001Hi. Would you like to introduce yourself? Thank you. Good evening everyone. I'm Rosa Munz. I'm the district translator. I'm here for any questions, concerns, or comments you may have. [Music] Gracias. Thank you. Good evening, Benidos. Uh, this meeting, which is hereby called to order at 6:33 p.m., is in compliance with the notice requirements of the law. Public notice was originally placed in the office of the board of education and communicated to the municipal court, the daily record on February 5th, 2022. Could we please stand for the flag salute? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the stands nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, Mr. Slam. Could we please have a roll call? Miss Gales, present. Miss Mendes, here. Mr. Miller, here. Miss Nutting here.
002Miss Phillips. Mr. Robas present. Miss Ruiz here. Miss Viveros present. Dr. Seanor present. We have a quorum. Thank you. The board recognizes the value of public comment on educational issues and the importance of allowing members of the public to express themselves on school matters. To ensure fair and orderly expression of such comment, each statement shall be held to a time period of three minutes. Public comments not restricted to items on this agenda shall be entertained for approximately 30 minutes upon the discretion of the presiding officer. Please understand that public comment portions of our agenda are not structured as question and answer sessions, but rather they are offered as opportunities to share your thoughts with the board. The board may or may not respond to public comments. However, all comments are considered and will be investigated
003and addressed as appropriate. Please be courteous and mindful of the rights of others when providing comments. Comments may not be abusive, obscene, threatening, or irrelevant. Please understand that students and employees have specific legal and privacy protections. The board is not permitted to respond in public to comments about students or employees. Please be advised that you are commenting at your own risk. Any public comments that are directed at a particular individual or individuals could subject you to legal liability for defamation. Um, I would like to ask Miss Mendes to please um, introduce our presenter tonight. Thank you. Tonight's presentation on LGBTQ humility comes at a time when school boards, state, and local governments across the country are passing harmful policies that affect LGBTQ youth. Tonight, our Dover School Board is taking a training provided by Edge
004New Jersey, signaling to all our students, but specifically LGBTQ plus students, that we have your back. So, it is with great pride, pun intended, that I introduce you to our presenter, the community engagement coordinator from Edge, New Jersey, Mr. Leer. Thank you so much. So happy to be here. So yes, my name is Nicholas Leper and I use he, him, and himself pronouns. And I am the community engagement coordinator for Edge New Jersey. And because I have he, him, and himself pronouns, that makes me part of the cisgender community. And we'll get into a little bit of the definitions of all these new terms as we progress through these slides. But first, I want to share some of the services that we do at Edge New Jersey. Edge New Jersey is a nonprofit organization based
005in Morris Plains, New Jersey, soon to be in Denville, New Jersey on East Main Street, but we currently provide a list of services including medical, non-medical case management, behavioral health for the individual, family, and with a substance use specialty. We also have transaffirming care, HIV, STI screening and testing. And we also distribute safer sex materials. We do residential and housing programming, social support groups. We currently run our LGBTQ plus youth support group, our parent and guardian LGBTQ support group and our transgender non-binary support support group along with our HIV uh positive support groups as well. And then in addition to that, we also have transportation assistance. So our members are able to attend medical appointments and also appointments at the Edge New Jersey center as well. So like I said, we'll be covering a lot
006of new terms for most of y'all. So just you know utilize this space as an opportunity to get any clarification that you might need with anything that is discussed or presented on the slides. And in addition to that this is also a brave space. So for those who do have those questions or want that clarification just be mindful that everyone is at different levels of their journey and knowledge of the LGBTQ plus community and we just need to be respectful of those questions or statements that are being um asked. Also, I introduced myself as having he, him, and himself pronouns and being part of the cisgender community. And for those of you who do not know what that term cisgender means, it's someone who currently uses pronouns that are the same as the pronouns that
007they were assigned at birth. For instance, when I was delivered and received in the hospital, the doctor looked at me and said, "He is a male. He gets he, him, himself pronouns, and that's what's on my birth certificate, on my driver's license, and on my social security card." However, um, for some people, they might not feel comfortable still agreeing with those pronouns that they were assigned at birth. So, let's say, for an example, I currently go by they, them, themselves pronouns or she, her, herself pronouns. That would take me out of the cisgender community and it would put me into the transgender or non-binary community. But since I still have he, him, himself pronouns, which are the pronouns that were signed at birth, I'm part of the cisgender community. We also adore dogs at Edge
