Gender Equity & Reconciliation: Thirty Years of Healing the Most Ancient Wound in the Human Family

By William Keepin and Cynthia Brix

Gender equity is woefully overdue—we cannot wait any longer. Yet gender equity will wait, just
as it has for thousands of years, until women and men and people of all genders co-create
it together. One-sided solutions are not enough, and shame and blame will get us nowhere. The
new pathway to healing and creating right relations between the genders can only be forged by
courageously confronting gender injustice from all sides, and moving through the ensuing
‘collective alchemy’ to transform gender injustice from the inside out.

Inspired by the principles of Truth and Reconciliation developed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu
in South Africa, the Gender Equity and Reconciliation International (GERI) process has been
implemented over three decades for thousands of people on six continents. Guided by the twin
powers of truth and love, and supported by skillful facilitation, the GERI process—as
demonstrated in this book—creates safe forums to empower the unraveling of gender and sexual
conditioning with alchemical depth and acumen, and initiate a whole new culture of gender
relations and beloved community.

With contributions from dozens of GERI participants, twelve distinguished world leaders in
related fields, and special inserts from such notable persons as Stanislav Grof, M.D., Jetsunma
Tenzin Palmo, and Peter Rutter, M.D., this book is an invaluable resource for laypersons and
professionals, politicians and psychotherapists, educators and religious leaders, who are eager to
discover new proven pathways to transform gender-based conflicts and address the needs of
young and old in their homes, therapy practices, organizations, and congregations across the
globe. 

Gender Equity is the one certain step to heal humanity. … This book and the GERI program
illuminates a path to do just that.
—Justin Baldoni, author of Man Enough

Inspiring and intersectional approach, … underscores the transformative power of gender justice
movements.
—Latanya Mapp Frett, President and CEO of Global Fund for Women

Magnificent heartfelt healing work, … gifts us a map of deep positive transformation.
—Jack Kornfield, author of A Path With Heart

A groundbreaking guide for all who want fulfilling relationships, and a more caring and
equitable world.
—Riane Eisler, author of The Chalice and the Blade and Nurturing Our Humanity

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hohm Press
• Release date: Oct 3, 2022
• ISBN: 9781942493792

William Keepin

William Keepin, Ph.D. is co-founder of Gender Equity and Reconciliation International, and Satyana Institute. A mathematical physicist with training in contemplative spirituality and transpersonal psychology, his research on global warming and sustainable energy infuenced international environmental policy. He has published widely on environmental science, quantum physics, ecology, archetypal cosmology, comparative mysticism, divine feminine theology, and principles of social change leadership. He is an Evolutionary Leader, a Findhorn Foundation Fellow.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

My Dear Brothers and Sisters,

We are ONE human family . . .

—Archbishop Desmond Tutu

We are one human family. Could anything be more obvious? We are brothers and sisters and non-binary siblings of the one human family. No matter how much we dwell on our differences (which are important), we are ultimately far more alike than different. We are similar siblings who have fashioned a fractured world of disastrous divisions.

We have divided our family in many tragic ways, and one of the most ancient and destructive is along gender lines. The entire human family suffers from the devastation of gender oppression and injustice—regardless of race, culture, nationality, or religion. It’s been going on for thousands of years, in every country and continent, in families and institutions alike, across all social strata—from leaders to laborers, from wealthiest to poorest, from our intimate bedrooms to corporate boardrooms, and everything in between. Humanity is deeply divided, under a kind of gender apartheid of our own making. The time has come for this tyranny to end, once and for all.

Gender oppression is as deep as it is universal. Yet for this very reason, bringing truth and reconciliation to gender relations—between women and men, and people of all genders—can become a diamond pivot for leveraging systemic transformation on a large scale. Gender reconciliation can be a vehicle for profound liberation, individual and social healing, and unprecedented cultural transformation across the entire human family.

This book documents thirty years of sustained work in Gender Equity and Reconciliation that was inspired early on by the principles of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) led by Archbishop Desmond Tutu in South Africa. When we started our gender healing work, we initially called it Gender and Ecology, with the byline: Are there parallels between exploitation of the Earth and exploitation of the feminine? Unbeknownst to us, at the same time we launched our first gender healing programs in September and October 1992, Archbishop Tutu was speaking at Johns Hopkins University (October 1992). South Africa will be free, he proclaimed, a full two years before this became a reality in 1994. Injustice and repression and lies cannot have the last word.

So too with gender injustice. The central purpose of the TRC was to promote reconciliation and forgiveness … by the full disclosure of truth. This was precisely the methodology we had been developing in our gender work. We were also inspired by the spiritual principles of reconciliation and forgiveness implemented by the TRC. As Archbishop Tutu often emphasized, We live in a moral universe. The TRC was not just a secular process but invoked the moral and spiritual dimensions of healing and consciousness, just as we were striving to do in our gender healing work.

So, in 1996, we renamed our program gender reconciliation. As we wrote in the first edition of this book,

Led by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the TRC represents one of the most unique experiments in human history on a national scale working explicitly with reconciliation and forgiveness. While the process was not without its flaws, the TRC fostered remarkable healing in a country that had been severely ravaged by systematic racial violence. The mandate of the TRC was not only to discover the truth, but also to go beyond truth finding to promote national unity and reconciliation in a spirit of understanding which transcends the conflict and divisions of the past.¹

In a direct parallel, our work seeks not only to reconcile and forgive the egregious gender injustices of the past. We also work to transcend the gender conflicts and divisions of the past altogether—and rewrite the gender story and reinvent the gender future of humanity.

Over the past three decades, the Gender Equity and Reconciliation International (GERI) project has convened over 300 intensive workshops and trainings, for more than 7,000 women and men on six continents—to engage in a deep process of unraveling the systemic knots of gender conflicts, and develop practical skills for transforming gender relations from the inside out. Another 22,000 people have been introduced to the GERI process in conference sessions and introductory trainings.

In 2013, Archbishop Desmond Tutu formally endorsed the GERI program, and announced a partnership between GERI, the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation, and Stellenbosch University. We are inaugurating and announcing this collaboration with an outstanding group [GERI] that has done wonders in helping to recover the humanity of women, said Archbishop Tutu at the media launch [photo above], which was covered by national South African news and internationally via Reuters. We have undermined our humanity by the treatment that we have meted out to women, he said, just as much as racists undermine their humanity by treating others as less than human. Tutu was also a vocal advocate for the rights of LGBTQ+ persons. Gender Reconciliation is the logical next step for our country, said Rev. Mpho Tutu van Furth, former Executive Director of the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation, and Tutu’s daughter. The work of racial reconciliation will never be complete without the work of gender reconciliation.

