Consent, Safety, and Incident Reporting Team Update
9/24/2025
Hello temple Community
We write to introduce ourselves as the third-party team of collaborators that Temple has hired to support as Temple NYC reassesses and revises Policies and Procedures regarding Consent, Safety, and Incident Reporting. We are grateful that Temple NYC has onboarded us for supporting them in integrating these changes.
First, we want to provide context of who we are, what we do, and our experience within community, so that you know more about our community involvement and expertise:
Kabir: (He/Him/His): Of BearXFifi, Kabir is a Relationship Coach, Community Consultant, and authors/facilitates Workshops for safer sex practices on a human-to-human and collective level. He has worked with a diverse roster of couples + individuals and spaces such as Hacienda, Hit Me Up, #Open app and ColetteClubs, in designing BIPOC/Queer/Gender Expansive initiatives to diversify their communities.
Emma (They/Them): Is currently the safer spaces lead for Hit Me Up and House of Yes, and formerly the safer spaces lead for Life Itself and Elements. They created the Safer Space protocol for CAMP, are a co-developer with Pink on Universal Guardian Training, a Trained Mediator in cases of sexual violence, an Educator for safer sex practices at interpersonal and community levels, and provide individual-level education for perpetrators of sexual harm. They hold a doctorate in health education and their research focuses on sexual safety for queer and trans adults.
Rebecca-Emma Pink (All Pronouns): is a Social Worker and former event producer. He has been studying and practicing Social Work for a total of 5 years and worked in nightlife in New York City for 7 years. Pink used to produce events such as “Temple VI”, “As Above, So Below” and “Party with No Name”. He holds a Master of Science in Social work with specializations in both clinical social work and program development using approaches such as human-centered social service design, community advocacy and needs assessment, program evaluation, and implementation science. Pink co-developed the Universal Guardian Training alongside Emma. Pink is passionate about anti-carceral approaches to mental health and supporting communities she is a part of. She is currently a program manager and psychotherapist (with specializations in doing DBT, trauma therapy and relationship therapy with queer, kinky, consensually-non monogamous, and sex working populations) at Queer Behaviors.
We’re reaching out today to provide transparency around updates in these processes, to ensure you are all informed as a part of this community.
The current reporting flow we are implementing involves:
Filling out an Incident Report Form on the Temple website -- this will go to us and only us, aka no member of Temple NYC leadership will see your report.
Receiving an email from templenyreporting@gmail.com, confirming receipt of your form.
Depending on risk assessment, urgency, and request upon the persons who made the report, you can expect a written or voice to voice exchange with at least one of the three us. If you believe one of us (Kabir, Pink, Emma) has a conflict of interest, you can let us know in the reporting form and that person or persons will not participate in the case.
Receiving follow-up with action steps taken or revised timeline.
Potential action steps include:
Support from us that includes individual-level support, outreach, and referrals to resources.
Education in consent, accountability processes, inclusion and transformative + restorative justice to those who have caused harm.
Offer for mediation or other accountability processes either through us or referrals.
Temporary or permanent ban of persons who caused harm from engagement with Temple events and community.
*A note on Temple’s approach to “Vetting” new members*
The approach to vetting that many Sex Positive and Kink communities take is that a current member vouches for an individual based on their opinion and experiences of them. Temple NYC believes this approach has the potential to cause more harm than good in the following ways:
Hegemony within the community (people are often close to folks who look like them and have similar life experience).
A sense of cliques and personal bias, over community building and a culture of diversity and belonging.
And finally, that personal bias can lead to vouching for an individual who has a history of causing harm.
Temple, instead, believes in providing accessible ways for individuals who are interested in becoming a part of the community, to be exposed to the culture of the space through education around Kink, Consent, Safety, and witnessing how they fare at community gatherings. This creates a more unbiased gauge of whether or not an individual is able to uphold Temple NYC’s guidelines around Consent Centeredness, Safety, Equity, and Inclusion.
We are continuing to review Temple policies and procedures and will keep the community informed about the implementation of changes as a result of the review. While our experience and expertise position us to implement best practices, it is also within our values to design policies and procedures not only for communities but *with* them. Thus, we want to consider your feedback as we review policies and procedures. If you want to send input directly to us, you can fill out our feedback form.
If you want to report an incident, here is the direct link to the reporting form:
In solidarity,
Emma, Kabir, and Pink