Praxis is… coming out!

In this last season, Praxis:

facilitated a 2-part workshop, Exploring Power & Privilege + Creating a Culture of Feedback, with Northwest Side Housing Center
Interrupting Microaggressions + Creating a Culture of Feedback with Grainger
led several sessions of Trans and Gender Non-Conforming (TGNC) Affirming Best Practices with Be Yoga Andersonville, Friends of the Forest Preserves, Feeding America employees, and the Field Museum leadership
consulted with Planned Parenthood and Embrace Sexual Wellness to evaluate their current programming
moderated the first of a two-panel series entitled Gender Identity Allyship and Strategies in the Workplace with the American Medical Association
facilitated a public workshop called Somebody I love is nonbinary and raised $1,097 for LiftyBoi and Han Training’s new gym (the first openly QTPOC-owned and run fitness facility in Chicago)

And... we've rebranded!

Becoming Praxis: Our relaunch!

In partnership with Danbee Kim of Oori Studio, we've updated our logo and overall aesthetic to match our evolution.

HOW IT STARTED → HOW IT'S GOING

**Image description 1:** Praxis Group is written in all capital letters in the middle a dark teal triangle. The words come out the sides and the triangle doesn't completely close so that the letters can expand outward. Praxis is slightly bigger and placed above Group.

**Image description 2:** A dynamic triangle in various shades of teal. There are no words in the image.

This pandemic has taught us a lot of things, one being that time is fake. We can't believe it's been more than 3 years since we launched Praxis.

Since 2018, we've worked with 54 clients. Our team is bolder. All of our workshops look critically at how white supremacy has an impact on all of us and how it negatively impacts teams. Internally we are looking at how our workshops have centered whiteness and how we can create a more inclusive environment to learn and grow along with our clients. We challenge our clients and workshop participants to confront difficult conversations and think through elegant next steps (as defined by adrienne maree brown in Emergent Strategy).

We've kept the triangle in our logo but added more dimension to represent our team's growth as we prioritize our own learning and cultural humility. The triangle symbolizes community, solidarity, queerness and change. We - often led by Black trans women - have used this symbol as we’ve spent decades fighting for human rights and creating joy.

Our equity statement

🗹 We are committed to learning and growth.
🗹 We believe in cultural humility and understand that learning is a lifelong commitment.
🗹 We recognize that anti-Black racism is pervasive in our communities.
🗹 We recognize that feedback is a gift of someone investing their time and energy in me.
🗹 We will give and receive feedback with grace, recognizing that we are socialized to get defensive and that we may need to address that inclination.
🗹 We understand that impact weighs more than intention.
🗹 We will center those who are harmed, meaning we will hold the needs of survivors/victims over the feelings of the person who caused harm.
🗹 We will continue to work to name and examine the ways in which we have power and privilege and how we can use that to truly stand in solidarity with marginalized people and communities.
🗹 We understand it is not the responsibility of marginalized people to educate us.
🗹 We commit to cultivate human potential by increasing racial equity; creating employment and business opportunities; and investing equitably in our communities.
🗹 We are centering BIPOC communities, believing BIPOC communities and affirming that BIPOC communities are valuable, the experts of their own experience and deserve lives of love and dignity.
🗹 We recognize joy as the foundation for our collective healing and liberation.
🗹 We believe in both self-care and community-care are necessary.
🗹 We reject the scarcity model and its roots in white supremacy.
🗹 We believe in abundance and our abilities to care for ourselves, our loved ones and our communities.
🗹 We believe none of us are free until all of us are free.
🗹 We are abolitionists and are actively working towards a world without police or prisons.

Raffle

Over the summer Praxis partnered with Luxe Beauty & Body Sculpting to offer 6 full face laser hair removal sessions each to 2 BIPOC TGNC community members in the Chicagoland area. Thank you so much to Brittni Thomas for making this possible!

Luxe Beauty is Chicago's first trans-owned skin and beauty bar! It is located on the 3rd floor in the Nordstrom on Michigan Ave.

What's next?

As we move into our next stage together, you can look forward to

Restorative Justice circle opportunities with Tiffany
Workshops in Spanish open to the public
Revamped workshops with a focus on group-centered learning
Train-the-trainer opportunities and guidance for internal workgroups to make their trainings more trans-affirming and gender inclusive
One-on-one consultations to review and update your forms and/or paperwork

Speaking of Spanish workshops... our full website has been translated into Spanish! Thank you so much to Bonsai Bermudez of the Youth Empowerment Performance Project (YEPP)! We are constantly working to make our work more accessible.

National Coming Out Day

On October 11, we celebrated Coming Out Day with a new post on Instagram. (The algorithm hates us, please go show us some love!)

Tiffany (she/her) said:
National Coming Out Day will always feel significant to me because there was a long period of my life when I felt I would never come out. Coming out was scary for me, but in doing so I learned to be able to embrace my full and authentic self. And that has been the greatest gift I could give to myself. Coming out blessed me with a second family and I am grateful everyday for their love and support. To my LGBTQ2IA+ family everywhere (out or not), you are worthy, you are wanted, you are loved.

We are basking in the abundant love we have for each other. Whether you decide to be out or not doesn’t change that.

Image description: a photo of Tiffany that is photoshopped onto the background of a smart phone. Tiffany is outside smiling with her hands on her hips. She’s wearing hoop earrings and a septum piercing. The top left of the photo has Praxis’s logo and the top right has Facebook, Twitter and Instagram logos with @praxischi underneath. The top half of the background is peach and the bottom half has a red wave. Over the phone and photo of Tiffany is an alert-like white bubble that has an icon of an alarm bell and the words “National Coming Out Day” next to it. Underneath is a gold line and the words “Coming out was scary for me, but in doing so I learned to be able to embrace my full and authentic self. And that has been the greatest gift I could give to myself.” in black font.” The very bottom says “www.praxischi.com” in white capital letters.

New clients

If you'd like to schedule a free consultation, please fill out this form.

Referrals

If you’re looking for a referral for an alternative facilitator or training team, please check out this community-generated list. There are a lot of BIPOC offering consulting services nationwide / some of the best facilitators we know don’t have websites or meet the “criteria” that dominant and oppressive cultures value as “legitimate.” In order to assist you in searching for collaborators, we’ve opened a form to collect the information of BIPOC facilitators for you to reach out to. Praxis Group does not necessarily know or vouch for anyone on the community-generated list; we try our hardest to not participate in gatekeeping. If you are a BIPOC consultant doing work similar to Praxis Group, please fill out the form to be added to our spreadsheet.

Want to support us?

One of the simplest ways to support us is to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Linkedin, and invite your friends to follow us, too!

Most of our partnerships happen via word of mouth and we're really grateful for all your support.

We are also looking for new testimonials from our past clients that we can add to our website. If you’ve worked with us before and would be willing to share, please reply to this e-mail with 2-5 sentences about your experience with Praxis.

Autumn 2021 Updates