 Welcome to All Things LGBTQ Plus Youth Edition. Today is January 14th, 2019. My name is Sophia, but I use Steve as a nickname. I use she, her pronouns. I'm Oliver, I use he, him, they, them, pronouns. My name is Shules, and I use they, them, pronouns. Today's topic is how to be a good ally. And I think that we should start out with a more positive side of things. Your show is very negative, we should switch that around. Indeed. So let's talk about what being a good ally looks like or feels like to us. So the ideal ally in our brain. Exactly. Like an ideal world, what would the ally look like? Right, Oliver. All right, I think what makes a good ally, some of the, there's a few like key things that you need to be to be a good ally. I think you need to be very understanding and willing to sort of learn and grow whenever people are like correcting you on stuff or whenever you learn something new, you just have to like be able to go with it without being offended or thinking like it's about like you making a mistake and like apologizing over and over, like just be understanding, learn, grow, move on. And I think like making sure to be an ally unconditionally, like not just when it's convenient for you but always like sticking up for a queer rights. Yeah, that's very. Well said. Well said. But definitely just thinking about the fact that you don't need to make us feel bad if you do something incorrectly or say something incorrectly just, just understand that you need improvement or need to fix that and carry about. It's not a bad thing to need improvement. And if you're an ally, you need to be actually supportive. So showing support is key. And so don't just like label yourself as an ally and be like, I don't hate queer people and then never actually do anything. Like you have to be actively supporting your queer friends, family, the community as a whole. And you can't have certain things that you're okay with and not be okay with some things. For example, like being okay with gay men and lesbian women and all of that, but not being okay with the idea of a trans person. So that's also something. But I won't say anything else because everything else is negative. Another really important thing for allies and a really amazing thing to see is being an educated ally and knowing a lot about this community and knowing not like you're rolling it, but like the importance of, like you as an ally and how important they are to queer people and just being an educated ally. And I think we touched on this. So we're not a good thing about being an educated ally and something that really anyone should know is that in the acronym, LGBTQIA, what the A stands for. Yes. It does not stand for ally, fun fact. Allies are amazing. You're so amazing. Thank you so much. But unless you are not cis-het, you are not in the queer community. Yeah. That is what the acronym is for. I think people need to understand that like a lot of the people who like make the whole, the A is for ally argument or like you should be inclusive of allies in your community, like a lot of those people are really just looking for attention and looking to be like called a good person and praised and all of that. Whereas they're not really helping us cause if all you're doing is like talking about what a great ally you are and like saying that you should have like a place in the acronym, which is not the point, then like you're not actually helping queer people. You're really just distracting from the actual issues that are going on. Plus the acronym is already so long. I have to like spit it out every time. I was once complimented on how fast I was able to say it and I was like, you get a lot of practice. Yeah. I think that definitely not just the A but other things if you are not in that acronym already, it's not gonna be added cause it's for the queer community. And I don't know. So, yeah. I think we should like that's a really good point but we should also clarify that what we mean by that is not that if you're like pan or something like that. Like the point is that you, if you're cisgender, heterosexual, heteroromantic, you're not part of the community and so you're not gonna get like, you shouldn't be making an argument for getting like some extra letter added or like making your case for like why you're part of the queer community. Like if you're cisgender, heterosexual, heteroromantic, you're just not. Right. You're wrong with the argue for having the S put in there for straight. What? That was a thing. That is not a thing actually. I understand people like wanting a sense of community and like I do understand that. But they're also, they're not oppressed. But they're not being oppressed and they're not being like, I don't know, they don't have issues for just being alive. Like this isn't. Yeah. I mean some of them might. Right. Absolutely. But in terms of gender and sexuality and like, yeah. So I think that. I think that's, yeah. Like I'm so long you guys. Okay. So, let's see. I guess kind of this kind of was briefly mentioned already a little bit but being an educated ally is very important. If you call yourself an ally, you must be educated. You must know about the community. Even if you just Google it, which isn't always the answer. Google is free and it's a great resource. I can offer you, I'm sorry, but I had to quote that real quick. Not sponsored, but it's okay. Google, please sponsor us. I think that another thing like, it's so important to be an educated ally and like you have to know a lot about the issues you're talking about rather than just like supporting stuff or just like making a statement every once in a while. Like we should stand up for like this community's rights without doing anything. Like that's just not helpful. So you need to be able to educate yourself on that and also like educate yourself on your place as an ally and like your privilege and like educate yourself on how you can use your privilege to help other people rather than like pretending you're part of the community because you're not. But I think maybe like we should also mention that that doesn't mean you can't want to be an ally if you don't know things about like the queer community. Like you can, you just shouldn't really label yourself like an ally and talk about it all the time. If you don't, if you're not educated, but like if you want, if you're coming from a place of like ignorance or you just, you've never heard anything about queer people, but you want to educate yourself then like educate yourself and you can become an ally. So you don't have to be like, like I guess what I'm trying to say is we shouldn't make it seem like it's unachievable. Just because you have to be like super educated. It's like don't be intimidated. Like there's still good allyship from people who aren't super