November 17, 2008
Transgender Day of Remembrance - Events for the Week:
Monday: We had a little communication problem with the folks at Reid, and our signs on
the bathroom doors and in the bathrooms were taken down this morning. However, the issue
has been resolved and the signs are back up.
Tuesday: Showing of the documentary "Southern Comfort" Location - Lyman main lounge
Time - 8 PM
Wednesday: Claire Winter, a Whitman alum who does transgender education and advocacy,
will be speaking.
Location - Reid G02
Time - 8 PM
Thursday: Transgender Day of Remembrance vigil Location - Reid 110 (the room directly on
your right as you walk into Reid from the doors facing Boyer)
Time - 8:15 PM
November 6, 2008
Coalition Against Homophobia
November 6, 2008
Next Thursday, November 13, we will be having a panel of people who are going to speak
about being queer in the professional world. It will be at 8 PM in Reid G02. It should be interesting, so come!
We're working on contacting somebody who has some amount of authority within Reid to give us more information regarding the bathroom door thing (see last week's minutes), which we're planning to do sometime during the week of the 17th-20th. We will have more
information on that, as well as other activities for that week, soon.
For the rest of the meeting we talked about bisexuality, biphobia, and various other topics.
October 30, 2008
Coalition Against Homophobia
October 30, 2008
At this meeting we discussed plans for the rest of the semester.
For next Thursday, we were hoping to have the person teaching the AIDS class give a talk.
However, Danielle spoke with him and it turns out he is leaving today, so having him speak is not an option. Do we want to come up with something else for next week?
The following week (Nov. 10-14) we are thinking about having somebody talk about what it
is like to be queer in the professional world. We are currently trying to get in touch with potential speakers.
The week after that (Nov. 17-20) we will be doing stuff for the Transgender Day of Remembrance. On one day during that week we will show a film (I'm looking into possibilities here; if anyone has any suggestions, let me know). Another thing we are planning to do on one day that week is choose some public bathrooms on campus and cover
the doors with symbols depicting various genders, as well as maybe obituary snippets of
trans people who have been killed, to, in a sense, gender-neutralize the bathrooms for a
day and to raise awareness about transphobia. Then on that Thursday we are going to have
some sort of a vigil to remember the trans and gender variant people who have been murdered (23 reported in the last year alone).
After Thanksgiving break, we are going to do something for World AIDS Day, though we haven’t figured out exactly what yet. There is usually some kind of walk and memorial
service that goes on in the community, so we may attend that and then come back to campus and do something else. More info on that later.
October 9, 2008
Coalition Against Homophobia
October 9, 2008
For most of the meeting we discussed the picnic we will have in Wildwood Park in celebration of Coming Out Day. -We will have this picnic on Thursday, October 16. (Coming Out Day is actually this Saturday, but as it's over 4-day we're pushing back the activities.)
-We will be meeting around 4 or 4:15 on Thursday at Reid and walk over together.
-There will be food.
-At the picnic, we will be having discussions of coming out, sharing coming out stories,
etc. It would be great if you could submit your stories/reflections/whatever in advance
(anonymously or not - see the emails from Pedro and Alex earlier in the week) so that we
can print them out. If you forget, you can bring it with you.
Eventually, we want to somehow compile and publish these coming out stories so that they
can serve as a resource to people on campus. Ideas for this are still in the works.
Watch for another email relating to doing a more public presentation of coming out stories as a way of raising awareness.
October 2, 2008
Coalition Against Homophobia
October 2, 2008
In order to accommodate a couple of our members who are taking the AIDS class, our
meeting next week will be at 9 PM.
Queer Prom is this Saturday. It will be from 10 PM to 1 AM in the Reid Ballroom. Make
sure to spam all your listservs about it and tell all your friends to come.
We will be setting up for Queer Prom on Saturday at 7 PM. Our ideas for decorations
included streamers, silver and white balloons, pictures of 1930s actors and actresses,
and red butcher paper outlining the room (to look like the red carpet). Decorating is
always fun, so make sure to come by and help out.
Coming Out Day is on October 11. Because this is during 4-day, we are going to postpone
our coming out day-related activities. We talked about having a picnic in Wildwood Park
as a sort of celebration of Coming Out Day. The idea is that we would eat food, discuss
what coming out means to us, share coming out stories, play frisbee, etc. Details for
this are still being worked out, but we are currently looking at the afternoon of the
16th (a Thursday).
You should all go see "In One Room". There is a performance tomorrow at 10 PM and one on Saturday at 2 PM in Kimball Auditorium. I saw it tonight and it was fantastic. Here's
the description of it: "A documentary play about growing up gay and lesbian in America.
Performed yearly on the Whitman College campus, IN ONE ROOM combines the interviews of over 100 Americans under the age of 25, creating conversations that cut through our
country's geographic, economic and cultural borders. What would these people say to one
another if they had the chance?"
See you all at Queer Prom on Saturday!
September 18, 2008
Coalition Against Homophobia
September 18, 2008
The meeting today was much smaller than it was last week. We missed all of you who weren't there and hope to see you back again next week.
Save the date: Queer Prom will be on October 4
Alex is working on getting a space in the Pio for articles about relevant queer issues, sexuality, etc. We would need people to write these articles, so keep this in the back of your mind. More to come on this later.
Some other ideas for the year that were offered:
-having various religious leaders talk about sexuality and gender
-creating some sort of a library of resources
-asking professors to give small lectures/talks on various topics
-creating a collection of coming out stories
The rest of the meeting we talked about random stuff, including life, school, religion, and chocolate.
We postponed our activity so that more people could partake in the awesomeness of it. So
come to the next meeting (Thursday, 8 pm, Reid G02), or else you don't get to participate, and then you will be sad.
September 9, 2008
Coalition Against Homophobia
September 9, 2008
Hooray for everyone who showed up today! I'm really excited that there are so many people, both new and returning. It's going to be an awesome year.
First on the agenda were introductions.
Next we discussed a few ideas for the upcoming year. These included:
-having same-sex parents come to speak on their experiences
-having professionals who are queer come to speak
(for the above two ideas, we want to figure out a way to make these issues relevant to
everyone, not just to the people in Coalition)
-doing something relating to sexuality and religion
-of course, the usual things: Dragfest, Day of Silence, Coming Out Day
The meeting ended with a lengthy and interesting discussion on what exactly homophobia
means to us.
The next meeting will be date and time TBA (tentatively next Tuesday at 9) in Reid G02. We will be discussing more planning stuff. Hope to see you all there.