Hi there, everyone.

Holy crap.

If you’re reading this, we’ve made it past the ICD Review. Hopefully I’ll be able to take a few weeks after this and talk about something else, both on my blog and with my partner. I’ve got a few weeks’ worth of thoughts pre-loaded for you, but before I get to that, I wanted to take a moment to sit with y’all in the wake of this massive effort.

I’m really lucky to be surrounded by people who encourage me to keep doing the hard and/or scary things, often lending me their guidance and resources in the process. I couldn’t have done what I did without Nebal’s sharp eye or Brandon’s treasure trove of saved articles and comment sections, but I also couldn’t do it without Nick’s unwavering faith in me or the years upon years of written communication skills I got from my author mom and practically-has-a-degree-in-sending-diplomatic-emails dad. I couldn’t do it without years spent on social media listening to people who are largely not scholars and who articulate the nuances of their specific lived experience better than any paper you could ever read.

Though it’s tiring, I genuinely love doing this work—not so much the giant call-outs, but absolutely the moments where I can educate folks who want to learn. I don’t mind being a resource both to people learning for the first time and folks who have messed up and need to do better, though the latter doesn’t always come for free.

You can hire me for this.

One-on-one education or gender things? Yup. Come talk to your studio/class/organization about using language that goes between and beyond the binary? Absolutely. Send me copy of your post/infographic/announcement to make sure you’re not ostracizing queer people? You bet.

Race or disability stuff? I’m not a specialist there. I’ll refer you to one of my colleagues and peers who can give you the perspective you need. Don’t you dare pay them any less than you’d pay me. When possible, pay them more.

Yes, you can still commission me. You can ask me to come talk to your studio/class/organization about music things (in fact, please do!). I still give lessons. But that’s not my whole skill set, and as I’ve learned from the past year or so, our community needs the rest of those skills, too.

So . . . yeah. Come talk to me about what your needs and your calendars look like. Let’s make a plan.

To check out all the things you can book me for, hop on over to Services.

Thanks for reading! If you learned something from this post and would like to tip me, head on over to my Ko-fi page. For more analysis and commentary like this in your life, check back again soon, and consider subscribing to my mailing list (at the bottom of the page or in the sidebar) for quarterly update emails on my biggest projects. To support the long-term work I do as an artist and advocate, you can find me on Patreon and @honestlyeris on Instagram.