IIE IDEAL Podcast: Episode 4
IIE IDEAL Podcast: Episode 4
LGBTQ Inclusivity at UR and Beyond
Guest Speaker: Col E. Raimond, EdD., J.D. (He/They)
Recording Date: May 16th, 2024
[Announcer]
We acknowledge with respect the Seneca Nation known as the Great Hill People and keepers of the western door of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. We take this opportunity to thank the people on whose ancestral lands The University of Rochester currently resides in Rochester, New York. To learn more about ancestral lands. Upon which we live and work. Please check out native-land.ca
[Tom Nichols-Faber]
Hello, I'm Tom Nichols-Faber. I'm a member of the Institute for Innovative Education's IDEAL Committee. Inclusion, diversity, equity, accessibility, and lifelong learning. I'm here today with Dr. Col Raimond to talk about LGBTQ inclusivity at U of R and beyond. University of Rochester Director of LGBTQ Life, Dr. Col Raimond, pronouns he/they. Is a lifelong Rochesterian who was a practicing trademark attorney before joining the University of Rochester. Col earn their Doctor of Education from the University of Rochester, Juris Doctor from the University at Buffalo Law School and their Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice from the College at Brockport. As an attorney, Col focused their pro bono practice on assisting transgender and gender expansive folks to obtain name changes. Col is passionate about educating allies and working to create an environment that allows all people to live their lives safely, happily, and authentically. As part of the team at the Paul J. Burgett Intercultural Center. Col is excited to work with the future members and leaders of the LGBTQcommunity. Welcome, Col and thank you.
[Col Raimond, JD]
Hey, thanks so much for having me.
[Tom Nichols-Faber]
All right. So, I know we're one year one university, but the River Campus and Medical Centers usually operate fairly independently in most cases. Have you found that your team is in a position to foster more collaboration between them?
[Col Raimond, EdD., J.D.]
Absolutely. So, LGBTQ folks uh have been building bridges and collaborating for years and years and years. So, at the university. We have an LGBTQ advocacy committee, which is a schools-wide committee That was before my position was ever invented. A bunch of folks came together to do this work themselves. I now chair that committee. And so, we do a lot of work there. Megan Lytle chairs the Thrive Committee over at URMC, bringing together our folks at the medical center who are doing gender affirming care and work with our community and have an eye on inclusivity in that way. I sit on Megan's committee. Megan sits on my committee. So that we're able to collaborate between the two spaces and that way people at the medical center know what's going on with the schools. People at the schools know what's going on at the medical center and it just makes it really nice. We're able to have those conversations, share information back and forth. We're also able to make connections when we do that. So, I get to know some providers. I get to know people over there. So, if I have students who are interested in something. So, for example, I had a grad student reach out who's really interested in research in a way that mixes well with what is going on at the medical center with gender affirming care. And so, Megan invited that person to join the committee. That person is doing their PhD work on River Campus and otherwise wouldn't have an opportunity to sort of be in that space. So that's been a really cool collaboration. We talk about things; we share information with one another. Also, we have presence in all of the university schools, including the School of Medicine. So that's been super helpful as well to have those conversations and talk to our medical students, see what they need, invite them to our larger events so we make sure that we're getting that over there. We also have stuff like LGBTQ faculty and staff tea, which is open to LGBTQ faculty and staff across the institution. We had one this past semester and we tried to schedule it. At like you know three to 4:40 or 3:30 to 5:00. So, we're hitting folks as they're changing shift at the medical center so that people can come off shift and come over there for a little bit and be in community. And we also have people still within the schools that are working because they don't tend to work past that five o'clock mark. So, we try to do things like that that are community building. We also, I tell LGBTQ folks to let me know if they want to be added to my list of people that I put on a listserv and I don't share their names anywhere, but I just send out to them when there's stuff going on that they can be a part of. So, like lectures and stuff. So those are some of like the keyways that we've collaborated. And the other way would be on things like policy. So, things that are university wide, inherently we communicate and connect on that stuff.
[Tom Nichols-Faber]
So, it sounds like there's a lot of work that's being done that a lot of people don't probably realize or see.
[Col Raimond, EdD., J.D.]
Absolutely. Yeah. So much stuff happens in the background.
[Tom Nichols-Faber]
I imagine an important part of this too is for students and for students you know especially new students coming in being aware of this. So, what do some of the LGBTQ initiatives look like for a new student?
