Chacruna Institute

Chacruna’s Women, Gender Diversity, and Sexual Minorities Working Group Overview with Chacruna Directors Bia Labate and Clancy Cavnar

Psychedelics are being used in psychiatric settings for various mental health indications, including alleviating end-of-life anxiety, combating depression and PTSD and treating addiction. Come and explore the capacity of psychedelics to help people accept themselves, with a focus on acceptance of sexual orientation and gender.

Dr. Beatriz Caiuby Labate (Bia Labate) is a queer Brazilian anthropologist who immigrated to the U.S. in 2017. She has a Ph.D. in social anthropology from the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP), Brazil. Her main areas of interest are the study of plant medicines, drug policy, shamanism, ritual, and religion. She is Executive Director of the Chacruna Institute for Psychedelic Plant Medicines (https://chacruna.net), an organization that provides public education about psychedelic plant medicines and promotes a bridge between the ceremonial use of sacred plants and psychedelic science. She is Adjunct Faculty at the East-West Psychology Program at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) in San Francisco, and Visiting Professor at the Center for Research and Post Graduate Studies in Social Anthropology (CIESAS) in Guadalajara. She is also Public Education and Culture Specialist at the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS). She is co-founder of the Interdisciplinary Group for Psychoactive Studies (NEIP) in Brazil, and editor of NEIP’s website (http://www.neip.info), as well as editor of the Mexican blog Drugs, Politics, and Culture(http://drogaspoliticacultura.net). She is author, co-author, and co-editor of twenty books, one special-edition journal, and several peer-reviewed articles (http://bialabate.net).


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Clancy Cavnar has a PsyD from John F. Kennedy University. She works as a clinical psychologist at a dual diagnosis facility in San Francisco and is a research associate of the Nucleus for Interdisciplinary Studies of Psychoactives (NEIP). She is currently enrolled in the Certificate in Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy program at the California Institute of Integral Studies. She is also Associate Editor at Chacruna (https://chacruna.net), a venue for publication of high-quality academic short texts on plant medicines. Further, she is an artist; her painting is inspired by18 years in the Santo Daime tradition. Her doctoral dissertation explored the effect that ritual ayahuasca use had on gay and lesbian participants’ identities. She is author and co-author several peer reviewed articles, and co-editor, with Beatriz C. Labate, of five books: The Therapeutic Use of Ayahuasca (Springer, 2014); Prohibition, Religious Freedom, and Human Rights: Regulating Traditional Drug Use (Springer, 2014); Ayahuasca Shamanism in the Amazon and Beyond (Oxford University Press, 2014); and Peyote: History, Politics and Conservation (Praeger, 2016) and The World Ayahuasca Diaspora: Reinventions and Controversies (Routledge, 2016); and, with Beatriz C. Labate and Thiago Rodrigues, of Drug Policies and the Politics of Drugs in the Americas (Springer, 2016).

Free and open to the public

This event is sponsored by the Kresge Common Ground Center Student Board in collaboration with Chacruna Institute for Psychedelic Plant Medicines.

Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/events/829941680711209/?active_tab=about

Get your free ticket at: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/queering-psychedelics-tickets-61717114551

For inquiries contact: commonground- [email protected]

For more information on Kresge Common Ground Center Student Board: https://kresge.ucsc.edu/commonground/about/student-board.html


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Wednesday, June 9th, 2021 from 12-1:30pm PST REGISTER FOR THIS EVENT HERE There is growing enthusiasm in Jewish communities about possible ancient use and modern applications of plant medicine in Jewish spiritual development.  Psychedelic Judaism introduce new potential modes of  healing...