As I return from my hiatus from teaching workshops and writing on Haus of Isis, I feel it best to begin this new chapter in the Spirit of Truth and Authenticity.
In the light of this current social climate, with burgeoning “Queer” Gender Identity movements and Trans activism, there are some things I feel are necessary for me to clarify and share from the heart about who my work is for, how these issues affect me as a woman who seeks to provide safe healing spaces for other women, and generally where I stand.
Let’s begin by stating the fundamentals:
My work with Haus of Isis is for women. When I name women as the group that I serve, I mean biological women. Females who identify as women. The workshops I create are rooted in practices that I adopted to heal myself and the traumas that I’ve endured as a woman with a female body in this society.
Eight years ago, I began working with yoni eggs, exploring my body, pole dancing, journaling. I cultivated daily yoga and meditation rituals to synchronize and attune with my pussy, cultivate awareness in my womb, and enliven my body so that I could feel empowered in my sexuality. I am still on this journey.
My desire was to eventually find a way to share these practices with other women who, in all of their diversity–share the experience of what it means to have a female body, raised in a patriarchal society that, from an early age, traumatizes us as sexual beings, and oppresses our natural birthright to feel free and in tune within our own bodies.
I remember when I hosted my very first BodyLove workshop in 2019. It had taken years for me to feel ready to teach this content, and most importantly, find the right space to host it, since many other studios were either unwelcoming to this content, unwelcoming to me, or it was simply not the right time. I was grateful to finally find a home with Afropolitan, an organization which serves the black community in Berlin. Black women are central to my work, and the first several BodyLove workshops were exclusively for black women.
When I began promoting the workshop, I created a flyer, advertising the class as a “Sensual Movement Workshop for Women.” A couple of weeks prior to my first class, a white trans man who had been following me for a while, sent me a DM, checking me for not explicitly including “trans-femmes” in my class description.
I admit that, when I received this message, it honestly made me nervous. I was a new teacher, just starting out and getting a feel for my content.
But, I took a deep breath and messaged him back, stating that my class content is based on practices that I cultivated with my own body, such as yoni breathing- and it’s designed to serve women like me.
I also mentioned that Afropolitan had a separate page to advertise the class to “Womxn”, so it technically was open to transwomen ((As a side note-I didn’t know what “womxn” meant at the time but after reading about it, I didn’t ask them to change it. I wasn’t exactly opposed to having transwomen or non-binary identified females in my class-the most important thing to me at the time was to simply share my content and dip my toes into the waters of teaching)).
Finally, I mentioned that I am not really invested in political correctness and will keep my class description as it is for now.
That last statement about lack of political correctness is when he got all fired up, referring to me as a ‘cis-woman’ (a label which I do not and have never identified with-even moreso now that I know where the term originated from) and telling me that transwomen are a vulnerable class that he cares deeply about, and they need to be included in women’s spaces.
Our brief conversation actually ended quite peacefully. He seemed to understand that I simply hadn’t yet taken the time to learn about transwomen’s bodies and how best to serve them-so it was acceptable that I didn’t go out of my way to invite them to my workshop. However, after I told him that I don’t identify as a “cis-woman”, I assume that is what made him back down. Nobody wants to take heat for “misgendering” someone, right?! Still, I was so flustered with the heat I took…that it would take me a long time to reach a place where I could even question the fact that this white transguy actually felt like it was his place to check me, a black woman, for a workshop I was creating for other black women.
Honestly, I wasn’t really invested in fighting with anyone about this-but the pushback I received for daring to create an all-women’s space-and naming it as such-gave me a lot to think about.
So that’s what I did. I thought about it pretty heavily for 2 years. I wanted to listen to various opinions, different takes, and formulate my own opinions.
Although Trans-Activism and Gender Identity politics have grown significantly in the past few years, this is not the first time I’m learning about all of this.
In 2013, I made a video called “Transwomen are Not Female“, speaking in a very raw form about my take on these issues, based on my own experiences of what I had seen in the queer community. Surprisingly, a lot of people agreed with me, including some transwomen. However, that video was so controversial, it almost resulted in my channel being shut down by trans-activists. Anyway, ever since I left activism to focus on my wellness and mental health, my energy has wisened and softened.
That old video may express some views I still agree with, but I knew my energy back then was different from the space I had grown into. What’s more, the world I was in now was different from the world I was living in back then.
There was an explosion of new gender identities that were increasingly trendy-so much so that it was increasingly rare to find a female who simply identified as a woman or a lesbian, in “queer” spaces”. It appeared that females were rushing to opt-out of womanhood in droves, either due to unresolved trauma or for social brownie points, or simply because they didn’t fit into gender stereotypes of womanhood and were made to feel invisible. And it wasn’t safe to openly question or talk about these things. The Ideology I was speaking against back then had since grown so much, that it was now mainstream, righteous, and woke.
