A Culturally Proficient Response to LGBT Communities

A Guide for Educators

Randall B. Lindsey, Richard M. Diaz, Kikanza Nuri-Robins, Raymond D. Terrell, Delores B. Lindsey

• Publisher: Corwin
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN:
  9781452241982
• eBook ISBN:
  9781483304328
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Multicultural Education

An introspective response with LGBT communities for positive change

A Culturally Proficient Response to LGBT Communities is a guide for educators to collaboratively combat issues of discrimination, inequity, and bullying through the review of current policies, practices, and deeply held assumptions about Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered (LGBT) communities. This inside-out approach carries readers through a personal journey of reflection to action by using the Tools of Cultural Proficiency to examine their values, beliefs, and assumptions about how LGBT communities are served educationally. 

 Creating safe and welcoming schools includes both setting effective and appropriate policies and the inside-out analyses of one's own beliefs and values. Resulting cultural proficiencies, steeped in self-reflection, boost empathy and improve learning environments. On this simple, powerful premise, readers will find:

• Inside-out growth through personal stories and case-studies
• Reflection through activities and prompts appropriate for individuals and teams
• Insight into current responses to bullying

Using this first step for positive systemic change, school leaders can elevate understanding and propel schools toward safe and diverse-friendly environments.

"This book provides essential tools for educators who want to make schools safe and welcoming for all students.  I could not put this book down. In my nearly 25 years of education I have not come across a resource that handles the needs of LGBT students as sensitively and supportively as these authors have using the tools of Cultural Proficiency."
—Gunn Marie Hansen, Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services
Orange Unified School District, CA

Part I

Introduction

Background, Challenges, and Opportunity

Part I is intended to provide a background for responding to the questions, “Why do we need to address issues related to sexual orientation and gender diversity within the context of the school community?” and “How do we move forward?” Education in Canada and the United States has been on an increasingly upward trajectory of inclusiveness in the recent past. Responding to issues of sexual orientation and gender diversity in positive ways is an opportunity for creating a socially just society—certainly, an opportunity that is long overdue. Yes, we have yet to experience equality or true equity with regard to race, ethnicity, gender, national origin, or ableness; yet we can more forthrightly and authentically mitigate egregious practices against one of these cultural groups when we dare to confront practices of inequity toward all cultural groups—namely, LGBT members.

The chapters in Part I inform and support your knowledge of factors that impinge on equitable institutional practices that affect educators, students, and parents/guardians. The chapters are designed to discuss issues related to sexual orientation and gender diversity in ways that provide knowledge and skills for educators and schools striving to educate all students, heterosexual and homosexual. Educators who display inclusive practices ensure the likelihood of students living in socially just and democratic societies that seek to overcome oppression and marginalization.

• Chapter 1 introduces the historical context of sexual orientation and gender identity as equity issues, provides definitions of key terms used in the book, and begins the description of the Tools of Cultural Proficiency.

• Chapter 2 immerses the reader in an in-depth examination of the Tools of Cultural Proficiency as knowledge and skills to support your understanding of the moral nature of this work.

• Chapter 3 parses two important concepts—equality and equity. You will learn, or reinforce prior learning, how these terms support the processes and desired outcomes for socially just, democratic societies.

• Chapter 4 provides a historical perspective for sexual orientation and gender diversity valued in some cultures and vilified in others. The chapter amplifies the manner in which historical, systemic oppression has evolved to inform current discriminatory practices.

You are about to begin a personal journey of learning that will benefit you and the communities you serve.

1

Context

A moral imperative, that all students must be able to exist within inclusive school structures where they feel safe physically and psychologically, must be upheld because young people are required by law to attend school rather than having a choice.

—Linda K. Corbin (2011, p. 1)

GETTING CENTERED

Take a few minutes to think about and respond to the following questions:

• What terms would you use to describe your sexual orientation?

• To what extent have you ever thought about your having a sexual orientation?

• What might be some ways to describe your feelings when colleagues talk about their own gender identity and sexual orientation?

• What are your feelings as you read and respond to these questions?

Please use the following space to record your responses to these questions, your comments, and questions that you might have. Also take a moment to write how you felt while responding to these questions.

This chapter

• Introduces the historical nature of sexual orientation and gender identity inequity and equity as the context for understanding self within school roles of parent/guardian, student, or educator.

• Identifies and defines terms used to describe LGBT communities and presents nonoffensive language that can be used by educators. While many more terms are used to describe aspects of sexuality and sexual orientation, this list applies only to terms used in this book, which we believe you may find useful in conversations with your colleagues and community members.

• Provides an introduction to the Tools of Cultural Proficiency as a means of guiding personal and organizational actions that support access to equitable academic outcomes and extracurricular involvement for all students.

SEXUAL ORIENTATION AS AN EQUITY ISSUE

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) communities are too often viewed only in terms of perceived sexual behavior and rarely as cultural groups with norms and values that shape their lives. Confusion and misperceptions exist about who is in what is often referred to as the “LGBT” community. This book intends to counter and confront those issues by clarifying the importance of knowing and understanding these cultural groups as well as acknowledge the make-up of the several demographic groups within this highly diverse community.