The purpose of this partnership was to implement GERI programs for qualified university students. An important follow-up from this partnership was the unique research project on the GERI methodology carried out over two years at the University of the Free State and Stellenbosch University, led by Dr. Samantha van Schalkwyk and Professor Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela. The auspicious results of this research are published for the first time in summary form in Chapter 24 of this book. To date, GERI programs have been conducted in five South African universities, including an ongoing partnership with the University of the Western Cape.

Why Are There So Many Authors of This Book?

We, the authors of this book, are leaders of a global community of people committed to transforming gender oppression and injustice, and striving to replace this disastrous legacy with transformed societies rooted in compassion, wisdom, mutual reverence and respect. We work together toward this goal, catalyzed by the grist of gender, through a process we call Gender Equity and Reconciliation International (GERI).

Why are there so many authors of this book? The late Vietnamese Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh answers this question well:

We desperately need love. … It is possible the next Buddha will not take the form of an individual. The next Buddha may take the form of a community; a community practicing understanding and lovingkindness, a community practicing mindful living.²

This principle applies to the human family as a whole (not only Buddhism). This book and the GERI project are the product of just such a community—comprised of committed souls who are together practicing lovingkindness, deep understanding, and unflinching truth-telling—all in service of transmuting gender injustice into what is often called Beloved Community.

The work recounted in this book is made possible by the entire GERI community, and not just a subset of this community. Have all these authors made a substantial contribution to this book? Yes, and so have others too numerous to name and list as authors, although many are named throughout the book. Beyond the original authors of the first edition of this book (Keepin and Brix), each author of this volume has been deeply engaged in the GERI program for anywhere between 5 and 16 years, and each has made a unique and original contribution to the evolution and implementation of this work within their particular communities and cultures.

Without these diverse contributions, the GERI program and its global implementation would not have been possible. Taken together, the 19 authors of this book are representative of the primary, active leaders who have built this global movement, and they constitute a relatively balanced representation of the more than 220 facilitators and trainers that have been certified in the GERI process since the first professional training began in 2001.

In order for this book to represent the GERI program and community accurately, it is essential that the authorship include the representative leaders who have built this work and global community into what it is today. These authors come from diverse cultures and continents around the world, and from multiple ethnic, racial, religious, and cultural backgrounds. They have taken this work deeply into their hearts and have worked tirelessly and against all odds and cultural barriers to implement this mission in their own communities and cultural contexts. Their sacrifices have brought deep healing in an arena where many people understandably fear to tread, or have given up all hope. Together, these authors are the co-pioneers who have built the magnificent intersectional global community that GERI is today.

Gender Equity and Reconciliation ~ Five Parts

Part I: Untold Stories Keep Gender Oppression Invisible

Chapter 1 introduces the background and history of the GERI program, the current cultural context and shifting gender landscape, with attention to various aspects of the contemporary gender conversation, including the #MeToo movement, the non-binary and transgender dimensions, emphasizing recent developments and movements. Also introduced is the GERI methodology, the nature of reconciliation, the spiritual dimensions of this work, and the systematic implementation of GERI in diverse social contexts and cultures.

Chapters 2 through 9 introduce the GERI process, elucidating the methodology of collective alchemy with detailed narrative accounts of each element and stage of the GERI process.

Part II: Ubuntu in Action

Ubuntu is an African term for the fundamental principle of interdependence of all of humanity (often taught by Desmond Tutu). Chapters 10 through 16 address the application of the GERI process in various segments and sectors, including: LGBTQ+, BIPOC, religious and spiritual communities, government and politics, the corporate sector, and the United Nations.

Part III: Transforming Gender Injustice into Beloved Community: Voices of Victory from Around the World

Chapters 17 through 23 present inspiring stories of transformation from different countries and regions around the world, and also from the online implementation of GERI programs. Numerous stories are recounted—both heartrending and deeply inspiring—many in the words of the people themselves who experienced the impact of the GERI process in their lives.

Part IV: Academic Research on Gender Equity and Reconciliation

Chapter 24 is a special stand-alone chapter by researcher Dr. Samantha van Schalkwyk, which summarizes the rigorous two-year academic research project she carried out with Professor Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela on the GERI methodology. The research demonstrates the efficacy of the GERI methodology for transforming entrenched gender-based ideologies and norms, and their associated mindsets and behaviors.

Part V: Re-Writing the Gender Future of Humanity

Chapters 25 and 26 explore the expansion and future of the GERI program. The GERI professional training is outlined, which has certified over 220 facilitators to date and is steadily expanding. The final chapter illuminates key learnings from three decades of the GERI initiative, and how this work relates to other forms of intergenerational trauma healing. We are focused not only on healing the past, and re-writing the gender story of humanity, but also we are already birthing the future today. Despite the constant and inevitable setbacks, and millenia of gender oppression with its ties to militarism, this work and related initiatives are slowly but surely moving humanity toward a new civilization of love.

Special Highlighted Sections

Gender Equity and Reconciliation features special highlighted sections from prominent leaders in various fields, who write about their experience of GERI and its potential for making an important contribution in their professional field. Ten special sections include reflections from each of the following leaders:

• Stanislav Grof, M.D. and Brigitte Grof. Stan is a co-founder of transpersonal psychology, author of 27 books on psychology, psychiatry, and clinical practice of non-ordinary states of consciousness

• Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo, leading Western Tibetan Buddhist nun, founder of Dongyu Gatsal Ling nunnery that is re-claiming the lost Togdenma yogini lineage

• Peter Rutter, M.D., Jungian psychiatrist, leading authority and author of several books on sexual harassment and exploitation

• Pat McCabe, a leading Diné (Navajo) elder; provides an indigenous perspective on gender reconciliation, and the urgent need to rebalance the feminine and masculine

• Sr. Lucy Kurien, founder, Maher Ashram, which has established 63 homes across India for rehabilitating battered women and children

• Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge, former Deputy Minister of Health, Deputy Minister of Defence, and Deputy Speaker of Parliament, South Africa

• Stuart Sovatsky, Ph.D., yogi, psychotherapist, and former professor, author of several books on gender, sexuality, and spirituality

• Jenny Wade, Ph.D., researcher, professor, and author of books on transcendent sexuality, and transpersonal psychology

• Mark Greene, author of Remaking Manhood, The Little #MeToo Book for Men, and consultant on relational practices, diversity/inclusion and masculinities

• Ken Kitatani, Director General, ICEED, United Nations Environment Programme, Board member of U.N. Committee of NGOs.