008New Jersey, so you'll see them appear quite frequently throughout the slides. But we'll be covering six objectives. So the first one is understanding LGBTQ plus statistics. Apply theory of intersectionality in regard to the LGBTQ plus community. Understand privilege and societal norms. Gain insight about stigma. Be mindful of the use of pronouns. and institute simple organizational changes for a more inclusive atmosphere. And the skills that we'll be learning on slide six or the simple instit uh simple organizational changes, those are skills that we can apply to any social setting, whether that be your professional work environment, your friend circles, your family households, um or even just making your areas more affirming in general. And then throughout the presentation, we'll also have Trevor Project 2021 survey statistics. For those of you who do not know what the
009Trevor Project is, it's a nonfor-profit organization based in Manhattan, New York, and they do crisis intervention work. So, if you are a youth who's part of the LGBTQ plus community, and who needs access to clinical support, you're able to access their hotline for free. And however, they also do community work such as surveillance and gaining knowledge of the community such as how people are and what type of barriers or stressors these LGBTQ plus youth people face on a day-to-day basis. So, we do have a Trevor Project survey. The sample pools of 35,000 LGBTQ plus youth ranging from ages 13 to 24 within America. And all that statistics are gathered from last year, 2021. And the best way to start talking about this topic of pride and of LGBTQ plus culture is starting with Pride Month.
010So what exactly is this one month every year that we celebrate and recognize LGBTQ plus culture and lifestyle. So we're going to start off by talking about this fabulous person in the floral hat. Her name is Marcia P. Johnson and she is a outtransgender individual since she's passed but she's known and recognized as the starter of LGBTQ plus rights in that movement and the person that sparked the movement of pride. So in 1950s or 1960s the LGBTQ plus community was even more highly stigmatized than it is today. And what I mean by that was there were no pride centers like the one found in Edge New Jersey. There were no prides in local towns. There were no GSAs, which is gay straight alliances in high schools or middle schools or elementary schools. There were no
011affirming messaging on whiteboards in classrooms like I see today. There was no place for LGBTQ plus people to be recognized and seen for who they truly are and their identity with how they want to be affirmed. So, the only place that they had to convene and be with their fellow peers and like-minded members were at bars. And at this time, the SLA, the state licensing agency of New York, was actually targeting these bars, these safe havens for the LGBTQ plus community, in a way where they were being raided every night continuously, making it pretty much not a safe environment for people to kind of be who they are. And so they were revoking all the liquor licensing and a lot of these bars were being foreclosed and shut down. So eventually, Marcia P. Johnson said,
012"Enough is enough. You are taking away my home. The only place in my community where I can truly be myself. So, she stood up and she threw the first brick, which I understand that could be a very aggressive first step. But it was necessary because there were countless of other occasions where there were protests and peaceful matters towards making a stance that was not being heard or recognized. Every night these bars were being raided. So, it was called for to make a stance. And everyone else in the bar also backed Marcia P. Johnson up during that time and they took a stance and that was on June 28th on 1969 and ever since then that's when we recognize and celebrate pride. So in Manhattan on June 28th the pride month the pride march usually starts
013and it actually starts at the original bar of where it took place of where the standing up against the riots took place and that was at Stonewall Inn which is that black and white photo on the lower corner of the screen. And a little fun fact is the reason why it's called the Stonewall Inn is because like I said at the time the SLA was revoking these licensing at these bars. So in order to stay in business and to remain a safe haven for the LGBTQ plus community, they actually changed their model of business to be an inn to support the LGBTQ plus community during this time. And it's actually recognized as an American landmark today. Oh, also there's two perceptions depending on who you ask as to what stance pride takes and means to
014them. Some people view pride as a stance or initial movement towards LGBTQ plus rights and others see it as maybe recognizing and celebrating diversity within the LGBTQ plus community. And both are correct and both are completely legitimate. So this slide is about policies. We're going to be really quick on this slide, but the most important takeaway I would like you all to notice are the dates in the years. So, we have June 2015, February 2021, and April 2021. If you notice, two of those huge policies were just given last year. So, I'll start off with the first one. On June 2015, the sameex marriage uh equality act was passed, right? That was a huge thing. So, prior to 2015, if you were LGBTQ plus or a part of a same-sex marriage, you did not have
