Supporting our LGBT Students

1. Supporting our LGBT Students

2. Welcome • Warm-Up: At the last Teaching and Learning Summit, we discussed 6 dispositions for Culturally Responsive Teaching: • Sociocultural Consciousness • An Affirming Attitude toward students from culturally diverse backgrounds • Commitment and skills to act as Agents of Change • Constructivist Views of Learning • Learning About Students • Culturally Responsive Teaching Practices • With a partner, discuss: when thinking about responsiveness to our LGBT students, which dispositions seem immediately important?

3. Why this, why now? • Almost 1/3 of LGBTQ youth report they skipped a day of school in the past month because of feeling unsafe (more than 4.5 times their heterosexual peers). • About 28% of LGBTQ youth say they dropped out of school to escape the violence and harassment (3 times the national average) • 61% of LGBTQ kids feel unsafe at school. • 85% of LGBTQ kids were verbally harassed. • 40% of LGBTQ kids were physically harassed. • 19% of LGBTQ kids were physically assaulted. • *** The number of gay, lesbian, and bisexual youth in America ranges from 1 to 9 percent, with the best estimates around 5 to 6 percent.*** • This means, if you teach 150 students, anywhere from 2-13 will probably identify as lesbian, gay, or bisexual. This number does not include: • transgender students • students who are not open with themselves about sexuality, or students questioning their sexuality. • Heterosexual students who are harassed for being perceived as LGBTQ. • Students with LGBTQ family or friends

4. Understanding Privilege in an LGBTQ context • Immediate access to your loved one in case of accident or emergency. • Public recognition and support for an intimate relationship (e.g., congratulations for an engagement). • Expressing affection in most social situations and not expecting hostile or violent reactions from others. • Living with your partner and doing so openly. • Expressing pain when a relationship ends from death or separation and receiving support from others. • Receiving social acceptance by neighbors, colleagues, and good friends. • Learning about romance and relationships from fiction movies and television. • Having role models of your gender and sexual orientation. • Having positive and accurate media images of people with whom you can identify. • Expecting to be around others of your sexuality most of the time. Not worrying about being the only one of your sexuality in a class, on a job, or in a social situation. • See more at: http://itspronouncedmetrosexual.com/2012/01/29-examples-of-heterosexual-privilege/#sthash.6i9QAEJh.dpuf

5. Language Today • Intersectionality: the interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender as they apply to a given individual or group, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage. • Sex: Types of gender identity where an individual's experience of their own gender matches the sex they were assigned at birth. • Gender The sense of “being” male, female, genderqueer, agender, etc. For some people, gender identity is in accord with physical anatomy. It is important to note that gender identity, biological sex, and sexual orientation are separate and that you cannot assume how someone identifies in one category based on how they identify in another category. • Sexual Orientation: The type of sexual, romantic, and/or physical attraction someone feels toward others. Often labeled based on the gender identity/expression of the person and who they are attracted to. Common labels: lesbian, gay, bisexual, pansexual, etc. 

6. Language 2.0

7. More language today • Homosexual: A clinical term for people who are attracted to members of the same sex. Some people find this term offensive. • Transgendered: an “umbrella” term to refer to all people who do not identify with their assigned gender at birth or the binary gender system.  • Cisgendered: Types of gender identity where an individual's experience of their own gender matches the sex they were assigned at birth.

8. Privilege and Oppression are…

9. Micro-Aggressions • Use of heterosexist or transphobic language: E.g. “That’s so gay!” or “No-Homo” • Endorsement of heteronormative culture and behaviors: “Do you have a girlfriend?” or “Guys, don’t forget to ask a lady to the dance.” • Assumption of Universal LGBT Experience:“You don’t seem gay” The likelihood that transgendered women will be arrested on the assumption of sex work. • Discomfort or approval of LGBT experience: biblical condemnations; “I just don’t understand. It’s unnatural.” • Assumption of sexual pathology or abnormality: federal ban on gay men donating blood; “I don’t have a problem, just don’t hit on me.” • Denial of bodily privacy: asking transgendered persons about their genitals; cis-gendered bathrooms.

10. Micro Aggressions in the Classroom

11. Micro Aggressions in the Classroom • Assigning Projects that are heterosexist: “Write a story about what your father was like growing up.” • Using heterosexist or sexist language: “Magnets are attracted to each other like males and females.” • Perpetuating a heteronormative experience: Only exposing children to heterosexual authors or characters. • Ignoring micro aggressions made by other students

12. Responding to Micro-Aggressions • Stop class every time it happens, not just sometimes. Consistency is key. • If this is a clear breach of classroom culture (i.e. “you’re so gay!”) or clearly intentional, voice your disapproval and assign a consequence. • Use ignorant comments as a teaching opportunity. • Establish clear rules and agreements in the classroom. • Follow up with both the student instigator and any students you think were negatively affected after class.

13. Practice Scenarios • Scenario #1: You are discussing a Langston Hughes poem, and one student asks you “wasn’t he gay?” You respond yes, and another students says “Wow, that’s really disgusting. Why would we read him in school?” • Scenario #2: A male student of yours throws a pen to another across the room, but throws it really short. The other student laughs and says “nice throw – what a fag.” • Scenario #3: You are in a faculty meeting and you overhear two teachers talking about a student who seems to be struggling. The first teacher says “I heard from another student that she has a girlfriend, and that is keeping her from showing up at school” The other teacher responds, “Wow, do her parents know? She should probably be in therapy.

14. Reaching out to Students • Gather Information • Empathize and Support • Encourage follow-up or next steps

15. Gather Information

16. Empathize and Support

17. Encourage Next Steps or Outside Help

18. Role Play • Use the note-cards to assume either the role of teacher or student.

19. Other Sources of Outside Help