Dr Gávi Ansara (He/him)

Dr Gávi Ansara (He/him) (PhD Psychol, MCouns, MSc, BA, AAGSRDT, CCTP-II)

Acknowledgement of Country:

I acknowledge that I live, work, and play on unceded Wurundjeri Country in the Kulin Nations, with deep respect for Elders and Ancestors, whose guiding wisdom endures. I acknowledge the ongoing effects of colonisation, communities’ struggles for self-determination, colonial state violence, and the need for formal recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander sovereignty. I demonstrate my respect for Country through ongoing contributions to Pay the Rent, Common Ground, The Healing Foundation, and other Aboriginal-led initiatives for reparations, truth-telling, treaty, healing, and justice. You can read my full Acknowledgement of Country on behalf of the Centre here.

My professional bio:

Gávi holds an Advanced Accredited Gender, Sex, and Relationship Diversities Therapist (AAGSRDT) accreditation with Pink Therapy. In addition to his solo psychotherapy work, he is an accredited relationship and kinship/polycule/family therapist, dually-accredited supervisor, and learning facilitator. His relationship and kinship practices centre racialised and colonially equity-denied cultural traditions and polyamorous, multi-partner, queer, queerplatonic, neurodivergent, fursona-based, Otherkin/Therian, and D/s forms of kinship. He has specialisations in trauma-and-violence-informed care, B/I/POC-centred ecotherapy, neurodivergent-affirming practice, intersex-centred practice, non-binary and binary trans-centred practice, family and intimate partner violence, polycultural and creative arts approaches, grief and loss, complex trauma-and-violence lived experiences, intergenerational and community trauma-and-violence lived experiences, supporting forcibly displaced people seeking asylum, and anti-oppressive group facilitation. His undergraduate work had a focus on anti-racist, African-led, and Black-led approaches to community wellbeing.

Gávi is founding director of the Centre and a learning facilitator who is passionate about choosing strength through kindness every day, creating safe and nourishing learning spaces for all students, and nurturing our community. He provides anti-oppressive psychotherapy, polycule-centred relationship and family therapy, clinical supervision, and consulting for community-led organisations. He has worked for over 20 years alongside people and communities with lived experience of oppression. For over 4 years, he has facilitated the Power, Oppression, and Privilege-focused Space! (POPS!), formerly HDEPPCO), an anti-oppressive practitioner peer development group. He previously served for several years as Senior Clinical Supervisor (multi-site contractor) with QLife, a free, anonymous LGBTIQ+ peer support and referral service and has published widely in peer-reviewed publications.

He is one of four founding Editors-in-Chief of Gender Equity, Sage Publishing’s new peer-reviewed global, trans-inclusive, intersectional journal that will launch publicly later this year. He also currently serves as an Associate Editor of Sexual and Relationship Therapy: International Perspectives on Theory, Research and Practice (SRT), the UK College of Sexual and Relationship Therapists’ (COSRT) international academic peer-reviewed journal. He received the UK Higher Education Academy’s National Psychology Postgraduate Teaching Award for excellence in teaching psychology, the American Psychological Association’s Transgender Research Award for original, significant research, and the University of Surrey Vice Chancellor’s Alumni Achievement Award for outstanding contributions to international human rights and social justice.

My societal positioning reflection:

Last updated November 2024

I am a multilingual, polyamorous, neurodivergent polyennic, queer androsexual man of faith with a multi-racialised polycultural heritage who grew up in urban and rural China, the Eora Nation, and elsewhere. I have multiple names in multiple languages; they are all my “real” names.

I have both lived and living experience of chronic pain, multiple disabilities, being targeted for white supremacist racist violence, and being targeted for gender-based and sexuality-based violence. I have lived experience of homelessness, housing instability, migration, intergenerational forced displacement, poverty, and having lived through coercive control, intimate partner violence, and endosexist medical violence. I do not have family home privilege, intergenerational wealth privilege, or inheritance privilege. I am also of Deaf lived experience and influenced by Deaf Pride; although currently hearing, my distinct auditory processing functions and communication retain beneficial influences from Deaf cultures.

I strive toward accountable solidarity regarding my literacy, university-educated, citizenship, sighted, hearing, speaking, educational, allistic (non-Autistic), binary gender, citizenship, situationally lighter-skinned, singleton (not a plural person), and non-Aboriginal privileges.

My polycule contains secure attachment bonds that include several queerfamilial kindred and other consensually co-developed kinship roles. My kinship spiral integrates egalitarian, polycule-centred, and kinship-focused Relationship Anarchy with a Kitchen Table polyam approach.

I have over 20 years of lived experience in lifestyle D/s and as a BDSM/kink Mentor. I strive toward sustaining a consistently anti-oppressive, trauma-and-violence-informed, intersectionally feminist, anti-racist, survivor-centred, body-positive, and decolonial approach in all domains of my life, including but not limited to my work within BDSM/kink communities. This includes my commitment to Explicit Prior and Ongoing Consent and acting to prevent and disrupt coercive practices and undue uses of power and influence in personal, professional, and community spaces.

Like many other multi-racialised people of polycultural heritage, I have been the frequent target of racist harassment and violence in white-dominated public spaces where I live in colonial Australia. Although I am not from a white Anglo Australian background and have frequently been targeted for racialised attacks against both my perceived and actual racialised heritage, I am also aware that I benefit from mistaken assumptions about me in some contexts due to situationally variable lighter-skinned privilege in a colourist, white-dominated society. However, I do not have the privilege of not having to think about how others are racially perceiving me in everyday life; maintaining awareness about this is essential to my physical safety in public. This is one of many ways in which multi-racialised people’s context-dependent and inconsistent lighter-skinned privilege differs from white privilege.

In white-dominated spaces, I am often identified as an outsider and have been told to “go back to where you came from!” or asked “what are you? where are you from?” by white Anglo people in colonial Australia. I have also experienced invisibility and erasure when people from my own racialised cultures do not recognise my languages and cultures solely from my appearance. Often, multiple people in the same situation at the same time interpret my appearance differently and have contrasting racialised assumptions about me. This contrast has often resulted in white supremacist harassment, threats, intimidation, and physical violence, so I do not have the privilege of not having to think about how people are perceiving me racially in interpersonal and public contexts. As a mixed multi-racialised person of polycultural heritage, I am also racialised differently when I travel depending on the contrasting racialised norms between regions where I am travelling. This means that my racialised marginalisation and privileges vary by location more than those of both monocultural people and white Anglo people. Being mixed, polycultural, and having multiple primary languages means racialisation, racism, and racialised oppressions and privileges are at work in complex and multi-dimensional ways in all areas of my life.

I currently enjoy the privileges of living in rental housing with a fixed term lease, relative food security, indoor plumbing, electricity, a sit-down flush toilet, hot water, clean drinking water, and a private room with a door that shuts, although there have been many years of my life when I did not have some or all of these privileges. My past experience with water insecurity makes me acutely aware of my water access privilege every time I’m able to access running water that’s safe for drinking, showering, or dish washing simply by turning on a tap.