Knowledge Share Description

Gender self determination and reproductive agency are and have continually been strongly interconnected as struggles for full body autonomy. This connection also manifests in the realm of remedy: contraception and hormone replacement can often be the very same medicine, in the worlds of pharmaceuticals and herbals alike. Herbal remedies of this kind have existed across time, space, geographies and ethnic & ancestral lineages.

In service of broadening the scope to examine greater ecosystem-wide cycles, impacts, balances and messages, this workshop looks closely at the exchange between plants and what we now call ‘sex hormones’. We examine if, to what extent, how & why such exchanges might exist in the non human animal world as well. Focusing on phytoestrogens, we will discuss biomedical, holistic and traditional approaches to hormonally active plants from different bioregions and cultures. 

We will explore some examples of interactions between specific non human animals and hormonally active plants, mostly drawn from biomedical research. We will discuss these examples and what might be the underlying ecological values behind the findings and conclusions. Using all these threads, we will reflect together on what lessons are to be found with regards to right relationship with ecosystems as a whole, in a world & timeline highly saturated with constant endocrine activity, predominantly non consensual xenoestrogenic.

This knowledge share and discussion will center the values of agency, reciprocity, self determination as well as the preservation of fragile ecosystems and their precarious but resilient life.

We will explore:

• perspectives on trans herbalism & sex hormones

• perspectives on phytoestrogens: functions and effects

• the legume family's many talents

• examples of non human animal's consumption of phytoestrogens and other hormonally active plants

• ecological perspectives and values behind these findings

• xenoestrogens, their pervasiveness and impacts

• thoughts on potential roles of phytoestrogens

Cost

$35 - low income

$50 - standard

$75 - pay-it-forward (if you have financial abundance, this is our pay-it-forward option to fund our full tuition scholarships)

The zoom link will be sent upon registration. Recording will be available for 30 days.

Please apply here for a scholarship.

Accessibility Information

*ASR (automated) captioning provided

Virtual Gathering

Zoom link will be sent out via email upon registration

3:00pm - 5:00pm Eastern Standard Time

Class will be recorded and available for 30 days.

Facilitator

Ayelet Hashachar dreams of trans women thriving & schemes about ways that biomedicine, holistic medicine and plant magic can work in synergy towards that end. She is a clinical herbalist & a research lover dedicated to mutually uplifting plants & transsexuals, in service of the larger urgent anti-colonial & anti-capitalist imperative to restore and remediate this earth. Ayelet is an anti-zionist, a radical diasporist Ashkenaziyah, & a proud self loving Jewish educator, spiritual consultant  & language nerd based in occupied Lenapehoking / Brooklyn. You can currently find her work on IG: @ayelet___hashachar