Buzzword-Bingo

The following descriptions are neither exhaustive nor exclusively true. They merely sketch the boundaries of our playing field.

 Gender (transformative) approaches
At times, our clients (or their donors) insist that all initiatives must be "gender transformative”. While we are absolutely committed to transforming rigid norms, roles, and power structures to foster equality and equal opportunities for all genders, we recognise that this approach is not the appropriate (or sole) approach for every situation, nor is there a linear, hierarchical progression from women’s empowerment to gender mainstreaming leading to gender transformation. Various approaches exist to advance gender equality, each with unique advantages suited to specific contexts and times.
Selecting an inappropriate approach could potentially violate the Do No Harm principles. Therefore, we meticulously choose our recommendations from a range of options, tailoring them specifically to the needs and circumstances of our clients' target groups.
For instance, during humanitarian crises, individuals often revert to rigid, "re-traditionalised" gender norms as a coping mechanism to find stability in an unstable environment. In such contexts, gender-transformative interventions may not be suitable. Instead, gender-sensitive or gender-responsive approaches might be more appropriate to ensure that disadvantaged individuals have access to humanitarian assistance. Nevertheless, there may still be opportunities to incorporate some transformative-oriented interventions. Our gender analyses highlight these limitations and opportunities.

Feminism
trans:verse’s founders, Julia and Birgit, both have decades of experience working with gender-related issues. However, this expertise doesn't simplify explaining trans:verse’s understanding of feminism. We are acutely aware of the complexities, including the "if’s" and "when’s," diversity, intersectionality, post-structuralist, (de)constructivist, and post-post-colonial aspects that influence various feminisms. (Using the plural always helps a bit.)
Feminism encompasses diverse and evolving movements with many different perspectives and approaches. At their core, all advocate for a world where gender does not determine one's opportunities, rights, or value.
In international development and humanitarian assistance, the term "feminism" fell out of favor in the early 2000s – because what about the men?!
It made a comeback in the early 2020s, for example, through feminist foreign policies adopted by some countries, only to be cancelled again in 2025, succumbing to anti-gender agendas deeply rooted in misogyny and antifeminism.

At trans:verse, we believe that feminism

  • is about critique of power and domination.

  • is a pluralistic concept seeking to establish equal rights and opportunities for all people, recognising that neither women, men, nor any other genders are homogeneous groups and that experiences of oppression and privilege are shaped by intersecting factors such as race, disability, class, age or geography

  • dismantles stereotypes and various forms of discrimination, advocating for systemic changes and social justice.

  • is about empowering women by promoting their autonomy, self-determination, and control over their own lives and bodies. This includes advocating for reproductive rights and bodily autonomy. It is an outrage that we still, and again, need to fight for these basic rights!

  • stands for the full inclusion and protection of LGBTIQA+ communities, recognizing that justice and transformation cannot be achieved without addressing the intersecting oppressions faced by queer and trans communities

  • confronts and transforms harmful gender norms, roles and relations

  • pushes back against patriarchy, heteronormativity, cisnormativity, and all forms of exclusion based on sexual orientation, gender identity, expression, and sex characteristics

  • allies itself with other justice-oriented movements

So, in light of how the backlash against gender equality and women's rights is manifesting locally, regionally, and globally, we decided that it’s time to bring back the word FEMINISM, loud and clear. At trans:verse, we are feminists.

 

Meaningful participation and equal participation
Participation, in and of itself, does not guarantee inclusion, influence, or transformation. Merely having a “seat at the table” is often insufficient, and participation risks becoming tokenistic, manipulated, or even oppressive—a phenomenon some have called the "tyranny of participation" (Cooke, Kothari, 2001). To move beyond these limitations, we work with the concepts of meaningful and equal participation. This approach requires far more than presence; it demands intentionality, structural change, and power-sharing. Our conceptual foundation is rooted in a framework developed by a UN Women expert group (2018) and further refined by UN Women in Georgia (2020). It begins with deploying agency through agenda-setting and coalition-building, allowing individuals and groups to shape priorities from the outset. Self-efficacy or the knowledge, confidence, and capacity to represent one’s own and others’ interests is essential for participation to be effective and sustainable. Being present then becomes an opportunity not just to attend, but to actively inform, influence, and make decisions. Finally, meaningful participation is reinforced when those involved can exert influence grounded in gendered perspectives shaped within broader movements for justice and equality. Through this lens, we work not just toward inclusion in decision-making spaces but toward shifting the terms of participation itself by centering agency, equity, and transformation.
We use the term 'equal participation' to emphasise fairness in the opportunity to participate, ensuring that all relevant stakeholders, including marginalised or underrepresented groups, can participate, and that any barriers to participation are addressed in order to achieve more effective, equitable, and sustainable outcomes. Both concepts are about access, representation, non-discrimination and inclusivity. While meaningful participation focuses on the depth and effectiveness of involvement,  equal participation ensures that everyone has the same chance to be involved.