[Col Raimond, EdD., J.D.]
Yeah, absolutely. Before I get there, I forgot the other big collaboration, which I shouldn't have forgotten about, which is the Pride Parade. We do that university wide. LGBTQ is in my title, so I get to be the person who sends out all those emails to all you and you see it and I say, oh, let me know about your shirt. Get those shirts out to everybody. That's a big collaboration and we've now pulled in. Golisano as well. So, we're like trying to really “one university” that like, let's all look the same. Let's go under the banner. And, you know, people can have little flags for their area. But that's another way that we have sort of collaborated in this space. Yeah, go ahead.
[Tom Nichols-Faber]
I was going to say and that's a big visible one too.
[Col Raimond, EdD., J.D.]
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. That's, you know. It's nice. It's nice to see everybody come together to see our allies there, see our members of our community feel so supported in that space. We love it. So, for a new student. We have a lot going on. So, I talk to prospective students. I talk to parents of prospective students. And when I talk to alums who are like, oh my gosh, things are so much different now. We have just expanded. So, we don't have a ton of data but for incoming students in arts and sciences and engineering for undergrads. On their applications, we have an indication that at least 18.5% of our students are members of the LGBTQ community. So that would be no international students because of country specific reporting. And no domestic students that aren't out because those applications are not FERPA protected. And so, we have probably in the low 20%, right? Low to mid 20% when we go overall for all of our students across all of our schools. And so, we try to make sure that we have like a really active LGBTQ life on campus. So, if you're a new student coming in, there are some things that you're going to experience that you're never going to know because they're in the background. And that's what we love to do. We remove barriers so you never knew they were there. That I say is our best work when you never knew.
[Tom Nichols-Faber]
Right
[Col Raimond, EdD., J.D.]
One of the things they have is when they're onboarded now and they're coming into our UR student workday system. They're immediately prompted that if there's a name other than their legal name they want to utilize, they can go fill in that information. They can fill in that pronoun information. That'll feed over to Blackboard. So that in those educational spaces, things like class rosters. The appropriate name is going to be used in those spaces. Places like Residential Life when they get there, orientation. Those names are going to feed out in the proper way because we're telling people right now as they're onboarding. And of course, that was the work of our university registrar Tina Sturgis, who is a great partner in this work so That is happening and then that feeds to our ID card so our students are not being dead named with their ID cards. When they show up at places like the dining hall. So that's sort of like a backend thing that they don't know about, but it's really good because we've sort of removed some barriers there over time that had existed. And students can change their names at any time within that system. They don't have to go to the registrar, go to me. They can just seamlessly do it.
[Tom Nichols-Faber]
That’s nice to hear that they don’t have to go through a lot of red tape to get that done.
[Col Raimond, EdD., J.D.]
Absolutely. That's a way that we're definitely leading at the U of R is sort of moving these things in this direction. Through these partnerships, which is really great. So that happens. And now on our applications for housing, there are questions about if you want to share things about your identity and who you're comfortable rooming with. That is a huge change.That we've seen over the last couple of years under the leadership of Dan Watts, who's amazing, been with us for many years, is now leading residential life. Dan has also removed barriers in residential halls, in places where like the Susan B. Anthony dorm. So, there's four halls and it used to be, you know, the multi-stall restroom and shower area would be there'd be two men's and two women's. Now, unless it's a gender specific floor that students opt into, one of those is an all-gender restroom. So that means you'll have like two men's rooms, an all gender and a women's on one floor, two women's. A men's women and all gender on the next floor down. That way, any student in that first-year housing is it more than a hallway away from a restroom they can use. And that is completely equitable across all genders. So that has been a super exciting thing that we have seen under Dan's leadership as well. So that's sort of like, this is sort of like their background experience. We've also shifted over several of our multi-stall gendered restrooms on River Campus to all gender restrooms. We've done that without incurring a lot of costs. We've changed bathroom signage. We've put strips on the sides of we call the American style stall doors because in other countries they don't have weird gaps on the side of their doors.
[Tom Nichols-Faber]
Yeah, I've been to international. And yeah, it is weird to come back to having like “Why is there?”
[Col Raimond, EdD., J.D.]
