Dean's Faculty Book Reading Group on That's So Gay!, Part 1.

These are my notes from the first of two meetings of the Dean's Faculty Book Reading Group to read and discuss Kevin Nadal's book That's So Gay! (link to my booknote and review of the book). The first meeting took place on February 2, 2015. As of this post, the second meeting has not been rescheduled from the original date of February 16, 2015 (this was the day the college closed due to the big snow of 2015). If the second session is rescheduled, I will post my notes in due time (Update note 4/21/15: That second meeting was rescheduled to 3/30/15, which for many was Holy Week and for me was "Holy Shit! I've got chronic bronchitis, and I am bedridden for the week" week. So, no, I did not attend the second meeting). This post mostly contains notes I took during the discussion and some of my impressions of the event overall.

• We start by looking over the "heterosexual questionnaire." We were given a modified form of this document, replacing the word "heterosexual" and its derivations for "straight" and its derivations.
• We also took a moment to look at this site: http://thinkb4youspeak.com/. We focused on that "used on Twitter" sidebar. 
• On the book's preface: 
• Religion can make these conversations difficult. This can be seen at the college. 
• The idea of not having LGBT role models. This has changed somewhat recently. There are more folks in the public eye now who identify as LGBT, but being that is not their whole identity. 
•  On the introduction: 
• How silent are we or not when a microaggression happens? The answer is not as easy as it may appear. 
• Keep in mind, in LGBT communities, microaggressions happen, often dependent on identities. 
• Consider power and the importance of language in marginalized groups. 
•  When dealing with religion, how do you deal with those who have religious beliefs so embedded? To many, this is difficult as the religious feel attacked and viceversa. Yet, some religious folks can and do evolve as they are educated, confronted, so on. (Keyword in that statement is "some.")
• To consider: How does one decide to confront a microaggression or not? Are there times one decides not to speak because it is not worth it, can involve risk, other reasons? These are questions that are continually present. 
• As teachers and educators, awareness of what we do and say is necessary. And then we need to consider how we educate students to be aware of microaggressions. 
• Notice that what institutions do or say, for instance, choices in forms that need to be filled out, can be a preview of that institution's culture. Not saying anything can often still be saying something. 
• See page 27 in the book for the concept of vicarious traumatization. 
• Could we develop a pedagogy of sensitive challenge to those who may think that mistreating LGBT people is acceptable? How we even go about developing it? 

Some additional impressions:

Jumping a bit off the final question, which in ideal conditions I certainly agree with, and it is just the kind of thing the college would foster (or at least give lip service to). However, we do not live in an idea world. Allow me to expand on this. The book for me was not easy to discuss. I will admit that at times I just choose not to engage. Additionally, if someone is given the facts, it has been explained to them that some behavior is offensive and/or hurtful, and they still choose not to change or desist, I have no problem giving up on them and letting them wallow in their ignorance. I know, that may not be the "Berea Way," a term very commonly used here to remind you of the good deeds we should do, but allow me to use Christian terms here. There are moments when you just have to shake the dust off your feet and keep on walking (see Matthew 10:14 and Luke 9:5. Hey, I may be a heathen, but I can certainly quote Scripture as good as any brand name Christian). I have been burned enough to know there are some engagements that are best avoided. Is it the right thing?  Maybe, or maybe not. Sensitive challenge is fine, and as an educator I can certainly agree and work towards that in my pedagogy. Constantly banging your head against a solid wall though is just insanity.