015securities or benefits that you would get in a marriage. So, that was a huge accomplishment. February 2021, the Equality Act was passed, which gained key protections for LGBTQ plus carrier uh LGBTQ plus uh individuals across key areas of life, including employment, housing, credit, education, public spaces and services, fally funded programs, and jury services. So, prior to 2021, there were no protections of that sort. On April 2021, the Transgender Military Service Act was passed. And a big thing to recognize about this policy is something called HRT, which is hormonal replacement therapy, which is something that is big within the transgender community, not a required step to take, but a lot of people do end up going for this type of uh treatment just because it helps and assists individuals who are interested in a sex change
016to make that successfully happen. For example, if you are born a male to transition to female over a course of years. So HRT supports that transition, but prior to April 2021, HRT was not accessible for transgender military active service individuals. So people who were transgender and who were on HRT to support their identity, they had the option to either continue to serve in the military and discontinue HRT or drop out of the military and continue their progression on their HRT medication. So on April 2021, it was made accessible which was a huge accomplishment for the transgender community. So the big take another big takeaway is these dates and to note that we are not teaching history. This is current times. These huge things were just last year. And just as another takeaway is I don't
017know how infilled in you guys are in the news, but there's a lot of big commotion going on in Texas and in in Florida where we all need to have our advocacy work placed in those areas as well. So transgender specific statistics. So I want to introduce to you guys that little piraphph on the lower corner of the slide in different shades of pink. So there's three communities identified. There's the cisgender, which again I'm a part of because I have pronouns that agree with the pronouns that I was assigned at birth. And then there's the transgender community, which is making up 32%. And then there's non-binary community, which is making up 41%. And this is assessing homelessness within America. So transgender is someone again who has different pronouns than than the pronouns that they were
018assigned at birth. non-binary. That's a community that's very similar to the transgender community, but they're individuals that mainly go for the more plural pronouns, right? Pronouns that aren't associated with a particular gender, such as male or female. So, the non-binary individuals gravitate towards the they, them, theirs, or some other variations of that sort. But they have one thing in common, transgender and non-binary, and that is that they both have pronouns that are different from the pronouns that they were assigned at birth. So if we loop them into one community, we see that the transgender and non-binary community make up almost 70% of the homeless pool in America, making only 25% cisgender, which is astronomical in my point of view and it's not something that's usually visible in these assessments unless you look specifically for it
019and that's only reported documented. And then the next statistic next to it, in 2019, at least 25 transgender or gender non-binary people were fatally shot or killed by other violent means. Right? So, we're talking about people who were part of the transgender community who were targeted and murdered. 91% of them were black women, 81% were underneath the age of 30, and 68% lived in the south. It's so crucial and important to be informed of these uh statistics because that's where we create visibility and awareness and that's where we are able to take next steps in advocacy work and to better understand other people's experiences that we don't have the privilege in experiencing ourselves. So this is a great extension from that previous slide. So we have annual known cases of fatal anti-transgender violent by gender
020identity. Right? So the first one in light blue is assessing fa uh murders towards the transgender community by gender. So we have trans women making up the light blue and trans women is someone who is born as male but transitions to female and then we have the purple which is transmen which is born as female transitioning to male and that is the purple and then the pinkish is other identities which we can assume are non-binary. So as we see from this graph, the takeaway is that trans women trans women face the most murder and uh negative reactions towards their identity. And then the one bordering it is separated by race. So the dark blue is the black community, the white is the light blue, the Latin X is the purple, and then the yellow is
021American Indian, and then the pink is race unknown. So if we can join the two graphs together, we see that trans women who are black face the most murders within America. And again, this is creating visibility for us to understand that if someone is trans and who is black, we have to understand that their experience and their coming out process could be a lot different than someone from another identity. And it's best to understand that so we can best support them as well. So, we're going to take a step back and this is the broader LGBTQ plus community. So, it's not just specific on trans community anymore. So, out of everyone who's homeless in the United States, 7% are youth. So, that's 17 and under. Out of that 7% of youth who are homeless, 40%
022are LGBTQ plus identified. That's almost half of the youth pool. And usually I pitch the question, does anyone want to give a guess or maybe a probable reason as to why the LGBTQ plus statistic is so high? But I'll just give it to you right now is that that number is so high because of family rejection because a family is not accepting or affirming their youth or their children's identity. So there is a coming out process if you're part of the LGBTQ plus community and it's a huge risk to endure that period of time because you never know what the reaction is going to be and for a lot of youth it is family rejection. I've done case management work which is direct care work for the LGBTQ plus community for many many years. A