PART I

Untold Stories Keep Gender Oppression Invisible: Breaking Thousands of Years of Silence in Thirty Years

CHAPTER 1

Oases of Truth and Reconciliation: Three Decades of Gender Healing

The Beloved is with those whose hearts are broken for the sake of the Beloved.

—Sufi saying

C an a woman become enlightened? asked the bright, aspiring student with keen enthusiasm. Her shining eyes revealed her heart’s exuberant passion for spiritual realization. This burning desire had led her to northern India, where she had joined the exiled Buddhist community that had fled Tibet to escape Chinese persecution.

No, came the solemn reply from the wizened senior lama. He was one of the most venerated masters in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, and his sonorous voice imparted a commanding authority and measured calm. A woman can advance to a very high spiritual stage, just prior to enlightenment, he continued in deep resonant tones. Then she must die and be reborn as a man, in order to attain enlightenment.

Why? wondered the young woman inwardly, her crestfallen heart sinking rapidly with profound disappointment. She reluctantly accepted the answer from the wise old lama with quiet resignation. She had no choice: the lama’s spiritual integrity, depth, and authority were beyond question. He was a highly revered teacher whose very presence exuded profound qualities of deep wisdom and compassion, qualities to which her yearning heart ardently aspired. She could even feel his compassion for her tragic plight, as a woman aspiring for the impossible. The very word for woman in the Tibetan language means literally lesser birth.

But why must a human being be a man in order to become spiritually enlightened? She continued to puzzle over the question, deeply in fact, for many years. The more she pondered the question, the less sense it made. She tried to rationalize it, comforting herself with the thought that the enlightened state is beyond all reason and sense of mind, so perhaps this deep truth could only be realized after a woman dies and is reborn a man and becomes enlightened herself—er. . . himself! Or perhaps it’s like a Zen koan, she mused, something that transcends all logic and mental comprehension altogether. Meanwhile, like the other Tibetan nuns, she was relegated to cooking, cleaning, and supporting the monks. But the question would not let her rest, and she continued to wrestle with it for years, from many different angles.

She found another lama who initiated her into the esoteric practices of Tibetan Buddhist meditation. Her sincerity and depth of commitment led her to move into a cave, high in the Himalayas at thirteen-thousand feet, where she lived alone for twelve years. There she meditated for twelve hours every day, spending a total of more than fifty-two thousand hours in meditation. Profound depths of spiritual and mystical consciousness were awakened within her. Over those twelve years, she almost died twice, first when her cave was sealed shut in a huge snowstorm, but she was able to dig herself out. The second time was from a large falling rock. She was sitting quietly when suddenly she heard an inner voice say, Move. When she did not respond immediately, the voice repeated itself urgently. "Move, now!" She moved, and a gigantic boulder suddenly fell exactly where she had been sitting.

But the voice was silent on other matters, such as her dilemma of being a woman striving in vain for spiritual enlightenment. Her commitment to spiritual realization was absolute. Yet she could not attain the ultimate goal. Why? Because she was a woman. Not because she was perhaps insufficiently pure of heart. Not because she was maybe not committed deeply enough, or insufficiently disciplined in her meditation practice. Not because she was imperfect in her austerity or aspiration or prayers—all of which were plausible reasons she could readily accept and understand. But because she was a woman. She carried her dilemma into deep meditation. Yet, unlike other quandaries or issues that she took inward into deep contemplation, this one did not resolve itself. The situation did not become ever clearer and self-evident. Instead it became all the more bewildering and confusing. The more she pondered it, the more befuddled it became—even ludicrous. The bottom line boiled down to a simple, ridiculous question that posed itself in her mind starkly: What is so spiritually special about a penis that it is impossible to become enlightened without one?

Finally, one day she had the opportunity to ask her question of other senior lamas. She had come down from the mountain after twelve years in meditation, having achieved something that few senior lamas had ever done. Indeed, her intensive solo retreat high in a mountain cave for twelve years was something all the lamas had been convinced was impossible for any woman to accomplish. She was now afforded tremendous respect among the leaders of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. At one point, she was invited to a high-level meeting of many of the highest lamas in the tradition. She was the only woman present.

There she again asked the same question: Can a woman become enlightened? And again, three of the senior lamas told her, No. So she asked them to please go into meditation, and in all seriousness to ponder this question in earnest: Why is it that a woman cannot attain enlightenment? In particular, what exactly is it that is so spiritually special about the male reproductive organs that it is impossible to become enlightened without them?

The three lamas went away and duly meditated upon the question for several days. Then they came back and told her, We do not know. The woman gazed intently at each lama in turn, searching for any further clues or insights. None were forthcoming.

We could not discover the answer, they concluded.

Ah, yes, she responded, and this is because it isn’t true. She then announced to these senior lamas that she was making a firm commitment to continue to incarnate in female form until she became a fully enlightened buddha in a woman’s body.

This is the true story of Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo, a Tibetan Buddhist nun born in Britain who still lives in northern India today, where she runs a nunnery she founded to train Tibetan nuns in the esoteric Buddhist practices that have been denied women for more than a thousand years. Tenzin Palmo’s Dongyu Gatsal Ling Nunnery, together with a few other pioneering projects, is reversing centuries of patriarchal precedent in Tibetan Buddhism. And the nunnery has received the blessing of the Dalai Lama, who, by the way, has told Tenzin Palmo that a woman can indeed become enlightened.

Essence of Gender Equity and Reconciliation

The foregoing anecdote reveals, in its bare essentials, the nature of gender healing and reconciliation between women and men, and people of diverse gender identities. In essence, the process is simple: women and men gather together—on equal terms, in integrity, dropping the usual conditioned denials, taboos, and excuses—and jointly explore the truth of their gendered experiences, vulnerabilities, conditionings, violations, insights, and aspirations. Through this process, they make discoveries together and allow new awareness to dawn. These new revelations change them, as they embrace whatever healing is required and take full responsibility for the consequences of whatever is jointly discovered and experienced. When this work is conducted with integrity and sensitivity by even a small number of people, the resulting benefits are not for them alone, but also filter back into the community to benefit the larger society.

