The BIPOC urban community are currently presented with threats in our ever-shifting world. This presentation aims to uncover what happens when said populations are given back their ancestral tools of transformation and ritual. It highlights the ancient power of that which has come to be known under its umbrella term shamanism. Specifically, this presentation also aims to show the safety of high dose mushroom work beyond the 10 grams range, and how initiation into it can help the release of traumas presented by the ongoing systemic limitations on marginalized people. As BIPOC LGBTQIA+ populations are amongst the most marginalized, this presentation focuses on their specific challenges, and how to rise above them.

This presentation will explore the ways in which psychedelic spaces can be made more inclusive and affirming of transgender individuals. Presenters will discuss the ways in which the psychedelic movement can be utilized as a tool for transgender liberation and acceptance. Using an intersectional lens, they will discuss strategies for creating an atmosphere of safety and acceptance for transgender individuals in psychedelic spaces, both online and in-person. Special attention will be given to the unique needs of different transgender communities and populations. Furthermore, they will consider the complex relationship between gender identity and the psychedelic experience, and how it can be used as a tool for exploration and growth. Finally, they will provide practical tips and advice for how to create a more inclusive psychedelic community. This presentation will seek to encourage the creation of a valuable platform for transgender individuals to share their stories and experiences, and will be a powerful tool for advocating for the rights of transgender people in the psychedelic space.

During this interdisciplinary interaction, Deenaalee dives into the silence and expression surrounding medicine ways in the North.

joie wolfw-m-n has been participating in, co-creating, and facilitating group psychedelic experiences in rural and wilderness settings since 1984, and doing so in specifically queer settings since 1990. This presentation will detail the history of these communities in psychedelic ceremony, how they are co-created and structured, and how they have specifically helped queer and trans people integrate and heal from traumatic personal and cultural experiences, as well as have deeply spiritual experiences. Many of the communities referenced developed rituals with psychedelic exploration in the face of the aids epidemic and its impact on marginalized cohorts. They will discuss the use of psychedelics in processing grief, both personal and collective, as well as the incorporation of psychedelics into the death experience. Also explored are adaptations that can be made to accommodate a widely variable range of ceremony participants (3-600 people) grounded in localized community culture and intention.

To my friends in the psychedelic community: It is time for a reckoning. The time for soft homophobia and transphobia is past. The community must grapple with the psychedelic movement’s entrenched bias against gender and sexually diverse people. For decades, the history of harmful and unethical psychedelic conversion therapy has been swept under the rug, when it should be put on par with MKUltra and sexual abuse as among the core harms perpetrated by psychedelic leaders that continue today. LGBTQIA+ folks are subjected in psychedelic spaces to a litany of harms, including extra homophobic and transphobic stress, prejudice, and discrimination. Straight folks should step up—to share in the work ahead through specific reforms: 100% compliance with preferred name and gender pronouns; 100% LGBTQIA+ parity for reporting of outcomes for participants in psychedelic research; the formation of a “Psychedelic Organization Equality Index” evaluation for psychedelic employers; a “Psychedelic Census” with comprehensive reporting of board and officer diversity for psychedelic organizations; and a “Psychedelic Participant Index,” evaluating psychedelic research participant and patient experiences. The time is right for the formation of a “Psychedelic Conversion Survivors” project to collect the living histories of people who underwent conversion therapy in the 1950s–70s, and those who still survive homophobic and transphobic treatments in retreat centers and other settings. There must be an explicit ban on conversion therapy from psychedelic practice organizations. New gender and sexually-diverse affirming therapies should be tested in clinical trials designed by and for queer folx. Community and underground practitioners in the Santo Daime, UDV, and at Takiwasi, as well as in Oregon, Jamaica, Costa Rica and other environments where psychedelics are being used, must stop discriminating and stop top-down gender sorting that instantiates patriarchal heterosexist gender binaries and does harm to non-binary and transgender folx. The queer psychedelic community should look inward to dismantle internalized racism, classism, ageism, ableism, and sexism in our thinking and practices. There is an urgent need for allyship with other target groups. Dear straight folks in in the psychedelic community: It is time to have this reckoning, to share the burden of reform, and to take urgent action. Psychedelic medicine in an LGBTQIA+ affirming community container may provide a powerful healing way—a way that draws on queer wisdom and ancestries and points toward a more affirming, self-loving, and collectively caring future for marginalized people.

