Hello Queer Fam!
First and foremost, we are primarily a wonderful excuse to get together and re:imagine with our community!
Second, we are a wonderful space for you to listen to amazing music, get weird and dance in the woods, create new friendships, express your inner being, feel positive in expressing your desires, and foster new confidence within your beautiful self.
Third, we ask that you bring your love, your energy, your passion, your smiles, and your dancing ass out for a weekend of pure queerness. This is a space where you can let your hair down (or put it up), get wild, and find new parts of yourself you never knew existed.
Fourth, we have set this social contract in place in order to be sure each of our beings understands the values set in place for this event. This social contract was designed through a dialogue with members of our community and through our own engaged understanding of what we have built together. We wrote this items down to help where and when friction or conflict might arise. These are our strategies for remediation and resolution AND we welcome suggestions from the community.
XOXO,
Something Queer
Self Expression & Creativity
We are an event to connect with existing friends, build new friendships, celebrate our differences, embrace our stories, create new experiences, and dance till our feet are blistered from our boots, heels, sandals, barefoot, or whatever contraption and inspiration you decide to wear that day. We encourage all of you to bring your honest self while keeping an open heart and mind to new provocative challenges, interests, beings, and expressions.
Consent, Non-Aggression & Ethical Behavior
Consent, consent, consent. We can’t say it enough. Okay. Maybe one more time… CONSENT.
Make out with a stranger (with consent), slap a booty (with consent), find your fetish (with consent), do whatever brings you pure uninhibited joy and pleasure (with consent)!
We believe in ethical behavior free from coercion. Any behavior that violations these guidelines will not be tolerated. Period.
We recognize that many of us are privileged to live in areas where our queerness and personhood are valued. However, many of us live under threat of coercion, aggression and violence. We acknowledge that among queer communities some of us feel relatively disadvantaged, and that normalized status quo to some is recapitulation of various regimes of oppression to others.
Body Positivity & Sex Positivity
We celebrate Queer bodies. We celebrate Queer sexualities. We celebrate Queer sex. We celebrate bodies of all shapes, sizes, (dis)abilities, colors, etc. We celebrate love!
No being is the same and this is a space that celebrates our unique differences. This is a body positive, sex positive, shame free event. If you have something to say that doesn’t harbor a positive effect or reaction, keep it to yourself. Or even better, please take time to reflect on why that certain behavior or body is causing negative thoughts. We ask you to challenge yourself and others in our space. You never know what you might find.
Inclusivity, Community, & Participation
We believe that every being who enters our space is a member of our unique and complex queer family. We celebrate our differences and honor what unites us. We genuinely strive to support each other. We believe that the community we build is amazing because we built it. We look out for each other.
We encourage every being to participate in every way they feel compelled to. Join in a group event, participate in a game by the pool, host your own party…the limit is your imagination. There will be a variety of ways to stumble into new adventures and opportunities.
Autonomy
You are your own person. Your body, your mind, your sexuality, your gender — all of you is yours to control. Step out of your comfort zone, get creative, enjoy physical touch and desire, express buried emotions, and seek to expand and explore as YOU.
Seeing and Being Seen
We honor each other and we seek ways to truly see one another. We value immediacy and presence. The gift of being seen is very powerful and we all deserve that gift. Witnessing someone else is also a true gift and we seek to engage with others in a way to see them. Lean into your vulnerabilities and know that we are all sharing a unique human experience with one another, together. This may not be the only time that we share these things, but it will be the only time that we share these things together.
Honoring our Land and Space
We respect and value queer owned spaces. Treat this like your butch, sissy, auntie, guncle, girl, boi, sis, kween, pronoun free, or whoever’s queer house. We want to keep this space beautiful and better than the way we found it. Please be sure to clean up after yourself and if you see a mess with no one around, take a minute to clean it up without question. We all have to do our part to keep these spaces accessible and available to our communities.
Conflict Resolution & Safety
If you have experienced physical aggression, bullying or coercion, or any form of racism, transphobia, ableism, body shaming, misogyny, ageism, homophobia, or any other form of discrimination, please find one of the gathering crew members so we can work out how to mediate the issue.
The Something Queer Gathering Crew will remove anyone (without a refund) from the event who intentionally acts to harm, intimidate, threaten, abuse or shame others.
We believe in harm reduction and have a harm reduction space established on site for anyone to seek safety, refuge, medical assistance, or needs help with a challenging experience.