On Thursday, April 19, 15 faculty and staff gathered in the CTL to discuss the notion of a “safe zone” for LGBTQ students and staff. An informative and open discussion was held of classroom and other issues that come up in creating a safe zone. Those topics included

• transgendered student preferred names, pronoun – sometimes differs from the official academic record
• how to relate to colleagues or students who are expressing anti-gay (LBT) sentiment
• referring to significant others as “spouses” avoids heterosexist language
• students’ learning can be rapidly shut down if they are members of communities that have “invisible differences” and they are exposed to demeaning comments or actions
• students from other cultures may have set views on homosexuality; we must meet them where they are and encourage them to understand US norms and codes of conduct concerning bias
• slang that demeans LGBTQ people, like “that’s so gay” – how to deal with this

Participants were interested in continuing the dialog, and materials were made available to help understand use of language, terms, etc.