Listen to this page read aloud by a human:
If you want a say in how this community will operate, you can add your feedback at the bottom of this page.
To peruse the rest of our Community Blueprints, click here.
Sharing in the following Commonalities and Core Values & Beliefs is the main requisite for Membership. We use these as a guide for defining our community and vetting whether prospective Members are aligned with our values.
We don’t vet members for queerness, though. Everyone who thinks this is the right community for them is “queer enough,” unless they are a cisgender heterosexual. Cisgender queer people are welcome, with the understanding that DT4T prioritizes the experiences and safety of our trans Members, and especially trans women, over our cisgender members. Questioning folks of all genders and sexualities are encouraged to join us.
But we don’t vet for disability, either. Everyone who thinks this is the right community for them is “disabled enough.”
We lean towards to the Social Model of Disability, which recognizes disability as a social construct rather than a medical determination. No one needs a diagnosis of any kind to join our community. Most of us consider ourselves to be disabled because we experience friction between our abilities and limitations and the environment/society around us, and some members have a different definition that suits them better. We’re all equally welcome here.
Here is a nonexhaustive list of the kinds of disabilities our members may have:
We prioritize the experiences, access, and safety of our terminally ill and severely disabled Members.
We believe that:
As queer people, we have historically had to lean on each other for our survival. We make each other feel seen when no one else does. We find joy in queer connection when the rest of the world makes us feel unsafe.
But as disabled queers, we are routinely robbed of our queer community by abled peers whose compassion ends where our disabled realities begin. Access is not just an afterthought to them, but a burdensome inconvenience. They resent us for expecting to be included. They tell us say, “Stay home if you don’t like how we do things.” Their easy access to fun comes at the expense of our inclusion.
DT4T aims to be the antithesis of those exclusionary communities. We empower our members with everything they need to meet each other’s social needs. We are radically accessible and believe there’s never a good reason to leave anyone out.
We don’t have a leadership team making decisions behind closed doors. We don’t vote, except on major decisions pertaining to DT4T’s administrative processes that affect all members. Instead, we have transparent conversations at our Quarterly Forums, where decisions are reached by the people most directly affected by the outcome.
We practice anti-eugenics, which is why a requisite for membership is to wear a KN95 or N95 mask (or the best mask we can access) 100% of the time we’re in public spaces. We define “public spaces” as anywhere that is open to the public where we’re breathing the same air as strangers. This includes stores, public transportation, crowded outdoor areas, and workplaces.
Not masking in public prevents high-risk individuals from inhabiting those public spaces safely. Therefore, we believe that whenever someone chooses not to mask in a public space, they’re making the statement that higher-risk people do not deserve to share that space.
We are a COVID-realist community who sees masking as a collective responsibility, not an individual one. We will always strive to ensure that no one is turned away based on immune status or the need to protect higher-risk loved ones.
Breaking agreed-upon infectious disease safety precautions is one of the only behaviors that immediately results in a lifetime ban from DT4T, with no opportunity to restore trust.
We respect each member’s right to attend and unmask at private events outside of DT4T because we all have different personal risk tolerances, but DT4T was founded in response to the majority of queer spaces’ refusal to require masks. If a Member is able to have a rich social life at masks-optional events, their social needs will be a lower priority in decision-making than all the rest of the DT4T population, even if they hold multiple marginalized identities. Unlike the majority of our Membership, these individuals already have access to queer community and enriching social lives outside of DT4T. We are still very glad to have them as Members of DT4T, but ask them to participate in our spaces with humility.
We acknowledge the ways that Climate Collapse can disable people, especially in the Global South, where climate disasters are already prolific. We see Environmental Justice and Disability Justice as inherently intertwined.
We approach conflict with the intention to heal and repair any damage that was done. We take personal responsibility for our mistakes.
When we feel angry or reactive, we pause and think through our feelings. When we feel activated, we hold off on engaging until we are calm and ready to show respect to those we disagree with. We never say anything with the intention to cause hurt or confusion. We demonstrate curiosity for each other’s perspectives.
We always assume that other members are acting in the same good faith as we are. If someone does something hurtful or offensive, we assume it was an accident and we address the issue with kindness rather than antagonism. Our goal is to grow together and learn how to coexist more safely, not to pass blame or to establish superiority over others.
Hierarchies aren’t inherently bad; they are natural and useful in many contexts. But, as we shift away from capitalism and individualism towards a collective mindset, we recognize the ways that hierarchies get in the way of community-building and interpersonal connections.
We reject hierarchies on a macro level by not having hierarchical leadership at DT4T and by ensuring we always center our most vulnerable Members’ needs.
