The Safe Zone Training Manual: Information for the Safe Zone Ally

Special Issues for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Students

Developed by Sandy L. Colbs, Ph.D.

 

1.  Self-Esteem and Identity

Students face normal developmental tasks of developing identity with the additional stress of forging a positive gay, lesbian or bisexual identity.

 

Self esteem is affected by attempting to identify with what many view as disgusting, immoral, abnormal, or immature “lifestyle choice”.

 

Many students face this struggle without the support of family or friends, fearing rejection of they “come out.”

 

“Passing” as heterosexual or gender normative may lower self esteem.

 

2.  Religion and Spirituality

College is a time for questioning and exploring the role of religion in one’s life.

 

Many religious and spiritual traditions prohibit or sanction homosexual feelings or having a gender identity differing from the sex one was assigned at birth.

 

3.  Relationships and Intimacy

Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students have a more difficult time identifying potential romantic partners because of fears of being “out.”

 

Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students lack the institutional support for the development of relationships (e.g., school sponsored dances and social events, fraternity/sorority functions).

 

Relationships are under more stress because they are often hidden, and the persons involved may be at different points in their identity development as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender.

 

Additionally, transgender students may have problems finding partners who respect their gender identities and do not simply fetishize them.

 

4.  Academic and Career Issues

Academic progress can be affected by the stress and social isolation often experienced by gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender students.

 

Societal attitudes sometimes limit career choices for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender students who want to be open about their identity in the workplace (e.g., school teachers).

 

Geographic considerations may be more salient for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students who need to locate near an established gay lesbian, bisexual, or transgender community.

 

37 Fabulous Ways to Support Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender

 Students on Your Campus

By Troy Gilbert, Stanford University

 

This is a list of ways Universities can be supportive of LGBT student population through the student affairs arena.  Information is drawn from comprehensive studies of LGB populations at the University of Michigan, Rutgers, University of Oregon, Chico State, and Stanford.  It is from the presentation I did entitled “38 Fabulous Ways to Support Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Students on Your Campus” at the NASPA Western Regional Conference in January, 1984 in San Jose, CA.  Suffice it to say that there are multitudes more than 38, but this is a start. 

 

Have a non-discrimination policy that includes sexual orientation and gender identity and expression.

 

Value their perspectives and opinions in your residence halls, your classrooms, and your committees.

 

Don’t tokenize them.

 

Assure their safety.

 

Acknowledge their presence on campus and in society publicly, at high levels, an often.

 

Attend their events once in awhile.

 

Don’t agree with everything they say – challenge them, too.

 

Help non-GLBT students to understand that GLBT people are a presence on campus and in society whether they like it or not.  Non-GLBT students do not have to approve of GLBT students’ lives but they must learn to live peaceably with them.

 

Ensure sensitivity training programs for all student affairs staff.  Compensate them for it, give staff members time to discuss how their particular service function can affect LBGT students.

 

Support LGBT faculty and staff.

Give equal benefits to their partners.

 

Assure their safety.

 

Value their perspectives and opinions on your staffs and your committees.

 

At the Career Planning and Placement Center

Know with employers interview on your campus have non-discrimination and domestic partner policies for LGBT people and offer that information to students.

 

“Employers should be required to affirm in writing that they do not discrimination against any classes protected against discrimination by University policy… If legal interpretations tie the University’s hands regarding Federal government agency access to placement services, the University should formally express its disagreement of employment discrimination against LGBT students and call for a change in agency policy.”

 

At the Financial Aid Office

Ensure that staff has training on how the impact of a student’s “coming out” at home can affect parents’ financial support.

 

In the Residence Halls

When their assigned roommates refuse to life with them, give the LGBT student the options and give them freedom to choose.

 

Ensure that handbooks and contracts have a statement regarding nondiscrimination as it relates to sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression.  Indicated where students should report if they feel harassed.

 

Orientation programs should address LGBT issues and make new students understand that LGBT students are a welcomed part of campus life.

 

At the Health Center

Make sure your professional and paraprofessional health educators are comfortable with phrases and concepts such as “continual condom usage” and “anal intercourse.”

 

Make sure your gynecological physicians understand that “sexually active” does not necessarily mean “needs birth control.”

 

 Make sure the staff are familiar with transgender issues, such as understanding the various medical procedures involved with sexual reassignment surgery, and the particular unease some transgender students may have with physical exams.