educated, but the goal is like work towards that. I mean, and the goal is to make potentially everyone an ally by educating them. Yeah. That is the goal of like a lot of things like this is the goal to make everyone an ally and everyone feel good by educating people. Even though we are not educators. And I even think that like even if you, it's not our job to educate you, but we can help. Like it's, we're not, most of us, I at least, I'm not trying to speak for everyone, but if you would like some information, I am glad to talk to you about it. Like I have so many pamphlets. I don't have all of the knowledge, but I will help as best as I can because if it means that there's going to be another ally, then I'm all for it. Seek out that knowledge if you're really good. It's seeking out knowledge in general. It was just like what you should do with the goal of everything is to be more knowledgeable. I'm like, if you're questioning, seek out knowledge. If you want to be an ally, seek out knowledge. Just do that. Just learn. Yeah, like if you talk to queer people, a lot of queer people are willing to have conversations about stuff or like we'll respond to a polite question, but at the same time, like it's also important to consider as an ally that like queer people aren't just like your dictionary and one queer person doesn't speak for all of them. So like if you come to me and ask me some question about like trans women of color, like I can't speak for them because I'm not a trans woman of color. So like I can't give accurate information because that's just like not my point of view. So like I'm not speaking from the point of view of those people. So I can't speak for them. So I think like understand that just because someone's part of the community doesn't mean they know everything about it. So don't always rely on, like try to get a diverse set of people to talk to about the issues, I guess. I think we touched on that pretty well. And then we can talk a little, Steve. Sorry, I just had one more. Oh, go ahead, sorry. I think that just don't take the easy way out in just asking one person, like do your research if you actually care. If you don't care, then don't mind. Like so that's all. But something we can speak on more personal level and more a better perspective is allies in school. So teachers, administration and students. I think yeah, that and parental allies could be kind of one kind of topic. So what's it with that one then, parental allies? How to be an ally as a parent? If you're like your child comes out to you, what is the best course of action? And how do you prove that you are an ally to your kid? I think not using but as much like I support you but. I understand but you are great but like it's not, you by using your words you're not gonna change or actions honestly. If you, I don't know what you're into but if that's not going to change their thoughts or way of life, like it's not your choice. The only thing you can do if you want them to stay around is support them and be knowledgeable if you can. Even if you just treat them like they are. Which is. I don't want to think you can treat them any different. Well yes, but. But also like you shouldn't treat them any different but also like if they're in need of, like a lot of queer kids are gonna be in need of extra support, like that's something that you should take into consideration. So don't just be like oh yeah, like we know you're queer, that's great whatever and like disregard it and be like oh I'm treating them the same as like my straight child because like. Quality. You have to like offer them the support. Like it's more about like one point that applies to a lot of situations is like equity versus equality. So like if you give your straight kid and your queer kid equal treatment, that's not necessarily fair whereas like if you were treating them with equity then maybe you'd just like give your queer kid a little more like support in terms of like their identity. In terms of their identity. I think in general always give your kid as much support as you can give and also there are scenarios where you would, you should treat them the same. Yeah. But in certain scenarios it's important. And as a kid who has come out to their parents, I think for me the best course of action that, like the best outcome that could have happened was them literally just going like okay. Mm-hmm. Okay. Okay. Go clean your room. That was like for me personally that would be the best course of action. Like as a parent if the kid ever come out to me that would be my goal to help my, I would like to be able to react. I think a lot of people like the way the world is right now, like in the future I feel like that's ideal and or that just like coming out as a concept isn't a thing but also. Or that everything has to come out. That like you, but some parents I think some could feel like when they come out to someone and then that person's just like okay cool. And like moves on with the conversation is a little bit dismissive and like and like not really acknowledging them enough. So I think some people like if they come out that's like a really difficult thing to do. And so like I think some people feel like you're sort of dismissing all their like bravery and everything by just like saying okay, that's whatever like I don't really care. So I think it can be taken in different ways. It's a tricky thing to deal with, especially immediately after the coming out. And then what about being a parental ally few months, few years after they come out? What would be like an everyday kind of ally thing? I think the most immediate when it comes to my brain is whatever they ask you to do, pronouns, name, you just go with it. I think one thing that like a lot of family members specifically like friends and whoever else too but like parents a lot of the time take things super personally and that's something that you shouldn't do. Like and that applies to coming out of course. Like that means that like if you, if your kid comes out to you, don't like talk to them about like, oh this is so like hard for me. It's like, no, they're the ones struggling but then also like it applies to other situations. So if your kid's like, hey, like I would feel more comfortable if you called me this name, then that's not like they're talking about, you know, like, oh, it's so hard for me or like just they're sentimental about it and they're like, oh, like I picked that name for you. Like, you know, this means so much to me and it's like something that means a lot to me or like it's a family name, whatever, like it's not a personal attack on you or your family or your values or whatever. It's just like your kid feels more comfortable like that so you shouldn't take it as a personal attack and I think that applies. And those feelings