January 9, 2021 Meeting

Saturday, January 9, 2021 - 1pm-3pm Central Time

  • Introductions: Names, pronouns, school, district, role in GSA club/organization

  • Meeting norms

  • What is East Texas? Currently East Texas is loosely defined as Anderson, Angelina, Austin, Brazoria, Brazos, Chambers, Cherokee, Colorado, Fort Bend, Freestone, Galveston, Gregg, Grimes, Hardin, Harris, Harrison, Henderson, Jasper, Jefferson, Leon, Liberty, Mason, Matagorda, Montgomery, Nacogdoches, Newton, Orange, Panola, Polk, Rusk, Sabine, San Augustine, San Jacinto, Shelby, Smith, Trinity, Tyler, Walker, Waller, Washington, and Wharton counties. This is very open to change as needed.

  • Join our Slack channel!

  • How can we, as a Coalition, help your GSA and LGBT students in your school?

    • By providing support with planning events, advocating for change and funding projects

    • Create more volunteer events for everyone to collaborate on

    • Provide queer-inclusive sex education resources

    • Be all inclusive

    • Way to report homophobic, transphobic, racist rhetoric at school with someone to follow up and reach out to school

    • Help with fundraising and networking

    • Interested to know how name changes are being handled in schools and pronouns

    • Help students know their rights

  • Coalition Goals:

    • Create a community providing assistance with running GSAs and support for LGBTQIA2+ students.

    • Prioritize eliminating deadnaming of students region-wide.

    • Advocate for changes in school policy to benefit LGBTQIA2+ students.

  • Deadnaming on virtual platforms

    • Students need easy ways to change the way their names show up without parental consent

  • Deadnaming in yearbooks

    • Students need easy ways to change the way their names show up without parental consent

  • Students don’t know their legal rights

    • Solution: short Know Your Rights Curriculum for LGBTQIA2+ students

  • Lack of inclusive sex ed curriculum

    • Work at school/district level on implementing inclusive sex ed

  • What are other focuses/concerns that impact LGBTQIA2+ students in your school/district?

    • Only having access to gendered bathrooms

    • Having more comprehensive counseling

    • Segregation based on “sex” for sports and extra curriculars

    • How the sexual assault of LGBTQIA+ students on campus is dealt with

    • Strained relationships with people who are supposed to connect with resources, like guidance counselor

    • Teachers and admin outing students to parents

      • FERPA-protected info!

    • Getting the demographics on sexual orientation and gender identity

      • Could be inaccurate/difficult if the school isn’t safe for LGBTQ+

    • Names on IDs

    • Teachers and admins persistently deadnaming students

    • No suicide prevention training

  • What are possible next steps for this Coalition to take?

    • Create action groups that work toward improving policy by advocating through organizing.

    • Create Slack channels for different groups.

    • Set up a future meeting for your group and a meeting for the whole coalition. 

    • Research your district policies and others to understand what you want to improve.

    • Recruiting more member GSAs!

    • Organize resources or make a video for students to more easily learn their rights in school.

    • Figuring out how to best communicate information with member groups (both urgent and non-urgent).

    • Adding coalition of teachers, parents and advocates to support youth advocacy.

    • Decide what district or school to start with first. I think it’s too late to work on yearbook so I think we should focus on deadnaming due to the COVID-19 crisis.

    • Focusing on the gendered bathrooms issue.

    • Comprehensive LGBTQIA+ Student Bill of Rights. Advocate in each school district.

    • Figuring out how to get back in contact with people who we lost contact with during COVID.

    • Redoing and revising contact lists for schools (because of COVID, etc.), changing modes of engagement (asynchronous communication!)

      • Slack

      • Discord

    • Email frederick@txgsa.org for the links to join Slack and/or Discord!

  • Discussion

    • Middle school in Houston requiring permission slips to join GSA when they’re not required for other clubs

      • ETXGSA Coalition and Texas GSA Network will be reaching out to the school and district to advocate for students’ rights under the Equal Access Act

  • Q&A

    • How do you, students, think that we as supporters can help support in the best effective way?

      • Students have a lot of work to do so doing research can be hard. It would be easier if adults could provide information so LGBTQIA2+ students aren’t having to do the emotional and intellectual labor of researching and presenting information in a consumable way.

      • Part of the Coalition’s job is to provide those kids of resources, including making sure everyone knows how to access their school policies, and having a clearly outlined plan as to how we go about changing policies at the school or district level.

      • Making sure students know where to find and how to access their school and district’s policies but also how to change them.

    • How can we center BIPOC in our clubs?

      • Let people speak about their experiences and focus on how we can help as allies

      • Make your club a safe space for the most marginalized and educate your community about the issues that affect them

      • Don’t stay silent when BIPOC are more scrutinized for their gender/sexuality versus white queers

      • Affinity groups/clubs for specific identities

      • White-dominated queer spaces can make QTBIPOC hesitant to join

      • Be vocal about how your club values equality and show that you’re putting in the work to be anti-racist

      • Social segregation and the demographics of teachers, deans and admins can definitely affect it too

      • instead of figuring out how to get BIPOC folks more interested in what you’re already doing, what is being done to facilitate/support/amplify Q/T BIPOC students at your schools There’s a difference though between “being open to everyone” and “being safe/designed to meet the needs/takes everyone into account” so it’s something to keep working at.

      • White folks need to hold each other accountable and not leave the burden of all things race on people of color

      • A lot of queer white folks choose their whiteness over their queerness.

      • The club needs to be mindful and center BIPOC and discuss the danger that Black trans people are in and how they have to rely on crowdfunding and mutual aid just to survive

      • We also need to be having conversations on disability and neurodivergence

      • White folks need to learn how to address racism and learn how to address situations by doing self-education and not relying on BIPOC to teach them

      • Don’t make BIPOC have to change their message or how they speak for what they’re saying to be considered palatable

      • White people’s work is to let go of connection to whiteness and white privilege and amplify the voices of people of color, we need to not interject our own ideas but instead repeat the ideas of POC and give them credit for them over and over until they get the credit they deserve

      • GSA Network’s TRUTH Council Nine-Point Platform can and should be adopted by GSA clubs

      • Can your club provide crowdfunding for Black and Brown trans women in your community?

      • Acknowledge whose land you’re on. Find out at Native Land

      • Celebrate the birthdays of QTBIPOC like Bayard Rustin, Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera in your club!

      • Teach queer history in your club meetings

      • The Texas GSA Network will include toolkits on centering BIPOC in clubs

      • Talk about racist incidents that happen in real life (like the white supremacist insurrection/coup attempt on January 6, 2021, and the Nazi paraphernalia and the Pride flag there)

      • Ways to report bias incidents- What could this look like?

        • incident reports at the school level

        • Title IX

        • reporting through TXGSA website

        • the Say Something App (also has website, text, phone call capabilities)

      • Texas GSA Network can provide translation for club materials into Spanish, Vietnamese and Chinese

      • Legislative advocacy

        • Defending trans kids by defeating HB68

        • Anti-bullying legislation

        • What does virtual advocacy look like?

        • Create a contact group in your phone called “People Who Work For Me” and include every elected official from US President to state representatives to local positions like school board trustees so you can contact them when needed.

Heather Frederick