrecognised neurodivergent person. But I made it to a place where I delight in learning. I found approaches that fit my brain - monotroping and deep diving in ways that satisfy my endless curiosity.

With all of that in mind, I also want to share that I have struggled with engaging in this after a deeply harmful encounter in my learning journey last year. I attended a few weeks of a multi week Trauma course for coaches. There were a diverse variety of presenters, from many walks of life, with a mix of experiences and knowledge to soak up. I was excited to have the opportunity to hear from people I had not yet discovered. I was grateful to deepen my understanding and grow both professionally and personally.

Then came a session on LGBTQIA+ and Trauma.

The presenter offered the view that we all hold homophobic responses. I agree, sadly. The societies and communities we live in condition us to hold unconscious bias and prejudice in so many harmful ways. We need to take time to recognise these responses in ourselves, and challenge them. We need to commit to living consciously in anti-homophobic ways, along with all the other forms of anti-prejudice. Taking an intersectional approach to the way we understand our behaviours and how they are impacting minoritised folks.

This learning and change needs to be done in productive and meaningful ways. It needs to happen without causing more harm.

That is when I feel the presenter failed. He showed a series of stereotypical images of LGBTQIA+ folk. This included people who were visibly harmed. He gave no content warning. He then offered that participants take a moment to think about the thoughts and feelings these images provoked; to be brave in being honest about this, rather than being politically correct. He asked us to connect to the homophobic responses he knew we would all have.

These images gave me thoughts of joy and pride in my community. These images also gave me fear and despair at the reminder of the hatred physically delivered upon us because someone is so outraged at our identity and existence.

The next part is where my panic attack began, where old trauma responses reared their terrified heads to try and protect me. The presenter invited participants to share their thoughts and views. ‘Put them in the chat.’, he said, ‘Come off mute and share as you wish’. And so they did. They shared that they were unsure about the existence of trans and queer folks. That they didn’t understand us. That they are comfortable with some of us, but they can’t accept others of us. Each time they shared their thoughts the presenter lauded them for being brave.

At no point did anyone check in with the LGBTQIA+ participants. At no point did he ask how we were doing, hearing from our fellow learners that they didn’t want us in their world, that they didn’t approve of us. And so I reached out to the facilitator, to say I felt unsafe, to say I was concerned for other people’s safety in the space.

Nothing was done.

I was told that we were just pushing the boundaries on an important topic, that people have a range of experiences and views. I was gaslit into thinking I was making a fuss, being narrow minded, overreacting. These are the responses minoritised folk have to endure everyday. These are not the responses I expected from a course on trauma, in a space that made claims to be safe.

The session continued. We listened to the presenter's views on when he misgenders folk it is because they are not embodying their authentic selves.

There was no space for anyone to contest this harmful and misguided view.

Around 100 coaches attended that course. Without better support, education and understanding they may all move into their spaces with their clients of all genders and pronouns with the impression that if they misgender them it is because the client is not living their authentic self. That the client needs to change. They may not realise that the coach is the one who needs to change their language, grow in their understanding, and treat the client with the respect that they know themselves.

After the session finished I reached out to a few other LGBTQIA+ folks and allies I knew had also attended. I wanted to check in to make sure they were ok. They were not.

A few days later, I watched the recording of the session. I needed to confirm that I had not misunderstood, or misheard anything that happened. Sadly, I had not. I went through more panic attacks, more shame, more distress about everything in that session and the lack of support offered. I reached out to the course provider to calmly explain all that had happened. I explained that asking participants to share their homophobic and transphobic views was an incitement of hate speech. The course provider chose to remind me of their philosophy of freedom of speech. They would not address any of the concerns. They offered that I could leave the course if I didn’t feel safe. That they would fully reimburse me if I didn’t want to accept the course ‘as is’. I explained how this is a breach of the Equality Act because they are denying my safe access due to a protected characteristic.

They chose not to respond to anything I raised.