too, I think like of like names apparently like I picked those feelings that you just mentioned are like valid, like feeling like, oh, You shouldn't be talking to your kid about that. You shouldn't be talking to your kid about it. Like talk to your therapist about that. But like talk to your spouse if you have one like, those are valid feelings have. Or your therapist in private, like that is not your decision. It's not a choice. Everyone should have a therapist. Right. But everyone get a therapist if you can get a therapist. I think it's just like, parents need to understand or just like everyone, but I think particular parents are the people doing this a lot of the time need to understand that like, you don't, you shouldn't be talking to your queer kids about like the struggle they're making in your life. Yeah, like that's something, cause like parents go their kids, even if they're not queer. Don't say that. That's not a good thing to say to your kid. But like as a parental ally, you shouldn't be going up to your, like if your kid says something or complains about something or whatever it is or asks you, especially a lot of the time this happens, like kid asks their parent to, you know, like, hey, do you think you could try a little bit harder with the pronouns or like correct other people? And then the parent goes like, you know, do you have any idea how hard it has been? Or like how hard I'm trying, like how much more difficult our lives have been, like they take it so personally, they guilt trip you and they give you all the like reasons that you should be so thankful to them. And it's like it's not about your kid being ungrateful, it's just about them asking for the support they need. So I think that's, it falls in the category of like taking it too personally, but it's also just like, you shouldn't be dumping your problems on your kid, regardless of whether they're queer or not. It shouldn't make a difference, whether your child is straight or queer, because it, if you, if you're, before your child came out to you, assume that they are straight, I'm sure. Which is, mm-hmm. Okay, we can talk about that for a while. And then they, if they asked you then, told you they needed support, you'd give it to them, but they tell you that they don't want to use the same pronouns anymore, or they don't want to like have crushes or like date the same gender that they have been. It's an issue. I don't, I just am not a fan of that concept because it shouldn't change. It's not your business really even. It's, they're just telling you so you can be a part of their lives and you should be thanking them for that. Because it is hard to do. And you don't realize until it's in the moment that you're doing it. And like, it's not a fun time, but when you do it, it's, no matter what the outcome is, it usually feels a little better in the moment. And the only, the best you can do is continue to give them support. So it's like nothing happened, but you're still acknowledging the fact in a positive way. If that makes any sense, I don't know. That's really well said. You were talking about guilt-tripping and my friends all enjoy ranching and I all enjoyed listening to their rants and I had a friend come to me and rant about their family member who had guilt-tripped them by using the example that they had bought them pants instead of a dress. And I was hearing this and I was like, you clothed your child, congratulations. Yeah, no parents use all sorts of like. Anyone, do they just use these weird excuses that I'm like, that has nothing to do with the scenario? It's like just because you gave someone whatever support it was, whether it was a lot of support or whether it was just like you trying and even not doing so good, like whatever it is, like you shouldn't be using your support against your child. Like it's your responsibility to care for your child and if you like are guilt-tripping your child by saying like, well, I give you this so like I don't know why you're so ungrateful. Like that's just not. Ungrateful, I, that word. That's a word that queer kids get a lot and like, oh my God. It makes me so mad. You was saying like, you should be thankful that your kid told you this because it's so hard and it's like. Because they'd be like letting you into their lives. Yeah. You don't want your kid lying to you. Would you rather have them live a lie every single day? Or would you rather than like be happy? Because they're, I don't, I just, I just don't understand why it is such a big deal. Like it's not changing them. They, Your kid is still the same kid. They have been queer. Well, you have thought they're straight and cis. Whatever. You treated them just fine when they were, when they were queer and. They've always been queer. Yeah. Your kid isn't changing. They've always been this way. But when they realized that gender might be changing depending on how they identify. It's not, it doesn't change their personality. It's not something. Well, cause queer isn't a personality trait. Exactly. People need to stop using that because it is not a personality trait. It can be how you express yourself, absolutely. But. I mean, odd as a personality trait. I think also that like, some people like, I had people, I had like a friend tell me after I came out to them, they were like, this is weird like, It's weird for me. Your personality has changed like, over the course of like a week, because before you were saying all this stuff about like, I don't know, like whatever that they considered like feminine or something, or me blatantly stating that I'm not trans. And then. Maybe. But, maybe you were lying. They're talking about like my personality changing, but it's like, if you feel like someone's personality has changed, like you should consider the fact that like, maybe it was because they were like overcompensating for being closeted because they felt like they needed to, maybe this is the real personality. Yeah, like this is the real personality being revealed and them becoming more comfortable in themselves, not like them changing personalities because of like something they read or something their friend said, like you need to realize that this has been like a gradual process and that they've thought about it a lot. It's not just like a sudden change. And it's acceptable to not like someone because of their personality. It's not acceptable to not like someone because they're queer. Because queer is in a personality trait. And the change could be them feeling more free and a sense of relief. And a sense of self-expression. Like that could be a shift. It's not a change, it's a shift because they are expressing the person who they were exactly meant to be. And that is not anyone's thing or place to judge. So I don't, I, like you're saying it's not a personality trait