Community Rules

1. Always be kind – Love your neighbor as yourself, set the boundaries you need to set to be healthy, and respect the boundaries of others. No name calling, shaming, threatening speech, or intentionally using someone’s wrong name or pronouns, etc. In that same spirit, TMC does not allow “doxing” (posting the personal information of another person without the consent of that individual), or “dogpiling” (encouraging others to publicly attack individuals via social media), or any other form of internet harassment internally or external to the community.

2. Protect others’ right to self-disclose – Don’t share information about the people you meet in TMC groups outside of the TMC community unless you have their permission, since they may not be “out” as trans or gender-expansive in other parts of their life.

3. No conversion or evangelism pressure – No staff member, board member, volunteer, or community member is allowed to pressure others to experience or interact with faith the way that they do. You’re also not allowed to belittle or make fun of anyone else’s faith tradition.

• No posts about self-harm, suicide, or suicidal ideation are allowed in the Discord server. If you are currently harming yourself or considering harming yourself, please contact the friendly people at the Crisis Text Line in the US, Canada, or UK; Trans Lifeline in the US and Canada, or Befrienders worldwide, who are skilled and ready to help you!
• Talking about self-harm, suicide, and suicidal ideation is allowed within support groups, but only after the person sharing provides a verbal content warning, at which time the leader will give any group members who may want to skip this part of the conversation time to mute their sound or take off their headphones. Once the speaker is done sharing, the leader will type in the chat box to let everyone know that it’s safe to turn sound on and come back into the conversation.
• Talking privately with TMC staff about struggles with self-harm and suicidal ideation is allowed, but because they are not mental health professionals they aren’t able to help you in the ways you need, and will always point you back toward the crisis hotlines and other certified mental health resources. If you choose not to contact these resources despite being in crisis, the TMC staff member has the right to set a communication boundary and stop responding to your messages until you have contacted a mental health professional or helpline. If a TMC staff member chooses to set this boundary they will explain the boundary to you before stopping communication.
• TMC staff cannot be on video or in a call with someone when they’re harming themselves. If that happens, staff will share crisis resources with the community member and must end the call. If you know you’re in a place where you might hurt yourself, you can cancel the meeting ahead of time or ask the staff member to talk via Discord chat DMs instead.
• TMC does not participate in non-consensual active rescue, which means that we will not call the police or emergency services on someone who expresses suicidal thoughts or who we believe may be a danger to themself. This is because emergency calls are most often responded to by police, and we know that transgender and gender-expansive individuals in the United States experience a high rate of abuse and death at the hands of law enforcement. Following the lead of other trans-led organizations like Trans Lifeline, we will only contact local authorities if someone directly asks us to, if there is a credible threat to a third party.

• Conversations about drug and alcohol addiction and recovery are allowed, but should be prefaced with a content warning. When discussing substance use and recovery in the Discord server, conversation should take place in the #cw-substance-recovery channel or covered by the Discord “spoiler” feature. When discussing substance use and recovery in support groups, the person sharing should give a verbal content warning to give others the opportunity to disconnect from audio for the duration of the conversation if needed. Support group leaders will actively facilitate this process.

• Use of illegal substances, or being under the influence of an illegal substance, is never allowed while participating in any TMC program. Use of legal or illegal drugs, including smoking and vaping, is not allowed while participating in any online TMC programming that includes audio or video aspects, including support groups and workshops. This respects the fact that we have people in our community who are in recovery who may be triggered by people using or showing up under the influence of addictive substances. There is no penalty for being under the influence of legal drugs (including alcohol, tobacco, and cannabis) while participating in text-based programming such as the Discord server.

• Use of legal substances (ie. alcohol, smoking, or cannabis where legal) is allowed at in-person TMC events including TMC Summer Meetups. However, please be mindful of others present if engaging in legal substance use , as some in our community may be under the legal age, or in recovery and triggered by substance use.

• TMC believes in the importance of mutual aid within and between communities, and we are currently working to integrate the sharing of resources and information into our programming. We began by creating the #mutual-aid channel in our Discord server which can be accessed by the trans and gender-expansive people in our community. If you are in need of food, housing, or other resources, or if you have a resource or talent you’d like to share with the community, those requests/offerings should be posted in the #mutual-aid channel. All hosted fundraisers on sites such as GoFundMe should also be posted to the #mutual-aid channel. Requests for funding/housing/other resources that are posted outside of the #mutual-aid channel will be deleted at the Discord moderators’ discretion in order to keep things organized.

• We recognize that mutual aid is inherently messy, and not everyone will always be happy with the outcomes. By participating in any act of mutual aid through TMC programming, the participant agrees to assume all risks and waives all claims against TMC for compensation for any loss, damage, personal injury, or death occurring as a consequence of their participation.

• No part of the Discord server, including the #mutual-aid channel, may be used to organize sharing of illegal substances, including non-prescription hormones, as this is against Discord’s terms of service policy and risks our server being shut down.

• Direct messaging or otherwise asking individuals one-on-one in the TMC community for money, housing, or other resources is not allowed.

• TMC prohibits all sexual harassment, and takes all allegations of sexual harassment on the part of TMC staff, board members, volunteers, or community members seriously. Sexual harassment includes, but is not limited to, making unwanted sexual advances, requests for sexual favors with negative consequences for refusal, sending unwanted sexual content to someone else online, or spreading sexual content of another person without that person’s consent. Anyone who believes that they may have experienced or observed sexual harassment related to TMC should report it via the Community Reporting Form here. No retaliation will be allowed against someone who reports a situation of sexual harassment.

• TMC prohibits all discrimination based on race, ethnicity, color, creed, religion, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, medical condition, age, height, weight, or marital or parental status in our programs, activities, and employment opportunities. Anyone who believes they may have experienced or observed discrimination or harassment based on one or more of these categories within the TMC community should report it via the Community Reporting Form here. No retaliation will be allowed against someone who reports a situation of discrimination or harassment.
• TMC prohibits all kinds of spiritual abuse, and takes all allegations of spiritual abuse on the part of TMC staff, board members, or volunteers seriously. A general definition of spiritual abuse includes incidents in which someone with actual or perceived spiritual authority uses that authority to manipulate others for the benefit of that individual, or their religious group or organization. Anyone who believes that they may have experienced or observed spiritual abuse related to the TMC community should report it via the Community Reporting Form here. No retaliation will be allowed against someone who reports a situation of discrimination or harassment.

The set of rules above is version 3.0, published on January 24th, 2022, and is currently in use. Version 1.0 was published on October 15th, 2020. A record of the edits to our community rules can viewed by clicking the button below.