As a social worker, I had committed to being a presence of love, justice and healing within existing systems, and I spent many years practicing and advocating for models of harm reduction, integration and trauma-informed care inside of existing organizations and institutions, in an effort to address and reduce these disparities.

As a White, cisgender person with two advanced degrees and the ability to practice in clinical/medical settings, I poured my privilege and my energy into humanizing the ways in which human service organizations and institutions respond to those who have been overlooked or excluded, only to find that my intersecting marginalized, minoritized and vulnerable identities suffered within these dominant models of care.

As a person with chronic health conditions and multiple Queer identities, despite my training and high degree of health literacy, I have experienced harm both receiving and providing services within existing systems, which can be prone to oppressive, ableist, queer-phobic and patriarchal ways of thinking and practicing. I have witnessed first-hand the ways in which these systems can be resistant to change, even in the interest of justice. I struggled with participating in systems that were not receptive to growth opportunities, and worried that I was participating in perpetuating harm upon the individuals and communities who needed their care.