I know that I raised it all with gentleness and kindness. I know that I offered an understanding of their potential naivety around any of the harm that happened. I know that I was generous and gracious, despite the trauma I had experienced on this trauma course. They made a choice to tell me to be quiet, to tell me I don’t know what I am talking about, that they know best. I have made the decision to take the complaint to their accrediting body.

Why am I sharing this here?

I felt deep shame about not being good enough to be heard by the presenter, facilitator, and course provider. However, I know that is not my shame. I know that if we all stay silenced by shame when we are not listened to, we can’t make a change. I share this because I wanted to reach anyone else who has found themselves in these situations. I know that I am not alone. I wanted to remind you that your experiences are real. That you deserve to be listened to. That you deserve to have learning opportunities in spaces that are safe for you to be in. That you deserve to have allies with you on every path and sidequest you travel in your life.

I also share this because I wanted to reflect on the choices we all have to keep learning, keep growing, keep listening to minoritised folks, make our allyship meaningful and active, and make the world a safer place for everyone.

I do not share this to name and shame an organisation that chose not to be a supportive ally. They know who they are, and made the decisions they did. I hope they also know it is not too late to make meaningful changes to the ways they work.

Thank you for reading this through to the end. I hope it offers some space for deeper understanding about the way you move through life as both a learner and a teacher.

Letter from some body....

I recently completed the second part of Unravelling Body Shame with The Fat Counsellors They describe this as a course for 'practitioners to learn and have a chance to practice interventions and approaches to work with clients on body insecurities and anti-fat bias.' We explored at unconscious bias, food and body rules, family messaging, creative interventions, and joyful (or just tolerable) movement.

Whilst it absolutely provided all they promised, it also gave me the opportunity to revisit the connection to my body, and the anti-fat bias lens I am still sometimes viewing it through.

As I coach, I want to understand how I would interact with any tools or exercises I might offer to my clients. I spend time thinking about how they can be adapted, what might be welcomed, what might be difficult, where they might lead next, or even why they might not be helpful at all.

One piece of homework from the Unravelling Body Shame course was to write a letter from our body to ourselves. My immediate reaction was fear at having to put anything in words. Writing brings me out in a cold sweat and the sudden desire to go and clean the bathroom - any task that I have been avoiding seems so much more appealing than making myself put words on paper. I am working on this!

I sat with it for a few days. I reminded myself that I can take the time I need. I don't need to perform on demand.

I pictured the ways my body has grown and changed across the years. I remembered the joys and pains it has experienced. I allowed myself to connect with my own feelings, and asked the ones from other people to move on now. I found small pieces appearing in quiet moments. I allowed them to gather together. The phrases danced and twisted like ivy growing up an old house. I gave them the time they needed to settle into their places.

Granting myself the time I needed, not forcing a response, allowed my body to write its own truth.

Hello you

You who have lived within me, as if we were not one and the same. You who have tried for years to disown me, ignore me, forget we are each other.

I have been here with you. Travelled these same roads across five decades. From a womb that didn't want us there, to finding space we can call our own. I have given you a home to take wherever you wandered. Armour to wear whenever you needed a safe place to hide away. I have stretched and grown for you and the lives you grew within me.

I have watched as you were taught you were nobody, as you took that on as truth. I held you as the grief swept through us in waves. I shrank with you under that cloak of shame. I stayed whilst you thrashed at me, starved me, hated my existence. All the while I knew, I was some body. I was your body.

You sat small within me. Searching for yourself. I stayed. I waited. I bore witness to your understanding of self. I shone as you discovered all the ways you are you. Outside their boxes, beyond their binaries, tumbling into a field of bees and flowers all of your own.

I feel you now, grown into me. Nestled in all the spaces I offer for comfort, joy, pleasure, humour, connection. We have joined. Become one. Strength in our union. Together we marvel at the map of this being. The marks of adventures had and those still to come. We feel these glorious hills and valleys of our self. We celebrate the rough and smooth of every memory worn with pride. We know the scars of battles won and lost.

Together we laugh as we wobble our own way to the next step. Joyous in the freedom of finding our own path, loving our own shape, knowing our own heart.

Forever,

Us