On a micro level, we recognize that we all participate in personal hierarchies, like family dynamics or relationship structures that inherently prioritize one person (or a few people) over others. At DT4T, we evaluate whether these structures are serving us or whether they’re holding us back from community connections. Those of us who practice monogamy, marriage, and hierarchical polyamory, for example, are committed to noticing the impacts of our romantic relationships on the other people in our lives. We show up for our fellow Members with the same compassion and urgency we give to our existing relationships and we receive that support in kind.
Naming the privilege and inherent safety that hierarchical systems provide helps us to question individualistic norms and open ourselves up more to the benefits of a non-hierarchical collective.
We do everything in our power to make every aspect of our community—from our web interface to our events—as accessible as possible to as many people as possible.
We also recognize that, as a community of people with diverse disabilities, we often have conflicting access needs. No matter how hard we try, we will never make everything accessible to everyone. That’s one reason we have DIY Events, Groups, and Gatherings. If someone is hosting something cool in-person in another city, we can replicate that same event in our own city. If someone is hosting a workshop led in ASL and gestures (prioritizing visual communication), someone else can host the same workshop in English (prioritizing verbal and written communication). In essence, every Member is empowered with the resources to create and access social activities tailored to their wants and needs.
DT4T was founded in summer 2023 when NYC-area “T4T” leaders stopped requiring masks at their events following the end of the pandemic Public Health Emergency in the US (May 2023).
Prior to that “end” to the pandemic (which is still, in fact, ongoing), these events and organizations did require masks and/or testing, especially when COVID cases were on the rise. They knew we needed to protect each other because the government wasn’t protecting us. Many of these groups even rallied together to successfully stave off a burgeoning mpox epidemic.
But, inexplicably, when Biden said the COVID pandemic was over, most “T4T” leaders chose to believe him. They routinely verbally attack those of us who request that they require masks or provide other accessibility accommodations. As disabled people, we’re sadly used to this kind of treatment, but not so much from our leftist, trans peers.
We find it morally perplexing that most “T4T” leaders seemed to cave so readily to the US government’s eugenics project. We find it sad that so many of our comrades are too cowardly to act in alignment with their supposed values. We find it objectively inaccurate to call these organizations “accessible,” “community-oriented,” or “T4T.”
There are other, wonderful, inclusive, accessible T4T organizations who have held strong in their values, and we are happy to uplift those organizations as we disavow the rest.
To us, T4T means showing up for each other when no one else will. We keep each other safe at all costs. We never punch down. We center those for whom the stakes are highest, which is usually BIPOC, trans women, and severely disabled people.
We believe in:
We all have a lot to heal from, including personal traumas, internalized ableism and transphobia, and oppressive social constructs. Our healing may take the form of therapy, journaling, spirituality, or anything else that helps us face our shadows and learn how to act in alignment with our values.
While we are here to support each other’s growth, most of this healing needs to happen on our own or with the help of qualified professionals. When we don’t do that work on our own, our pain can spill over and hurt other people in our community.
In a fascist society that tries to erase us, it can be particularly hard to ask for help when we need it. Sometimes, it’s even hard to believe we’re worthy of help.
But being able to ask for and accept help is an essential skill for us as members of an intentional community. The community doesn't have the capacity to support members who are more inclined to give into a negative situation than to change it. We take action to improve our own circumstances so we’re resourced to show up for others.
Part of Disability Justice is recognizing the privileges we enjoy that others do not. We don’t believe privilege should be a source of shame, but rather something to acknowledge and, sometimes, even be grateful for. No one is better or worse for having a greater proximity to suffering; we just consider the needs of members with less privilege above those with more privilege when we’re making decisions for the collective.
To find gratitude, we contextualize our suffering in relation to other people’s suffering. As an example, some of us in the US grieve the losses of deceased loved ones and feel deep pain about it, which is real and reasonable. But we’ve lost nothing like refugees in Gaza who, on top of losing all of their cherished people, have also lost their homes, all of the treasured objects that connect them to their loved ones, and their own right to live.
We feel gratitude for all the things we are blessed to still have, even when we’re faced with loss, because we know better than to take human comforts for granted. We know that anyone’s quality of life can turn on a dime
We have all been through social trauma; otherwise, we wouldn’t find ourselves here. Despite that, we do our best to remain open to building trust with new people.
One of the primary benefits of joining DT4T is having access to a pool of people who have already been vetted for values-alignment, airborne disease precautions, and conflict resolution skills. We’ve weeded out as many unsafe agitators as possible to allow for a greater sense of safety among our Membership.