Feminist spaces have, for the longest time, maintained a close link with the idea that the “personal is political” (Hanisch 1969)—referring to the interdependent relationship between the personal self and the political system that the self is based in. Both the personal self and the political self interact, modify, create, and mold each other. While this interaction is claimed to be embodied in feminist organizations, it is often absent in their praxis. In our observations, we note how personal “cis-terhoods” supersede the political “sisterhoods” with a reduction of the political to the personal. In today's world, where an increasing “gender critical” and trans-exclusionary feminism is taking precedence within progressive movements, it is important for people within organizing spaces to take account of our own actions. The objective should be to not replicate the exclusions that we have been subjected to inside our own safe spaces and feminist groups.Through this article we seek to explore the organizing within leftist feminist groups that we have been a part of and to introspect on exclusionary practices of these groups, specifically those relating to constructs of femininity. We seek to learn and practice solidarity in the intersectional anti-capitalist, queer/trans feminist human rights movements working toward a demilitarized, anticolonial present and future. We analyze our experiences of organizing in political groups that claim to be anti-capitalist, anti-fascist, anti-patriarchal, and feminist but further perpetuate hierarchies of oppression. This can involve relegating the labor of issues of trans/queer rights onto specifically trans/queer people, silencing and/or invisibilizing marginalized folks, prioritizing cis feelings over trans/queer voices, and so on. This article is not written with the aim of focusing on a personal issue; rather it is to draw out the underlying structural problems in a quest for radical inclusion and exploring how to achieve that within the political spaces we occupy.We begin by briefly sharing our individual political journeys, followed by a discussion of our separate and shared experience in a specific organizing space (hereafter referred to as “Space”) that we seek to elaborate and problematize. We have visualized our experiences with the graphic (fig. 1) signifying a river of life (Hope and Timmel 1984 ) to reflect on our individual and collective journeys in the Space we occupied within political organizing groups in the UK. The river originates in the mountains, representative of the expansive work done by resistors before us across movements; since we are not the first, and we will not be the last.We base our efforts on historical organizing lessons, but we run into similar issues. The river flows into the present day, where all the different individuals who joined the Space at the end of 2019 come together to do everything possible in each of our capacities to fight oppressive systems together. There are barriers along the stream, which we have identified and analyze together through the length of the article and in our conversation; namely, in/visible hierarchies; interpersonal “family-like” relationships; and remarginalizations within “inclusive,” “progressive” groups. Our analysis is interspersed by a candid conversation on many of these issues that we had, which we recorded and transcribed for this essay. In the last section, we propose a practice of politics based on creating communities of care to work toward a sustainable progressive movement that expands upon rights for all marginalized communities by talking specifically about the cis-terhood we have experienced and how this affects community building in organizations/social justice work.* * *The Space was spontaneously formed to accommodate the growing anger, discomfort, and helplessness in students, academics, and the larger South Asian diasporic community in the UK. They were enraged at the suppression of the protests against the exclusionary citizenship bill proposed (currently, passed) in India, which, for the first time in Indian history, makes religion a criterion for citizenship, thus moving India toward an ethnocracy. The group aimed to collectivize our energies in solidarity with the protestors in India. In addition, the idea was to raise awareness globally about the right-wing authoritarian tendencies being observed in India while also providing material aid for on-ground protestors.The urgency of the moment meant that the group's foundation was enthusiasm and anger more than anything else, but questions of ideology and practice crept up soon enough as more members joined and more actions were organized. Members noted a centralization of authority within the group in a few cis-women, and one of the author's close interpersonal relationship with them meant she was granted this authority—with limits. The close-knit circle formed new exclusions, defined by the central authority-yielding figures (all cis-women) and trickling down to others, at times accepted uncritically. This issue of centralization of authority was supplemented by the invisibilization of the voices of trans persons.A meeting was called to discuss these issues in which a cis woman was actively involved in silencing and gaslighting one of the few queer and trans nonbinary members of the group. The responsibility of “fixing them” fell on those who brought up the issues, all of whom were new to the academic/activist circles, and some from historically marginalized groups. When called out, the mediator was accused of “cancel culture” and dismissed. The most shocking fact was that one of the cis women involved decided to leave the Space as her feelings were hurt, which also led to that circle of cis women distancing themselves from the Space without making any attempts to engage with the actual shortcomings of the Space. The Space did not have any measures to ensure the violence was addressed. Instead, group members shared their opinions on a group chat, and the cycle of violence continued in the group chat. A safe space was not established, and the interpersonal nature of the group was not valued.* * *What happened in the Space did not occur in a vacuum. It happened after observing patterns of silencing and ignoring some intersections over others. When a meeting was called to discuss these concerns, the violence was invisiblized and couldn't be responded to appropriately. Structural issues of the group when raised were reduced to an “us versus them,” with one team advocating for a structural change while the other was feeling hurt. This was followed by multiple attempts by some members to restart these conversations and to engage more critically and with honesty in this space, but these attempts failed, owing to lack of participation. Protecting the feelings of the cis-ter became the priority over the structural issues of the group. The idea of “sister solidarity” that is so inbuilt into cis women, for multiple reasons—physical safety, experience with men, patriarchy—is in reality often limited to “cis-terhood.” It is strange that, despite having access to political tools and knowledge, political issues were reduced to a personal “fight,” again invisibilizing the experience of trans identities and reiterating a hierarchy in which a cis-person's feelings are prioritized over actual issues that continue to marginalize and silence voices of those who are minoritized (Upadhyay 2021).The above experience is not exclusive to student or youth organizations, or just anti-fascist ones. The damage that is caused by cis-feminist groups that are not willing to learn and include trans issues in their organizing is serious. Recently, there was a video posted on social media made by a prominent cis-feminist organizing group that interchangeably used the words intersex and transgender while explaining gender. The videos, used as training materials that were to be shown in rural communities in India, are damaging an already marginalized community by claiming that “people are born male, female and transgender.” This is problematic because of not only the misinformation this stems from but also the disinterest with which such statements are made, by not involving and consulting people with these lived experiences (trans persons). After the video was released, transgender people consulting with the organization and trans people outside it asked for the material to be rectified. Comments posted by the trans community under the video have largely been ignored, and the only thing that has been constantly celebrated is “the effort” made by the cis-feminist group by other cis-feminists. The occurrences of popular cis-feminist activists not being held accountable for their transphobic behavior by the women's movement reiterate the priority that cis-terhood takes over sisterhood (Feminist Futures Collective 2021; Sass 2020), even though the material created can have severely negative implications to a group of people as affected by patriarchy as them. The argument goes beyond having trans people working in these groups—even if they are there, they are not given the space or power to ask “higher up” feminists to update their knowledge.While the above sheds light on varied constructions of sisterhoods and structures that ensure knowledge and power remains in certain hands, the idea of feminist spaces being linked to family structures is also crucial to our understanding of exclusionary practices within these spaces. Feminist spaces knowingly or unknowingly have started replicating family structures that blur boundaries of consent, power, and access to knowledge based on seniority and parenthood. This possibly happens because we don't critically think about these boundaries within organizing groups, and more attention is paid to getting things done, rather than how we get things done. These “accidental” hierarchies that replicate familial hierarchies don't seem very accidental then, because younger feminists in these groups self-regulate and self-censor, like children do in paternalistic structures, to give space, power, and access to figures in the groups that “know better, have been here longer.” It is then in the interest of groups that seek to subvert for these figures at the center (rather, top) of these hierarchies to think about the space they take.