Deprogramming the Patriarchy

Training opens July 13th.

Pre-register now!

Deprogramming the Patriarchy is a 4 hour asynchronous learning experience with a facilitated online group component, created specifically for cisgender white women who want to engage honestly with how patriarchy and white supremacy function as intertwined and mutually reinforcing systems.

Grounded in intersectional feminist thought, including the foundational work of Kimberlé Crenshaw and bell hooks, this training examines the social and political placement of white women within these systems and explores how fragility, defensiveness, and rage are shaped and reinforced by power and socialization.

Participants will critically engage with the weaponization of femininity, gendered expectations, shame and guilt, the scapegoating and marginalization of trans people, and the ways white women are positioned in both proximity to and protection by political power. The training invites honest self-reflection, shared processing, and courageous conversation.

A central focus of this session is how racism and transphobia continue to operate in progressive and feminist spaces, particularly through the influence and normalization of trans-exclusionary radical feminism, and through patterns of treating trans people’s safety, dignity, and belonging as negotiable in political organizing, family systems, and social relationships. Participants will examine how trans people, especially trans women, are scapegoated, framed as threats, or asked to be sacrificed for perceived political unity, social comfort, or familial harmony.

This is not a perfect or exhaustive training. It is an intentionally courageous one, designed to support participants in facing difficult truths with honesty, building clarity about their own power and responsibility, and leaving with practical ways to move in accountable allyship with all women. 

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By the end of this training, participants will be able to:

• Understand how patriarchy and white supremacy function as co-dependent systems, including how they shape both gendered and racial hierarchies, even inside progressive and feminist spaces.

• Examine the social and political positioning of white cisgender women, including how access to credibility, sympathy, and protection reinforces power.

• Identify patterns of white women’s fragility, defensiveness, and rage, and how these responses often derail accountability and protect harm.

• Recognize how trans-exclusionary radical feminism operates within feminist and progressive movements, and how its narratives reinforce patriarchy, racism, and gender policing.

• Analyze how racism and transphobia are frequently treated as negotiable in political spaces, families, and social groups, especially when maintaining comfort, unity, or relationships with those in power is prioritized over the safety and dignity of trans people and women of color.

• Understand the weaponization of femininity and gender roles, including how white womanhood is used to justify fear, exclusion, and moral panic, particularly toward trans women and gender-diverse people.

• Differentiate between guilt, shame, and responsibility, and develop practices for staying engaged through discomfort without centering oneself.

• Apply an intersectional feminist framework to better understand how race, gender identity, disability, class, and sexuality shape women’s lived experiences in unequal and interconnected ways.

• Develop clarity and confidence in accountable allyship, including concrete strategies for interrupting transphobia and racism in progressive spaces, family systems, and personal relationships.

• Leave with personal commitments and next steps for disrupting harm, redistributing power, and engaging in sustained, imperfect, and courageous action in solidarity with all women, especially trans women and all women of color.