Yeah, super weird. Our international students have to be like, what is happening right now? So, we put those strips on the sides of the doors. We changed the signage. Very simple. So that has created a situation where students don't have to move as far when they're going to classes and they're existing on campus to find an all-gender restroom. All of our single stall ones are already all gender, but my goodness, it is difficult to get into a single stall restroom because everybody wants their own private restroom.
[Tom Nichols-Faber]
Yep.
[Col Raimond, EdD., J.D.]
Let's see. So that's some of the like, okay, you're existing in a place and this is like a lot of what creates culture, right? A lot of what creates climate is just not having the trauma of being like, I have to walk across two quads to get to a restroom or I Just don't have a place that's safe for me to go in my dorm room and I have to stand outside the singles stall restroom and shower room for forever, weirdly waiting for it. So those are sort of background experiences that our students have. More frontward facing. We have a lot of really cool events and programs for them that students really love. So, the first thing we have in the fall is our LGBTQ meet and greet. Which is very cool. It's really big. We usually get about 250 students at that. Plus, we get LGBTQ faculty and staff. We usually get a good chunk of them, about 40, 45. We fill up the ballroom pretty nicely. We put out a nice spread of food, sushi, stuff like that, macarons. The students are very excited. We've sent it out to orientation, and we say, hey Come meet your LGBTQ family on campus and it's a very cool event. Students really like it.
[Tom Nichols-Faber]
That does sound really nice.
[Col Raimond, EdD., J.D.]
Yeah. So that's their introduction sort of to life on campus. And this year we asked our students at Rainbow Graduation, which is always we bookend it, meet and greet and their very last one is rainbow graduation. We just had that yesterday. We asked this year our outgoing students to write notes to our incoming students so that we can pass the torch to them. So, we think that will be a very cool thing that we're going to see this coming year for those students as well. So, you come onto campus. When you are accepted and you're a prospective student, you get an email from me saying, hey, let me tell you about LGBTQ life on our campus. They can come to a panel to hear a little bit about it. We have really cool programming. We have some arts programming, which is called “BIC-ture This”, because we're the Burgett Intercultural Center, so BIC. Picture of it. And we bring in a queer artist from the community and we buy art supplies and have our LGBTQ students come in and follow along and make something. So, they typically will knit a scarf. They made soup cozies last semester because it was cold, He'll do some cross stitch. We've done watercolor.
[Tom Nichols-Faber]
Oh, very nice. A lot of nice experiences to have.
[Col Raimond, EdD., J.D.]
Absolutely. And then they like head home to finish off what they have. So, we've seen several students sort of pick up a little bit of a skill and some of those skills in particular like knitting and things like that, cross stitch really help with stress levels as students are getting into the semester and things are getting a little more stressful. They have something that assists them in that way going forward. So, we really like that for mental health benefits and also community building benefits. We have our LGBTQ leadership lecture each semester That is the Lorri L. Jean and Darrel Cummings LGBTQ Leadership Lecture. That's sponsored by the Australian Network account, an amazing alum, Lauren Ostro who went to undergrad here, went to Simon here, and is really excited to say, hey, can we get some LGBTQ students who want to go into leadership in LGBTQ organizations? And has this amazing ability to bring in these like top level LGBTQ leaders. So that's very cool. We have a committee attached to that. Students love that. We feed them. They get these, last year they got Selena's food. They loved it. They ate like all this food, and they got to hear from amazing people. So that is something that we do each semester. It's really kind of gotten into the water. Students want to go see that. They know it's a very cool event. We have a national coming out day lecture, which is on October 11th. That is an alum who comes in and speaks. So, speaker stuff, we do a nail polish party during reading period because people are just stressed. You know, you pop on a movie; you know? Relax, have some snacks, paint your nails. We also do, we did a inclusive pool party In partnership with the Goergen Athletic Center. So, they went to the big pool there. So that was in partnership with Kris Shanley over there, the associate director of athletics. Hey, let's do something where we can bring in like trans and non-binary and gender expansive students into a pool party. So here we are in their giant pool with like unicorn floaties and like mermaid floaties and you know, it was just very cool. So, we played some tunes. People got to be in a space where often members of our community don't really feel is comfortable going into pools sometimes. It can be really stigmatizing, particularly for our trans non-binary and gender expansive folks. But this was a place just for them and we saw, you know we saw like eight or nine students show up which for a first-time event, particularly in a pool which is like scary for many of our students. It was actually really good.
