“A deep dive! Having done so many courses around sexuality and spirituality, this course was deeply healing. A space for LGBTQ+ and allies to dive deeply, in safety. . .
For the first time in my entire lifespan, I was able to engage with a part of myself that I didn’t fully recognize as closeted. . . . Healing a deep part of who I am and allowing me to love fully, all of me. For that I am forever filled with gratitude. . .”
~ Jacqueline Tamri, South Africa
“When I started the course, I thought it would help work through a recent trauma; instead layers were peeled back enabling me to deeply and sincerely reflect on a childhood trauma. With a gentle touch, GERI helped me understand the need to love, care and nurture my inner child. I never questioned if I am gay or had internal conflicts growing up. I knew that I was gay from an early age despite this, I find myself on a path of healing past trauma.
I found the course extremely valuable as it allowed me to understand that healing needs to happen on each part of my identity: black, queer, Muslim, male, South African. We tend to only focus on one part without understanding that each part makes the whole. I commit to loving my inner child more. I commit to playing a more meaningful role in our LGBTQ+ community. I commit to opening myself up to love. . .”
~ Sikhander Coopoo, South Africa
GERI launched the online LGBTQ+ Healing Across the Gender Spectrum course in February, 2022. This is a special program of GERI that invites people of all sexes, gender identities and expressions and sexual orientations into an intimate space of reflection, truth telling and storytelling around issues of gender and sexuality.
Over the past year, we have convened two LGBTQ+ specialized 7-week online courses, conducted public online tasters with close to 70 registrants across four continents, and continued to build and implement programs for healing between queer and straight believers in affirming South African churches.
As GERI Trainer and LGBTQ+ Project Lead Tristan Johannes reflects:
The GERI application to the LGBTQ+ community is so needed and an important aspect of this work. I have been deeply touched and moved as a facilitator and trainer of this work to witness and see how people on the gender spectrum have shown up with a deep sense of vulnerability and proclaiming boldly “I’m queer and I’m here”.
One participant in our course shared her struggles with her sexuality as a queer woman in a patriarchal society and how difficult it had been to maintain a facade for more than 20 years of her adulthood. Only after the passing of her mother was she able to live into her authentic self and began to unpack this interrelationship between gender and sexuality. I listened with a compassionate heart to the outcry shared by many during the closing council to make public spaces more intimate for all on the gender spectrum.
In the year to come, we envisage offering new programs to LGBTQ+ communities from Australia, India, and North and Latin America, Europe, and beyond. We are also planning to introduce and facilitate GERI’s LGBTQ+ program in person in Africa in 2023. Following the recent 30th Anniversary of GERI, we are also deeply committed to expand the GERI LGBTQ+ work with other organizations who share similar values and ethos to the Gender Equity and Reconciliation work.