For many people, going out, partying and dancing is part of a good life – everyone wants to have fun and live out their lives. IIn the messenger community, this mainly happens in the context of championships and alleycats, which are characterized by a high level of physicality and sporting competition. But: what Fun means to individual people differs from person to person and depends on the specific situation, because personal limits are subjective. We want to work towards a new social state in which respecting one’s own and others’ boundaries is a matter of course. As a community, we can set a good example and advocate for respectful, appreciative interaction with one another.
The messenger community is still very cis-male dominated: Only 10-20% (rising tendency) of the participants of championships in European area were WTNBIA+ and most of the messenger companies we know have a strong surplus of cis-male riders. In our experience, it is not unusual that there are only few or even none WTNBIA+ people taking parts in alleycats in some cities.
We highlight this because spaces with an excessively high amount of cis-male people can be intimidating or in general uncomfortable for many people (of all genders).
In addition, championships are, by definition, sporting competitions, which further encourages dominant and macho behaviour. All of this makes the messenger community a place where different people, especially WTNBIA+ can quickly feel unwelcome.
But of course we do not just want to criticize sexist discrimination, we want to criticize ALL discrimination and (learn to) break down the behavioural patterns associated with it. For this purpose we have formulated a guideline that intends to facilitate the access of championship organizations to the topic awareness in order to establish stable awareness structures and promote the awareness of all participants.
Especially in spaces that are characterized by physicality, noise, darkness, confinement and possibly intoxication. personal boundaries are unfortunately exceeded more often. This crossing of boundaries usually affects people who are already discriminated against by existing social power relations, for example because of skin color, gender, sexual orientation, religion or because they are not ablebodied. People affected often leave events after such negative experiences, which further manifests the existing discriminatory conditions. In order to prevent this, it is important that all participants are able to know their boundaries as best as possible and respect them as well as those of others, thus be as aware as possible.
