Beyond Tolerance

I attended Beyond Tolerance's event for Youth Activism and Gender and Sexuality sponsored by NYCORE, held at Vanguard Highschool. I actually saw one of the teens from the Red Party that I attended a few weeks ago. It was pretty cool that the networking that these events were supposed to create was already working out! 

First of all I noticed that this school, Vanguard, seemed to be working with their students on some pretty interesting topics. First of all they were studying identity, Brown vs. Board of Education, the origin of Man in Africa, and the diaspora that followed, and many other topics. The evening was structured so that we had a chance to walk around to tables and get information on various organizations prior to our workshops. I found a lot of information, and think it might be really nice to talk to kids about word usage. I found some posters geared toward older kids about the definition of words like Gay, Faggot, Dyke, and others. At the end of the evening there was an open mic(which really shows the power of poetry, song, and dance in our students' lives)- and a teacher shared a poem she wrote to her class about their usage of the word faggot. I'm also thinking about making my classroom a safe space, which I think would be nice for gay families or youth or staff in the building. 

The first seminar I attended taught about legal rights of youth and teachers. I learned that students have the right not to be outted by school personnel. Students also have the freedom to present themselves as they see fit, as long as their clothing still fits into the dress code. Additionally, if there are any extra curriculars in place already, a GSA cannot be denied, and the name cannot be changed to something like "diversity club". 

The second seminar, I heard from an intergenerational panel. One woman is employed as a paraprofessional in a school. She told of her life, she is in her 60s or 70s. She said she had a crush on a female neighbor as a 4 year old. She also has children. She suggests that elementary school teachers are supportive, and let kids talk about it in their own language (for example "I have two mommies"). I also was able to really notice the identity differences across the generations- the younger people did not think it was as important to tell others that they were gay or lesbian, and the older found it to be a very important part of who they are and think that people need to know. I think this is similar to the identity process that was discussed in the Why are all the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? text. We also must respect that our students, their families or our co-workers may be at any point on this spectrum, and we should meet them where they are.