[Tom Nichols-Faber]
Awesome.
[Col Raimond, EdD., J.D.]
Yeah. So, you know, we have a vibrant, we have vibrant LGBTQ life on campus. We also have a bunch of discussion groups through the Intercultural Center. Pride Network is our student association run group. So that's through Wilson Common Student Activities. But through us. We are like a department. So, we have things at the intersections of people's identities in the intercultural center.So, we have stuff, we have a BiPAN group, we have an Ace/Aro group. We have an international LGBTQ students’ group. First year LGBTQ students’ group. Queer students of color group. In a group called TINT, which is trans, intersex, non-binary, and two spirit group. So, those are our LGBTQ groups that we have. We also have a group that is open to all students which is.. we call it SAS, S-A-S-T, which is students avoiding socialization together. That's for our introverts who have a little bit of social anxiety. They don't have to talk to each other.
[Tom Nichols-Faber]
Hello!
[Col Raimond, EdD., J.D.]
Love that. Yeah. So, it's very cool. So yeah. That's they're like, we promise there will never be an icebreaker.
[Tom Nichols-Faber]
Mmhm
[Col Raimond, EdD., J.D.]
So yeah, that's a little bit about what stuff looks like on our campus, vibrant space. People can come and talk to me. But when you get there as a first year. My hope is that you feel really included. You sort of get this letter. You can go to this panel. You have this meet and greet to meet people. Then you're told about there's a lecture coming up. There’re these art events coming up. There’re these other things happening. So yeah, that's a little bit about what it looks like on campus. And of course, we have many more events than that that change each semester, but those are some of our core programming.
[Tom Nichols-Faber]
Awesome. Sounds like, yeah, a lot of work's gone into, you know, making students feel really welcome you know and accepted here.
[Col Raimond, EdD., J.D.]
Absolutely. You know, we try our best. I've had students, you know, whose parents have reached out to me to say. Hey, you know, my child is trans. I just want to get a feel for what things are like on campus. We talk about it and they're like, okay, I feel much more comfortable. I had one approach me when this past Fall. So, you know, the child would come in as the first year and we were a couple months in, there was an event that parents were at and the mom came up and was like. My child is so happy here. And the child came up and was like, oh my gosh, it's almost ridiculously queer here. And it was like, yeah, good.
[Tom Nichols-Faber]
That's awesome yeah
[Col Raimond, EdD., J.D.]
Yeah. So, you know, people can feel comfortable I've had many students who are coming out and they're saying they're thinking about gender and they're like, oh, I'm going to shift the way I'm dressing. I want to make sure I’m going to feel safe. And then they come in looking fabulous and say, oh my gosh, I don't know what I was worried about. Nobody cares. Look at everybody else. Like people are just being themselves and nobody cares. And it's like. That's what we want! So yes. Very proud of our students for creating that environment for each other. Absolutely.
[Tom Nichols-Faber]
Awesome. So, like I remember you mentioned on the incoming as far as like having things like, you know, ability to set like a preferred name, like right off the bat and are there other kind of like services that have like come about since your position has been created, your team?
[Col Raimond, EdD., J.D.]