and it doesn't change your personality but I believe that it is a very freeing thing and it can absolutely increase your state of mind which is wonderful I think. Because it's not a sickness, it's which like, I hear a lot, it's they're not irregular, they're happy. Like if you think they've changed rapidly it's because like coming out has, like it changes people for the better and like there's also a lot of like stigma about like you know how you can't change a lot and there's a lot of like, like we were just talking about like they haven't changed and that's true but also like if people have changed and if people were very sure that they were straight a few years ago and now they have just come out to you like even if they were sure themselves and it wasn't something they were hiding and they just like changed and grew and learned from that like that's completely valid too like you don't have to have been, like I didn't know I was trans for my whole life it wasn't something I've been hiding since I was like two years old like it's something that I realized and I don't think I would have been comfortable like expressing myself like that when I was like a little kid but like people's like gender is fluid and sexuality is fluid and whatever like you can change and grow and you don't have to have been the same your whole life if someone didn't change at all their entire life the personality didn't change, nothing changed it'd be a little weird yeah like if I remained a one year old like a personality of a one year old my entire life that's a little odd a little odd it'd be so boring like you would we're just like really entertaining yes but one of the two it would be the same thing it would be the same thing for your entire life and who would want that so we may have gone on a little slower that's okay it's okay it's a good conversation it's a productive conversation knowledge here you go here's your knowledge seek it out but the allies in the school community I know you can talk about this and I wanna listen to you talk about this okay so please talk about this administration, teachers and students and friends which is kind of like students that kind of peers I think that people don't always understand how super important it is for teachers to be good allies and like for the school to be a really accepting place because there's a lot of like like teachers or schools or like administration whatever it is who will just like there's these stickers I don't know if if they have these stickers I don't know how many schools they have those at but it's just like a little sticker that has a rainbow flag and it says like safe space and like it's an ally like teachers will put that on their doors they think that makes them an ally they're like okay this makes me an ally like I guess my queer students know that this is a safe space now and like they'll be fine like that's good enough but the reality is that like you have to you have to earn that and you have to really support your students and like listen to your students and a lot of that is just like recognizing that like yeah and like recognizing that you can't like it's it's a lot like I think being an ally as a parent in that like you shouldn't assume a default about your students so if you're having like a class discussion for instance about queer rights a lot of teachers like sort of organize that as if it's like and so everyone's straight yeah as if everyone's straight and it's like a fun debate that you're having and it's like in reality you're probably like hurting a lot of students in your classroom because you almost definitely like you you definitely have queer kids in your classroom you probably have some trans kids in your classroom and you need to be you're not to support them yeah I'll put it this rule okay but just like so those discussions right when I before I was out I like I had a suspicion that I was queer like a little thought and we had like discussions like that and I was like okay who'll probably hate me yeah it's like I was like looking around and I was like okay you you're probably gonna be fine with me so I'm gonna talk to you you probably hate me that's cool I'm gonna go over here yeah I could like figure it out and like weed out for the for a lot of for the like teacher if the teachers cishet and for the cishet students it's just like a topic to discuss and maybe you can like tie it to some current events or something like whatever that's great but you're probably not noticing that there are some comments being made that are hurtful and like you need to be really educated about those topics as a teacher so that you understand what's going on your classroom environment because if students feel like they're you know like if a classmate makes some like homophobic comment or joke and it's just like it's maybe it's not noticeable to the teacher but the queer kids in that classroom immediately recognize like okay like I'm not necessarily safe around that person if the teacher doesn't recognize that and learn to understand like how students communicate that then it's gonna be like not a safe space so you can't just like slap the safe space sticker on your door and call it a day and it's not like you have to get a huge rainbow flag and hang in your head I mean you could you could but you just need to show in everyday life that you can support this yeah and like it's another thing is like I did this yeah I have a question for you before we quickly change topics because this is a question but you just said say a kid makes a homophobic comment in class and the teacher recognizes it what should they do what should their reaction be should they call it out or should they just let it slide and not draw attention to it so I think what yeah is that funny yes what should they do I think that I've like seen this happen before and I've had teachers who have had different responses to that some of them are good some of them are not so good I think the best thing to do there is be able to call out the issue without victimizing without victimizing or like publicly shaming the person yeah so a lot of the time like like you don't want to just let it slide and pretend it didn't happen but you also don't want to be like hey like you just said a really awful thing and this is why you're wrong and like now let's have a whole class discussion about how like what a terrible person you are because like one takes away class time till you're shaming a person well like you're shaming a person and I think then students that also like takes a little bit away from that person's chance to like learn and grow and I'm not trying to defend students who make homophobic comments but I just think that like it's more productive as a teacher to like say hey like that comment wasn't so good and here's why and