KEY TERMS
*Shakti’s Core Values: The Following Terms are defined by Shakti Power Yoga Athens
Social Equity: A system that ensures all community members can participate, prosper, and reach their full potential. This includes considering systemic inequalities and prioritizing fairness based on a person’s unique needs.
Body Autonomy: The right to make decisions about your own body, life, and future. This includes having all necessary information and education to make knowledgable and informed decisions for yourself.
Identity Freedom: The freedom to explore and define your own identities, who you are, and to discover what’s truest for you. This includes the offering the freedom for self-trust, growth, and fluidity.
*The following terms were adapted from a project by Sam Killermann, Meg bolger, & TheSafeZoneProject.com
Trans: an umbrella term covering a range of identities that transgress socially-defined gender norms. Trans with an asterisk is often used in written forms (not spoken) to indicate that you are referring to the larger group nature of the term, and specifically including non-binary identities, as well as transgender men (transmen) and transgender women (transwomen).
Transgender: a gender description for someone who has transitioned (or is transitioning) from living as one gender to another. 2 adj. : an umbrella term for anyone whose sex assigned at birth and gender identity do not correspond in the expected way (e.g., someone who was assigned male at birth, but does not identify as a man).
Queer: an umbrella term to describe individuals who don’t identify as straight and/or cisgender. 2 noun : a slur used to refer to someone who isn’t straight and/or cisgender. Due to its historical use as a derogatory term, and how it is still used as a slur many communities, it is not embraced or used by all LGBTQ people. The term “queer” can often be use interchangeably with LGBTQ (e.g., “queer people” instead of “LGBTQ people”).
Gay: experiencing attraction solely (or primarily) to some members of the same gender. Can be used to refer to men who are attracted to other men and women who are attracted to women. 2 adj. : an umbrella term used to refer to the queer community as a whole, or as an individual identity label for anyone who is not straight (see LGBTQ and queer).
Cis (cisgender): a gender description for when someone’s sex assigned at birth and gender identity correspond in the expected way (e.g., someone who was assigned male at birth, and identifies as a man). A simple way to think about it is if a person is not transgender, they are cisgender. The word cisgender can also be shortened to “cis.”
Het (heterosexual): experiencing attraction solely (or primarily) to some members of a different gender.
Asexual: experiencing little or no sexual attraction to others and/or a lack of interest in sexual relationships/behavior. Asexuality exists on a continuum from people who experience no sexual attraction or have any desire for sex, to those who experience low levels, or sexual attraction only under specific conditions. Many of these different places on the continuum have their own identity labels (see demisexual). Sometimes abbreviated to “ace.”
Bisexual: a person who experiences attraction to some men and women. // a person who experiences attraction to some people of their gender and another gender. Bisexual attraction does not have to be equally split, or indicate a level of interest that is the same across the genders an individual may be attracted to. Often used interchangeably with “pansexual”
Pansexual: a person who experiences sexual, romantic, physical, and/or spiritual attraction for members of all gender identities/expressions. Often shortened to “pan.”
Femme: someone who identifies themselves as feminine, whether it be physically, mentally or emotionally. Often used to refer to a feminine-presenting queer woman or people.
Gender binary: the idea that there are only two genders and that every person is one of those two
Gender non-conforming: a gender descriptor that indicates a non-traditional gender expression or identity (e.g., "masculine woman") // a gender identity label that indicates a person who identifies outside of the gender binary. Often abbreviated as “GNC.”
Gender fluid: a gender identity label often used by people whose sense of self in relation to gender changes from time-to-time. The time frame might be over the course of many months, days, shorter, or longer, but the consistent experience is one of change. // a general descriptor for an individual's or society's ever-changing (i.e., "fluid") embodiment of gender, in the ways it affects us or we express it individually (e.g., someone might express gender fluidly), and/or in how it is socially constructed.
Heteronormativity: the assumption, in individuals and/or in institutions, that everyone is heterosexual and that heterosexuality is superior to all other sexualities. Leads to invisibility and stigmatizing of other sexualities: when learning a woman is married, asking her what her husband’s name is. Heteronormativity also leads us to assume that only masculine men and feminine women are straight.
Homophobia: an umbrella term for a range of negative attitudes (e.g., fear, anger, intolerance, resentment, erasure, or discomfort) that one may have toward LGBTQ people. The term can also connote a fear, disgust, or dislike of being perceived as LGBTQ. homophobic // a word used to describe actions, behaviors, or individuals who demonstrate elements of this range of negative attitudes toward LGBTQ people.
Lesbian: women who are primarily attracted romantically, erotically, and/or emotionally to other women. Click here for an article on the use of “butch” and “stud”
Passing: trans* people being accepted as, or able to “pass for,” a member of their self-identified gender identity (regardless of sex assigned at birth) without being identified as trans*. // an LGB/queer individual who is believed to be or perceived as straight.
QTPOC: initialisms that stand for queer people of color and queer and/or trans people of color.
Sexual orientation: the type of sexual, romantic, emotional/spiritual attraction one has the capacity to feel for some others, generally labeled based on the gender relationship between the person and the people they are attracted to. Often confused with sexual preference.
An additional resources for comprehensive terms
*The following definitions were either created by Layla F. Saad or found in her book, Me and White Supremacy
BIPOC: Black, Indigenous, and People of Color
BIWOC: Black, Indigenous and Women of Color
White supremacy: A racist ideology that is based upon the belief that white people are superior in many ways to people of other races and that therefore, white people should be dominant over other races. White supremacy is not just an attitude or a way of thinking. It also extends to how systems and institutions are structured to uphold this white dominance.
