Respect Guidelines

Be mindful that our members come from diverse experiences and include:

  • Autistic or otherwise neurodivergent people
  • Mad and/or mentally ill people
  • Disabled people and/or people with disabilities
  • Racialised people and/or people of Colour
  • Trans, non-binary, and/or gender non-conforming people
  • Survivors of sexual and/or other violence
  • People with disability-related speech/language barriers
  • People with limited access to English

Please assume that these experiences are present in our community spaces and be respectful.

Specifically this means…

  • Avoid things like racism, disableism, heterosexism, transphobia, transmisogyny, ciscentrism1, sexism, sizeism, ageism, and/or gender policing, etc.
  • Respect everyone’s self-described identities and pronouns (including the choice not to have or disclose them)
  • Avoid asking questions about others’ bodies  
  • Speak from your own experience
    • do not make assumptions about other people’s experiences, particularly about people in groups that you are not part of
    • be mindful that there are groups of people with shared collective experiences (of marginalisation) and remember that no single person can fully represent a group with diverse experiences
  • Be open to input and suggestions about how you can help to keep the space safer for everyone.

As a group, we are always looking for ways to improve.

Footnotes:

1. Ciscentrism is a sum total of social expectations and ideologies, institutions, practices, etc. that treat being “cis” as the default or the “norm” or superior way of being, or as not requiring an explanation, while assuming that trans and other non-cis experiences do require an explanation.
     Note: “cisgender” means “having a gender identity that straightforwardly matches the gender you were assigned at birth”↩

Please contact us about any accommodations you might need to access our meetups (toronto.aces.and.aros@gmail.com).

If you’re interested in regular ace (and/or arospec) community meetups (like monthly discussions and social events), consider joining the googlegroup to where you can participate in scheduling events and some other community discussion.

Return to the main Accessibility page or check out the Space Accessibility