 Trauma-informed care
Our work is often situated in contexts shaped by gendered violence, armed conflict, and/or disasters, thus, we recognise that people may have been exposed to potentially traumatic events. However, we emphasise that such exposure does not automatically equate to individuals being traumatised.We ground our work in a Do No Harm approach and apply trauma-informed care as a guiding framework that recognises and responds to the widespread and varied impacts of trauma on individuals and communities. Trauma as defined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) is a severe condition which should be addressed by specialist psychotherapy professionals.

We utilise trauma-informed care to foster supportive environments that promote healing and psychosocial recovery. Our goal is to mitigate any potential harm and to foster a sense of safety, control, and empowerment for survivors. At a basic level this means:

  • Giving full agency – the “being in control” – to the people who have experienced traumatic situations.

  • Being mindful of providing a maximum of choice, and building on the individuals’ strengths, giving them a voice in their own recovery and care.

  • Creating environments that ensure physical and emotional safety, avoid triggering, and recognise that trauma is not always accessible verbally.

  • Recognising the importance of shared experiences and the healing power of relationships with others who have experienced similar traumas through peer support and mutual self-help.

  • Acknowledging and addressing cultural, historical, and gendered aspects of trauma and understanding how these factors influence an individual's experience and recovery.

 

Conflict & conflict sensitivity & conflict transformation
We understand conflict not simply as a problem to be avoided, but as a natural and inevitable part of human relationships and societal change. Conflict arises from differences in needs, values, identities, and power. When engaged with care and creativity, conflict holds the potential to expose injustice, challenge exclusion, and open up space for transformation. When left unaddressed, these tensions can polarize, escalate and turn violent. That is why conflict sensitivity is essential. It means being acutely aware of how our actions, projects, and programmes interact with conflict dynamics and working intentionally on minimising harm, while strengthening our potential positive impact. This involves not only contextual analysis and anticipating unintended consequences but also recognising the implicit ethical messages in our work and adapting our approaches accordingly. Conflict transformation, in contrast, goes further: it is about fundamentally reshaping relationships, structures, and narratives that sustain violence and inequality.

Peace
There is no single, universally accepted definition of peace. Traditional approaches often define peace narrowly as the absence of war. Recently, this limited view has regained prominence amid growing militarisation efforts and security-driven responses to global crises. Yet, feminist scholars and activists have long challenged this notion, arguing that it overlooks the everyday inequalities and systemic violence that persist even in times of so-called peace.

We follow this tradition by understanding peace as a transformative process that requires not only ending direct violence, but also addressing drivers of conflict, reshaping relationships, transforming systems and ensuring that individuals and society alike have the capacity to resolve their conflicts constructively and without violence.

Inclusion and belonging
At trans:verse, we understand social inclusion as a vital step improving the terms on which individuals and groups who are disadvantaged based on their identity can fully take part in all social, economic, and political aspects of a society. This involves policy and structural changes to address inequalities and barriers that prevent certain groups from full participation in society. It is about creating opportunities and removing obstacles. For us, inclusion is merely a necessary foundation for something deeper: belonging. On an individual level belonging is the felt experience of being accepted, valued, and safe as your full self, while also being able to shape and co-create the spaces you are part of. This is where it moves into an institutional and societal level as it goes beyond being invited into existing systems to fundamentally reshape them together. We work a lot with Social Identity Theory (Tajfl & Turner) to understand mechanisms and factors for exclusion, as well as the needs of individuals in their (in-)groups. Drawing on the work of scholars like john a. powell and Esra Cuhadar, we see belonging as the antidote to othering, to polarisation and as an essential for peacebuilding.