 

 Make sure staff understand that they should address transgender patients by the pronoun of the patient’s choice, regardless of the patient’s genitals or chromosomes.

 

At the Counseling Center

Insist that there be a “coming out” support or discussion group at least once per school year.

 

Identify a counselor who has some understanding of GLBT issues who can serve as a confidential referral to students.

 

At the Activities Office

Make sure that the LGBT student organization has adequate professional staff support and an advisor.  If there is no one on the staff or faculty to take on this role, assist the group in identifying a local alum or local community member for the task.  Compensate that advisory, even in a small way.

 

Insist that the Student Government allot the LGBT student organization some reasonable funding.  If they refuse, assist the group in finding alternative sources of funding.

 

Insist that fraternal organizations have a discussion on how they would deal with one of their members “coming out.”

 

At the Athletic Department

Ask the director of Athletics to have a discussion with coaches about how homophobia and transphobia negatively affect athletes.

 

 Ensure that transgender students are  not restricted from participation in single-sex athletic programs or that adequate co-ed options exist.

 

 

 

In all Student Affairs Departments (directly from the University of Oregon Report)

Include the LGBT people in examples in classes, workshops, and presentations.

 

Ensure that publications are written in such a way that LGBT students will feel included in the audiences; avoid heterosexist language and assumptions.

 

When possible, include openly GLBT students as members of the student work force.

 

All student service departments should periodically participate in structured dialogues with LGBT students.  The purpose of this dialogue would be to raise awareness of the nature and extent of homophobia/transphobia/heterosexism within the university and the particular unit, and to explore avenues for the problems related to the access and quality of services for lesbian and gay students.

 

When LGBT students complain, take them seriously.

 

When they are verbally assaulted, make loud personal statements in public venues condemning such action.  Empower others to do the same.

 

When their belongings are vandalized, make loud personal statements in public venues condemning such action.  Empower others to do the same.

 

When they are beaten up, make loud official statements condemning such action.  If you know who the aggressors are, punish them judicially.

 

Know their organization’s name, acronym or letter in the proper order.  Even if they change it once in awhile.

 

Take the time to examine your own personal feelings about LGBT people.

 

Support LGBT students because they add to the vibrancy of thought, activity, and life on your campus.  Not because its politically correct, or because you heard about it in a NASPA workshop.

 

Bibliography:

 

From Invisibility to Inclusion: Opening Doors for Lesbians and Gay Men at the University of Michigan, prepared by The Study Committee on the Status of Lesbians and Gay Men, The University of Michigan, June, 1991.

 

Creating Safety, Valuing Diversity: Lesbians and Gay Men in the University, a report to the President of the University of Oregon by the Task Force on Lesbian and Gay Concerns, University of Oregon, October 1, 1990.

 

In Every Classroom: The Report of the President’s Select Committee for Lesbian and Gay Concerns, Rutgers University.

 

Report of the Committee on Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual Concerns, Emory University, March 27, 1991.

 

Beyond Tolerance: Gays, Lesbians, and Bisexuals on Campus, ed. Nancy J. Evans and Vernon A. Wall, ACPA Media, 1991.

 

Homophobia: How We All Pay the Price, ed. Warren J. Blumenfeld, Beacon Press, 1992.

 Guidelines for Teachers: Loving Someone Gay

Don Clark, Ph.D.

 

From nursery school through college, the teacher is the one professional person who is sure to have contact with every developing gay person.  Much of the early learning about our society  (and consequently much of the early negative learning about Gay self) happens in school. 

 

Gay children – those who already realize their true feelings depart from the supposed norm of attraction between males and females – are entitled to the same educations as other children.  They are entitled to learn about themselves and to feel good about themselves.

 

Teachers and professionals have thousands of opportunities to teach young individuals to appreciate their unique selves and to appreciate differences among people.  It is important to help students lean to devalue absolute conformity and to value integrity – that diversity offers riches while conformity leads to mediocrity.  The lesion can be learned again and again in every area of human endeavor from science to art.  Creativity makes the unusual possible, and it is the unusual that advances our civilization.  We need to be able to evaluate both the unusual and the usual – to be capable of pragmatic and moral judgment –but not to be enslaved and impoverished by the “norm.”  And its about time students were helped to free themselves from the labeling of behavior as “masculine,” “feminine,” or “queer,” so that each individual can simply be the person that he or she is.  That would help everyone.

