Last week on Tuesday (March 23) and Thursday (March 25) I attended a group discussion for Safe Zone. Safe Zone is an organization at UAB that provides a safe place to talk about issues involving the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered community (LGBT). On Tuesday, we introduced ourselves and met our two panelists, Shibli and Amy. Shibli and Amy told us their stories about their experience of coming out to their friends and family, and being part of the LGBT community. Amy is bisexual, has been with her partner for 9 years, and has had a generally pleasant experience with how people treat her. Shibli is gay, is a student at UAB, and has also been fortunate in his experience. After we heard their stories, we were encouraged to ask them any questions we had about their individual experiences. On Thursday, we talked about general LGBT questions we came up with on Tuesday.
I thought this experience was awesome! I loved how open the discussion was and how you really did feel safe stated your opinion, even if it was not the same as the majority of the group. This experience was different from the culture we live in everyday because I feel like a lot of times people will not state how they really feel about something for fear of being criticized. I think a lot of the people in the discussion realized that just because may not be completely comfortable with LGBT individuals, those LGBT individuals appreciated their courage to say that. One thing I was surprised to learn was how prevalent violence against LBGT individuals is, I had no idea that things like that still went on. Needless to say, it was not a pleasant surprise to learn this but I am glad that I am aware of the occurance of crimes against LGBT people.
Oddly enough, the preconceived notions/stereotypes that were dispelled for me did not have to do with LGBT individuals themselves, but rather the type of person I thought would be uncomfortable with them. I expected a lot of the people in our discussion group to be uncomfortable in discussing LGBT issues, but only three people stated that they were torn about how they felt. I was also surprised at how those three people handled their discomfort; they were extremely open-minded, as where I thought we would have some people who would not even want to discuss the issues. So, this was definitely a pleasant surprise and I think it will help me to not automatically assume how an individual feels about an issue based on how they seem.
A lot of the issues we discussed in these two sessions reminded me of cultural relativism. Mainly because we talked about how LGBT people are not any different from us, they just have a different sexual preferance. We also discussed how certain stereotypes people have for LGBT individuals can really be true to any person of any sexual orientation; i.e. A gay man trying to "convert" you (by being too forward/pushy when coming onto another man who is not gay--not taking no for an answer), but I know many straight men and women who do that to members of the opposite sex.
This discussion group was really good. I feel like it was mind-opening for a lot of people and helped people to see that LGBT is just a sexual preference/orientation that does not define the person. I really think the safe feeling of the discussion made people open up a lot more than they normally would and this method should be used more often to discuss other contraversial issues.
