Outsiders Village: A Short Manifesto

Content updated: September 21, 2026 at 5:50 PM MDT

We are Outsiders Village: people building the kind of belonging we have struggled to find because we live outside what dominant society treats as normal, acceptable, supported, or expected. Outsiders may be BIPOC, disabled, neurodivergent, Deaf or hard of hearing, queer or trans, unconventional in our relationships or lives, or excluded in other ways. No one must prove or rank their outsider status. We are not a program delivered to passive participants. We are people choosing to practice village life together.

To be part of the village is to live like a villager. A villager may bring conversation, food, a ride, a game, a listening ear, a useful skill, a quiet body-doubling session, or simply their honest presence. What we offer will differ. What matters is that belonging is something we make with one another, not something a leader, facilitator, or institution provides for everyone else.

Everyone here is a villager first. Organizers and hosts contribute particular skills, but those roles do not make them therapists, counselors, saviors, or authorities over other people’s lives. They remain part of the relationships they help create. They need friendship, care, and support too. Nobody is here to fix anyone.

We are unruly on purpose. Unruly does not mean careless, cruel, or without boundaries. It means making room for people to be complicated, unconventional, unfinished, and fully themselves, while resisting pressures toward masking, hierarchy, conformity, and control. We choose consent, curiosity, accountability, accessibility, and repair over shame, coercion, and compulsory performance.

We will stay human-sized. Outsiders Village may hold many small, self-managing villages shaped around identities, needs, interests, places, or activities. Smallness helps people know one another, protects mutuality, and makes it harder for concentrated power or structure to replace relationship. Villages may form, change, pause, split, merge, or end as the people and needs change.

We will not chase butterflies. We will build a beautiful garden—something nourishing, welcoming, and alive. People may come, go, return, contribute, or rest. Even if the garden does not attract everyone, it will still be worth tending.

Come as yourself. Offer what you can. Ask for what you need. Respect every no. Make room for other people to matter. Help build the village you want to live in.

This is a beginning, not a finished declaration. The village—and this document—will change as we learn together.