023lot of it was spent in New York. And I had to tell you that it was a weekly crisis for me to have to inter intervene in youth's experiences of being kicked out of their homes and finding um crisis intervention referrals for them to be housed for the night until we're able to find them more of a suitable long-term placement. So, this is a very real statistic even in New Jersey and New York. And then if we visit the two statistics below it, 59.5% of LGBTQ plus students felt unsafe at school due to their orientation. 59.5%. And then 70.1% of LGBTQ plus students experienced verbal harassment at school due to their sexual orientation. This is so important to understand as to the need of GSAs, of high school safe affirming spaces, of teachers having pride
024flags on their desks so that are notable for having a safe person to go to to express what their stressors are. And then this is conversion therapy, which is our first Trevor Project statistic. Just to remind you of the sample pool of the Trevor Project is it's assessing a pool of 35,000 LGBTQ plus youth within America and ranging from 13 to 24. So out of that sample pool in America, 13% of all those youth who are LGBTQ plus identified experienced um conversion therapy. And conversion therapy is essentially a boot camp where youth or adults can be sent to with the main goal is to change their gender or sexual orientation. 83% of that 13% reported it occurred when they were under the age of 18. So, we're talking about 13, 14, 15 year olds, 17
025year olds enduring conversion therapy within America because it is still legal in America. It is illegal in New Jersey, but it's still legal in a lot of states. And this was also just pulled from last year. This is a visual map of America with different shades of green. So, we're going to dissect it. And this is talking about child welfare. So, if you notice the darker green states, which is Connecticut, California, New Jersey, which is US, um DC, those are all states with the most protections. So, if you're an LGBTQ plus same-sex couple, um you have the most protections to adopt. However, if you live in the lighter green states, which is Arizona, and a couple other ones, those are states that only have protections for people's sexual orientation. So if you are gay, bisexual,
026lesbian, you have full protections of the state in order to adopt a child. However, if you have if if your gender identity is different, for example, if you are transgender or non-binary, you might have some backlash. You might have to go through some barriers in order to adopt. And then if you look at the lighter states, which is Texas, Florida, our next door neighbors in PA, those are all states with no protection towards the LGBTQ plus community. So, if you are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, non-binary, the state can literally turn you away from giving you care. And then if you notice the states with the yellow caution symbols, which you can find in Texas and a few other ones, those are states that allow organizations to apply for permits to be able to further discriminate
027against the LGBTQ plus community. So, in 2017, the Supreme Court said it's legal all all states, it's legal for you guys to adopt. However, it is up to the states to determine how realistic or possible that actually is for you. So, there's still a lot of work and visibility that needs to be done for the child welfare sector. So, this is the great part. So, the LGBTQ plus acronym, I've been saying a whole bunch of jumbled up letters, but what exactly does that mean? What do they represent? So the L stands for lesbian, which is a female who has romantic uh feelings towards another female. G stands for gay, which is a male who has romantic feelings towards another male. Bisexual means someone who has romantic feelings geared towards more than one gender. For example,
028that might be someone who is equally attracted to both females and males. And then transgender, as we defined earlier, which is someone who currently uses pronouns different from the pronouns that they were signed at birth. For example, if I was brought into this world with he, him, himself pronouns, but if today I went by she, her, herself, then I would be part of the transgender community. And then there's Q. And Q has two definitions. One is queer and one is questioning, right? And I depending on who you are and your experience with the term queer, it could be a different reaction towards that. And I will recognize that because it was not too long ago when the term queer was actually a derogatory insult to anyone who is part of the LGBTQ plus community. But
029over recent years, it's actually been overcame and it's actually now an empowering term. Right now, instead of saying the acronym LGBTQ plus, you can just change that with the term queer. But I just wanted to share that so you guys are mindful in case you do get kind of a negative reaction. And then there's another definition which is questioning. And questioning is a community of individuals who are not ready to pretty much make themselves notable as being part of the lesbian, gay, or bisexual, transgender community, right? They might be still figuring themselves out. They might be still exploring their pronouns. They might be still exploring who they're attracted to. So, they might just introduce themselves as being part of the questioning community. And that's perfectly legitimate. And they can be questioning for their entire life.
