About me
My name is Cailyn Hansen, and my pronouns are she/they. I am exploring what I can do to build a revolutionary and liberatory future through community building, collaborative and radical writing, generative conflict, and collective creative imagining. In my leisure, I read, bike, bird watch, bake, and play board games. I was formerly a senior engineering manager at Duolingo. Check out my projects below to learn more about any of these.
Identity?
I have a nuanced (and abolitionist) relationship to labels and identity, especially around gender, sexuality, and intimacy. However, I could be described/inhabit the world as a white, polyamorous, bisexual, genderfluid, trans woman. These identities and lived experiences thereof inform both my theory and praxis in the world.
Beliefs
I am an abolitionist. Let that be the guiding principle to which I orient myself. I believe in the abolition of prisons, police, and the criminal legal system. I believe in the abolition of the pathology of mental health. I believe in the abolition of private property. I believe in the abolition of identity. I believe in the abolition of family and the self. I believe in the abolition of democracy. And perhaps, most fervently, I believe in the abolition of the state.
I am an anti-capitalist and communitarian anarchist. I reject deeply the exploitation of labor and the organization of such for profit. I also reject, however, a socialist state and hierarchy through which labor (or anything) is coerced. I envision of world through which the central organizing force is the relationships we hold with those around us, not our labor nor our productivity.
Let it be known, though, I don't reject a present participation in electoral politics. Nonetheless, I find it a much more effective use of my time to build relationships that further actualization of my vision of the future. To the extent electoral politics serve a function is to limit the amount of death and suffering people face such that we have more time to build the connections necessary to abolish the above systems instead of merely fighting to survive.
I share all of this at incredible risk given the current US government's administration, but I feel with incredible importance to be visible in these beliefs and to stand up for the just world I so deeply feel is necessary.