In light of increased turmoil surrounding LGBTQ issues across the country, an effort to support incoming LGBTQ students has begun in the form of a new LGBTQ-centric learning community at LBCC.
Learning communities are a way to encourage student success. Students in the cohort would share three core classes, attending them together as a means to ensure they know at least one other person in their college classes.
Two writers from the Viking News have weighed in with their opinions on the matter.
Kameron Hendricks: LGBTQ cohort provides a safe space for students.
LBCC’s LGBTQ students deserve to feel safe and protected in their learning environment, which is why the LGBTQ learning cohort set to launch next Fall is an extremely essential service that can provide students with a space full of acceptance during such a hostile time period in our country’s history.
As of May 15th, the American Civil Liberties Union has tracked 482 legislative anti-LGBTQ bills currently pending a vote in the United States. All of these bills have targeted the LGBTQ community in an effort to invalidate their sexuality, gender, relationships, and livelihood.
Last December, the Los Angeles County Commission on Human Relations published their findings on the rising level of hate crimes committed in LA County. In it, they confirmed that hate crimes in 2021 rose 23% from 641 to 786, the largest number since 2002. Sexual orientation crimes increased 15%, with 85% of them targeting gay men.
This same report also acknowledged that crimes targeting transgender people tied the highest ever recorded and 93% of those attacks were violent, a rate higher than racial, sexual orientation, or religious attacks.
All this shows that now more than ever, the LGBTQ community requires a protected space that grants them the opportunity to collaborate with each other in order to establish a fellowship of understanding and compassion.
There’s no greater place to establish this than in an academic setting.
Far too often, LGBT students have had to sit in classes as others engaged in heated debates to determine whether or not they deserve to live a fulfilling life based on their sexual and gender identities.
They have had to listen to arguments from homophobic and transphobic colleagues who genuinely do not agree that they should be able to partake in sports, or have access to gender affirming healthcare, or be able to adopt children.
To say that experience is unsettling would be an understatement. Nobody should be made to feel isolated and vulnerable at a place where they go to better their life.
Being able to take courses where they know LGBTQ students are the majority would allow them to be themselves and connect with other LGBTQ students who are going through the same struggles.
It is important to have that social and emotional support for each other at a time where empathy is severely lacking in this country.
According to a 2019 study by the UCLA School of Law Williams Institute, LGBT students were more than twice as likely to change their appearance and mannerisms in order to avoid discrimination from their peers.
From kindergarten to high school, students are taught a curriculum that heavily omits LGBTQ contributions. This perpetuates a culture of heteronormativity and doesn’t allow LGBTQ students the opportunity to relate to it.
The goal of the LGBTQ learning cohort is simple. Students would be provided a supportive learning environment while allowing room for discussions that are unique to the LGBTQ experience.
For example, professors could implement lesson plans that include literature from LGBTQ authors that the students can relate to. History professors could take the opportunity to highlight LGBTQ historical figures and discuss their impact on today’s society.
Most importantly, LGBTQ students could engage in vulnerable conversations without the fear of being invalidated or harassed by their peers.
Students in the cohort would still follow all student learning outcomes, course objectives, and course outlines that LBCC has for all classes.
The idea that the implementation of this cohort would create a divide between the LGBTQ students and the rest of the student body is unreasonable because, in truth, the divide is already there. Instead, it would generate an influential bond between a group of people who are already used to being the minority.
For a lot of students, especially those under 21-years-old who do not have access to traditional LGBTQ spaces that normally include bars and clubs, this learning cohort could be an essential component to their academic success.
Many LGBTQ students do not have supportive people in their life. To know that you have a community of students who recognize you and accept you for who you are could change everything.
This is not an issue worth getting up in arms over. It’s okay to feel like you’re being left out if you don’t identify with the LGBTQ community, not everything has to be for everybody
These people survived living in a world that overwhelmingly caters to a cisgendered heterosexual society. Let them have this one. You will live.
Tyler Bermundo: LGBTQ cohort doesn’t address issues of inclusivity on campus.
UMOJA, PUENTE and now an LGBTQ cohort are supposed to provide safe spaces and help minority groups, but these groups are doing more harm than good. There are much better ways to help students rather than minority programs.
The LBGTQ cohort does not harm anyone, but a better solution to support minority groups must be found. Adding more groups for people of certain backgrounds is just going to divide people even more. Educating all students together is the best course of action.
The cohort consists of three common core classes for students and faculty that are a part of the LGBTQ community. Curriculum is very similar to other courses, but will contain more LGBTQ content, such as LGBTQ history and works from LGBTQ authors.
If people want to see others as equal to each other, programs for students based on skin color and sexual orientation will divide people even more.
Additionally, it is more important for students who are outside of a group to learn more about a minority then it is for a minority to learn about themselves.
All of the most heinous acts against a group of people come from those who were uneducated and intolerant.
Intolerance can be combated with education.
While this cohort for LGTBQ students learning about their history is great, it will have no purpose when it comes to social change. LBCC should implement more minority history and minority authors into all common core curriculum, rather than creating communities that separate us into specific groups.
One counterargument is that a cohort will provide a safe space for LGBTQ students on campus. The fact that people feel scared to be on campus at all is an issue. Instead of only having safe spaces, the school must work on making the campus safe for all groups.
The school should further advertise their clubs on campus and make groups like the LGBTQ feel included. That way students will feel like a part of the community that the cohort was intended to do. While this is going on, LGBTQ history can be implemented to educate others, making the entire campus more tolerant.
People who are against a group to begin with, will only further their disapproval when that group is isolated.
Having classes just for a specific group of students will outcast that group even more. Instead of seeing someone for their character, people will see students as indifferent.