030And that's perfectly fine. And then if you notice when I say the acronym LGBTQ, I always follow it up with a plus. And the reason why I say that is because it's so important to recognize that there's so many other many communities within this broader queer community such as asexual, interexual, and it goes on and on and on, demisexual. In order to include them within this community, we just put the plus at the end. intersectionality. It's a huge fancy long word but with a very meaningful definition. And to first to get into it, we're going to introduce Kimberly Krenshaw. Kimberly Krenshaw is a social worker. And she was the one that introduced that invented the term intersectionality. And the reason why that is is because she took a look at all the local organizations within
031her town and they were all claiming to be all-inclusive, non-discriminatory. However, when she looked into the books of who was actually working for these organizations, she saw that there were no diversity in race. I mean, there was no diversity in sex. There was only diversity in race. So, they had recognition in black individuals, uh, Asian, Hispanic, white, but there were only males working in this force. So, she said, "How could you claim to be all-incclusive and all opportunistic without actually having a diverse sex pool?" So she invented the term intersectionality to say there's more to just diversity and inclusion than just one aspect of someone's life or experience. So if you take a look at this individual in the lower corner of the screen, they are surrounded by different intersectionalities that make up who they
032are as a whole, right? Different aspects that make up who this person is and how they experience life. So this individual is surrounded by religion, right? Their social support group. Do they have recognition, visibility, positive visibility within their religious community, gender identity, sexuality, citizenship, sex, and race? And it is so unfortunate. But we still live in a time where race, sex, the color of your skin, your gender identity, and how you identify sexually still matters and still depicts what types of privileges you'll have in this world. Right? And that is the true meaning of intersectionality is to say there's so much more to a person than just the color of their skin or their sexual orientation. Everything that makes up someone equally depicts what type of experience they're going to have in this life. For
033instance, no gay identified individual wants to be pointed as that gay guy on the cruise or that gay kid in class, right? There's so much more to who that person is than just that one orientation that makes up who they are. So this is the fun part. So this is a privilege activity. I'm going to list 10 privilege statements. And as I go through these 10 statements, I would really appreciate if you guys can maybe keep a tally mark on your fingers of how many privileges you guys identify with, right? Which means that you did not have the experience to endure these barriers in life. So the first one is using public restrooms without fear of verbal abuse, physical intimidation, or arrest. So are you able to comfortably use the bathrooms here at school or
034in your work environment and just be able to walk in and comfortably go to the bathroom? This is a privilege that a lot of our transgender and non-binary individuals don't have the privilege of having, right? This is a ongoing stressor for most of them, right? Because you might be transgender, which means in your heart and soul, you see yourself as being female, but anatomy wise, you might still be male, right? Because you might have not transitioned yet, or that might not even be in your scope to transition. So, you might want to feel more comfortable using the female bathroom. But if you're presenting as looking like male, will that put you at risk for being bullied, being shamed, or having the cops called on you, and you can't use the male bathroom because you're going
035to feel very, very uncomfortable using the male bathroom because in your heart you see yourself as female. So that is a privilege that a lot of cisgender individuals experience but aren't experienced through our transgender individuals. If you are offered a job, you don't have to educate others on how to process your paperwork. For instance, if someone has a legal name of Alex and has a legal pronouns of he, him, himself, right? Legal, I mean on the books. However, you are comfortably identifying as Sabrina using she, her, herself pronouns currently. And if you apply to a job, do you have to call them up and say, "Hey, listen. On the on my um documents, it's going to say Alex with he him, himself pronouns, but on my resume, it's going to say Sabrina with she, her,
