On March 7, Dr. Katja Thieme and Dr. Mary Ann S. Saunders explored ways to create a more inclusive campus for students of all genders and sexual orientations. This Classroom Climate workshop shared practical strategies for faculty and staff to support students who are LGBTQIA—lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, two-spirit, intersex, and asexual.
Imagining diversities
“When people feel welcome and included, they have a better ability to learn,” explained Thieme, an instructor in Vantage College and the Faculty of Arts. “If there are barriers to their sense of inclusion…then they are not able to absorb the material in the same way as people who don’t have these barriers.”
Thieme emphasized that instructors should make all students feel welcome, particularly those who may experience these barriers. But it isn’t always easy to identify those students. Only sometimes will students disclose vulnerable aspects of their identities to their instructors—and they should not need or be expected to do so.
“That places the onus on us as instructors, as administrators, as staff members to always imagine these diversities and vulnerabilities,” Thieme said. “That’s what making space means.”
Finding stories
To learn more about these diversities, there are a variety of resources instructors can turn to. These include LGBTQIA people you know who are comfortable sharing their stories; community events, such as those hosted by the UBC Pride Collective; and artistic performances, including film/television, music, and theatre.
Saunders, an instructor in the Faculty of Arts, noted it is also important to look at the source of these materials. “Make sure…that you’re looking for material that has significant artistic input from the community that it’s purporting to talk about,” she explained.
Other resources include first-person articles, videos, and podcasts, as well as the work of LGBTQIA activists and academics on social media. The facilitators also shared a video created by the Chronicle of Higher Education featuring interviews with LGBTQ students.
Addressing assumptions
Heteronormativity and cisnormativity, as defined by biologist and activist Julia Serano, is a societal mindset where heterosexual and cisgender (those who identify with the gender they were assigned at birth) people and experiences are presumed to be the norm. This makes LGBTQIA people and perspectives invisible. Trans erasure, defined by sociologist Vivian K. Namaste, is “the conceptual and institutional relations through which transsexual and transgender people disappear from view.”
Saunders and Thieme emphasized the importance of being aware of these assumptions and the impact they can have.
“There are almost certainly trans or nonbinary-identified students in your classrooms who you don’t know are trans or nonbinary-identified,” Saunders said. “Very few people actually imagine that there are going to be trans people present, and so this is reflected in the ways institutions organize themselves and the ways in which institutions function.”
Strategies for the classroom
One example of how this is reflected is in class lists, where students’ preferred names appear alongside their legal names.
“Trans students who haven’t legally changed their names, who have put in a preferred name, but where their legal name is still included, are deadnamed by the very institutional structures that they are obliged to participate in,” Saunders explained. Deadnaming, she noted, refers to using or exposing a trans person’s previous names without permission.
Thieme offered one strategy to address this. In her class, she uses a handout where students can fill out what name they would like to be called and what pronouns (e.g. he/she/they, or other) they would like used. The handout is also shared with the students. “[Students] need to speak to each other, too.” Thieme said. “This is language we all need to use.”
Another strategy to make space is for instructors to share their own experiences. Saunders explained, “If you identify as LGBTQIA in some way, and it feels safe, and you’re willing to do it, you should bring your experience into the classroom.”
If you are not LGBTQIA, you can identify as an ally to students. “I show my process of listening to and learning about the different experiences that are in the classroom,” Thieme said.
The final strategy the facilitators shared is to make classroom materials more inclusive and share diverse and marginalized voices. Thieme pointed to one social media trend, where instructors are using the hashtag #inclusivesyllabus to share their efforts and conduct public audits of their materials.
A call to action
To create more inclusive spaces, Thieme and Saunders called for educators to disrupt, move, and create. They urged others to disrupt cis-heteronormativity and normalize sexual and gender diversity; to move marginalized perspectives into the center, but to avoid pressuring LGBTQIA students to be or provide those perspectives; and to create room and a safe space for students with diverse identities and backgrounds to feel welcome.