While Tenzin Palmo’s story is charming, almost whimsical, and certainly comical in hindsight, living through those challenging years was very real and deeply painful for her. She was denied the transformative esoteric practices of Tibetan Buddhism—one of the most profound and beautiful schools of spiritual wisdom in human history—simply because she was a woman. Those were the loneliest years of her life, far lonelier than her extended solitude in the cave. Meanwhile, the Tibetan people—men and women alike—had never questioned the gender inequity in their tradition because for them it was based on the reality of who women and men are. Yet, it was sheer illusion, sitting right there at the core of a tradition committed to dispelling illusions—and for many centuries this illusion had unjustly denied Tibetan women, and especially Tibetan nuns, their spiritual birthright.

Neither Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo nor the lamas could have achieved this breakthrough on their own. They needed each other. She needed sincere, well-intentioned male lamas to whom to pose the question. The lamas needed her to ask the question in earnest in order for them to even embark upon the inquiry. She further needed the men to respond with integrity, and they did so—thereby honoring her and upholding the spiritual principles of their tradition. Together, Tenzin Palmo and these few lamas achieved a profound breakthrough—not only (or even primarily) for themselves, but for the Tibetan people and the entire Vajrayana Buddhist tradition, as women are admitted into the ranks of spiritual mastery. This breakthrough has helped change the Tibetan Buddhist tradition forever.

Of course, in other cases of gender reconciliation the process can and usually does look very different, depending on the circumstances. It may entail cathartic emotional releases, or powerful dynamic energies coming into play, or the profound spiritual grace that pours forth at times. But the process is basically the same: women and men—inclusive of sexual orientation and gender identities—join together as equals, speak their gendered truth, and are thereby mutually transformed.

Oasis of Truth: The Need for a New Forum for Women and Men

The forum that Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo was finally afforded—a context in which she was taken seriously and where she could ask the unaskable questions—is something that every human being longs for: an oasis of truth where the deep questions can be asked in earnest and where one can drink directly from the wellsprings of truth, free of the conditioned responses and cultural thought forms that shape and distort so much of our experience of being human. In the case of gender, such an oasis would be a forum in which people of all genders can gather in integrity, raise challenging questions about gender and sexuality, discuss the undiscussable, and allow healing and reconciliation to unfold naturally. Societies everywhere need just such a forum—yet virtually nowhere does it exist. Even in spiritual communities or groups or similar contexts where we might expect such an open forum to be present, frequently there are taboos on speaking openly about gender issues and dynamics, particularly in cases where the leadership may be engaged in gender power dynamics or sexual activities that are kept hidden from view.

Gender equity and reconciliation work seeks to provide this needed forum—an oasis of truth and reconciliation in which issues relating to gender and sexuality can be addressed openly and honestly by people of all genders. Every voice is welcome in this work. We often use the abbreviated traditional terms men and women (irrespective of sexual orientation) for people who identify within these categories. For people of other gender identities, we recognize that the landscape of gender identity, expression, and sexual orientation is constantly shifting and evolving, as are the associated terminologies, and this has resulted in a wide range of increasingly varied and complex acronyms in recent years. In this book we follow a recent trend toward simplification, by adopting the acronym LGBTQ+ to represent lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, plus all other gender identities and gender expressions. In places where greater specificity is required, the appropriate specific term will be used, but otherwise the acronym LGBTQ+ is understood throughout this book to include the above gender identities as well as intersexed, asexual, questioning, ally, genderqueer, demisexual, pansexual, non-binary, two-spirit, and all other existing and future gender identities and expressions.

The purpose of Gender Equity and Reconciliation work is to provide a forum where real stories can be told, from the heart, in uncensored detail, and be truly heard. It is a forum that is not limited to dialogue alone but also navigates the psychic terrain that opens through asking the deep questions—and embraces the tears, outrage, embarrassment, anguish, shame, absurdity, as well as forgiveness, compassion, and spiritual grace that all come forth in their innate wisdom. A place where the heart can melt or soar as needed, and the human spirit can triumph through the trials and tribulation of thousands of years of gender oppression and injustice.

Such a forum is needed in every culture across the globe. It must go beyond mere verbal exchange and conceptual understanding into a place of mutuality, compassion, forgiveness, and communion. This book documents a concerted initiative in this direction over three decades that has produced remarkable results, and points to the need for much wider implementation of such work.

Gender Equity and Reconciliation International Project

To begin creating a forum for gender healing and reconciliation, the authors and various colleagues founded a project originally called Gender Reconciliation, focused on the healing and reconciliation of gender-based conflict and injustice, and hosted by the Satyana Institute, a nonprofit service organization based in Colorado and Washington. The process was founded on universal principles of love and forgiveness, and the methodology integrates a broad mix of modalities, including psychological and therapeutic techniques, contemplative disciplines, experiential exercises, and transpersonal and spiritual approaches. This integral methodology has proven vital to the success of the work. To limit gender healing to cognitive or dialogical modalities alone would tend to derail the process and preclude a deeper, transformative process.

During the first 15 years of this project (1992-2007), over 40 intensive events were convened to delve into gender reconciliation, most of which were 5-day intensive residential workshops. These gatherings provided a unique forum for women and men to jointly confront the realities of gender disharmony and engage in constructive dialogue and healing work on some of the most divisive and seemingly intractable gender issues. The process was found to work equally well both in affluent Western countries and in many other countries across a diverse cultural and economic spectrum.

Over the past 15 years (2007-2022) since the first edition of this book was published, the Gender Reconciliation project has expanded at least tenfold, and its name was changed to the Gender Equity and Reconciliation International (GERI) program. More than 300 intensive workshops and trainings have been conducted to date, spread across 13 countries, serving more than 7,000 people. Another 22,000 people have been introduced to the GERI project in conference presentations and shorter introductory workshops. The professional training component of the project has also expanded greatly, and there are now approximately 220 certified GERI facilitators around the world. Specialized programs have also been developed to serve specific segments of the population, particularly LGBTQ+ communities and BIPOC communities (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color). This book describes in detail the results from these GERI programs conducted over three decades on six continents, with a specific focus on results in different regions of the world, and for different segments of the population.

