Justice, Equity & Inclusion In Roller Derby
The Brawlin’ Betties stand firmly against discrimination and harassment, and commit to building a non-hostile environment for everyone within our league. To achieve this goal, we intend to be proactive by educating members about racism, transmisogyny, sexism, transphobia, and ableism. The league expects all members to foster an environment welcoming to all individuals and will hold members who violate those standards accountable.
Our league works continuously to combat the effects of discrimination in our communities. We commit to self-evaluate regularly and have a committee to oversee accountability and restorative justice. The league considers restorative justice to be recognition of harm, reflection on actions, reduction of harm, and restoration of emotional and physical safety and trust. This committee oversees inclusiveness training for all members encompassing topics of racism, sexism, transphobia and homophobia, along with an agreement of understanding how these affect their presence in real life and online.
We follow the lead of our supervisory organization, Women’s Flat Track Roller Derby Association (WFTDA) in their updated Code of Conduct, and as they build their Anti-Racism Team Project (ART Project). WFTDA offers training resources and toolkits which we use. Our league echoes WFTDA’s policy stating: “All Member Leagues are expected to make the commitment to call out discrimination when it appears in our communities. We expect that all Member Leagues will continually work to decolonize their organizations, act with integrity and fight racism, transmisogyny, sexism, transphobia and ableism, and develop a firm understanding of intersectionality and the many ways in which racism contributes to further marginalization of all of our communities.”
Although our league is a skating organization, at heart we are a community first. A goal of all Brawlin’ Betties is to actively foster a culture of anti-racism.