Collective Statement (2-13-2022)

On November 22nd we received an email from someone who lived here for stretches of time between 2019 & 2020. In it they said that they were representing a group of anonymous survivors looking to address what they named as unresolved issues and toxic patterns at Lupinewood, and encouraged us to ask questions (you can find the complete email exchange here). We first asked for time to respond because a collective member was arrested for land defense, then responded and asked follow-up questions on December 16th, and never heard back.

On December 26th the group started posting to an Instagram page with anonymous quotes and narratives that allege, among other things: that we’re an elitist, racist, ableist cult controlled by abusive leaders who take sexual advantage of people in marginal positions, who force people to do manual labor, who have kicked people out in the last year, and who have punished and silenced the people who have tried to speak out against us.

Then on January 15th, the group started making direct phone reach outs to hundreds of people in our organizing networks and programs. This included contacting people in a large mutual aid organization to suggest that we’d trapped and were controlling their founder, and suggesting to a mother in our free childcare program that we could be sexually abusing her child.

—

People in our group haven’t sexually abused children. We haven’t asked anyone to leave during the pandemic, and we haven’t exacted reprisal, silencing, or smear campaigns against people who’ve moved elsewhere. We’re not a cult and we don’t think there’s only one way to go about stuff; we don’t force people to do manual labor; we haven’t taken sexual advantage of people we’re supporting; and we aren’t controlling a local organizer. We’re open to people reaching out in good faith if there’s something they’d like to reconcile with us. (hello@lupinewood.com)

We won’t interact with a group of people behaving this way towards us. This isn’t conflict resolution or accountability: it’s a public harassment campaign against trans, queer, POC and disabled people living and working together as a chosen family, and it ends up speaking over and for people of color in the collective and in our communities.

Thank you to everyone for your support: it has been deeply meaningful to all of us here. In whatever you do, we ask that you treat the people making these claims about us and their supporters with respect. We need a different way to reconcile conflicts than this, and we believe that the people coming after us deserve healing and support just as much as we do.

In solidarity towards a better world,
the collective at Lupinewood