Last week in GSA, we discussed five new laws that took effect in California last month, as well as some new regulations implemented by government agencies.
The first two laws in California are known as "Seth's Law", after a California teen who killed himself after being bullied for being gay, and the "LGBT Equality and Equal Access to Higher Education Law", both of which address situations in school on a high school and a higher education level. "Seth's Law" mandates that CA public schools have policies in place to address bullying in schools, similar to some of the bills proposed here in Ohio.
Another bill that was made into law is the "Gay Divorce Law" that allows for couples who were married in California but now live in a state where they cannot get divorced to come back to California to get a divorce. It seems a silly law to pass, but it mattered to enough couples (or former couples) to push for the bill to get passed.
Another law passed is the "Transgender Non-Discrimination Law", which protects transgender Californians from discrimination in the areas of employment (meaning you can't be fired for being trans*, nor can it be a reason preventing you from being hired), education (no school in California can refuse to have you as a student because you are trans*) and housing (meaning you cannot be removed from housing or rejected for said housing on the basis of your gender identity.) This coincides with announcement made last week by the Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) that there is a new policy mandating Equal Access to Housing--a person seeking housing from HUD cannot be denied on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. This is a great step for both California and the Department of Housing and Urban Development in protecting transgender people from discrimination.
Perhaps the most controversial bill that was made into law in California is "The Fair, Accurate, Inclusive and Respectful Education Act", also known as the "Gay History Law" which mandates public schools teach factual lessons about people who are not only LGBT-identified, but also people of color and people with disabilities. This poses some difficulties for teachers, not only who may have personal feelings against the LGBTQ community but who also have rigid curriculum into which they have to fit many topics (including, Doc Rob pointed out, those outside the realm of pure history, things like research skills and paper writing abilities) into one year. The law also mandates that nothing negative be taught about those groups--does this include not showing historic footage from documentaries that showcase the discrimination faced by gay and lesbian people before the Stonewall riots in 1969? Similarly, if people of color are included in this group, how will slavery be taught? It will be interesting in the coming months to see how teachers grapple with this change.
Have any questions about the laws? Comments? Feel free to post your comment below, or email us at gsa.wra@gmail.com! Tomorrow in GSA, in honor of Black History Month, we're going to be discussing some famous African-Americans who influenced the LGBT rights movement. Come on out to the history wing if you can make it!
Wednesday, February 8
Sunday, January 29
1/19 and 1/24: The Call Out and Videos
Hello again! Our apologies once again for the delay in posting this; we're determined to get back on track as soon as we possibly can. In the meantime, we're going to go backwards in time two weeks to the meeting we held about call outs.
The call out is something we've discussed before in GSA; when you hear inappropriate language or slurs being used in a conversation, you step in and make it known at the very least that you don't think that language is appropriate. For example, someone might say something is 'gay' to mean bad or stupid; in that case you might step in and say "Hey, calling things 'gay' when you mean it's stupid isn't cool". Some people in GSA expressed that they felt very uncomfortable calling people out, while others explained they had no problem with it. It's important to keep in mind that if calling others out is going to create a situation where you are at risk of being harmed, you do not have to call anyone out, but the best way to make hurtful language stop here is to call someone out. If you really don't think you can do it, get someone who can; any member of the GSA leadership team is willing to call people out, as are many members of the club. You can also tell a faculty member and they can help you handle the situation.
One way to politely call people out is to make the conversation about your feelings; if you say "Sorry guys, but can you not use that kind of language around me? It makes me really uncomfortable," you've made the conversation about you rather than about what exactly they said. In the meeting, we split up into small groups to practice calling one another out. One metaphor for the call out is that calling people out is like being on fire--you know in theory that you need to stop, drop and roll when you're on fire, but in the moment what ultimately needs to happen is muscle memory. Calling others out is similar--you know you should call people out, but in the surprise of the moment, muscle memory has to take over. We'll probably practice calling others out again, at our upcoming Ally Workshop (brought back by popular demand!).
This past week we watched the following trailer for an upcoming documentary about the gay rights movement [trigger warning for homophobic and possibly hateful speech, particularly towards the beginning]:
We spoke about the footage at the beginning of that video, made up of specials done on homosexuality in the 1950s and 1960s--more of that footage can be found in a documentary called Stonewall Uprising, which can be checked out from the Ong Library. In addition, Mr. Ong offered up a film entitled For the Bible Tells Me So, which can be found on Netflix streaming as well as on DVD. The trailer is as follows [trigger warning for homophobic and hateful language, as well as some statements that could be see as an attack on fundamentalist Christianity]:
We hope to have more movie nights in the future, and are working with the Ong Library to expand the film collection to include films about and related to the LGBTQ+ community. We're going to have a movie night sometime soon in conjunction with the Diversity Club to watch the film Prayers for Bobby, about a young man who kills himself after his mother rejects his homosexuality, and the mother's journey to reconcile her religion with her son's sexuality. Keep tuned for upcoming news about that!
Next week we'll be talking about some exciting legal developments in California. Have a good week before Mid-Winter Break, and we'll see you on Thursday!