then explain like the issue and have some students talk about it in like an organized and civil manner because otherwise oftentimes like it'll turn into chaos interaction outside of class or it'll just turn into a bunch of people yelling at each other because if you call the student out and talk about and you know call them out like you said this terrible thing and like how could you say that then it turns into just like a bunch of yelling and nobody learns anything or someone resulting in getting you know hurt in some way and it doesn't have to be physically it can be like emotionally or like verbally like like that's it's know your times like pull someone aside out for class if they've made a homophobic comment in front of Pete anyone really even if like just mind your surroundings which could also lead into another topic but we don't have to do that coming of that student eventually after this conversation we should talk about confidentiality but for sure there's some more things we should add one final thing yeah absolutely do you also want to talk about name change after yes definitely I something that has been a voice to me by teachers and stuff is they don't want to like turn the whole class into that like into that discussion because they do have things they need to teach like if you're if you're I don't know a Latin teacher you're not going to want to turn your entire conversation into how to not be homophobic even though ancient Rome was kind of pretty gay yeah I think well like students like what going off of wait till you get to high school babe yeah well like I think going off of that also like you should as a teacher be able to prioritize because I think I've had a lot of teachers in the past who are like as soon as you get off track it's like nope we're bringing it back to the lesson we were studying and it's like talk that's not always the right thing to do so I've had like in some situations it's really like your students are getting off track and the conversation just isn't productive in any way and it makes sense to lead them back but if your productive conversation is having a civil respectful conversation about queer rights or if it's a not so respectful conversation that you can turn into like a learning moment for the whole class then like if you really think about it like that's just as important if not more important than whatever subject you're teaching so you should be able to prioritize and just like let go a little bit and be able to say you know like okay let's talk about this because this is probably gonna really affect some of the students outside the class and even if it's like if there's something that you don't understand you can even learn about it like it's not like even if you're a teacher you can still learn about this because like just because you're teaching people things doesn't mean that you can't learn things at the same time so you can always say like about to say that is that a lot of truth I again I was talking about this with a bunch of other queer students and teachers and all of that and Hatred voiced the concern of like I don't know if I can properly talk about that and teach that in a school setting because they assume they have to be the teacher which like I said your job put it on but like learning from your students like parents parents learn from your kids teachers learn from your students because learn from the people who can talk a little bit more about that topic so that next time you can feel more comfortable talking about it and what you're saying I think that like teachers who are willing to say like take a step back and just say okay I don't know as much of this about this topic that I'd like to and then you can just say you know like I don't think I know enough about this for this to be a productive conversation and either let your students take it from there or if that if you feel like that's not going to work depending on like the age group or the particular group of students or whatever the conversation is you can also just be like I don't know enough about this right now I'm going to research it we can talk about it whatever like next class because you don't want to just like admitting that you don't know about the topic isn't an excuse to just be like okay let's just avoid the topic like like use that to learn I think so you want to go into confidentiality or name changes first wait we can even talk about like both at the same time name changes in confidentiality because in the school system even confidentiality is also important um because if yeah I don't know we can you can continue to talk about name change and then kind of segway into confidentiality because the two of us unless a student expresses that they don't want you to or they will come back to that unless a student is like okay you can share that that's fine you can talk to the people then go ahead or ask them but if they don't explicitly say you can share this don't care right base rule but let's go into name changes first and then we'll connect the two in a casual manner putting that in mind while we talk about this so I should I talk about like what should happen or an example of what shouldn't happen because I've had experience I think you're the okay I think honestly out of the two of us you're definitely out of the three of us you're definitely the most experienced talking about this I haven't changed my name I don't think Steve's changed anything I kind of have but not officially not officially because yeah because I'm like I'm Jules and you're Steve both nicknames but like but you're Oliver that's your last name Oliver Oliver Jacob Simon something like this so Jacob John and Simon so many middle names it can end you okay so I want to start off by mentioning a way that you shouldn't do it because I want to be able to talk about like why that's wrong because a lot of teachers are like we're okay here's like a student talking about how they want to change your name I guess this is the logical course of action and sometimes that's just wrong even if you have good intention in this case the person didn't but yeah so it's fine declare how we're talking about changing your name legally because on your on like on your birth certificate it still says your dead name correct yeah but in the school you're like on roll call it's Oliver correct so how did that come okay to pass so I also want to maybe like mention how to go about that for students how old were you like were you in middle school or high school I was it would have been like 13 yeah 13 8th grade then 8th grade yeah 8th grade um so he's favorite all the tea it was a process yeah first thing I did I think I talked to my there we had a really great social worker at that school so bless them I'm gonna snap because yeah that's really important also