Two of the authors were conducting a professional learning session with a group of educational leaders recently using Culturally Proficient Leadership: The Personal Journey Begins Within (Terrell & Lindsey, 2009). One of the activities invited participants to respond in writing to a series of prompts that included “Describe when you first became aware of your gender”; “Describe when you first became aware of your race and/or ethnicity”; “Describe when you first became aware of your social class”; and “Describe when you first became aware of your sexual orientation.” Everyone was thoughtfully engaged in writing. We observed people thinking hard as evidenced by furrowed brows, sighs, giggles, and fierce writing. About twenty minutes into the activity, one of the participants asked in a very attentive and serious tone, “Ray and Randy, I don’t know how to respond to the sexual orientation prompt. I am straight.” Everyone sat upright in seeming stunned silence to see how we might respond. While we were measuring our response, one of his friends cut the awkward silence with, “Dude, straight is a sexual orientation.” The participant flushed with mild embarrassment and everyone laughed aloud, somewhat nervously.

Though this experience offered a moment of levity, it also provided opportunity for a profound lesson. Sexual orientation is common to all humans. Sexual orientation and gender diversity are common throughout humanity (Murray, 2000). Left unspoken and unacknowledged, issues that arise from misconceptions about sexual orientation and gender identity foster discrimination, marginalization, and brutality toward LGBT students, family/community members, and educators. The civil rights energy unleashed in the 1960s has been slow to address sexual orientation and gender identity as equity issues in the manner that we acknowledge race, ethnicity, language acquisition, gender, social class, and special needs. Though equity has not been totally achieved in those areas, progress is being made, and one of the hallmarks of progress will be when we no longer single out the equity issues to be addressed in our schools.

We begin this journey of Cultural Proficiency by examining the language we use. Our words and phrases sometimes reveal underlying values and, at other times, awkward ignorance. Ignorance is not necessarily bad. At its core, ignorance is “not knowing.” One of the basic tenets of Cultural Proficiency involves an “inside-out approach” to our learning, both personally and institutionally. By examining our language, we overcome our ignorance to become better informed and, in turn, can examine our values and behaviors in a manner that can lead to more authentic communication and problem solving with and in LGBT communities.

OUR LANGUAGE: AN EQUITY INDICATOR

How do “they” want to be addressed? is a common question posed by many beginning this journey. We can begin the journey by acknowledging that names and nicknames are extremely personal, almost sacred elements of many cultures. However, we also know that labels and categories complicate matters of identity even further. In moments of hesitation, we may ask ourselves, Will I make a mistake if I use this term or that term? Cross-cultural communications create consternation for many people. Epithets, insults, and charges of being politically correct abound in our schools across the continent. Our experience has been that two underlying dynamics add to miscommunication and misunderstandings:

• A lack of skill and confidence for being involved in cross-cultural communications

• A lack of will in the organizational culture, whether collective or collaborative groups, of many schools to promote mindful, cross-cultural communications

One of the purposes of this chapter is to clarify terms commonly associated with sexual orientation and gender identity as one way to develop new skills and confidence and build collaborative behaviors to work cross-culturally. In this section, we review terminology that, when mastered, equips you with information that may be new to you and, most important, will be accurate and will protect the integrity of all involved. Later in this chapter and in Chapter 3, equity is discussed as a concept that heightens the integrity of dominant and nondominant groups alike.

A prominent feature of this book is a case story developed in Chapters 6 through 10 that presents positive and constructive application of the Tools of Cultural Proficiency. In this opening chapter, characters from the case story are introduced in a brief vignette as a means to introduce concepts, social dynamics, and issues common in our schools and communities. Read the following short vignette and spend a few moments reflecting on the prompts that follow. As you proceed through the book you will learn that we rely on reflection and dialogue as means to internalize the information in ways that will be useful to you personally as an educator as well as being a member of a school learning community. The ensuing vignette introduces members of the Westfield Unified School District (WUSD) case story and provides a glimpse of some issues dealt with in Chapters 6 through 10. Sharon, Thomas, and Seth are teachers at one of the high schools in WUSD. They are leaving school one day and engage in the following conversation:

Story

Sharon:	I am not interested in learning about how homosexuals live.
Thomas:	Yeah, before you know it, we are going to be decorating a float for gay pride day and, then, trying to keep our students from using the 3-letter “F” word.
Sharon:	I think the word is gay. The PC police have excised one more perfectly good word from our “acceptable use” vocabulary. The “F” word is supposed to be as offensive as the “N” word.
Seth:	Well, that is right. I couldn’t help but overhear what you were saying. The professional development session we are having next week is supposed to help us.
Thomas:...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Praise
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Forward
• Acknowledgments
• About the Authors
• Dedication
• Introduction
• PART I. Introduction: Background, Challenges, and Opportunity
• PART II. Westfield Unified School District
• PART III. Next Steps
• Why We Do This Work
• Resources
• Resource A.1: Book Study Guide
• Resource A.2: The “Apps” of Cultural Proficiency
• Resource B: Quick Glossary of Terms
• Resource C.1: Sexual Orientation Questionnaire
• Resource C.2: Unpacking the Knapsack of Sexual Orientation Privilege
• Resource D: Community Resources: Justice and Equity for LGBT Communities
• Resource E: Cultural Proficiency Books’ Essential Questions
• References
• Index
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