Beyond Tolerance

One of the events I attended was the Beyond Tolerance 4 event. I attended this event mostly because I didn't know anything about LGBTQ issues. The school that I attended prior to coming to NYU was a very conservative private school, and so these sorts of subjects or questions were simply not mentioned, let alone discussed. For this reason, I was excited to attend this event, to learn more about the young LGBTQ community here in the city.

The event started with a session dedicated to tabling. Several different LGBTQ organizations in the city gathered with tables, fliers, and information for any LGBTQ youth who were still looking for help or for a community. There were several difference groups dedicated to specific ethnic groups, but represented were also different organizations, shelters, or even churches who offer services to LGBTQ youth. I spent this time walking around, picking up fliers, and learning about the different communities there are in the city. It was exciting to see how many different organizations exist to help youth who may be struggling.

The next part of the event was composed of two different sessions, which we chose from a large list of options. The first session I attended was titled "How To Be A Youth Activist For Queer Rights." I wish that I could have had a brief description of the session before attending it; although I did learn some things from attending the session, I had hoped to maybe learn more about policy, rights, or advocacy. Instead, the session was held by an organization called Everyone Allied Against Homophobia, and essentially taught those of us who attending how to run a successful Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA). The two college students who led the discussion brought us through a series of activities meant to ignite discussion about the purposes of GSAs, as well as the best ways to run an efficient GSA. As an example, one of the activities we did was a "choose your own adventure" activity, for which we were split into smaller groups. We were told to pretend that we were the members of our school's GSA, and were given scenarios from which we had to make decisions about what to do as a club. Based on these decisions, the series of scenarios continued, until it was determined whether or not we had made good decisions and thus been an effective GSA. In the end, I found that GSAs are plagued by many of the same issues that most other clubs struggle with, and as one of the Co-Presidents of a club here at NYU, this information was not especially new to me. However, I did enjoy hearing some different perspectives about some of the issues GSAs typically face.

I found the second session I attended, an intergenerational panel, much more attune to my own interests. The panel was literally intergenerational, with panelists ranging from their mid-twenties to their sixties. The idea behind the panel was to give those of us who attended the session a chance to hear different perspectives on what it was like to grow up gay/lesbian/queer, as well as to learn about things different panelists struggled with as they were growing up. To start, the woman moderating the event asked the panelists to tell us about their lives when they were young, and to tell us their "coming out story." The panelists then answered questions from those who attended the session.

This part of the session was, for me, probably the most interesting aspect of the entire Beyond Tolerance event. As I heard about the different ways in which the panelists had struggled with their senses of identity, and as I learned about how they came out to their friends and family, or what "coming out" even meant to them, I thought about how multifaceted this aspect of one's personality really is. As a straight person, I'll admit that my identity as a girl/woman was not something I thought about frequently as I was growing up. There were some panelists who said they had always known, and that when they came out to their families, no one was really surprised. There were other panelists, however, who got married, even had children, before they really came to terms with who they were. While some of the panelists seemed entirely comfortable with this aspect of their identity, others seemed as if they were still exploring and figuring things out. Other panelists acted as if they needed prove that it was okay to be who they were. Listening to these stories gave me an insight into lives and a community I had never really been exposed to, and so I learned an incredible amount from attending this event.