The following are meant to support you as you prepare to facilitate a conversation that inspires curiosity, connection, critical questions, recognition of difference, power, and possibility for generating new ways of being in, and understanding, the world. Importantly you should prepare yourselves to engage in tensions that arise while also committing to refuse any hate or violence in any form.

PREPARING TO FACILITATE

Participants in any conversation arrive with differing degrees of knowledge and lived experience with regards to the many topics North By Current invites you to explore, it is helpful to prepare yourself and ground yourself in both knowledge and intention ahead of facilitation. As a facilitator we urge you to take the necessary steps to ensure that you are prepared to guide a conversation that prioritizes the safety of those whose experiences and identities have been marginalized. This will allow you to set an intention (and sustain a generative dialogue) that maximizes care and critical curiosity, transformation, and connection.

The following are tools to support preparation and resources to use to invite your community into a shared space of dialogue after screening.

Helpful Concepts, Definition, and Language for Framing

Gender identity: Our deeply held, internal sense of self as masculine, feminine, a blend of both, neither, or something else. Identity also includes the name we use to convey our gender. Gender identity can correspond to, or differ from the sex we are assigned at birth. The language a person uses to communicate their gender identity can evolve and shift over time, especially as someone gains access to a broader gender vocabulary.

Gender role: The set of functions, activities, and behaviors commonly expected of boys/men and girls/women by society.

Sex: Used to label a person as “male” or “female” (some US states and other countries offer a third option) at birth, this term refers to a person’s external genitalia and internal reproductive organs. When a person is assigned a particular sex at birth, it is often mistakenly assumed that this will equate with their gender; it might, but it might not.

Transgender or simplyTrans: Sometimes this term is used broadly as an umbrella term to describe anyone whose gender identity differs from their assigned sex. It can also be used more narrowly as a gender identity that reflects a binary gender identity that is “opposite” or “across from” the sex they were assigned at birth.

Transition: “Transitioning” is a term commonly used to refer to the steps a transgender, Agender, or non-binary person takes in order to find congruence in their gender. But this term can be misleading as it implies that the person’s gender identity is changing and that there is a moment in time when this takes place. More typically, it is others’ understanding of the person’s gender that shifts. What people see as a “transition” is actually an alignment in one or more dimensions of the individual’s gender as they seek congruence across those dimensions. A transition is taking place, but it is often other people (parents and other family members, support professionals, employers, etc.) who are transitioning in how they see the individual’s gender, and not the person themselves. For the person, these changes are often less of a transition and more of an evolution. Instead of “transitioning,” a more apt phrase is “pursuing congruence measures.” A person can seek harmony in many ways:

• Social congruence measures: changes of social identifiers such as clothing, hairstyle, gender identity, name and/or pronouns;
• Hormonal congruence measures: the use of medical approaches such as hormone “blockers” or hormone therapy to promote physical, mental, and/or emotional alignment;
• Surgical congruence measures: the addition, removal, or modification of gender-related physical traits; and
• Legal congruence measures: changing identification documents such as one’s birth certificate, driver’s license, or passport.

Queer: A multi-faceted word that is used in different ways and means different things to different people. 1) Attraction to people of many genders. 2) Don’t conform to cultural norms around gender and/or sexuality. 3) A general term referring to all non-heterosexual people. Some within the community, however, may feel the word has been hatefully used against them for too long and are reluctant to embrace it.

This article from, “Understanding Gender” from Gender Spectrum is a helpful primer on gender identity and gender expression. The first five gender related definitions were taken from Gender Spectrum’s terminology page “The Language of Gender” , which can help those who are at the beginning of a learning process about transgender identities. The definition for queer was taken from Vanderbilty University’s LBTQI Definitions.

***

Community Agreements: What are they? Why are they useful?

Community Agreements help provide a framework and parameters for engaging in dialogue that allows you to establish a shared sense of intention ahead of engaging in discussion. Community Agreements can be co-constructed and creating them can be used as an opening activity that your group collectively and collaboratively undertakes ahead of engaging in dialogue. Here is a model of Community Agreements you can review. As the facilitator, you can gauge how long your group should take to form these agreements or if participants would be amenable to pre-established community agreements.

Opening Activity (Optional): Establishing Community Agreements for Discussion

Whether you are a group of people coming together once for this screening and discussion, or a group that knows each other well, creating a set of community agreements helps foster clear discussion in a manner that draws in and respects all participants, especially when tackling intimate or complex conversations around identity. These steps will help provide guidelines for the process:

• Pass around sample community agreements and take time to read aloud as a group to make sure all participants can both hear and read the text.
• Allow time for clarifying questions; make sure all understand the purpose of making a set of agreements and allow time to make sure everyone understands the agreements themselves.
• Go around in a circle and have every participant name an agreement they would like to include. Chart this in front of the room where all can see.
• Go around 2-3 times to give participants multiple chances to contribute and to also give a conclusive end to the process.
• Read the list aloud.
• Invite questions or revisions.
• Ask if all are satisfied with the list.
• Ask all participants to sign the list of agreements. Leave it where all can see. As the facilitator, be mindful of the agreements throughout your session, noting if someone speaks or acts in a way that runs counter to them.