As psychedelics as medicines move toward more legalization and widespread cultural acceptance, questions regarding equity and access for people from diverse backgrounds remain an important focus. In this panel, we will be discussing how personal experiences with intersectional identity have informed our work as psychedelic-assisted therapists and researchers. Through sharing personal narratives as well as examples from clinical and research settings involving therapy with MDMA, psilocybin, and ketamine, we will explore the role of the therapist in holding space for individuals from non-dominant groups, such as those who may identify as queer or BIPOC. We invite reflection on how, in the transformative crucible of psychedelic-assisted therapy, representation by therapists who share aspects of intersectional identities with clients can help to foster an atmosphere of safety, support, understanding, and trust in the healing and recovery process.

It’s now widely accepted that the trauma of our ancestors is stored in our DNA, with a myriad of scientific studies demonstrating that ancestors of traumatized populations experience greater physical and mental health challenges. While the scientific language around the phenomenon remains largely undeveloped, there is growing evidence that ayahuasca can heal trauma embedded into one’s epigenetics, getting to the root of deep and lingering issues often resistant to more traditional therapies. This neuroplasticity engendered by ayahuasca presents incredible potential for healing individuals and populations burdened with the collective traumas of history, a group that of course includes LGBTQIA+ communities worldwide. Music in particular can heal, especially when intentionally shared and directed in a psychedelic, ceremonial, and/or therapeutic context. In this musically-enhanced presentation, I will share and explore the science and spirit of music used as a traditional and contemporary healing modality, with an emphasis on music in consort with ayahuasca, and how it informed my study and understanding of the intersections of epigenetics, neuroplasticity, and Eastern mysticism. I will share how confronting my own ancestral and identity-related trauma resulted in a journey of transformation that challenged and “healed” all notions of cultural and sexual identity. Supported by fellow medicine musicians, Ksenia Luki and Shireen Jarrahian, the presentation will segue into a medicine music “prayerformance” celebration.

This presentation looks at the experience of being a queer American woman in a traditional Brazilian ayahuasca church. The presenter recounts her time in the community of Céu do Mapiá, the Amazonian home of the international branch of Santo Daime, beginning in 1997. She talks about how her orientation-affirming experiences in ayahuasca ceremonies contrasted with the negative view of homosexuality she heard expressed in the community. The presenter discusses how this led her to write her dissertation on gay people’s experience with ayahuasca and its effect on their perception of identity. The view of sexuality of Brazilians versus Americans is contrasted and a sexual scandal involving a Padrinho in the church and the way it was handled are referenced as background for the evolution of the author’s understanding of the effect of culture and religion on psychedelic experiences. The influence of television and the acceleration of contemporary influences on the religious community, leading to greater freedom in dressing and behavior, are presented as evidence that change is possible even in such traditional settings. The presentation concludes with some thoughts on the dangers of mystification and superstition and the hope that the messages in the hymns of the church that calls for unity and equality among all people are put into practice, with the value of each person recognized.

My mentor often says that the longest road in existence is the one between the mind and heart. My life experience is much like a divergent map filled with a network of roads. Some roads have led me to beauty, others to war, but the exploratory road of queerness has been one that has been the most complex to navigate. As all of my life experiences intersected, psychedelic medicine began gently calling in the most unexpected period of my life. Queerness innocently made its appearance first on my life journey. A timid curiosity filled with questions no person I knew would be able to answer at the tender age of 6. In childhood, religious fear shackled the spirit of my authenticity. Cloaking it with shame and forcing other mechanisms of survival to thrive in its place. Intuition provided a safety net of silence and ambiguity, as I struggled to find my true north. It was challenging to find safe harbor in the middle of a turbulent ocean of judgement, damnation and transference of generational trauma. The military added specific skills to my arsenal of tools. Don’t ask, don’t tell provided an odd pocket of safety that allowed me to quietly fly under the radar and complete my time in service. Psychedelic medicine began to call me at the age of 26. Psilocybin became my first teacher. With trusted guides, I journeyed together with the redwoods for the first time. This experience would be one that opened my mind and heart to a type of healing I didn’t know existed. Join Itzel in this interactive breakout session that aims to unite veterans and others interested in supporting and reflecting on the intersectional issues around these topics.