The fundamental premise underlying GERI work is that women and men, and people of all gender identities, suffer the effects of gender injustice, and that each needs the other for a true and complete healing and reconciliation. Although major strides forward have been taken by the women’s, men’s, and LGBTQ+ movements in the past several decades, no group working alone can create full gender balance in society. The genders must work together for this balance to be realized, collaborating in courageous new forms of experimental and transformative modalities. A whole new approach is needed that goes beyond the more traditional methods of social and political reform.

In this book, we sometimes use the abbreviated term Gender Reconciliation to refer to this particular form of healing and reconciliation work in the Gender Equity and Reconciliation program. The international organization that delivers this work is Gender Equity and Reconciliation International, often denoted by its acronym: GERI. Several other organizations are also authorized or licensed to deliver this work in various countries. As explained in the Introduction, the methodology of Gender Reconciliation was inspired by and modeled after the principles of truth and reconciliation applied by Archbishop Desmond Tutu in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa. The term Gender Reconciliation can potentially be interpreted in a variety of ways, and may have different meanings in other contexts. Sometimes when people hear this term they assume it has to do with reconciling conflicts about personal gender identity, but this is not what is intended here. For this reason, to minimize confusion, the name of our program was later changed to Gender Equity and Reconciliation. Nevertheless, we still often use the term gender reconciliation as a shorthand way to refer to the particular form of cross-gender healing work described in this book.

The purpose of GERI, or gender reconciliation, is to transform the roots of gender imbalance at multiple levels: within the individual, in interpersonal relationships, and in the larger society. Gender reconciliation seeks to provide a safe and skillfully facilitated forum where women and men, and people of all gender identities, can jointly examine the subtle knots of cultural conditioning around gender and sexuality, support each other in healing the roots of negative gender dynamics, and address the associated inequities and injustices in the world. In carefully designed and facilitated group process exercises, issues rarely discussed aloud are openly shared and collectively addressed. The process entails the power of mindful, heartfelt truth-telling in community coupled with the mysterious grace of loving witness, forgiveness, and compassionate presence to facilitate deep healing and reconciliation.

The gender issues and dynamics that arise in GERI programs are nothing new in themselves. Gender injustice is age-old and universal, and the key issues have been frequently addressed in women’s and men’s groups, LGBTQ+ groups, and social justice and diversity and intersectional groups of all kinds—typically working in relative isolation from each other—as they strive to bring greater consciousness to the hidden gender injustices of our society. The separation of women’s groups and men’s groups was historically necessary because authentic gender healing work could not have begun in any other way, and indeed this work continues to be important today. For example, the importance of separate women’s and men’s support groups was highlighted yet again by the #MeToo movement.

Nevertheless, the time has come to take a next step: to forge creative new ways for men and women, and people of all gender identities, to collaborate together on mutual gender healing. Powerful new dimensions of transformative work between women and men become possible when difficult gender issues are confronted with integrity and sensitivity in mixed groups. To our knowledge, the work reported in this book represents one of the very few organized, sustained efforts in collaborative gender healing with women and men working together.

Earlier examples of gender healing work that bore some relation to our work, although utilizing quite different methods, are summarized in the first edition of this book.¹ Riane Eisler and David Loye pioneered what they call the partnership model for gender relations in their book The Partnership Way.² Beyond these, there are innumerable popular books on gender and intimate relationships, most of which are less directly relevant to our work. Other books or projects relevant to various aspects of our work will be cited as we proceed.

Theories of Gender and the Heart of Gendered Experience

The work reported in this book is practical and experiential in nature, rather than analytical or theoretical, and the results are applicable in a wide range of theoretical or philosophical contexts. Theories abound about the nature of gender differences, and of course these theories often contradict each other. For the present work, although we value this spectrum of perspectives, it matters little which theoretical, philosophical, or spiritual perspective the reader holds about the nature of gender, or related questions. Individuals and communities from vastly diverse philosophical backgrounds have found deep meaning and value from the insights and transformations they experienced through the GERI process. As the reader will discover, what transpires in the events reported in this book does not depend for its validity on any particular philosophical perspective, theory of gender, or spiritual orientation. For this work, what is more important than any particular perspective or intellectual framework is the sincerity of each individual’s heart, and the willingness to enter deeply into a process of personal and collective truth-telling, discovery, and transformation.

Casualties in the Gender War

While this book presents an optimistic and positive message, it is nevertheless important to begin by acknowledging the extremely painful manifestations of gender injustice in our society today. Although many of us are familiar with the realities of gender violence, it is instructive to review a few of the sobering statistics, focusing in particular on the distinct ways in which different subgroups of the population are afflicted.

Women’s Gender-Trauma Statistics

•In the United States, a woman is raped or sexually assaulted every minute—usually by a friend or acquaintance. One out of every five women is a victim of rape in her lifetime. Worldwide, 40 to 60 percent of sexual assaults are committed against girls fifteen years of age or younger, regardless of region or culture.

•Domestic violence is the leading cause of injury and death to women between the ages of 15 and 44 worldwide. At least one out of every three women and girls worldwide has been beaten or sexually abused in her lifetime (WHO). These rates are highest in Sub-Saharan Africa, Southern Asia, and Oceania, where UN statistics indicate 33 to 51 percent of women have experienced intimate partner violence. ³ Over half of all female murder victims are killed by their intimate partners, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. ⁴

•Honor killings by male family members claim the lives of five thousand girls and women in Hindu, Middle Eastern and Asian cultures every year. ⁵

•Each year in India, over five thousand women are doused in kerosene and set ablaze by their husbands or in-laws. ⁶ These heinous bride burning murders are often dismissed as kitchen accidents by a patriarchal justice system.

•In the United States, nearly twice as many women as men suffer from depression each year. ⁷

•Teen pregnancies have risen sharply in Africa during the Covid-19 pandemic. This is attributed to the closure of schools and drop-in crisis centers during pandemic lockdowns. ⁸ Furthermore, the pandemic has significantly impacted child marriage. As UNICEF notes, Over the next decade, up to 10 million more girls will be at risk of becoming child brides as a result of the pandemic. This number is in addition to the 100 million girls at risk of becoming child brides before the pandemic began. ⁹

Men’s Gender-Trauma Statistics

•The victims of men’s violence are mostly other men, accounting for 80 percent of male violence.

•Men commit suicide about four times more often than women.

•In the United States, more than 6 million men suffer from depression each year. ¹⁰ Male depression more often goes unrecognized and untreated.