how to be a good ally as an administrator in school they're sure you have really really supportive um social workers who are really supportive and educated about queer topics because that's super important love that woman continue sorry yeah but so I had a really we had a really great social worker there so I talked to her and I was like hey I want to change my name in the school system but it's not changed legally like how do you go about that so they were able to change my email first of all and then change there's a slightly more complicated process for changing your name it might be different in our school for changing your name in like the online system um because you know like part of the permission and stuff and so and it's it's a process yeah it definitely is a process so I couldn't do that at the time so I was gonna have like the rest of the school year without my name changed in the system and that so pretty much at that point it's like up to like I'm relying on the teachers being supportive so I went to my teachers your mental health literally riding on that yeah like I email all my teachers and told them all about like and for students who want to do this like if you just email your teacher like you're like hey I want to change my name like this please don't tell my parents if you don't want them to and then they can help you like figure out a way to let other students know and figure that whole process out but um what happened with this teacher is I told him I was changing my name and I told him that in the next class period like that was gonna be my name and the way I wanted it to happen because I think in like ideally this would be a super smooth way to do it is like just change your name on the attendance sheet and then the teacher calls your new name and you answer to that and then everyone in the class is like oh that's your name like that's your name now and if they have a question about it like I that was ideal but what happened yeah so did that happen? no that did not happen yeah I have a feeling the teacher told me that my so I was like okay can you please call my name on attendance as Oliver and he was reading this sheet of attendance he walked over to me whispered Oliver and I was like I'm here I was like you don't have to whisper and so I talked to him about it afterwards and he claimed that like that must have looked so weird that me changing my name was gonna be like an interruption to the class and that it was gonna get people off track and I just think that like teachers need to recognize that that's not what's important like it's not important that you get your extra like ten minutes of your algebra lesson like it's more important that your students don't care about algebra it's literally thirty seconds it was more disruptive because I had to like I was like now I'm talking to you in the hallway and I made him come up in the hallway with me and lectured him on why he's being stupid but imagine how weird that would be to like during roll call if you get to your name Oliver and then goes back to doing roll call like there's a convenient way to do that they walked to your desk and like knelt down and whispered so I definitely want to like Oliver for you look insane like for teachers who are wanting to be supportive of students changing their names I think what you need to do is like meet with your student if they're not sure how to go about it and you can like you can do it by like changing their name on the attendance list and just calling it or if it's like a bigger class or whatever like whatever reason that doesn't work then you can also have them like talk to the class and organize a way for them to tell the class that's not like super intimidating so that it can be not really a discussion but just like a welcoming space and establishing that so like I have another teacher who did this really well who like came up and like talked a little bit about like trans issues like queer issues and all that and just like how to be accepting and how to be a good student ally and then like gave it to me to talk about my name change and I think that's also a good way to do it so like ultimately it's up to the student so don't force your student to do anything they're uncomfortable with I actually have three things that I had to buy is that you were sitting there as you were talking one, the social worker you mentioned tip for any social worker who's watching this but tip, she was also one of our GSA advisors yeah, that's great so we already, any queer could already knew she's an ally so maybe more men yeah and another thing like you're talking about name changes and role calls and all that and I personally was super lucky because my birth name is Julia and Jules is obviously can can be a nickname of that so literally and I don't care if I hear the name Julia because I'm just so used to hearing it so like literally for role call like a sub's calling my name they go Julia and I go yeah Jules and then we just move on yeah and that was like I understand like your name was a bigger shift in all of that but like if anyone wants to just switch to a nickname that's more gender neutral it's literally I was yeah it was a little uncomfortable at first that's a good first step though because then people are used to it because you did that for a little bit you had like a terrific name right yeah but like I think a lot of for a lot of people that helps a little bit because if you use like a nickname you can either pass off as a nickname and just have it make you more comfortable without like coming out about it or you can say like here this is my name this makes me more comfortable for now I'll be changing again the future and then people are used to like they have a chance to adjust and call you by a new name so then they're not like it's not a huge deal when you like find your new name and the thing is too like I'm probably never going to legally change my name from Julia it's just a big hassle and I probably would never do that on my birth certificate and I'm and I will probably always ask people to call me Jules like that's probably always what I'm going to be doing because I like that it's gender neutral so like I the legal thing was never like a huge deal because I can just easily nickname it and be like oh it's just what I like to be called and I had a third thing if you remember I said three your name is now changed in the school system correct yeah what was that like did you need parental consent legally do you need parental consent to do that in our school system I don't know how this works is it a legal thing? I don't know if it's like a federal it's not a legal thing your school district yeah I don't know how that works for different school districts for ours I just had to bring in like a signed note that said I could