Celebrating the Full Spectrum of Gender and Sexuality
This article contains the content from the 4/9/2020 Bioneers Pulse newsletter. Sign up here to get the newsletter straight to your inbox!
Humanity is at a crossroads. As we transition into a society led by equity and compassion rather than hate and fear, we must challenge antiquated beliefs that have led us to repress our true identities.
We’re beginning to lean into the elemental truths of sacred masculinity and divine femininity. By honoring this balance in ourselves, we can truly embrace our emotions, realize our interconnectedness, and find compassion for one another.
This week, we explore new and evolving perspectives on gender identity.
The Radical Inclusion of All Genders and Sexualities
Current debates about the standing of LGBTQIA+ persons have raised new awareness around gender and sexuality. People whose sexualities and gender identities cannot be contained within hetero-normative (and binary/cisgender) culture have always existed, but oppression, discrimination, and violence against them have long been the norm and continue.
In this panel, three leaders in gender and sexuality fields discuss the systemic oppression of gender and sexual minorities in the context of intersectionality and explore how to achieve the full inclusion of all genders to help bring humanity to its full potential.
The panel discussion was followed by a Q&A session with the audience. Click here to read more from these leaders about gender creativity, community support, and other issues around gender and sexuality expression.

Re-Imagining Manhood: Four Leaders Discuss the Sacred Masculine
Sacred masculinity helps men turn toward their authentic selves and break free of the rigid, repressive definition of manhood prescribed by larger society. In this panel, four leaders discuss their work to help men connect with their sacred masculinity. Featuring Jerry Tello, co-founder of the Healing Generations Institute; Jewel Love, CEO of Black Executive Men; Hector Sanchez-Flores, Executive Director of the National Compadres Network; and Will Scott, co-founder of the Weaving Earth Center.
I Am Because I Am: The Expansion of Gender Identity
This guest podcast from the producers at Making Contact explores the expansion of gender identity and presumed roles in our society. Diverse perspectives provide a look beyond the socially constructed ideas of what is male, female, masculine or feminine.
This show traverses questions like: What does it mean when individuals challenge specific societal expectations of gender? In the spectrum of “queer identity” how does one embody masculinity, femininity, or neither? And how are communities responding to the potential threat of erasure?

Nina Simons: Celebrating Women’s Ways
In her new book, Nature, Culture and the Sacred (Green Fire Press, 2018), Bioneers Co-Founder Nina Simons offers inspiration for anyone who aspires to grow into their own unique form of leadership with resilience and joy. It features stories of women who are leading the way towards transformational change by cultivating vibrant movements for social and environmental justice.
The following poem is from the book’s final essay.
Join Us for This Webinar to Support the Wampanoag Nation
Lyla June — a Diné artist, activist, scholar and Bioneer — is working with her colleagues to organize a webinar in support of the Wampanoag Nation. This webinar training, “How to Be in Solidarity with the Wampanoag Nation,” is a response to the tribe’s reservation having recently been “disestablished” in a unilateral and nefarious act by the US Department of the Interior.
Join us for this Zoom conference call on Sunday, April 12 from 2-4 p.m. PST as Wampanoag tribal member Danielle Hill teaches participants how to stand behind the Wampanoag at this time and protect their lands and people from further government swindling and colonization.
Donations are suggested on a sliding scale from $25-$70, and all registration fees will go to 440+ families from various Indigenous Nations who have asked for assistance. Donate through PayPal to nativefund1680@gmail.com.
Join Information:
- Zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/770476260
- Meeting ID: 770 476 260
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The Latest from Bioneers.org About COVID-19:
- A Case of the Pandemic Blues | Author and Bioneers Senior Producer J.P. Harpignies reminds us that even during the COVID-19 outbreak, we can put an end to post-disaster trends of elite, corporate profiteering.
- In Case of Emergency, Break Class | Bioneers co-founder Kenny Ausubel writes about how massive cooperation is the only way to solve a pandemic. As a society and civilization, we are being forced to change our pronoun from “me, me, me” to “we.”
- Politics and Consequences: How to Fix Democracy in the Face of COVID-19 | In the following essay, Orr explains how the deterioration of our democracy has precipitated crises like climate change and the spread of COVID-19, and what we can do in the face of this reality. Will we take charge in this opportunity for change?
- Honey, We Shrunk the Planet: Regime Change and Resilience Thinking | In this excerpt from his book, Dreaming the Future, Kenny Ausubel outlines “resilience thinking” — a solve-the-whole-problem approach that can help us achieve our wildest dreams for the future of the environment and society.
- As Coronavirus Ravages Businesses, Small Farms and Independent Restaurants Rally for Economic Relief | This article, reposted from Civil Eats, explains the inextricably linked fate of these industries. Will the government bail out airlines and Big Food over small food businesses, farms, and workers?
Get Your FREE Download of Our Ecological Medicine eBook!
In light of the pandemic, we’re releasing a free downloadable PDF of our 2004 Bioneers book: Ecological Medicine: Healing the Earth, Healing Ourselves, which could hardly be more relevant right now.
Modern medicine’s separation from nature is at the root of many tragedies, both human and environmental, and the current pandemic is an object lesson in how disastrous that disconnection is to us as a society and civilization.
Get your free download – and please share widely!
This article contains the content from the 4/9/2020 Bioneers Pulse newsletter. Sign up here to get the newsletter straight to your inbox!