White privilege: Describes the unearned advantages that are granted because of one’s whiteness or ability to “pass” as white.
White fragility: Coined by Robin DiAngelo: “A state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves.”
Tone policing: A tactic used by those who have privilege to silence those who do not by focusing on the tone of what is being said rather than the actual content.
White silence: When people with white privilege stay complicity silent when it comes to issues of race and white supremacy.
White superiority: Stems directly from white supremacy’s belief that people with white or white-passing skin are better than and therefore deserve to dominate over people with brown or black skin.
White exceptionalism: The belief that you, as a person holding white privilege, are exempt from the effects, benefits, and conditioning of white supremacy and therefore that the work of antiracism does not really apply to you.
Color blindness: Race-based color blindness is the idea that you do not “see” color. That you do not notice differences in race.
Anti-Blackness: The Movement for Black Lives defines anti-Black racism as a “term used to specifically describe the unique discrimination, violence, and harms imposed on and impacting Black people specifically.”
Racism: The coupling of prejudice with power, where the dominant racial group is able to dominate over all other racial groups and negatively affect those racial groups at all levels.
Cultural appropriation: Ijeoma Oluo: “The adoption or exploitation of another culture by a more dominant culture.”
Allyship: By PeerNetBC: “An active, consistent, and challenging practice of unlearning and reevaluating, in which a person of privilege seeks to work in solidarity with a marginalized group. Allyship is not an identity—it is a lifelong process of building relationships based on trust, consistency, and accountability with marginalized individuals. Allyship is not self-defined—our work and our efforts must be recognized by the people we seek to ally ourselves with.”
White apathy: A self-preservation response to protect yourself from having to face your complicity in the oppression that is white supremacy
White centering: The centering of white people, white values, white norms, and white feelings over everything and everyone else.
Tokenism: The practice of making only a perfunctory or symbolic effort to do a particular thing, especially by recruiting a small number of people from underrepresented groups in order to give the appearance of sexual or racial equality within a workforce.
White saviorism: The belief that people with white privilege, who see themselves as superior in capability and intelligence, have an obligation to “save” BIPOC from their supposed inferiority and helplessness.
Optical allyship: Latham Thomas: “Allyship that only serves at the surface level to platform the ‘ally,’ it makes a statement but doesn’t go beneath the surface and is not aimed at breaking away from the systems of power that oppress.
*The following definitions were created by Susanna Barkataki and Sonali Fisk
Oppression: In a social justice context, this is when an oppressed minority group is systematically denied access to resources by a dominant group.
Oppression can take form as: patriarchy, misogyny, sexism, heterosexism, racism, ableism, ageism, and colonialism.
Internalized oppression: When an oppressed group believes or uses the methods of the oppressor against itself.
Intersectionality: The interconnected nature of social categorizations of privilege and oppression (ie race, class, sexual orientation, gender, dis/ability) as they apply to a given individual or group, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage. Was created as a framework and named as a term by various women of color from Audre Lorde to Kimberle Crenshaw to specifically speak to their experience of intersectional oppression as both women and folks of color. This analysis was a way of naming and advocating for acknowledgement of their experience as distinct from the feminist framing of white, heterosexual, middle-class, generally women who were defining feminism and the female experience solely from their experience.
Decolonize: The process of becoming independent from the colonizer and colonial, capitalist, white supremacist heteropatriarchy.
Indigenize: Honoring, respecting, and reconnecting to one’s indigenous roots before colonization and white supremacy.
Reclaim: Going back to the origins of one’s roots and recovering the whitewashed ways colonization and white supremacy co-opted one’s rituals, practices, knowledge, and ways.
Privilege: A special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group. The systematic process, and results of that process, of the unequal distribution of resources, access, opportunities, leverage, etc in society.
Spiritual bypassing: The "tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks". It is frequently used in spiritual communities and spaces to avoid confronting or having to grapple with privilege, especially around racism and whiteness. The term was coined in 1984 by John Welwood.
Power: Systemic power refers to access to and proximity to resources, institutions, leverage, privileges, and ability to use those for one’s own benefit and the benefit of one’s group.
White saviorism: The attitude and action of wanting to “help” people of color without necessarily listening to them about what support or advocacy is wanted or needed from you or any other white folks at any particular moment. White saviorism is steeped in paternalism and sweeps in with an attitude of “I know what’s best for you” and “I am so virtuous for helping you poor people.” Unhelpful at best, and at worst (most of the time) extremely harmful.
White fragility: Discomfort and defensiveness on the part of a white person when confronted by information about racial inequality and injustice. A state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves. All of these moves ultimately serve to re-center whiteness and shift conversation away from race, racism, racial justice, white supremacy, etc.
Intersectionality: The interconnected nature of social categorizations of privilege and oppression (ie race, class, sexual orientation, gender, dis/ability) as they apply to a given individual or group, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage. Was created as a framework and named as a term by various women of color to specifically speak to their experience of intersectional oppression as both women and folks of color. This analysis was a way of naming and advocating for acknowledgement of their experience as distinct from the feminist framing of white, heterosexual, middle-class, generally women who were defining feminism and the female experience solely from their experience.
Resilience: The capacity to restore, renew, and recover from oppression
Healing: The process of recovering and restoring from the trauma of oppression
Self-care: Self-prescribed and self-determined practice of restoring one’s wellbeing
Boundary Work: Honoring and protecting your peace and personal space, from the oppressor