036herself pronouns, but this is all me, right? Do you have to follow up on those types of documentation submissions? Using public facilities such as gym locker rooms and store changing rooms without stress, stairs, or fear of anxiety. So, can you just walk into your gym locker room and just change and go about your day? being able to receive medical care, including emergency medical care, without worrying that your gender will keep you from receiving appropriate treatment, or that all your medical issues will be seen as a result of your gender. So, can you just attend your doctor's appointment, see your primary care physician, and will the doctor just make all the necessary referrals and see you as all the needs that need to get done with you? Right? Like for example, if I walk into my
037doctor's and I'm presenting as male, however, anatomywise, I'm a female, right? But I am part of the transgender community. So, do I have to have a conversation with my doctor and educate him that, okay, yeah, I'm transgender, so I might appear as male, but I do need female referrals and also female additional care. being able to go shopping for clothes without hesitation or fear of being mocked, questioned, or made uncomfortable. So, are you able to just walk into TJ Maxx, which is my favorite store, or Macy's or um I was going to say Sears, but I don't know if they're still on. But are you able to just go into those retail stores and just go to the section that you identify with and comfortably shop? Being able to feel unthreatened in your interactions with
038authority figures and police officers, kissing, hugging, being affectionate in public without discomfort, threat or punishment. So, are you able to just hold your boyfriend's hair uh hand in public or girlfriends? having medical procedures that you deem essential covered by your insurance. And two more, receiving validation and acceptance from your religious or spiritual community and having legal documents that accurately represent who you are and how you identify. So, I like to kind of open up the floor for people to kind of share their experiences, but in this case, I'm just going to kind of dissect the ones that hit me the most when I did this. So, like I shared with the bathrooms, I'm cisgender, for example documentations, my passport, my driver's license, my insurance card, all those things, birth certificate, all of them have my
039appropriate name, the name that I'm comfortably still identifying with, along with my gender. I never had to seek out case management services to get that changed. So that's something that I have a privilege through life of going through. So society is generally heteronormative and what I mean by that is our LGBTQ plus friends, our siblings, our co-workers, they all have the obligation to come out to their surrounding environment. Right? For example, your coworker, if they are part of a same-sex couple and you guys go on a staff retreat or you guys go on a staff outing for dinner and their significant other is invited, that is an obligation for that individual to have to come out to their co-workers to introduce their boyfriend or their girlfriend or coming out to their friends circles, right? They
040risk a lot. If I come out to my friends, do I risk the the possibility of losing that social support system, right, which is in some cases their only social support system? If I come out to my parents, my mom and my dad, do I risk losing them and getting kicked out of my house? Right? We live in a heteronormative society, which means that if you are cisgender and straight, there isn't a coming out period. It's just assumed. If you are male, one day you'll get a girlfriend. One day you'll have a wife. you'll always go by he, him, himself pronouns, which means that LGBTQ plus people being the, you know, that there's something changing in their identity, they have to come out with that. So, this is a very uplifting kind of funny video
041that I like to play. It's short, but it's gives a great insight as to types of microaggressions in this world that aren't really meant to offend or harm people or other people, but do in fact do. So, let's see if I get this audio thing right. Get a room. So, what brings you guys into town? Work trip. Actually, it's our honeymoon. Oh, you're serious? Yeah. There must be a mistake. They have you in a room with one bed. That'd be weird. Hi. You must be the fun straight couple at the resort. We've heard so much about you. All great things. So, you two are together, right? Yeah. I got great straight guard. Well, don't worry about it cuz I think it is super cool. Actually, I have this straight friend who plays with our golf
042group back home. He's so fun. Great. We'll take an hour. Okay, that'll be 20 bucks. But the sign says couples rate $15. Well, I mean, you two, you're not like a real couple. Oh, yeah. Hey, you want me to take that picture for you? Oh, thank you. No problem. All right. That's gross. Wasn't expecting that. There's your picture, Jim. They'll let anybody stay here, won't they? Please don't do that here. We'll just be a minute. Oh, sorry. Call me oldfashioned, but that's just not right. So, even though no one laughed, that was supposed to be uplifting. But I do understand why it probably wasn't taken so jokingly is because this is also a very serious matter that a lot of our LGBTQ plus counterparts do face, right? They tend to be otherred by their intersectionality