 

Instructors can, with casual remarks, reinforce the idea that gay, like other natural human differences, is honorable and worthy of respect.  You cannot ignore that some of the heroes of past and present are gay.  Being gay was or is an important factor in the life of Walt Whitman, Sappho, Gertrude Stein, Michelangelo, E. M. Forrester, Can Cliburn, and David Geffen.  Such information must not be hidden because these omissions are dishonest and defeat understanding.

 

Within your teaching situation, you can raise the conscious of your colleagues by challenging bigoted jokes even when they are aimed at people who are gay and questioning the supposition that heterosexual is better.  If you do it with tact and good humor, some of your colleagues are bound to see, sooner or later, just as they did with African-Americans and women.  Some may even surface as gay themselves.  Respectable everyday models are badly needed. 

 

Much of your advice is invisible to students.  You do not know as you look over a classroom which students define themselves as gay or are in the process of discovering their true selves.  Much of your gay-affirming stance is to give messages that will bolster the self-esteem of these developing young people.  You will protect them from indignities the same way that you would protect any other student who is difference in your class.  The fact that you do not know which students belong to this minority group makes it even more pressing than less.  Always assume that at least one in every ten of your students has strong feelings toward the opposite sex. 

 

And keep this in mind: If you do not help the gay students, who will?  Often they do not know how or where to find validating information.  They rarely feel they can turn to family because they fear rejection.  Their gay peers are invisible.  They get bad ideas about themselves in libraries that have old books.  They often cannot even approach known gay adults in gay organizations.  The legal risks for the gay adult who reaches out to help a gay youth are extreme; caring can easily be interpreted as “impairing the morals” or “contributing to the delinquency” of the youth, if not distorted hysterically as outright “homosexual seduction.”  Some of these invisible developing gay students are quite literally depending on your for their lives.

 

An Example of Supportive Instruction

 

In a mythology discussion class a student says, “Well, Narcissus fell in love with himself and that’s sick.”  Instructor interrupts the discussion.  “That’s an interesting statement I wish everyone would think about.  I know that I used to think some of my feelings were wrong and then I began to see that all of my feelings – even the ones that other people wouldn’t approve of – are right because they are my fallings.  But its my behavior I have to watch out for, because it can get me into trouble.  Fortunately, I’ve also learned that the more I know all of my feelings are OK, the more I feel able to control my behavior.  What about Narcissus?  Can you separate his feelings and his behavior?”

 

Some Guidelines

 

It is essential that you have developed a comfortable and appreciative orientation to your own sexual feeling both heterosexual and homosexual before you can successfully work with gay individuals.  If you believe that homosexual feelings are fine but heterosexual feelings are better, you are going to transmit that destructive message to the individual seeking your support.

 

Help the individual who is gay to identify incorporated harmful stereotypes and being deprogramming and undoing the negative conditioning associated with these stereotypes.  The stereotypes are there.  We all grew up with them. The ultimate goal of deprogramming is the emotional message that it is alright to be whoever you are, regardless of gender and sexual orientation.

 

Encourage the person to establish a gay support system, a half-dozen gay people with mutual personal caring and respect for each other.  Like everyone else, gay students need support from people with whom they can identify and people whom they can trust.  Indeed, many gay individuals refer to each other as “family members.”  Often this is because they grew up feeling alone and lonely, different from other people including their own family of origin.

 

Support consciousness-raising efforts such as gay discussion groups, pro-gay reading, and involvement in gay community activities.  As people open their hearts and lower their defenses, we discover the universality of feelings – some of them are feelings gay individuals thought were theirs alone but often find that they are common among other gay people.

 

Encourage the student to question basic assumptions about being gay and to develop a personally relevant value system as a basis for self-assessment.  Point out the dangers of relying on society’s value system for self-validation.  The student has grown up in a world that uses an interlocking set of assumptions surrounding the basic belief that gay is bad. 

 

Desensitize shame and guild surrounding homosexual thoughts, feelings, and behavior.  Use the weight of your position and authority to support  and “normalize” these thoughts and feelings. In this final guideline, you are asked to use your authority flatly to counteract the authority of a lifetime that has said homosexuality is bad.  It can be done with a smile, a handshake, or the use of simple, sincere words like “good” or “it sounds like you love this person like I love my spouse.”