Owning our Past to Re-create our Future: Fists Up! Eugene
To our community, and yours,
Warrior Sisters and its chapters, including Fists Up! Self Defense Eugene, operate as a non-profit organization focused on empowering individuals to defend themselves against heteronormative patriarchal violence. Since our inception in 2014, this collective has undergone many structures and forms of leadership. Today, our organization is led by womxn from Oregon to Oklahoma who believe strongly that every person affected by systems of oppression has a right to self-defense training.
It is our mission to provide safe places for that training to happen. In line with this purpose, Fists Up Eugene is offering free training to affinity groups, and leadership training to organizations representing marginalized identities who wish to train independently. To accomplish this work, we want to honestly address the problematic and harmful history of exclusion within our organization’s past and share with you, our community, the steps we have taken and continue to take to transform our non-profit into a more inclusive, just, and equitable organization.
We first and foremost acknowledge that when harm based in oppression has been committed, it is the obligation of that organization to do the work in repairing trust. This means more than statements, this means showing up in an organizational capacity with humility and openness.
We acknowledge the harm done to the LGBTIA+ community, specifically the trans community, in Eugene and surrounding areas by our past Executive Director’s and other leaders’ implicit and insidious discrimination against trans womxn, and failure to ensure safe and welcoming spaces for all who experience gender-based oppression. We condemn these actions and recognize that by failing to welcome trans womxn into our community, Warrior Sisters was complacent in the ongoing violence committed against the trans community.
In 2019, we committed to deep change organizationally and have since restructured our leadership and organizational model to prevent future co-opting of our values and to reduce the potential for individuals involved in our organization to perpetuate harm.
Our collective acknowledges that trans and nonbinary folx experience an abhorrent rate of gender-based violence and daily oppression. To fulfill our mission of direct action-based gender liberation, our organization is making clear its commitment to serve and build community with LGBTQIA+ communities.
Throughout the feminist movement in US history, womxn seeking liberation from patriarchy carved a space in advocacy and political work. Many of these leaders fought for system changes to secure equal rights for womxn. Unfortunately, like most other movements, those with systemic privilege, in this case, white, affluent womxn, were able to access power over their BIPOC and gender-diverse counterparts, and the many rights secured through feminist work are still not accessible to non-white, non-cis, non-straight womxn today.
Even more disturbing is the birth of Trans Exclusive Radical Feminism, a term coined in 2008 to describe feminists who do not believe that trans womxn are womxn and who seek to actively deny them access to their rights. This viewpoint is unacceptable and only further perpetuates the harms of hetero-normative patriarchy. Warrior Sisters and it’s chapters are explicitly trans-inclusive and will actively support and advocate for equal rights and access for all people harmed by systems of oppression.
We, like many other organizations, are on a constant journey of dismantling oppressive systems and reconstructing a more just and equitable future for our work. Along this journey, we recognize that at times we have fallen back and failed to center those who face disproportionate gender-based violence and who have been left out of our trainings. For our missteps along the way, we take responsibility and commit to doing better.
Warrior Sisters is committed to providing free, direct support in self-defense tools to communities affected by gender-based violence. Pending the lift of COVID-19 restrictions, Fists Up Eugene will be offering free training for your affinity group, or leadership training to share our skills curriculum with you so that you can take it into your communities and build your own liberatory pathways.
We recognize that we still have work to do, trust to rebuild, and accountability to take. Our commitment is to center the voices of those who are most affected by gendered violence. We want to center yours as we seek to grow and re-define our organization.
We openly invite communities harmed to reach out to any member of our collective. We honor your experience and encourage your feedback.
If you are interested in more details about training opportunities, have feedback regarding your experience with the Warrior Sisters Collective, or would like to connect further with our current volunteer trainers team or Board of Directors, please reach out to us directly, or email info@warrior-sisters.org.