043of being gay, pretty much overcoming them and becoming their overarching identity, right? of being pointed as that gay couple on the cruise or like the previous example I gave that gay kid in class, right? It's attendingly othering them or oh, you're gay. I have this fabulous gay friend that I could set you up with, which is another very common statement. But this is going to progress to a little bit of a more serious slide talking about different statements that a lot of the LGBTQ plus people receive. So the first one is what is your real name? I mean, the name that you were given at birth. This is very common with our transgender and non-binary community. Those are two communities that tend to change their name quite often. Um, and the reason why this is
044so offensive and so permanent is because usually when they're receiving care, right, or when they're getting rollled, they tend to just use the legal name, right, which is a name that might not be the name that they feel the most comfortable during that specific time going by. For example, if my legal name is Alex, but currently I go by Sabrina because that's how I see myself identifying with, which one are you going to use, Alex or Sabrina? And if that is a form that legal that needs my legal name, for example, grant purposes or whatnot, it's very important to get the legal name, but also to get the name that they feel the most comfortable identifying with at that time. For example, Sabrina. It's very important to have inclusive forms. Bisexuality doesn't really exist. People
045are just born gay or straight. You got to pick one, which is very false. Bisexuality is a valid orientation to identify as. Or when people say that's so gay or no homo. Those last two are usually said in a joking way, in a joking manner, but you know, they're usually to reference something that's negative. No one says no homo or no or that's so gay towards something that's positive. And then the other one is it's just a phase, right? That's very common for LGBTQ plus youth when they come out. Oh, it's just a phase. Give it a couple years and they'll be straight or it's just, you know, their gender identity will become cisgender eventually, which is so not true. You are who you are and that's totally beautiful with however you identify with. So
046this slide is talking about stigma. So there's three phases of stigma that we recognize that's so permanent within the LGBTQ plus community. So the first one is enacted. The experience refers to the discriminatory practices of unfair treatment by others. The second one is felt anticipated refers to feelings of being judged based on past judgment on one's sexual orientation or gender identity. The third one is internalized which is the belief refers to the acceptance of the societal stigmatization. stigmatization meaning judgment placed on a specific person because of the bigger group that they are a part of and marginalization of the LGBTQ plus community. So I love kind of disclosing and I something about me during this part just because I feel like it helps benefit you all in better understanding this process. So I am an
047outgay male and with that disclosed I'll share an experience that I had. It was I want to say years ago, probably back in 2015 when I was walking down Manhattan on Broadway with this guy that I was dating at the time and we were holding hands, which is a way of kind of outing ourselves to the community and these groups of guys walked towards us and threw their drinks at me and pushed the guy that I was dating at the time down on the ground and then they laughed and walked away. That was a negative reaction towards my identity and who I am. And I kind of went sort of through this experience, right? So let's go through this again. So there's the enacted, which is stage one, right? Which is the experience. That is
048the moment when the altercation happened. The drinks are thrown at me and the guy that I was dating at the time was pushed on the ground. The second one was felt. Okay, so that happened. Now, who's to say that that can't happen again? Do I have to be more mindful and aware of who I come out to? Do I have to scan the room? Right? If I introduce my um boyfriend to my colleagues, which currently I have the privilege of working at a pride center, that's so that's no longer a struggle, but for most people that's still a real life stressor, right? How are my co-workers going to view me now? If I if I show my boyfriend to my parents, how are my parents going to view me now? Right? Or even hold my