Yeah, so a lot of that back-end stuff, the bathroom stuff, the sort of the names, the names on IDs, stuff that has that has come around since then. We also are in the final stage of creating a university-wide all gender restroom policy and so that is now with the policy committee. So we're very excited about that. That is being championed by Kathy Gallucci and Adrienne Morgan. So, we are very excited to have their support and have worked with them on that. So that is very good. And we've had a ton of support from facilities as well. Everybody's really been on board with getting that done. So, we're excited about sort of things like that happening I'm trying to think, I think a lot of that backend stuff that I sort of already talked about were the big ones that we've sort of moved because those are kind of moving systems. The programming has certainly stepped up to where we are now. In the spring, we now have a spring social also with the drag show. So, we've sort of tweaked some things to make them a little bit more exciting. I also help out with folks across the institution. Sometimes people reach out to me and say, hey, I was thinking of doing a survey. Can we talk about what you think we should do around gender LGBTQ identities? So that's also a background thing that I've been able to do since I've been here and I've done it many, many places, you know, like the MAG some medical center places like everywhere. So, I just try to tell everybody, look, I'm a person who's happy to be a resource for that. Alumni relations, lots of folks happy to talk about that. So those are things that been able to shift as well. And I would say the final piece that we do that's sort of like an in the water thing is I created a two-part educational series for student-facing Faculty and staff called Creating a Queer Inclusive university. And it's not Safe Space. Safe Space is a wonderful program where they go over a lot of basics and foundational stuff. This is different and focused totally on student facing people. In this super pragmatic stuff just about some identities we maybe don't talk about as much. Some tips for remembering pronouns, some discussion about gender in a deeper way so that people can sort of begin to understand that, grapple with that a little bit. And it sort of helps in the way that we sort of learn things and take in information. So that is a very cool thing. That I've been able to do across many places. You know, as far away as our university council uh I don't know, they're not really far away. They're central, as central as University Council, as central as university health service and university counseling service Warner School, we've done stuff over at Simon. So, the libraries, just a lot of departments in arts, sciences, and engineering, a lot of student life offices. So that has been just really a good way for people tend to walk out of there and the feedback we get is like. Hey, I thought I knew a lot about the community and now I've learned more and the second part of that is really focusing on how do you detect things that are problematic for the community? What are the roots of those? And how can I identify that as an ally so I can have conversations with people and build a more inclusive space. So that would be the other piece that we've done. And that's just educating allies and helping them and helping them feel less scared to engage with this material which is That's how we all do better. So that I would say is the other big piece.
[Tom Nichols-Faber]
Awesome. So, you also mentioned before, you know, about how, you know, policies are changing and like, especially with regards to like all gender bathrooms across the university. So do you have any advice on how people can like help systems and policies change. I know like on the individual level, it can seem overwhelming or like almost impossible to like, you know, bring that forth.
[Col Raimond, EdD., J.D.]
For sure, for sure. So, a lot of its collaboration. So, when I was talking about collaboration earlier, I totally should have talked about how I work with John Cullen all the time because John does a great deal of his work over in the URMC space, though he does have some space in the schools as well. And John was carrying the LGBTQ burden fully for the university before I was hired but not being paid for it. So, John and I, we work together on a lot of stuff. And so, I would say collaboration is the way that you get things done in any place. I think that, you know, when we wanted to look at bathrooms, another person that I collaborate with all the time that I should mention is Chunkit Fung. At the medical center, we work really closely together as well. So, coming together in community and sort of having those relationships through having like faculty and staff key and inviting people to events, and getting to know each other people who are doing this work and not siloing, makes us able to break down barriers. I think there can be a tendency in all businesses for people to think this is what I do and I don't really want to share it because what if somebody takes it away from me or what if I lose power and control? But that is antithetical to making change in a large organization. Look, there will always be good work to do. So, we need as many hands doing it as possible and asking for help and seeing what other people are doing and having those conversations is better for everybody. Collaboration is super important and so. We get together and when we have these conversations at places like Thrive and places like the All-Gender Restroom Committee. Bathrooms are like a really good example because what we learned was students were talking about it and putting together information and putting it through the SA government and like trying to get change that way. And we learned, hey, we have patients who need to get to restrooms. We have these issues. We have these providers who are saying, hey, this is an issue over here as well. We have John Cullen, who'd been doing the work. Ones are all gender, by the way, is because of John Cullen many, many years ago, right? So, this work has been happening for so long. And when we all talk to each other, we're able to have the history piece and we're able to have the hey, we have the needs. Now we have some data on it because we know that this is being asked across spaces and across, you know, University identities, whether it's faculty, staff, students, patients, all those sort of metrics that we look at. So, I think that that I would say is the biggest key and then, you know. Being able to tell the story of why it's important is very important. Having data is super important. Like when we say hey, we know that 18 and a half percent of students are members of our community and we also have data that says, hey, a really large percentage of Gen Z are not cisgender people. They are people who are saying, hey, I think my gender is probably going to shift in some way at least once across my life, we are able to take that data and patient data and everything and say. Look, this is something we need to focus on. You know, here's the story. Here's what we've heard that we have direct, you know, directly people have said to us Here's the data for our numbers. Let's make this happen. So, I think all of those things, if you package them together, and you can only do that if you collaborate, that moves things forward. I will also say that in my work. It would not be possible for me to do my work if we didn't have support from the administration. So, like in a lot of other places people just hit a brick wall at some point. In trying to create inclusivity for LGBTQ people, I've never hit a brick wall. So, I've hit bureaucracy because we all hit bureaucracy, but I've never, you know. I've never hit a no we don't think your people deserve that so like those two things are very different right so um…
[Tom Nichols-Faber]
The values are there at least. So yeah, they can work with that and…
[Col Raimond, EdD., J.D.]