•In 2021, the Boy Scouts of America reached a $850 million settlement with more than 60,000 men who sued the iconic institution over alleged sexual abuse over several decades. ¹¹ In 2007, the Boy Scouts of America had first revealed its secret archives on sexually abusive scout leaders, exposing a vast history of pedophilia that required the dismissal of at least 5,100 scout leaders since 1946.

•Among teenagers, males account for fully 90 percent of completed suicides, a statistic that speaks volumes about the pressures on young men coming of age.

•Men have higher death rates than women for all 15 leading causes of death.

•Men account for 60 percent of traffic fatalities, 79 percent of murder victims, 95 percent of workplace fatalities, and 99.993 percent of deaths in armed combat.

•In the U.S., the average life span for men is five years shorter than for women, and seven years shorter globally. ¹² Male stress is the decisive factor.

Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transgender-Queer+ Trauma Statistics

•LGBTQ+ people experience about four times more violence than non-LGBTQ+ people, and they are twice as likely to have mental health issues. ¹³ Over 16 percent of hate crimes are based on sexual orientation. ¹⁴

•In 16 U.S. cities, reported incidents of violence against LGBTQ+ individuals recently increased by an average 242 percent over a single year. Incidents of further harassment and abuse of LGBTQ+ victims by police increased by 155 percent over the same period (NCAVP study).

•In some 77 countries, discriminatory laws criminalize private, consensual same-sex relationships—exposing individuals to the risk of arrest, prosecution, imprisonment, and in at least five countries, the death penalty (U.N. Free and Equal Campaign). ¹⁵

Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) Trauma Statistics

•Domestic violence is higher in BIPOC communities. ¹⁶ Women of color experience about twice as much domestic violence as white women.

•60 percent of Black girls are sexually abused before their 18th birthday. ¹⁷

•Native Americans experience more than twice the rate of sexual violence in other racial groups. Over 84 percent of Native American women have experienced violence in their lives. ¹⁸

•In 2019, Black males were twice as likely to die from gun violence than white males in the U.S. ¹⁹

•In the U.S., roughly 32 percent of multiracial men, 23 percent Native American men, 19.4 percent of Black men, 18.5 percent of Hispanic men, and 9.4 percent of Asian/Pacific Islander men (compared with 16.5 percent of white men) experience sexual violence in their lifetime, according to the CDC’s National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey 2010-2012. ²⁰

These statistics reflect grim social realities of gender injustice and associated human rights violations. In societies across the globe, people of both sexes and every gender identity and race and ethnicity are boxed into narrowly defined roles, and in most countries there are strong reprisals for those who dare to step beyond these rigid restrictions. These pressures inevitably produce widespread self- and gender conflict, which takes an incalculable toll on all societies. Even in the West, despite the supposed emancipation of the feminine, there are strong cultural forces and pressures that favor men and uphold masculine values. Western societies are far from gender balanced, and the pretense that they are is one of the obstacles to making further headway.

Domestic Misery: The Iceberg Underlying Domestic and Intimate Partner Violence

Terrorism is a widely publicized threat in many countries of the world today. Yet, this danger is miniscule compared to the daily terrorism of domestic violence and intimate partner violence, which plagues at least one in three households across the globe. In the United States today, for example, the public is traumatized by the huge increase in mass shootings, or potential threats from terrorists whether foreign or domestic. Yet in purely statistical terms, most citizens have a far greater chance of being murdered or attacked by their own intimate partners or family members than by a terrorist or anonymous mass-shooter. Where is the public outrage about this? How are people mobilizing to ameliorate this more urgent threat that claims far more lives every year?

The Covid-19 pandemic of the early 2020s exacerbated this already urgent crisis, with major spikes in domestic violence reported across the globe, plus increased difficulty in accessing help for victims. In a U.N. gender equality survey of 13 countries, 7 out of 10 women reported that domestic violence increased in their community since the pandemic began, a phenomenon dubbed the Shadow Pandemic.²¹ In South Africa, President Cyril Ramaphosa likened the increased Gender Based Violence (GBV) and domestic violence in that country to a second pandemic.²²

In any war, the wounded far outnumber the dead. Whatever number of people are killed, there are always many more who are wounded, usually by a factor of ten or more. And the wounded are yet again far outnumbered by those who are psychologically damaged or stricken. Moreover, it is well known that cases of domestic and intimate-partner violence are vastly under-reported. A U.S. study conducted by the Bureau of Justice Statistics in 2017 estimated that 40 percent of domestic violence incidents go unreported to police.²³

Consider what all this means for the gender war of domestic violence. As reflected in the statistics above, domestic violence is the leading cause of murder for women in the United States. Similar patterns hold in most other countries across the globe. Tragic as they are, these deaths are only the most severe casualties in the gender conflict. Beyond these war dead, there are many thousands or millions more who are wounded and injured every year through physical and sexual abuse perpetrated by those who supposedly love them most. And quite beyond these wounded are many more millions, or rather billions, who are psychologically damaged, depressed, stricken—living under oppressive or threatening conditions in their own homes and communities. Thus, massive numbers of people are suffering deeply in their closest intimate and family relationships.

What we call domestic violence is but the tip of an iceberg of vast suffering that afflicts billions—a phenomenon that could be called domestic misery. Precisely in those relationships where one is supposed to feel the most loved and accepted, many people are the most miserable and vulnerable—all across the globe. Much of this domestic misery is created and sustained by dysfunctional relations between women and men, or between heterosexual and LGBTQ+ family members—often held in place by oppressive gender, social, and religious conditioning within the society from which its hapless victims know not how to escape.

This vast collective misery is then projected outward, which fuels corresponding forms of misery and oppression in social institutions and in relations among nations. It is a cliché, but true, that peace begins at home. Yet home is precisely where billions experience no true peace whatsoever. As Mahatma Gandhi emphasized, if we practice love and nonviolence in the outer world but we don’t manifest these principles in our daily home life, then any success in the outer world is a chimera. This is confirmed anecdotally in our work in multiple countries and cultures, where we frequently hear exasperated comments or reflections from astute local professionals. Costa Rica has no military, a professor in San Jose remarked to us, but there is a war in every household. A Japanese social activist told us something almost identical, Japan is a peaceful country, but there is a gender war in every home.