The call out is something we've discussed before in GSA; when you hear inappropriate language or slurs being used in a conversation, you step in and make it known at the very least that you don't think that language is appropriate. For example, someone might say something is 'gay' to mean bad or stupid; in that case you might step in and say "Hey, calling things 'gay' when you mean it's stupid isn't cool". Some people in GSA expressed that they felt very uncomfortable calling people out, while others explained they had no problem with it. It's important to keep in mind that if calling others out is going to create a situation where you are at risk of being harmed, you do not have to call anyone out, but the best way to make hurtful language stop here is to call someone out. If you really don't think you can do it, get someone who can; any member of the GSA leadership team is willing to call people out, as are many members of the club. You can also tell a faculty member and they can help you handle the situation.
One way to politely call people out is to make the conversation about your feelings; if you say "Sorry guys, but can you not use that kind of language around me? It makes me really uncomfortable," you've made the conversation about you rather than about what exactly they said. In the meeting, we split up into small groups to practice calling one another out. One metaphor for the call out is that calling people out is like being on fire--you know in theory that you need to stop, drop and roll when you're on fire, but in the moment what ultimately needs to happen is muscle memory. Calling others out is similar--you know you should call people out, but in the surprise of the moment, muscle memory has to take over. We'll probably practice calling others out again, at our upcoming Ally Workshop (brought back by popular demand!).
This past week we watched the following trailer for an upcoming documentary about the gay rights movement [trigger warning for homophobic and possibly hateful speech, particularly towards the beginning]:
We spoke about the footage at the beginning of that video, made up of specials done on homosexuality in the 1950s and 1960s--more of that footage can be found in a documentary called Stonewall Uprising, which can be checked out from the Ong Library. In addition, Mr. Ong offered up a film entitled For the Bible Tells Me So, which can be found on Netflix streaming as well as on DVD. The trailer is as follows [trigger warning for homophobic and hateful language, as well as some statements that could be see as an attack on fundamentalist Christianity]:
We hope to have more movie nights in the future, and are working with the Ong Library to expand the film collection to include films about and related to the LGBTQ+ community. We're going to have a movie night sometime soon in conjunction with the Diversity Club to watch the film Prayers for Bobby, about a young man who kills himself after his mother rejects his homosexuality, and the mother's journey to reconcile her religion with her son's sexuality. Keep tuned for upcoming news about that!
Next week we'll be talking about some exciting legal developments in California. Have a good week before Mid-Winter Break, and we'll see you on Thursday!
Sunday, January 15
1/12: Welcome Back!
Welcome back from WRA's Gay-Straight Alliance! You're probably all wondering what the heck happened to the blog in the month of December. Although we had many meetings, in the crunch to study for exams and (for Ai) finish college application, the blog unfortunately became not a top priority. Luckily, we got a lot of rest over the winter break and are charged and ready to make this a great semester for GSA!
This week we welcomed everyone back from their breaks and introduced some exciting things for the upcoming months. The first of these is a video project to create a PSA so we can reach out to the entire school community and not just GSA members. Our treasurer/resident video expert, Irene, is going to be in charge of that, so if you're interested in writing or being a part of the production team for that, please contact her at lii [at] wra[dot]net!
Secondly, the week after next is going to be No Name-Calling Week! We held this event last year and are hoping to hold it again this year to great success. If you want to go ahead and make a poster for the week, please feel free to do so! We'll have more information coming up, so keep your eyes peeled for that.
This Wednesday is Community Service Day--you may have noticed an option to work with GSA on that day. We're hoping to get some planning done for No Name-Calling Week, as well as lay some groundwork for a future workshop similar to the one we held in the fall (but with different activities, obviously). If you're interested, please sign up and we'll see you Wednesday!
Finally, in reviewing the surveys you took before break, we noticed a request to not simply have Max and Ai do all of the meetings. We think it's a great idea to get other people up there talking about issues and ways that GSA members can help our community. If you would like to volunteer to moderate a meeting, please email any of the club officers; if you need an idea, we're compiling a list of topic ideas, so get in contact with us! We'd love to hear from you.
That's about it! Next week we plan to do a mini-workshop during the meeting on how to successfully call others out when they use harmful language around you--get excited! Welcome back, and we hope you have a great semester!
This week we welcomed everyone back from their breaks and introduced some exciting things for the upcoming months. The first of these is a video project to create a PSA so we can reach out to the entire school community and not just GSA members. Our treasurer/resident video expert, Irene, is going to be in charge of that, so if you're interested in writing or being a part of the production team for that, please contact her at lii [at] wra[dot]net!
Secondly, the week after next is going to be No Name-Calling Week! We held this event last year and are hoping to hold it again this year to great success. If you want to go ahead and make a poster for the week, please feel free to do so! We'll have more information coming up, so keep your eyes peeled for that.
This Wednesday is Community Service Day--you may have noticed an option to work with GSA on that day. We're hoping to get some planning done for No Name-Calling Week, as well as lay some groundwork for a future workshop similar to the one we held in the fall (but with different activities, obviously). If you're interested, please sign up and we'll see you Wednesday!
Finally, in reviewing the surveys you took before break, we noticed a request to not simply have Max and Ai do all of the meetings. We think it's a great idea to get other people up there talking about issues and ways that GSA members can help our community. If you would like to volunteer to moderate a meeting, please email any of the club officers; if you need an idea, we're compiling a list of topic ideas, so get in contact with us! We'd love to hear from you.
That's about it! Next week we plan to do a mini-workshop during the meeting on how to successfully call others out when they use harmful language around you--get excited! Welcome back, and we hope you have a great semester!
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