Especially with the work I was doing with Haus of Isis, I needed to figure this out. Am I wrong for only wanting to serve women? Do I need to be more inclusive and find a way to include other people who might be served by my work? Maybe that trans guy was right-maybe I can teach yoni breathing to transwomen, too-even if they have a dick. I began to explore and research different ideas, and see what aligned with me.
But the truth is, I was actually just feeling nervous and afraid. I began to question why I was feeling so deeply pressured to re-wire and mould the very essence of my workshops-from the language to the bodily exercises-to something that would serve a population of males who identify as women, so that they can feel validated? Or to forcibly adopt the woke social rituals of introducing ourselves with pronouns (a practice which, for many reasons, makes me deeply uncomfortable) so that others can feel “safe”?
Why is there a silent burden being placed on me to carry a weight that is not mine, when I often still struggle to carry my own and use the fullness of my cup to help those who share my experience? Why am I being encouraged to center others? For one, it’s because black women are often treated as the mammies of society. Women, and especially black women-black females, often get everyone else’s stuff impressed upon us.
Women in general, are viewed as caretakers, often socialized to be quiet, not to offend anyone (particularly men), and prioritize other people’s needs above our own. We allow ourselves to be hushed and shushed, gaslit into believing our concerns don’t matter, that things didn’t happen the way we think they did. I’m So Finished with that paradigm, and there is no way I will consciously allow myself to replicate that in my own work.
There are now laws being passed that allow anybody to change their birth sex on their ID and birth certificate, no questions asked, and no need for medical transition. You don’t have to change anything else about yourself-it’s as simple as can be.
While the concept of this is with the intention of making life easier for trans folks, this also means that any man can identify into being a woman and be seen as such by law. It means grown men will increasingly be entitled to spaces that were previously only open to females, as long as they identify as woman. It means women’s prisons, bathrooms, shelters, and social spaces can be infiltrated by men. Don’t believe me? It’s already happening.
It means we will no longer be entitled to have boundaries around our spaces, and attempting to set such boundaries can place us at risk for litigation. There have been too many examples of how this has already hurt and exposed women-and the worst part is that women who dare to speak up are silenced in very violent and misogynistic ways, by militant trans-activists and their allies.
All gender non-conforming people, including trans-people, are marginalized on the basis of gender non-conformity, and deserve rights and protection-but not at the expense of women. Instead of cultivating unique spaces and services for each group, naming our unique experiences, and being honest about what each of us as a group need and how to meet them…there is this push for females, and our very real needs and experiences to be erased, in the name of inclusion.
There is a push for biological women to open our arms out wide and blindly welcome anyone and everyone into spaces that were originally designed to meet our unique needs and keep us safe from male violence, and to do so without boundary or question. That’s not inclusion-it’s misogyny. Women experience oppression because of our female bodies, because of our sex, and people who are born male have real differences and advantages, no matter how they identify. Anyone who denies this doesn’t care about women. You can’t stomp one group out in favor of another. You can’t silence, harass, deplatform, fire, and threaten women who speak up for their needs in the name of “queer liberation”.
It doesn’t work like that.
As time went on, I realized that I was made to feel wrong for what I had created, for asserting my space, and claiming womanhood as an identity without an asterisk or apology. This made it difficult for me to even feel like I could take up space and be authentic within my own self-created space. It created a deep disconnect between myself and Haus of Isis, for a long time. But not anymore. It’s taken years of quiet observance and deep listening for me to come forward about how I truly feel, but the time is now. This is the precedent I’m setting for my work with Haus of Isis moving forward.
I am not politically active, nor do I identify as a feminist.
I am a self-actualized woman who values my energy and understands the importance of boundaries. Sacred space and self-preservation is important to me. I love myself. I care deeply about women and I love women. It’s that simple.
I say this with the risk of being cancelled and de-platformed, at a time in my life when I am still vulnerably cultivating resources that I need to thrive. I don’t know what the process of cultivating and sharing Haus of Isis will look like moving forward. But I know that whatever I do, I will be building from a place of Authenticity, and that is what matters most. I have had to see the value in my true essence, beyond the empty capitalistic head-pats that go along with drinking the kool aid and following the rules of mainstream wokeness. I don’t have an army behind me, and I’m not doing this for cool points. Women who think like me don’t get cookies for this. I know I will be challenged.
This is some real shit.
I know that writing this article may make a lot of people upset. I know some people who have followed me will be disappointed, unfollow me, or maybe even become rageful. Some people will think I’m a bigot, uneducated or misguided.
But y’all can think what y’all want, because I know who I am and I know my heart and spirit is pure. I’ve been through a lot and I know myself better than anyone who doesn’t see my light. I know I’ve done the work to say what I’m saying now. I trust that those who need my medicine, who need to see their truth reflected in mine-will find me. I trust that I will be supported in the ways I need to share my gifts with this world.
Word is God.
❤
Haus of Isis 
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