change my name I didn't know to get in a gym class yeah literally I'm queer because my note I'm sorry I can't participate today in class it's um yeah it's I'm not I haven't experienced this but I've I've taken lots of time to do research on how it is with other schools and um it's very uh it's a process that's very different in other places so I think that we actually have it in like an okay thing because our we're really lucky in our school system our school system is like we're not sitting here just trying to complain about our school system no because it's so good some of some of the teachers and some of the yes some of the individual people could like yes so like this school that but the school in general all together are all so good mhs you just wait baby you wait you get to mhs best school in the world it's but it's okay lovely um confidentiality um speaking of which you just exposed what school we are too so it's not pillier they know we're not pillier they know we're freshmen that's true they it's not that hard to figure out confidentiality which we touched on a little bit if you're student like okay we touched on how to kind of we do weird confidentiality by whispering their name and area that's not all the confidentiality and people don't being I guess being secretive when people don't want you to is really annoying as if you're trying to be alive but then you're like oh I just want to like make sure you're comfortable when they like specifically asked you to have a group discussion it also makes you feel like if you need to hide too but yeah they like encourage that you need to be like secretive about them like hide this yeah if you don't yeah if they told you to put your name out there on roll call that's like that's kind of a message that's not them asking to for you to keep it confident that is literally them telling you to do the opposite yeah like all of them are going to the teacher being like you need to call me this name now yeah it's not it call me this name on roll call in front of the class that's not being like oh I'm just telling you this so that when I'm when I do potentially change it it's not going to be a shock to you don't get anyone I know it's just it's literally call me this in front of everyone just talk about like confidentiality in the ways that it should be done in the ways that it should be because again we're very negative people are we talking about in school or just generally generally but that includes in school because we're in school and it's seven hours thought of the moment that is actually it doesn't just have to be for that if so we've been to some events where we are surrounded by all the gay people it's fun we love it it's such a good time but there is a thing with that you it's not it's not the best thing to do in front of like a group of people to go up to them and say like yeah hi like you can still say hi to them or maybe not like check in with them after but if they're with a big group maybe avoid doing that because there could be some questions raised like how do you know this person like oh yeah I met them here and that's something that because there is everyone has a different situation which it could be many different things it could be many different things in fact like all of the things but I mean yeah so don't need to get into that specifically but just being aware that if you could maybe just send them like a message or something like hey I was like I'm into them DMs okay um it was really cool to see you today I hope we can catch up some whatever you just have to be aware of the situation whether even if you don't know it like just be thoughtful and that's yeah and they're comfortable with you talking about like yeah and before you leave this event you can even ask your new friends like hey whatever so yeah um so there's an organization that does that confidence you out already super well outright Vermont I go to their Friday night group right and I'm fine saying that we don't need to worry about confidentiality there and they would go and every time they're like we will not approach you on the street and say hi to you unless you specifically tell us that's okay and that's the rule for everyone you do not approach anyone you've seen there unless they specifically tell you it's okay you don't say hi you don't do what you just put in you do not do not know them do not know them and I think that's like a really good way to do it because one it makes everyone feel comfortable and like if they're fine being approached and they're fine being approached and you can approach them if they say that but if they aren't and they're like with them when and they aren't able to be like approached and be like wave to you and deal with all of that then you don't do that and I think it's just a super good way they start every group with that or like this is the rule here so it's happening you can leave you like that rule I think also like as an ally in like to your peers or to your friends or whoever it is um other things like understanding the difference between talking to someone about their pronouns or gender or whatever in a group versus alone because it's very different and some people who are really like trying their best to be allies will like be in a group of people and they remember you know oh I remember one time my friend said it's good to ask people's pronouns and then they turn to the person in the group who they think might be trans and say what are your pronouns instead of what everybody's pronoun yeah or like and that's something that's like while you think you're being like conscientious and like thoughtful and you're you know asking this person what their pronouns are so that they don't get misgendered and like I understand that there's good intent there but um I think people need to understand that either make it a whole group thing or talk to them afterwards and be like hey like what do you want me to call you in front of this group of people because that's also something like you can say you can introduce yourself with your pronouns be like hey my name's Oliver I use he him they them and then that like is an invitation for whoever else is with you to say their pronouns and they don't have to if they don't want to or you can just like talk to them outside of the group but I think that's something that people get confused about a lot because they think they're being allies but like really you're just making someone uncomfortable and pull them aside to do that just like pull them is don't do it from the group yeah so we're running out of time do we have any last thoughts and confidentiality um I don't think we're going to get to everything on that paper I don't there's no one from that paper I don't I think I'm all set um we've kind of covered a lot of things the paper