Psychedelics can lead to deep, profound, and sometimes surprising explorations of self and identity well beyond questions of sex, gender and sexual orientation; but to the very core of what it is to be a conscious human organism. Through this guided meditation and discussion, we will explore psychedelic mystic vision, gender and sexual fluidity, and personal and ultimate identity.

Black-lesbian-mother-warrior-poet Audre Lorde, over fifty years ago schooled us that the erotic, coming from the Greek root, eros, is “the personification of love in all its aspects – born of Chaos, and personifying creative power and harmony”. Not solely about sexuality or even sensuality, it’s about connecting with our life force. It’s an invitation to audaciously and fully lean into our aliveness – to allow ourselves to truly feel. We can tap into our erotic power via relationship: relationship to the Self (relating to our intuition, trusting the self); relationship to “other” (deep, intimate relationships – of all kinds); relationship to the soma (relating to our bodies; embodiment). As queer folx in particular, what does it mean to tap into our collective erotic power? And how might our access to erotic power be an act of resistance? What might be created for our future if we commit to communing with our erotic power? And what role might our relationships to entheogens, plant medicines or psychedelics play in the spiritual work of engaging our erotic power? Let’s explore these questions and more through a lens of collective liberation and remembering Audre Lorde’s words: “The erotic is the nurturer or nursemaid of all our deepest knowledge.

Centering the belief that psychedelics are inherently queer and deny codification, we will share case examples and personal experiences of how psychedelics can be used to broaden individuals’ understanding of the limitless nature of gender. The facilitators of this break out session will share their reflections on this type of therapeutic self discovery and affirmation work and will also hold space for audience members to join them on stage to volunteer their own perspectives that honor the inherent queerness of psychedelics and to ask questions that deepen our understanding of the practicalities of using psychedelics to examine gender expansiveness. Together, this session will tackle challenging questions, invite expansive ideas, and deepen our understanding of the interplay of gender, sexuality and psychedelics.

Within a Kink/BDSM context, power exchange can be deeply healing and liberating. In fact, it can be a fully psychedelic experience. The altered states of consciousness that are often inherent as a part of a dominant/submissive relationship or scene invite deep exploration of our connection to embodied liberation. In this interactive breakout session, we will explore how non-ordinary states of consciousness offer an opportunity to deeply explore our relationship to power, including our primal and shadow parts. We will discuss how Kink and its psychedelic elements can be a path towards freedom. We will have the opportunity to experience where power lives in the energy body and how we embody and alchemize that power as we move towards personal sovereignty and collective liberation.

The psychedelic experience can increase awareness of the sentience and interconnectedness in all living things, heightening one’s connection to the cosmos. When we are in relationship with the planets and stars as multivalent, archetypal beings, we realize that the psychedelic “set and setting” includes the movement and alignment of the heavenly bodies as well as local conditions. Explore astrology with us from an earth-based, decolonial lens as we engage with the cross-cultural archetypes emergent in the psychedelic experience of our queer eternal elders, the planets.

This break out session is an embodied exploration of isolation as a societal fail rather than individual failing. Using intimate experiential activities and vulnerable discussion this interactive session will generate tools to tolerate and stay with what is usually hidden. Through this, we will take power away from the shame and guilt of loneliness while simultaneously creating clarity and possibility. Practitioners are invited to join this workshop specifically, as our industry (what industry?) is a powerful tool of oppression. Although we have the unique possibility to build connections to support in the healing of others as they detach from colonial beliefs, the work begins with us. This workshop will focus on our isolation, so we can offer freedom to others. Participants will have opportunities to connect to self and techniques to use with others. All activities will be done with comfort, consent and expansion in mind.

