Held Together, We Survive

Who We Are

  • Our approach is rooted in the belief that care is collective, relational, and built through everyday acts of showing up for one another across difference. Through conversation, storytelling, education, and community practice, Held Together helps people move from isolation toward interdependence by strengthening real-life care webs grounded in reciprocity, vulnerability, and trust.

    • Interdependence over individualism

    • Reciprocity over transactional care

    • Vulnerability as a pathway to connection

    • Disability wisdom as essential knowledge

  • Held Together began from lived experiences of disability, chronic illness, isolation, and the realization that survival often depends on the relationships we build with one another. What started as Xander sharing their experience with their care web grew into a broader movement for connection that creates spaces where people can practice interdependence, share stories, and remember that none of us are meant to do this alone.

The Held Together Team

Black and white photo of a person with short hair and a nose piercing, wearing a dark top, standing in front of a wooden wall or fence.

Xander Peer Keller, MS

Speaker, facilitator, writer, and community builder whose work explores disability, interdependence, and the power of care webs to transform isolation into connection.

As the founder of Held Together, they create spaces for honest conversation, storytelling, and relationship-building across lines of difference, helping people imagine new ways of caring for and being with one another.

Founder (they/them)
Learn More About Xander
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Beth Wittmann, PhD

Critical disability and fat studies scholar whose research highlights how history shapes the present systems of oppression faced by the disabled and fat communities.

Their work also explores resistance to ableism and fatphobia through the storytelling and qualitative research.

Research Director (she/they)
Learn More About Beth
A woman with short, platinum blonde hair with light pink highlights, large tortoiseshell glasses, a black shirt, and geometric earrings, sitting on a beige couch in a living room with a wooden bookshelf and potted plant in the background.

Lyric Goodwin

Facilitator, trainer, community organizer, anti-capitalist, song writer, and parent. They have over a decade of experience in carceral systems, developing innovative approaches to reducing recidivism.

Lyric is currently dreaming into their passion project, Raising the Revolution (RtR), a philosophy and practice that sits at the intersection of communal parenting, mutual aid, and social justice. RtR is inspired by Lyric’s grandmother’s experience as an Indigenous women who was disconnected from the support of her Native community. RtR is an intergenerational movement that aims to dismantle systems of oppression and foster community. 

Development Director (they/them)

Meet the Web

  • Black and white portrait of Raven with glasses and earrings, smiling slightly, against a background with a stylized illustration of a bird, mouse, squirrel, and honey bee on a dark red backdrop.

    Raven Hinojosa (she/her)

    Raven is a queer Latinx writer and healer. She lives in the unceded Ohlone territory of Alameda, California. Raven has published a co-authored biography, Full Circle: A Quest for Transformation from ACTA Publications in 2021 and has poems published in the 2024 Saints and Sinners Literary Festival Poetry Contest anthology.

    Raven has been a practicing witch for thirty years and has studied stone animacy with Reclaiming elder Cybele Rorchat for six years.

    She holds a BA in Religious Studies from Tulane University and is pursuing a PsyD in Transpersonal Psychology at Meridian University. You can find her work on Substack under Raven Hinojosa.

  • Portrait of Alillia with dark skin, dreadlocks, wearing purple lipstick, a wide-brimmed hat, and a teal top, standing in front of a maroon background with an artistic drawing of a bird, mouse, and bee.

    Alillia Johnson (they/she)

    To call Alillia Johnson an artist is an understatement. Their music and paintings remind us what is possible and how to tap in to each other, the land, ancestral lineage, and the depths of the soul.

    One popular song called Pillow says, “lay your heart on my soul” as a way to imagine what it would feel like to be close enough that oppression can’t fit between us.

    This encapsulates Alillia’s being and body of work. As a single mother, Alillia is committed to raising the next generation of black tenderness, and seeks to bridge disability, queerness, and race in all that they do.

  • A black and white photo of Mack with tattoos, wearing sunglasses, sitting outdoors holding a cup, with a yellow circle behind her. In the background, there is a stylized drawing of a bird, a mouse in a nest, and a bee.

    Mack Packard (she/they)

    Disability advocate, poet, and community organizer focused on building communal disability pride in the face of an increasingly ableist culture.  

    Their belief is that cultivating joy and worth as a disabled, sick queer person is humanity- preserving as the cultural mainstream tries to strip it away.  

    She hopes that by sharing art, community, and truth telling within disabled community, that the world may be exposed to the deep value of disabled lives and our necessary contributions to revolution.

  • Mateen smiling in a gray plaid suit with glasses standing in front of a dark red background with a beige illustration of a bird, a mouse, a bee, and a nest.

    Mateen Zafer (he/him)

    Mateen holds a Master of Social Work from New York University and brings sixteen years of experience in higher education advancing disability justice, equity, and community care.

    He serves as Program Manager for the Office of Access, Culture & Community at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, where he leads initiatives focused on accessibility, disability culture, and institutional change.

    Mateen’s practice is grounded in disability justice, anti-racism, and collective empowerment.

  • Ravyn with long dark hair, glasses, and a nose piercing, sitting with her hand on her face, smiling at the camera. She is in front of a dark red background with a beige illustration of a bird, a mouse, a bee, and a swirl.

    Ravyn Rose Fox (they/she)

    Ravyn is a queer, "highly sensitive," and neurodivergent individual who has navigated chronic thoughts of suicide since childhood. After experiencing hospitalization due to suicidality in 2016, Ravyn became deeply committed to creating spaces where humans can express thoughts of suicide without fear of punishment or repercussion.

    Ravyn is a fierce advocate for the abolition of systems that perpetuate racism, misogyny, ableism, and homophobia. Since 2018, they have been actively involved in peer-based mental health services, with a particular passion for creating accessible, peer-run, and holistic alternatives to traditional mental health care.

  • Portrait of Mia with dark curly hair, sunglasses, a beard, and piercings, smiling in front of a maroon background with a beige illustration of a bird, a mouse, and a bee in a nest.

    Mia Campbell (they/he)

    Bio coming soon.