Roy Iradukunda

My name is Roy, my pronouns are they/them and I am a second year Dlab student. My vision statement is, “Libration without Limitation,” and I carry this statement to my learning experiences and center my doing good around it. For me, doing good looks like sharing information and resources to everyone in our community. By asking questions and not being afraid of what we know, we liberate our consciousness and our empathy. This fall, I got the opportunity to facilitate a conversation on pronouns in my Mission Lab, “Picnic and Politics” about gender and how we can move forward and cause the least amount of harm when folx are having trouble using someone's correct pronouns. This experience was meaningful to me because I noticed that when the gender expansive folx in our community are misgendered there's an awkward silence and no one really knows how to handle the situation because we did not take the time to have hard conversations and ask simple questions. When we normalize these conversations, it creates an opportunity for vulnerability and empathy because folx are not afraid of what they don’t know. We are able to prevent the harm that comes from misgendering before it happens. I learned that I enjoy facilitating and making information accessible and I look forward to continuing to do that throughout my Lab-51 experience. It felt really good when my peers told me that these were things they were already curious about but were scared to ask because they did not want to say the wrong thing. Continuing to hold space for meaningful conversations like this that center the well being of those that are marginalized allows us to stop the harm that misgendering and other microaggressions cause before they happen.