um um was a sec um we kind of have like briefly covered things that um but one thing we haven't really talked about is um gatekeeping yeah we can briefly catch on this yeah just because we have like I think that would be a good way to end it out because we've pretty much covered and then yeah gatekeeping final thoughts and we're good so Oliver so we kind of want gatekeeping in terms of like how allies can first because there's also there's like gatekeeping and then there's like convenient ally ship yeah that's yeah that's kind of a tied together sometimes so convenient I can have a me ally ship because I don't live in one of that convenient ally ship is sort of picking and choosing who you're an ally for or when you want to be an ally so it can also be within the community so say I am a lesbian but and I'm an ally for all lesbians and gay men and that's I'm not for them but I'm not an ally for like trans people that would be like picking and choosing who you are who you're an ally for and then even if you're not in the community you're finding people being gay you're not kind of people being trans yeah so you can't like yeah I guess thanks yeah that's a really well way to put it so yeah so gatekeeping is more within the community right I don't know about it also there's convenient convenient ally ship also applies to outside the community and when we say like making it convenient who you're an ally for that means like groups of people but that also means like specifically who in your life you're an ally for so like there are some people who say you know oh yeah like I'm 100% fine with queer people I'm like I'm an ally like I advocate for their rights like I'm supportive in everything but then as soon as like their kid comes out they're like whoa whoa whoa that's not okay like also no longer supportive they're like of that yeah kid they're like fine with people being gay who doesn't affect their lives yeah then when it affects when anyone's like at someone close to them they like freak out yeah but that's something that happens so convenient ally ship or choosing when you're an ally and all of that which is obviously not how you want to be an ally because then you're claiming the title of being an ally without actually being an ally yeah but I really want you to we have like five minutes I really want you to explain to me what you're keeping is real quick all right okay keeping kind of relates to yeah I think it relates to all shit because it's good for them to know um it's good for everyone to know signalling gatekeeping within the lgbt post community essentially means like having these weird like expectations for other people within your community and having these expectations for like what makes you like trans enough or like what it looks like for you to be gay or what it what like a bi person should act like which like none of these things exist like you can you can present however you want and like label yourself however you want but there's a lot of stuff like like within the trans community there's all this stuff about like there's a huge one of the main things of like discourse right now in the trans community is like whether or not you need dysphoria to be trans you and it's like first of all you don't that's a whole another episode honestly we could go on about that but the point the point of that is that like there are people literally not talking to other trans people at all and dead naming them and telling them they are cis being like you are cis because you are not a trans person just because because of their personal opinions about like what it means to be trans and that can also be like outside of the dysphoria debate that can be like if you're a trans guy who presents really feminine then some trans guys or just other trans people who will go up to you and be like hmm i don't think you're actually trans or there's a lot of like you're representing our community badly because now all these cis people think that trans people are like you know like special snowflakes who have to like who have all these labels and like will and don't have any dysphoria and there's like all this stuff and it's like we're just putting up walls within our own community when we should be like supporting each other in the community like we're not being allies for each other within the community which is something that's so important yeah i have to be an ally to you i identify with a lot of labels you use i still have to be an ally for you because you're in my community yeah like i say i have to be an ally for you have to be an ally for everyone if you're in a community it doesn't mean you're exempt from being an ally you still have to be an ally but do you end up on gatekeeping um i think that even like you can for sure if it's really what floats your boat i guess be a part of the community but also have like things against other part of the community just don't just just don't say anything don't like ruin it super aggressively because like we mentioned earlier you're not going to change their mind it's who they are and it is who they were meant to be so stop it's not gonna happen like you want it to that is too bad go live your life live your life and be happy no one is a lot of like the whole yeah i know the whole thing about the queer community is like weird the whole thing is that we're like allies for everyone united by like love and the point is that we're not like you stop doing that you're gonna break down the community actually i keep interrupting you the point is that we're not judging people and defining people based off their gender their sexuality their presentation their labels but that's exactly what you're doing when you're telling someone you're not trans enough because of this or like you should present differently because of your identity or like your pronouns aren't valid or whatever it is like you're just you're just like the people who are like making comments about like that about you yeah so i think that's a good way to end it and i think since we've been trying to do this is quick final thoughts take away what you want everyone to take away from the episode like a one sentence two sentence thing starting with steve okay um all you beautiful people yes just yes that's a good takeaway i i just steve's having a moment all of our quick takeaway um i think my takeaway from this is pretty much the same thing i said at the beginning but like always be willing to learn and grow and like know your place as an ally know that you're valued but like know your place yeah allies we absolutely love you you are fantastic thank you so much because you make our lives so much easier and we appreciate you so much indeed let's wrap this up okay thank you so much for watching all things LGBTQ plus youth edition and we'll see you next month