What all this points to is a global crisis in right relations of such gigantic proportions it is almost inconceivable. This crisis cries out for a massive societal response, yet compared to the magnitude of the suffering involved, it still receives woefully inadequate attention. Domestic and gender-based violence are continuing to devastate our communities, and although this is more widely recognized than it was 10 or 20 years ago, many people still live in relative oblivion or denial about this—like living next to a gigantic mountain that is so huge everyone takes it for granted, and barely even notices it.

Hidden Truths Keep Oppression Invisible—And Operative

A major factor that helps keep all this domestic misery firmly in place is not talking about it. Individuals, families, and society collude to keep this stupendous suffering well hidden. For example, a key lesson borne out for the authors from years of facilitating gender reconciliation work is that there exist large and crucial gaps in women’s awareness of men, and in men’s awareness of women. These gaps in mutual awareness are kept in place by all manner of taboos and forbidden topics of conversation or inquiry in society—especially in mixed company, but also within each gender grouping. As a result, men do not realize the depth and nature of the suffering endured by women, nor do women realize the nature and depth of men’s suffering, nor do heterosexuals realize the nature and extent of suffering in LGBTQ+ populations.

Although this situation has improved significantly in recent years, due largely to initiatives such as the #MeToo movement and growing awareness of LGBTQ+ rights, there is still a long way to go. Women generally do not grasp the devastating pain and incapacitation that boys and men suffer as they are conditioned to become real men: how their emotions are denied them, how their inner sensitivities are bludgeoned in masculine competition, how their sexuality is brutalized and desacralized through masculine conditioning—be it in the schoolyard, the family, the church, the military, or the workplace. Nor do men realize the magnitude of women’s and girls’ suffering in relation to the incessant threat (or experience) of rape, physical abuse, and psychological violence; the denial of girls’ and women’s authentic voices and intuitive powers; the oppressive conditioning around female beauty; fears around body image; the painful realities of sexual harassment and the glass ceiling in the workplace—to name a few. In all societies, despite the awakenings and breakthroughs of #MeToo, both women and men remain powerfully conditioned to repress the daily realities of these experiences and to collude with the rest of society in keeping these dimensions of shared experience hidden. Similar patterns apply in relation to the suffering of LGBTQ+ populations, to which the heterosexual population is often completely oblivious.

Yet it is precisely in bringing courageous and compassionate light to these taboo arenas that deep healing and transformation of social gender conditioning can take place. As the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. emphasized, social change does not happen by keeping corruption and injustice hidden, but rather by bringing darkness into the light and confronting it with the power of love. No matter how challenging the ensuing process may become at times, the inner light and love in the human heart always has the power to dispel darkness and ignorance. The process calls forth—indeed demands—the highest from the human heart, which for lack of a better term we can call divine consciousness, something that dwells deeply within every human being regardless of race, culture, or religious heritage. This divine consciousness manifests as the awakening of a universal love, the agape that transcends all human weakness, darkness, and obscurity. Gender healing and reconciliation consciously invokes this universal love of the heart, which in the end has the capacity to overcome the very real and formidable challenges of gender oppression and injustice that have tormented human societies for literally thousands of years.

If pessimism concerning human nature is not balanced by an optimism concerning divine nature, observed Martin Luther King, Jr., then we overlook the cure of grace.²⁴ The power of love invokes this grace, which in turn facilitates deep healing and fosters authentic social transformation and change. Without conscious cultivation of love, the grace does not come, and the social change does not last.

Although Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke of this process in Judeo-Christian terms, precisely the same process is described in Hindu terms by the twin principles of ahimsa and satyagraha, articulated by Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi emphasized that ahimsa and satyagraha confer a matchless and universal power upon those who practice them. Similarly, the Buddha taught that: Hatred never ceases by hatred, but by love alone. This is an ancient and universal law.²⁵ The GERI work draws upon these universal spiritual principles, which are found in every faith tradition. As such, our work draws from all spiritual traditions, and is not beholden to any one tradition. This spiritual orientation is addressed more fully below and in later chapters.

The Alchemical Nature of Gender Reconciliation

How is the power of this universal love activated and invoked in practice? We adopt the term collective alchemy to describe how it unfolds in the gender healing process. The ancient tradition of alchemy has been widely discredited and mischaracterized in modern society as an arcane physical science that sought to turn lead into gold. Yet the deeper significance of alchemy has little to do with physical transformation and is instead a spiritual process in which the lead of the human psyche—the inner darkness and repressed poisons lodged in the mind and heart (called prima materia)—are confronted directly and transmuted into the golden light of love. As the thirteenth-century Persian mystical poet Rumi puts it, When the dross of the false self burns, it becomes part of the light. Alchemy refers to this process, which operates by the unfathomable power of love. The process has long been known by spiritual masters in various traditions, yet only relatively recently, through the work of pioneers such as Carl Jung, has alchemy been recognized in the West as having any legitimacy. Traditionally, alchemy refers to a process of spiritual transformation that takes place within an individual. As Sufi master and Jungian scholar Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee describes the process, the divine light or spark of the soul is directed to areas of blocked awareness or unconsciousness within the individual. As the light of the soul is directed inward, it illuminates and eventually dispels the darkness within. At first this process brings to conscious awareness what has been repressed and pushed away. This is often quite a painful and humbling process, because it typically unmasks a large amount of repugnant shadow material in the consciousness of the individual. Yet deep within this very darkness dwells an innate light, which Jung termed the lumen natura. As the alchemical process continues, this latent inner light is awakened, and over time it completely transforms the individual into a being of light. Although greatly oversimplified in this description, in essence the darkness within is transmuted into light and love.

In gender reconciliation work, an analogous process takes place on a collective or community level. We gather in a diverse group—as women and men, for example—and after setting the context and creating a safe space for the work, we begin by skillfully exploring arenas that are usually avoided or unacknowledged in relation to participants’ experiences of gender in their lives. We confront the collective darkness in our society in relation to gender conditioning, sexuality, and the oppression of the feminine that has predominated since antiquity. The process is initially painful, which is why it is usually avoided in our society or, if entered, rarely carried beyond this stage. In gender healing work we keep going and continue to examine key issues directly and openly, without flinching, yet with compassion, as men and women together. In so doing we bring the light of our personal and social consciousness to dark corridors of human pain that have long been neglected and suppressed. As the process continues, something remarkable eventually begins to happen. There is an awakening of a new light, an unexpected healing energy and grace that arises in some form. This is surprising to many participants because often, just when it appears that the group is beginning to tread the most intractable or hopeless territory, seemingly beyond our limited capacity to embrace, there is an infusion of healing presence and grace that suffuses each person with love and opens the door to new pathways together as a group. This ushers in powerful group experiences of healing, reconciliation, and forgiveness that constitute the gold of this collective alchemy.