Psychedelics can be a powerful tool for individual self expression, empowerment, connection and liberation. The coming tsunami of the psychedelic movement also has the potential to influence cultural transformation towards racial and social justice on a broad scale. In order to effectively shepherd this psychedelic wave towards reshaping our culture, we must create intentional space for our communities to heal from marginalization, connect with each other, and dream to create this culture shift together. This interactive breakout session, focused on engaging psychedelics as a crucible for collective liberation is the beginning of a conversation we hope to have in this space. We will review together some foundational knowledge of radical collective social justice healing practices, what we can learn from other healing liberation movements, and also engage in a practical conversation on the creation of culturally specific peer affinity networks for psychedelic facilitators who are members of and serve marginalized communities for the purpose of support, education, connection, and healing activism. It is especially important to strengthen these networks as Oregon and Colorado get ready to launch training programs for psychedelic therapists. Join us in creating mycelial networks with the power to crack the bedrock of colonialism.

Dossie Easton, co-author of The Ethical Slut and Radical Ecstasy: S/M Journeys to Transcendence, started her psychedelic journeys in 1962, initially in New York City, and since 1967 here in the Bay Area. In 1963 she dropped out of college to become a psychedelic and sexual revolutionary, and is happy to notice how successful that revolution has been in many ways, particularly the claiming of sexual freedom for all the queer people. In this presentation, she will review her journey and share about her own awakenings to freedom in mind and body, culminating in 1969 in a transformative LSD trip that made it clear that her path was sexuality and that spirituality and sexuality are really the same thing.

Courtney Watson is the founder of a ketamine clinic, among the first openly claiming space for queer and BIPOC healing. In this talk, Courtney will be walking us through the queerness of ketamine. From molecule to practice ketamine is inherently connected to the plight of queer people. She will discuss some of the hows and whys we can prioritize the needs of queer folx in ketamine assisted psychotherapy and identify ways queer folx can take up space in the psychedelic psychotherapy landscape.

Since some of the earliest civilizations known the humankind, parallels between mystical abilities such as shamanism and “witchcraft”, and gender variance and neurodivergence, for example, have been drawn. However, dominant narratives have erased the significant presence and influence of queer people in these practices, and with higher rates of drug use in queer communities typically associated with addiction, problematic use, and other stigma it’s important to model a different perception, especially for our community.As the old saying goes, knowledge is power, and we can claim ours by unlearning what we’ve been told and becoming intimately familiar with psychedelics and natural drugs, the clinical and ethnobotanical research, and leveraging them for our own benefit as we see fit in our everyday lives–whether it’s used recreationally for pleasure or performance enhancement. Not necessarily in the physical sense of giving us enhanced stamina, but in the context of making us feel more attractive and more sociable which can be productive in building healthy relationships that aid in our personal growth and well-being, or for healing.

Psychedelic experiences and expansive identities (e.g., queer and trans identities) have similarly been medicalized and pathologized by the Western medical model. By setting up false binaries – including “expert” and “patient” – capitalist institutions profit from establishing paternalistic control over people’s rights to self-determination. By reclaiming our psychedelic experiences and our expansive selves, we are reclaiming the right to discover, define, and express ourselves according to our own values and identities; reclaiming the right to make choices about our own bodies and futures; and reclaiming the right to evaluate and consent to the therapies that best support and affirm us.

