Promoting Diversity and Inclusiveness in the Wellness Space with Maygen Nicholson

Yoga and meditation are crucial tools we use in an increasingly busy and stressful world. But, did you know some people are being excluded in these spaces? The 2SLGBTQIA+ community has long withstood discrimination in society, and the wellness space is no exemption. It’s already difficult to manage stress, what more for those who are marginalized.

In today's episode, Maygen Nicholson breaks down how we can promote diversity and inclusiveness in the wellness spaces and everywhere you go. The first step is understanding. Furthermore, it is a lifelong process that involves continuously educating ourselves and learning from others. The journey will be uncomfortable, but that is part of the work that we need to do.

If you want to learn how to create safe spaces for the non-gender-conforming people in your community, this episode is for you!

Here are three reasons why you should listen to the full episode:

Understand why it’s crucial to honor people’s identities.
Learn how you can embrace diversity and inclusiveness.
Know how to educate yourself and others on the topic.

Resources

Check out the incredible work of the Trans Yoga Project!
Tristan Katz’ website
Maygen and Tristan Katz’ Public Statement regarding J Brown’s podcast interview
Want to learn more from Maygen? Sign up for their workshops!
Connect with Maygen: Website | Instagram | LinkedIn | Facebook | Email
Create a daily meditation ritual in just seven days! Download BUILD YOUR DAILY MEDITATION RITUAL and other freebies at RadicallyLoved.com!
FREE Podcast Action Guide! Apply the lessons you learn from this episode as you listen! Sign up at RadicallyLoved.com, and I’ll send it right away!

Episode Highlights

Honoring Pronouns and Names

Affirming someone in their identity drastically decreases mental health risks.
Misgendering others can cause them to have gender dysphoria, a state of psychological distress.
Doing this also equates to gaslighting the person you are misgendering.
Practice asking how people want to be called.

The Need for Diversity and Inclusiveness in Healing Spaces

Maygen used to hold queer and trans-only yoga classes. Most of their attendees only felt comfortable practicing yoga with them.
Yoga and meditation are important tools for the marginalized.
Yet, many queer and trans people experience harm and discrimination in these wellness spaces.
The main issue is a lack of understanding. So, it’s everybody’s responsibility to learn and do better.
Even the origin of yoga accepts and honors gender-nonconforming people, so why isn’t our modern practice able to do the same?

Educating Ourselves

We all need to educate ourselves on the matter. It is not a gender non-conforming person’s job to teach you.
You will always have a blind spot, so it’s crucial to keep learning from others and your mistakes.
The first step is dismantling your biases around gender, and then learning about what you don’t know.
Promoting diversity and inclusivity is less about knowing the right language and more about making other people feel seen and heard.

Divestment and Support

There are still a lot of important conversations to have.
For instance, the number of black trans people being murdered is increasing every year.
It’s not possible to cancel people with immense privilege. What you can do instead is to divest or pull away from them.
It’s exhausting for people in the community to constantly speak about their marginalization.
As an ally, you can show your support for diversity and inclusiveness by talking to the people in your life.

Embracing Diversity and Inclusiveness

We have to graduate from tokenism and confront our biases within ourselves.
Even if you come from a place of privilege, there are still ways the dominant culture inhibits you from being who you truly are.
It’s going to take a while before spaces created by cis white people become safe for everyone. In the meantime, you can create these spaces yourself.
Hire people from the community to create a more diverse workspace.
Advocating for diversity and inclusiveness will benefit you too, as it will make your space richer.

Taking Action

Ideas are not helpful if they only live in your head. You need to put your knowledge into action.
Different identities have long existed before colonization.
As such, promoting diversity and inclusiveness is also a process of reclamation.

5 Powerful Quotes from This Episode

[09:53] “I think that that's the biggest problem. It's like so because you don't want to offend, you just don't say anything. That's not the point either.”

[17:41] “It's every person's responsibility to do the work, whether or not you have somebody in your life. It's also really important to know that it is not a trans or non-binary or gender nonconforming person's job to educate you.”

[19:17] “The first step is dismantling all your biases around gender or learning what you don't know about it.”

[20:24] ”Let go of any need to assume in the first place, that we look at somebody and we just know who they are.”

[36:44] “Since the beginning of time, these identities have existed and a multitude of cultures all over the world. So this is a reclamation process.”

About Maygen

Maygen Nicholson is an LGBTQIA+ Inclusion and Validation Educator, Changemaker, Truthteller, and Wellness Leader. They are passionate about helping to liberate hearts and minds free of beliefs and biases that hold us back from our true, authentic selves. To do this, Maygen facilitates safe spaces for LGBTQIA+ inclusion and validation education with an intersectional lens rooted in wellness.

Maygen trained as a professional dancer and became a yoga teacher. They saw the inherent queer and trans exclusion and discrimination within these two industries. These experiences led them to hold queer and trans-specific yoga sessions and reach out to the greater public through education workshops and learning sessions.

Learn more about Maygen’s work on their website.

You can also reach out to them via Instagram, Linkedin, Facebook, and email.