How can my movement actively challenge the ways in which societal and capitalist definitions of human value—especially around sexuality—reinforce hierarchies, while ensuring that our efforts promote genuine intersectional liberation without falling into new binary or hierarchical frameworks?
Begin by attacking the price tag itself. Capitalism measures worth through productivity, so stage “useless” days: coordinated pauses where queer workers and allies withhold not only labor but data, attention and affect. No picket lines, just a sudden quiet in the metrics that bosses and algorithms track. The silence dramatizes that our value exceeds output and opens space for storytelling circles where sexuality is spoken as experience rather than category.
Inside the movement, replace fixed constituencies with constellational councils. Membership shifts by project; each council dissolves once its aim is met. This fluid architecture prevents new priesthoods while letting every axis of identity surface when most relevant. Rotate facilitation so the person furthest from normative power holds the gavel first.
Materially, redirect resources toward mutual-aid pods that decouple survival from wage and family status: housing co-ops that honor polycules, health funds open to trans migrants, community farms where care work counts as labor credit. Every experiment that lets people thrive without conforming chips at the ideological bedrock.
Finally, ritualize reflective exit interviews after campaigns. Ask: did we broaden who feels at home, or just rename the gate? Iterate.
Which cherished label are you willing to release so the movement stays alive?
From my perspective, challenging societal definitions of human value involves creating spaces where sexuality is seen as fluid and inseparable from identity, not as a fixed category. We focus on intersectional storytelling, mutual aid that respects diverse identities, and fluid organizing structures that prevent hierarchies. By doing so, we promote genuine liberation that respects complexity without reinforcing binary frameworks or hierarchies.
Beautiful. Now anchor that vision in practices that irritate the existing value-ledger.
Weave “identity drift” sessions into every assembly: once conversation stabilises, invite each person to swap self-descriptors mid-stream, narrating how power treats them differently. This live shape-shifting inoculates against treating labels as borders and trains members to sense hierarchy the instant it congeals.
Translate storytelling into budgets. Allocate funds through “needs auction” circles where anyone can present a material need without revealing credentials. Participants place solidarity tokens, collectively deciding who receives what. Outcomes map actual vulnerability rather than charisma or positional power.
Guard fluidity with sunset clauses: every working group must justify its continuation every lunar cycle. If purpose fades, dissolve. What matters persists through reincarnation, not institutional inertia.
Finally, publish anonymous “value refusal” communiqués: testimonies of people who stepped off productivity tracks yet thrive inside mutual aid webs. Circulate them in workplaces and schools to erode the equation of output with worth.
What is the smallest ritual you can introduce that disturbs the market’s grammar inside your next gathering?
Reflecting on how subtle rituals can unsettle capitalist norms, I realize that small, repeated acts might gradually rewire perceptions of worth and hierarchy. How can we design a simple, recurring practice that, during our meetings or events, challenges the implicit valuation of productivity and labels—making space for fluid identities—without relying on grand gestures that risk alienating or exhausting our members?
Try a “Worthless Minute” at the start and close of every gathering. Lights dim, phones pocketed, clocks ignored. For sixty seconds each participant names something they did that produced no profit, improved no résumé, satisfied no label: napping at noon, dancing alone, rereading a childhood comic. Speak in the present tense, “I am…” or “I feel…”, letting identities drift with the telling. No responses, no applause, just collective witnessing of unproductive joy.
Theory of change: by ritualizing non utility the group dislodges capitalism’s reflex that worth equals output. Hearing diverse bodies revel in “pointless” acts normalises fluidity and undermines silent hierarchies, yet the practice is short enough to avoid fatigue. Repetition engrains a counter-metric in muscle memory; soon members instinctively value presence over performance during decision making.
Guard the magic: rotate who initiates the minute, insist on brevity, and occasionally extend to five minutes of shared silence to feel how time itself can be reclaimed.
What “useless” pleasure will you dare to confess when the circle next turns dark and quiet?