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Straights, Queens, Queers and All Things in Between


What a great class Tuesday evening! Your questions and comments were spot on and appreciated. Our speakers were informative, thoughtful, and funny. Sometimes a little humor can go a long way in breaking down barriers with challenging topics. You’ll have to consider that although they are there to talk about life from their perspective, it still can be a nervous and somewhat challenging experience because they are “putting themselves out there.” That being said, I thought you as a class were more nervous than our speakers. I hope you found the discussion to be helpful in understanding how people operate and experience life. These things might be useful when considering how health providers might market to LGBT groups for their services, and how to be more welcoming and thorough when engaged with sexual minority populations. I hope you noticed the various ways that our presenters identified themselves, gay, lesbian, bisexual, queer, transgender…it’s important to note how folks identify themselves (as opposed to how others would label them). I was privy to a conversation this week where I repeatedly heard the terms “faggot” and “sodomites.” These labels are hurtful and carry some very negative connotations towards sexual minorities. I believe in free speech, I also understand that free speech has costs and consequences. Pejorative terms such as these are meant to be offensive and in my opinion do nothing but polarize people and perpetuate hate. It is also my opinion that these words are not useful in the communicative process (unless you simply want to piss people off, if so, then you succeed). Continued usage of these sorts of words is unskillful. Did you catch what Jayke had to say at the close of our conversation? Instead of using the term “sexual orientation” that perhaps a better way of describing this would be to say “affectional orientation.” THAT stuck with me, it does better describe what we are classifying, and given that our panel members commented that folks seem to always focus on the sexual activity aspects of being a sexual minority instead of viewing folks in a broader sense, this might be a more helpful way to think about this. I’m thinking about updating my slides and comments myself as I like the direction that this points to. I learn something new and interesting every time presenters come into our presence.

I appreciate that some of you send things my way regarding our topic for the week. This week I received some emails from a couple of you that relate to our topic of LGBT populations. If you are so inclined, check out the following story of how a fraternity has rallied behind one of their members as he prepares for his FTM surgery. It’s refreshing to see this sort of thing. You can learn more about this story here: 
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/26/phi-alpha-tau-transgender-surgery_n_2765653.html?1361901974

Another student found the following as they were logged into LinkedIn. Here are some great websites where you can learn more about various LGBTQI organizations, for yourself or others. Perhaps you are interested in pursuing a career involving LGBTQI folks and issues. For your consideration:
Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD): www.glaad.org 
The Advocate (Internet Edition): www.advocate.com 
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU): www.aclu.org/GLBT/index.html 
Bisexual Resource Center: www.biresource.org 
Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN): www.glsen.org 
Human Rights Campaign (HRC): www.hrc.org 
Lambda Legal: www.lambdalegal.org 
The Trevor Project: www.thetrevorproject.org 
Campus Pride: www.campuspride.org 
National Gay and Lesbian TaskForce (NGLTF): www.ngltf.org 
Here Media/PlanetOut: www.heremedia.com, www.planetout.com 
Anti-Violence Project (AVP): www.avp.org

ETSU has successfully used the Early Semester Progress Report (ESPR) for almost 20 years to help our undergraduate students succeed in their courses and stay in college. The ESPR gives students a snapshot of their academic standing approximately midway in the semester, while they can still use this feedback to improve. Academic advisors use the ESPR to identify students who are performing poorly, then call or email them to offer assistance or referrals. I have just added your ESPR to Banner. This would reflect if I had to turn in grades at this point - your final grade. So far this semester, you have had the ability to earn 146 points. To check this, add up your points so far (from D2L) and divide by 146. I have NOT included the first exam totals nor those totals from your most recent journaling entry. For those of you who attended the extra credit offering earlier last week, your points are already added as well.
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