Our newest contributor is Dharma Kelleher. Dharma is a queer author, blogger and podcaster who frequently focuses on the topics of addiction and depression in the LGBT community. She is the author of the book Fight the Misery Conspiracy: Reclaiming Your Right to be Happy, a member of the Advice Panel for TheLesbianLifestyle.com and the admin for MTFMentors.org. For more information, visit her website at DharmaKelleher.com.

For thirteen years, I have been a member of an informal weekly women’s group known as Garden Club. No, we don’t do any actual gardening. The name refers to the diversity of women that comprise the group. As Kay Grosso, the group’s founder, has told us, “Who’s to say my garden of petunias or shamrocks is any better than your garden of tomatoes or oak trees.”

The women of Garden Club come from all cultures, races, religions, ethnicities, sexual orientations, etc. Some of us are recovering from addictions. Others have never been addicted to anything. Most are cisgender (non-transgender), but a few of us are trans women.

What makes it such a wonderful group is that it is a safe place to take off the masks we wear in the outside world and just be real. It is a safe place to laugh (we do that a lot), to cry (do that a lot, too), to share our worst nightmares and our deepest guilt, but also to celebrate our latest victories. There is no judgment or finger-pointing. Just unconditional love.

But more than that, Garden Club represents an interesting dynamic. It is a place for women of all backgrounds to come together. Men are not allowed. The exclusion of men allows the women of the group an opportunity to share things that might not feel safe to share around men. I’m not talking about man-bashing. The women of Garden Club love the men in their lives, for the most part. But talking about issues of abuse, relationships and sexuality (just to name a few) can be stifled in a co-ed environment.

Are we discriminating against men by not allowing them into the group? In a word, yes. But here is the thing. While even the most devoted member may show up every week, we do not live there. We come together for a few hours and then return to the outside world, sharing with everyone in our lives the love and wisdom we have received.

For those of us who are minorities, taking time once a week or once a month or even once a year to come together with others who share our common and uncommon experiences is important. We need a space of our own. Lesbian-only space. Christian-only space. Trans-only space. Senior-only space. Hispanic-only space. “Womyn born womyn”-only space. It feeds us and gives us the courage we need to live as a person of minority status. This is why there are communities such as China Town and the Castro and even senior communities like Sun City, AZ. We feel safe in community.

But it is equally important to spend time in the world outside of our minority community. To deny this is to deny ourselves the richness that the greater community offers. Too much time spent among people only like us can become toxic. It creates fear of “them”. Fear leads to hostility. Hostility serves no one.

We’ve seen this with Islamic extremists. We’ve seen this in both the Republican and Democratic Parties. We’ve seen this in feminist circles and survivalist circles and transgender circles and lesbian circles and ethnic minority circles. We keep swallowing and regurgitating our own rhetoric until it poisons us. We go crazy. This is how extremism is born.

To create a world of peace that works toward the benefit of all, we need to balance the time spent in our own space with a regular influx of thoughts and contact from outside our minority groups. It keeps our egos and our paranoia at bay. It reminds us that we are all in this together. Our survival depends on our decision to stop defending the walls that separate us and to, instead, build bridges over them.

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Peace Y’all