Third update on the callout

This is our third update on the public callout of a former collective member, Max, who last month chose to leave the Rosehip Medic Collective. This report-back is to inform people of Max’s decision and to update our community on what the collective has been and is doing in response to the callout.

The callout came from three of Max’s ex-partners and included dissatisfaction with how the collective had responded when contacted privately. In an effort at transparency and to model what we consider best practices toward healing, our two statements issued in March and July contain descriptions of our process and list a number of commitments we made to maintain safety and to grow as a group, as well as a link to the original callout. We welcome questions and clarifications, and will respond to them as well as we can.

In December Max voluntarily ended his membership in our collective. He shared a large amount of his personal process with us over the past months, and he leaves for reasons related to his own needs. Over the last year, we have remained in constant dialogue about our observations and expectations of Max, the limitations we placed on his participation, and his presence in our community. We have appreciated Max’s participation in this dialogue. We intend to remain in supportive communication with him, his partners, and immediate community as best we can even though we will no longer be seeing him regularly or formally.

Here are the most recent and ongoing steps we have taken as a collective since the callout, in order to strengthen our ability to support our community as medics:

  • We held a study group of the entire the collective and some additional community members around survivor support and various models of community-based justice, accountability, and responses to violence and harms perpetrated in queer and trans communities. We value the lessons learned from these readings and discussions, and welcome suggestions of further resources.
  • We continue to send collective members to obtain outside training in best practices for supporting survivors of violence and abuse – and seek to integrate that training with our collective’s own trainings and practice.
  • Though Max has left our collective, we continue our commitments to discussions and training for response to callouts, abuse, and harm. Abuse and violence happen in every community, and we are all capable of experiencing harm or perpetrating it. Because of this, we consider engaging with trauma, violence, consent, and privilege as key to all healing and anti-oppression work.
  • We continue to welcome and appreciate the messages we’ve received, both positive and critical, because we see them as indication that people in communities of resistance are committed to grappling with the complexity and pain of addressing abuse, assault, trauma, callouts, justice, accountability, growth, and healing.

In solidarity.

Rosehip Medics

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