Rafael/a Luna-Pizano

This workshop encouraged participants to engage with creative and somatic practices to open connections to direct and more-than-human ancestors. We embraced the gaps in lineage knowledge or connection and honored these fractures alongside the skills and gifts that are part of our ancestral inheritance. Attendees brought items that were sacred to them or held particular connections to joy, grief, land, water, and rest.

Linda J. Chastine and Sophia Haddix

Co-hosted with Queer The Land, this workshop focused on supporting QTBIPOC in accessing the wisdom of their bodies through the practice of Kemetic Yoga, a healing system based on ancient Egyptian geometrically progressing postures. Facilitators discussed the ways that movement can connect us with our ancestors and support folks in practicing.

Ching-In Chen

This generative workshop, inspired by the work of Octavia Butler, adrienne maree brown, and Walidah Imarisha, wove together speculation and lineage as a seed for collaboration with each other as well as built upon our ancestral creative strategies. Through individual and collaborative writing as well as improvisation, participants imagined a new world together.

As the final workshop in this series, AAoC and Queer The Land hosted a community meal and discussion about ancestral connection and veneration through relationship with food and plants. Practitioners and attendees shared different spiritual traditions about how their cultural communities connect. This was held as a hybrid event, with the in-person version of this event including a potluck where participants were encouraged to bring foods that are culturally important to them or their ancestors. Virtual participants were also encouraged to prepare and share culturally/ancestrally important foods and to share about them in the virtual community.

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

Focused on building skills to care for each other sustainably outside of the medical-industrial complex, we mapped what allows us to ask for and give care well, and how ableism, racism, capitalism and sexism complicate who feels worthy of care and who is expected to care. We looked at examples of how people create care webs for disability, chronic illness, or mental health needs, and accessed some tools we can use to create a sustainable and just care economy. And, we dreamed what abundant care can look like in our lives and communities.

The House of Jupiter

During this three workshop series, participants got to know the House of Jupiter and hear about how they have navigated COVID-19 while living together. Folks were able to reflect on their own housing situations, mapped their needs and relative wellness, and gained tools and resources to navigate household tensions. Participants also made an herbal remedy together and learned about how to plug into mutual aid efforts.

The Royal House of Noir

This ballroom house came together to discuss family past, present, and future; ballroom basics; and an overview of ballroom history, particularly in the PNW. Over three workshops, they discussed how houses have come together to support each other during COVID19, and offered movement based practices to care for your body at home.

The Womxn’s Village

This event featured Shajuanda Tate, Ly Dararoth, Autumn, Kewee Hamilton, and Adrianna Taylor, who spoke on the prison industrial complex, mass incarceration, and how incarcerated QTBIPOC folks have been impacted by COVID-19. They also spoke about local prisoner support, solidarity, and abolition projects, including offering suggestions for communicating with folks inside. 

La Espiritista & Carolyn Collado

La Espiritista (@iamgoddexx) and Carolyn Collado (@recoveryfortherevolution), founder of Recovery for the Revolution, co-facilitated a harm-reduction centered workshop for those in the QTBIPOC community interested in recovery from any form of addiction, abuse, or dependence. Both La Espiritista and Carolyn shared pieces of their personal journeys around recovery and offered their perspectives around harm-reduction, including recommendations on moving towards a more decolonial recovery. 

Ro Yoon & Heather Brand MSN, MPH

A moderated discussion with a local QTPOC researcher Ro Yoon (Fred Hutch Vaccine Trials and Community Engagement; she/her) and QTPOC clinician, Heather Brand (APRN, MSN,MPH; they/them), the event included an update on coronavirus and its mutant strains, vaccine development and safety,  community representation in clinical trials, and vaccine hesitancy and access.