Grassroots Climate Justice, Indigenous Sovereignty, Immigrant Rights, Labor, GLBTQI, and Racial Justice movements face multi-layered challenges in their work to create lasting systemic change in our society. Their participants often carry the trauma from the oppression in their lives, and they then experience the compounding trauma of state and corporate repression in response to their activism to change those very conditions. Trauma does not just live in the bodies of individuals, but in the collective bodies of the organizations that drive movements for liberation. While strong grassroots base-building organizations are the engine of lasting change, they also can reproduce self-limiting barriers and toxic internal cultures that hinder the vision and strategy of social movements. This includes lateral violence, interpersonal moral-policing, disposability, reductive judgment, unhealthy approaches to conflict and power, and other self-marginalizing cultural dynamics that emerge from collective trauma. If movements are our main hope for deep societal transformation, then we have a responsibility to tend to these collective bodies with the same level of care that we have in tending to individual clients. Healing with entheogenic plant medicines has so much to offer frontline social movement activists, not just for the sake of individual healing, but for the transformation of how we organize and build cohesive groups that are life-affirming, inclusive, generative, and can both build and wield power. Joshua Kahn Russell has spent over 20 years organizing across social movement sectors. In this conversation with Daneille Herrera, he will share lessons from his own activist healing journey and applying modalities from the Shipibo ayahuasca tradition as well as psilocybin to support the healing and transformation of social movement organizations and leaders.

Join Ariel Vegosen of Gender Illumination and David Bronner of Dr Bronner’s for a magical conversation on psychedelic healing and gender liberation. This will be an opportunity to hear about the latest in psychedelic therapy, stories of trans and nonbinary success and celebration, activism, and paths forward for global healing and justice. Both Ariel and David will share about their personal journey as well as the larger work they do in the world. Having collaborated for almost twenty years and currently both students in the AWE three year psychedelic therapy training – this will be a meaningful, special, and unique conversation.

Did you know you can be polyamorous and kinky without ever having sex? That’s because terms like “poly” and “kinky” are more than just ways to describe sexual behavior. They can be part of a larger, sex-positive philosophy that guides the ways we relate to ourselves, each other, and even the divine. This presentation will explore the spiritual philosophy of sex positivity. It will also identify how heteronormative myths about sex create cultures of shame, scarcity, and disconnection that benefit institutions of power but can traumatize us. Fortunately, psychedelics can help. Using interviews and clinical observations, this talk will show how psychedelic medicines can help us rediscover our authentic sexual personality.

I posit that there is something inherently liminal in the transgender experience. Transition is an in-betweenness, as in a ritual. Before colonization, gender diverse individuals were conferred just these ritual significances by many societies. Elders in their tribes recognized and confirmed the identities of two-spirit people within their social context. Modern transgender people also rely on a system of elders, but in a world separate and parallel to cisgender society. This social support is frequently denied trans people, including within the main current of psychedelic spirituality. Psychedelic thought and ritual practice often rely on essentialized notions of male and female that exclude or even demean queer identities. However, the feeling of walking between worlds is one that is familiar to the psychedelic practitioner as well. Both psychedelic practice and transness are subject to deep taboos in mainstream society. If one is to be both psychedelic and transgender, one must live in multiple worlds, requiring an act of straddling, of singling oneself out, and making oneself vulnerable. Gender variant people, and gender-variant people of color particularly, embody much of the intergenerational trauma of colonization. In this presentation, I discuss how creating spaces for that trauma to come to the surface requires a sense of safety that must be specially cultivated. If the psychedelic community intends to heal the deeper traumas of our society, the colonized gender binary must be transcended.

This presentation shares new, work in progress comedy about sex, love, OCD, heartbreak and, of course, mushrooms. The performance itself will be approximately one hour, and followed by a discussion and Q&A about comedy, sex, love, OCD and, of course, mushrooms. “Strauss mines a great deal of laughter from disabling pain” -The New York Times. “An arrestingly honest and howlingly funny comedian” -The Chicago Tribune. “Brilliant, hilarious and moving” -Michael Pollan.

