In Dude You're a Fag, C.J. Pascoe offers plausible suggestions for alleviating bullying based on gender identity and sexual orientation. I took some of her ideas and applied them to things that I experienced in highschool, things Fredonia is doing now, and things I feel that Fredonia could do.
Pascoe puts a big emphasis on the rise and importance of establishing GSAs as support systems in schools. Although I do believe that GSAs and Pride groups do provide the necessary support and sense of community they're intended to for LGBTQIA* students who seek them out, I also think they fall short in terms of education for the general public. Having private clubs leaves room for only those who are seeking support and education to participate, and allows those who are otherwise disinterested to remain uninvolved. I remember my GSA in highschool never had more than 5 or 6 members at a time, and those members all identified under the queer umbrella. The queer students who participated were typically already familiar with the terminiology and concepts, while the "straight alliance" part of the Gay Straight Alliance, those who might be able to benefit most from the education, was always missing, and every lesson seemed like preaching to the choir. If I could go back to my highschool GSA, I'd suggest that if enough students were comfortable with breaching a confidentiality clause for themselves, that the GSA be allowed to hold educational class presentations or school assemblies for the rest of the student body from time to time.
Pascoe's first suggestion calls for the need for necessary legislation to protect against discrimination. A group students here at Fredonia has already planned a resolution as good as anything similar I could have come up with. The resolution is for allowing students to put their preferred names on school documents such as FREDcards, e-mails, ANGEL accounts, and class rosters. The fact that students must currently be "outed" everytime they must provide one of these documents to someone else and therefore be subject to discrimination or something more dangerous is a form of discrimination. Resolution R-34 "Safety of Transgender Students" is currently in the works to solve that problem, I'm extremely proud of that group, how hard they've worked, and of how much they have accomplished so far.
My final suggestion is one in which my partner and I are currently working towards planning and maybe eventually making happen on campus as part of our Social Activism Project for this class. This plan adresses much of what Pascoe brings up including limiting heteronormativity, homophobia, gender normativity, and cissexism. Fredonia already has its own sort of mediocre version of the nationwide LGBT sensitivity training system "SafeZone." However, as our prior knowledge and research of Fredonia's SafeZone training has told us so far, there is no SafeZone requirement for faculty and staff, student or union employees, or really anyone. SafeZone training is done by request. It would be our hope that by somehow proving the benefits of SafeZone training to creating healthier learning environments for LGBTQIA* students, that it owuld become a requirement for all faculty and staff, professors, and even incoming students at first-year orientation. It's our hope that SafeZone would provide people with knowledge of the correct terminology for them to use and apply to situations, and to be able to comprehend when they are said to them. We also hope that requiring professors to go through SafeZone would prevent them from promoting heteronormativity in class discussion and doing gender segregated activities. We hope that requiring the other staff to do it would prevent them from saying "have a good day ladies" when a group of people leaves the dining hall. Finally, we hope that requiring SafeZone to be at Orientation will prepare students for the idea that ignorance will not be tolerated, discrimination will have consequences, and that there really are ways to make Fredonia a safe place for all.
Finally, my long stretch solution to ending bullying based on sexual orientation and gender would be to add a gender studies class to all middle school, high school, and college general education curriculum. Gender literally effects every single person born into our society, because of the expectation of norms and constructs that every person is born into without a choice. If whoever makes the common core can find a way to convince me that algebra II is necessary knowledge for my every day life, then why isn't it obvious how useful a gender class could be, and how many problems of ignorance it could solve?
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