The process of collective alchemy takes some time to understand and must be witnessed repeatedly to be understood deeply. Although it takes place within a group and includes a strong element of healing, it is fundamentally different from a collective psychological process such as group therapy. In group therapy, the therapist is a trained professional who holds clinical authority in the group and works with each individual as the group process unfolds. The role of the therapist is, in part, to point out what needs healing in each individual and to be the expert on each person’s process.

In gender reconciliation work, if there is a therapist present at all, it is the group wisdom itself. When someone bares their soul before the rest of the group or community, it is not the role of the facilitators or other participants to analyze that person’s story or experience. Rather, the story is witnessed and received by everyone in the group, which often precipitates some further opening or sharing from others in the group. The process then evolves organically within the group, building a synergistic momentum that may unfold in any number of creative directions. Over time, as trust builds in the community, the personal disclosures and stories begin to unmask ever more vulnerable truths or hidden secrets, and as the community attends to these, the alchemical nature of the process begins to unveil itself. From within the inevitable darkness and distress, light begins to shine forth.

This bears similarity to a process the Sufis call light upon light, in which the inner light of the soul is met and amplified by a corresponding light from the Divine. The Indian sage Sri Aurobindo describes this same process in his Integral Yoga, where the grace of spiritual aspiration stretching upward from the human heart is met and greatly amplified by a spiritual grace that descends from the Divine plane. In gender reconciliation work, this process takes place within a group or community rather than in one person’s interior spiritual journey.

As people turn the light of collective attention toward their interior vulnerabilities and hidden secrets, the initial shock and outrage they may feel soon dissolves into a deep, abiding comfort that comes with facing truth directly. Then a sense of the real begins to take hold, and people are comforted and even nurtured by this unmasked truth far more than they are scandalized by whatever disclosed secrets or illusions are unveiled, most of which they already knew deep down in their hearts anyway. The power of the work comes through this alchemical process in which the darkness is transmuted into light, and the energy that was trapped in maintaining rigid social strictures and unhealthy cultural conditioning becomes freed up and released.

This alchemical process characterizes truth and reconciliation work in groups generally, but it is especially intensified when working with gender issues. This is because in gender and sexuality the intimacy of the heart is involved as well as the body and mind. Wrapped up in gender is the longing of the human heart for love and intimacy, embracing all levels from the desire for a beloved partner or spouse to universal forms of love for God or the Divine.

Gender reconciliation work is not for everyone. It requires a degree of willingness to be personally challenged, to have one’s secrets revealed, and to stretch and become vulnerable. Not everyone is open to this or ready for it. As one friend and colleague remarked to us wryly with a sheepish grin, I’d sooner lie down naked in a pit of scorpions than do gender reconciliation work. Yet for those who are ready for it, the process can be deeply rewarding and is generally experienced as powerfully liberating and transformative.

Masculine, Feminine, and Gender

Because we are a community of authors working in multiple cultures and social and psychological contexts, we hold a diversity of perspectives and philosophies relating not only to gender, but also other dimensions of life. We also hold diverse spiritual beliefs and commitments, and we span a broad spectrum of experiences and backgrounds in relation to gender and sexuality. We don’t necessarily agree on all aspects of the contemporary gender conversation, which is dynamic and rapidly shifting at this time.

Nevertheless, we do hold certain basic convictions in common, and perhaps the most important is the deep need today for creating special forums in which people can safely share the deep truths of their hearts in relation to gender and sexuality, and be truly heard and met with compassion.

In the course of our gender reconciliation work we strive to maintain an open mind to the intrinsic value inherent in all spiritual and philosophical perspectives; our work is practical and does not seek to advance any particular theoretical or spiritual position. We acknowledge the complementarity of masculine and feminine archetypes and principles, more as a spectrum than a duality, and that masculine and feminine principles or qualities dwell together in every human being. A corollary of this perspective is that a dynamic balance between masculine and feminine principles and qualities is necessary for a healthy functioning person, relationship, or society. When there is a systematic imbalance between masculine and feminine, as has been the case in Western culture for more than three millennia, profound social malaise is the inevitable result, and this is the condition we find our society in today.

A healthy balance between masculine and feminine dimensions of life is fluid and dynamic, rather than fixed and static. At times the masculine principle prevails, at other times the feminine principle prevails, and the two energies are mutually interpenetrating (masculine) and mutually inter-receptive (feminine) in their eternal dance. Esoterically, masculine and feminine energies are linked together in the abandon of a profound love, rather than a struggle for power. Exoterically, the dynamic balance of feminine and masculine manifests at multiple levels simultaneously: from the innermost solitude of the individual, to the family and community, and on up through the broadest domains of culture and civilization. Just as a bird can fly only by using both wings in a coordinated, dynamic balance, humanity can rise to its full potential and live in lasting peace only when a harmonious balance between feminine and masculine is realized.

Our work has focused extensively on creating forums for people who identify as women and men, irrespective of sexual orientation. GERI programs attract people of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities, including lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer persons (LGBTQ+). We value all of these diverse gender identities and sexual orientations, as addressed more fully in later chapters. In recent years we have found it helpful to develop multiple forms of our programming, to better meet the specific needs of diverse communities. Currently GERI has three primary program areas; one for people who mostly identify as men or women (inclusive of sexual orientations), another for LGBTQ+ persons, especially those who identify as gender fluid or queer or otherwise outside the traditional gender binary, and a third for BIPOC communities (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color). The boundaries between these programs are not rigid, and participants choose which program feels most appropriate for their needs.

The purpose of our gender reconciliation work has not been to analyze or theorize about the nature of gender differences, but rather to convene forums in which women and men, and people of all genders, can enter into a deep exploration of and openhearted communication about their gendered experiences, and to move from this foundation through creative dynamic interaction to a place of mutual healing, forgiveness, and reconciliation. The core of this work is the inner work of the heart, which transcends sexual orientation, gender identity, body identification, and lifestyle and philosophical differences.

The Need for Change

It almost goes without saying that the work reported in this book is just a beginning step. The need for gender healing and reconciliation is vast and multidimensional, extending to virtually every human society across the globe. The key issues of gender