Yeah, exactly. Like a lot of people that want to help. I mean, I will say the vast, vast, vast majority of people I've met both at, you know, from the medical side, from our side, from the mag, everywhere, they want to help. They want to be inclusive. They want to help. They find this to be important. And I have also found that if we hit a barrier of somebody who seems like they're not super excited about change. We're able to go and talk to folks in the administration, explain why it's so important. And say, hey, can you help us figure out how to navigate this barrier in a way that we can create inclusivity. So that goes all the way up to the president. The president has made a statement that trans rights are human rights. And this is like an environment where that is like a hard thing to do. It is hard to speak that value for an institution that is the size that ours is. It is much easier if you are just running a college. You're not running a giant hospital that has some schools, right?
[Tom Nichols-Faber]
Right.
[Col Raimond, EdD., J.D.]
So that's been very cool. So, we've been just uh that that support from you know the presidential level, the vice presidential level, the provost level. All the way down has been really important. So, none of this work is possible without other people. And I think sometimes people have a reticence to bring people in who are experts in an area. But that is really important. I think sometimes people worry that they're bringing people into the loop might create more barriers. That is not the fact transparency will break down barriers so we can't, we can't change the way that names appear places in a school without working with a registrar. We can't change the way things look in residential life without working without residential life leaders. And we have really super supportive ones here who are like, I'm on board. How do we do it? How do we make it happen? But even if you're in a place where maybe you're finding people that aren't as helpful you still need to know what those things look like so that you can advocate for change.
[Tom Nichols-Faber]
Right. So, we're actually, we're asking each of our guest speakers to recommend a book or film related to the topics or ones that simply speak to you and you think people should read or watch. So, what do you have to recommend?
[Col Raimond, EdD., J.D.]
Yeah, so I have two. So, I would recommend I don't know if you have seen the iconic 90s film, But I'm a Cheerleader, uh but…If you want to see a very young Natasha Leone and a very young RuPaul, that is the movie for you. It is a sort of like coming-of-age sort of coming out film. I'm not going to ruin it for anybody, but it is like funny and interesting. And it was sort of brilliantly done when many of these actors were very, you know, very, very young and by young, I mean they were like teenagers, like playing teenagers, not like five years old. So that is a good film I think for a lot of people to watch. It's a good introduction in some ways in some ways sort of our community on those sort of on those LGB side. So, you know, if you're like, you know, lesbian bisexual gay queer folks like that sort of whole area that's a good that's a good film to sort of start thinking about people's experiences and things like that. It's a very approachable film So that's a good one. The other one, have you seen Sort Of on HBO
[Tom Nichols-Faber]
No, no, I haven't.
[Col Raimond, EdD., J.D.]
Sort Of on HBO is really good. I was like, you know, how do I describe that? So, I was like, I'll ask the internet and they say, you know. You know, this is a film about a gender fluid millennial who comes from a large Pakistani family, and it is very cool. There's like three seasons of it I think, and this is on the gender side, not on the sexuality side. And this is really good because…The entire film focuses on this person and this person’s only thing they have going on is not their gender. Like, you know, it's like that is one thing that is going on and here's how people are sort of interacting you know here's what my life looks like. Here's these different things that I'm doing. It's like there's a lot of dry humor. There's it's very cool it takes place in Canada. It's in Toronto. It's like we're like, oh, it's right there takes place right up there. It's so close to us. Our closest major city. So that's a good one because I think it helps people. It is one experience of gender that is outside of the binary, but I think that a way that people learn is to connect with a character. Because if you connect with a character that's not like super scary for you, you know, it's like…Hey, this is somebody that I can learn about and care about and maybe some of my implicit biases and things that I have or lack of understandings can dissipate a little bit as I move through this person's experience with them in this show. So, I think that is a very good one and then. You know, I think something that made queer relationships very salient for people was the episode of The Last of Us with Nick Offerman, that was just incredible. I don't know the name of an episode of a show because that would be random, but it was the one everybody was talking about because a bunch of people were like, how dare there be gay people in the middle of a show that are real people in a real relationship and their whole thing isn't just being a gay person. So, there are a lot of people that were like, how dare you make me like gay people? That's so important, you know?