The Chrysalis, in how a caterpillar completely decomposes and reorganizes into a butterfly or sometimes a moth… is a miraculous transformation. Tyger Blair chooses to ascribe this metaphor to the presence of queerness in a myriad of life’s situations when transformation is to be called forth. This presentation focuses on ways in which a queer sensibility, and very likely our innate abilities, have always existed within the energetic realms of the spiritual. The speaker will discuss how queerness has dwelled within our world’s Indigenous practices, including psychedelics and techniques inciting expanded states. Whom we have known as shamanic practitioners, medicine beings, two-spirited beings, Indigenous and pagan ceremonialists, have been the village healers and the holders of sacred space. They have inhabited cultures throughout our world in African, South Asian, European, Native American First Nations, Hawaiian traditions and beyond. They are beings who we can refer to in this time and space as Queer. We continue to work with a variety of spiritual and sacred tools, including psychedelic plant medicines, simply because this is our sacred role as the holders of healing in our world. Tyger was told by one of his teachers, Malidoma Somé, who had his own word designated to our essence of Queerness, he indicated that “you wisdom keepers of this sacred role are here to hold the balance and stand between the worlds.” We came equipped to hold the “both/and”, as well as discern with our distinctive expanded viewpoint. This is how we play our part in ushering in transformation.

In the last few years there has been a proliferation of discussions about the use of psychedelics for healing relational, existential, spiritual and/or generational pain. Only a limited number of these talks, papers and books have explored the experiences of BIPOC and queer people in expanded states being supported by queer and BIPOC practitioners. Often these discussions are more theoretical and speculative in nature or based on the speakers’/writers’ personal experiences. At this time, there is no published research data exploring the impact of the practitioners’ social location on the psychological safety of queer and BIPOC people using psychedelics in healing settings with practitioners who do not identify as queer and/or BIPOC. In this breakout session, queer and BIPOC facilitators will present anecdotal clinical data to begin to fill this gap. Aisha & Jennifer will discuss the queering of their work as therapists as they developed a collaborative healing practice together which predominantly centers people who identify as BIPOC and/or queer. Topics to be addressed include: impact of social location on the work; building community; accessibility.

This breakout session will delve into consent practices rooted in the wisdom and expertise of the kink community, and examine how those principles can be applied to psychedelic-assisted therapy. The aim is to provide a roadmap for creating a safe and consensual container for relationally-based, pro-liberation, trauma-informed work with psychedelics. Let’s move away from the typical, rushed consent process in medical, therapeutic, and research settings. Instead, let’s aim to create a dynamic and collaborative experience of consent that fosters a sacred space for genuine human connection. Through this approach, consent becomes a co-created act that nurtures an attuned, engaging, and empowering relationship with oneself and others.

Psychedelics are nonbinary. So let’s talk about it all – the good, the bad, the ugly, the messy, the vibrancy and all that is in between. This will be an interactive breakout session designed to be a brave space where we can share stories of how psychedelics have impacted our lives and the lives of our loved ones. Together we will dismantle the idea that psychedelics are all bad or all good. We will discover the expansiveness and nonbinary world of psychedelics. This will be a chance to get real, to talk about nuance, and to share from many different perspectives. We will explore the ways psychedelics can be used to heal people and aid in queer liberation. We will also explore how psychedelics can be misused and lead to spiritual, emotional, and physical harm. We will explore therapeutic, recreational, ceremonial, cultural, and ancestral uses of psychedelics. We will share the joys, challenges, fun, meaningfulness, emptiness, expansion, contraction, and so much more. We will talk about psychedelics as a path to justice and issues of spiritual bypassing. This breakout session will be facilitated by Ariel Vegosen who will create a sacred interactive space through activities and exercises that will inspire deep dialogue on the multidimensional experiences of psychedelics. All voices, experiences, and backgrounds are welcomed and needed at this space. We invite you to join this collective space, following Rumi’s words: “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.

Psychedelic experiences often reveal the possibility, if not the reality, of a more interconnected, compassionate, loving, and beautiful world, replete with both meaning and mystery. Nevertheless, we face many challenges when attempting to integrate such uplifting visions into our everyday lives in a world filled with imperfections and suffering. Queer people can face additional challenges in connecting to psychospiritual meaning-making and integration frameworks and communities, many of which can be intentionally or unintentionally cis- and heteronormative. Instead of rehashing this pain, though, this interactive breakout session will center queer resilience, hope, and creativity as we reflect on where we find personal meaning and what we may offer our broader communities. Dr. Kile Ortigo will introduce attendees to the process of clarifying our personal values, and the importance of using our creativity and talents to share our stories, help heal our communities, and inspire others.