[Tom Nichols-Faber]
Yeah, it really is.
[Col Raimond, EdD., J.D.]
That's allyship. And I think, so I think that's another good one just it the reason it's important is because it shows the humanity of people, all three of those show the humanity of people in different ways. That I think make it acceptable for people who want to be allies to the community to be able to engage.
[Tom Nichols-Faber]
Thank you. Definitely need to check those out. And lastly, if you could give us one last piece of advice to use in our day-to-day work in higher education or healthcare, what would it be?
[Col Raimond, EdD., J.D.]
Yeah, I think my advice for everything is to be kind. There are many ways to be kind and I think a way to be kind to the LGBTQ community, is to learn about our community. Listen to this podcast, like listen to other podcasts you can watch people do like video blogs like watch shows like sort of even if it's not a show you would normally watch. A lot of times I think that people want to be allies, but they are afraid to make a mistake. Or they're afraid, oh my gosh, I'm going to do something wrong and so, I'm just going to sort of avoid people if I don't know what to do. And avoidance isn’t kind you know so I think, you know. If you are somebody, you know, one thing that comes up to me sometimes is…Hey, I noticed like I was staring at somebody and I didn't realize I was staring at them and then I felt really bad. And so, it's like. well, if you think that that's what's happening, all that that means is you just don't have enough data in your mind about the identities that that person has. So, like the super-fast-moving part of our brain that's just doing like all the background computer stuff we sometimes call like our system one brain is just scanning things like finding its business. But if it sees something that it doesn't know what it is, it like tells your conscious brain, you know, and it's like. Hey, conscious brain, what is that? I'm confused. And then you think you're staring because you just noticed. And then you look away and things like that. That just means you need more data in your brain to help that system one be able to not stare at people. And this is for any identities of people, anything where you're like, oh my gosh. I just get nervous because I think I'm staring at somebody. Oh my gosh, then go watch videos people put out about themselves and about those identities so that that data goes in and then when you're scanning the world, your brain won't be like conscious mind, what is that? It'll be like, I know what it is and can move on. You know, and so I think and when I say what it is, I mean what I'm looking at, not like it's in a definitely not that. But our brain is always trying to guess people's genders and their races and stuff like that, like our background brain, which is what creates implicit biases. It's a whole thing. But the way that you fix that is to educate yourself in ways that feel comfortable to you. And that can be like looking at people's Instagram. Follow people on Instagram, right? Things like that, that you can just put it into your media. So that's a way to be kind to members of our community. Respecting pronouns for folks. Remembering them. My two tips for remembering them. One: if you can put a post-it somewhere that you just see it, but don't have to stare at it. So, like if you have a computer monitor, you can just put it in the corner. The person's name with their pronouns underneath. You'll glance at it and you'll just learn it over time. Also, you can do that if you're learning the pronunciation of somebody's name, you can put it phonetically under it. You'll learn it as you do other things. My other advice is to correct yourself in your mind when you make a mistake. The biggest thing that people do is they think of somebody incorrectly in their mind with incorrect pronouns and then try to say the correct pronouns out loud. That does not happen. It is not the way our brains learn. It's like thinking two plus two equals five all the time, then having to put two plus two equals four on a test. Definitely not the way our brains work. So, correcting yourself internally… super good way to do that. So, there's some ways to be kind to our community. I also think being kind to yourself is also part of that advice and that means that if you make a mistake and you misgender somebody. Apologize, correct it, and learn it. Do not beat yourself up for the next six weeks about it. Do not wake yourself up at three in the morning to yell at yourself and feel embarrassed about it because then people get scared and they think like oh my gosh, I made this terrible mistake and I'm a terrible person. You are not a terrible person. We all make mistakes. I have accidentally used the wrong pronoun for somebody. I've apologized. I felt very badly. I've corrected it. And I've learned from it. I say take that discomfort, use it to learn and remind yourself of that name, but also be kind to yourself because if you're not kind to yourself, it's very hard to be kind to other people. So that would be my advice.
[Tom Nichols-Faber]
Thank you for tuning in to the IDEAL Podcast. We hope you'll join us again in June. Have a great day.