049partner's hand in public like what my experience was. And then the third one is internalized. Okay, so this happened once, right? I was the drinks were thrown at me. If this happened another time, which maybe let's give a hypothetical example. My parents kicked me out of the house. The third time I came out to my friends and I lost all my friends. I came out to the fourth time to my teacher and my teacher now starts treating me differently. Right? Then I might internalize that as okay, then it's not okay to be gay, right? It's not okay to be a lesbian. And after a lot of these negative reaction towards coming out of who I am, a youth or someone might internalize, okay, maybe I just need to repress that identity, maybe the world's just
050not ready for me, and that's actually a bad thing. And a lot of individuals go through these three steps of stigma, which is why it's so important to be an ally. An ally is defined as someone who's not part of the LGBTQ plus community, but who advocates, who supports, who is someone that LGBTQ plus people can come out to, and they're very non-judgmental and they're there to support them and hold their hand through that moment in time. So, this is a very engaging, fun activity you can do with youth um or with yourself if you so choose to. But this is the gingerbread. There's also very different variations. I a unicorn variation which is also pretty entertaining. But this is a great way to kind of conceptualize everything we were just talking about into one
051image. So let's take the gingerbread person and he's surrounded by different intersections, right? That make up who they are. So there's the brain, the identity. What types of lenses is this genderbred person seeing the world through, right? A male lens, a female lens, a non-binary lens, orientation. Where are their romantic feelings geared towards? Another male, are they gay, a female, lesbian or bisexual? Anatomy, what is their physical anatomy, hormone balance like? Are they female? Interex, which is a little bit of both or neither, or male. And then expression, how do they express themselves to the world, right? Expression are different forms of how you can present yourself. Let's say purple hair, pink hair, your natural hair, um high heels, Crocs or Uggs or a dress or sweatpants, right? Those are all different forms of how
052someone can introduce themselves and express themselves to the world. And all those are equally mattered on how someone identifies themsel, right? And then as you see next to the gender bread, there's sliding scales. And that's meant just to say that this is a community on the spectrum, right? You're on this community. You can't just be like, you know what, I'm um, you know, male or I'm female and that's it, right? You can totally be in between those two genders. You can be non-binary or trans or for gender expression, you can be androgynous, which is a little bit of both, right? I I took myself as an example for this for, you know, example purposes. So, I identify as cis male, which is I use he, him, himself pronouns, gender expression. I kind of put myself
053in the androgynous masculine kind of a category because it really depends on where you meet me. If you meet me in a professional settings, I'll probably be in, you know, dress shoes, a polo, but if you meet me out at, you know, more of an uplifting atmosphere, you might catch me in a wig and high heels doing drag or whatnot. And then the biological sex is more male. sexual orientation is queer, but it could be very different depending on who's taking this. Pronouns, again, another dog image. So, pronouns is defined as something that people are referred to by, right? Like he likes apples, she likes apples. Those are all pronouns are is how someone feels most comfortable identifying with. So, there's different variations of pronouns. There's he, him, himself, she, her, herself. They, them, themselves.
054And then there's Z, her hers, Zer, hers, Zers, herself, and Zerself. That last one I have not had the privilege of working with, but they do exist and they are out there. And that's not just limited to these pronouns that are on the screen. There's a lot more neverending list of pronouns that people can identify with. These are just the most common. They them themselves, fun fact, is just been recognized by the APA as a legitimate writing style for singular use. So, it's something that is starting to be taught in schools now to refer to a single person. And then this is another Trevor Project statistic. So, transgender and non-binary youth, which again are two communities of people who go by different pronouns than the pronouns they were assigned at birth, reported having pronouns respected
055by all of the people they lived with, attempted suicide at half the rate of those who did not have their pronouns respected by anyone with whom they lived with. And we also have to recognize that during this time of where these statistics were taken, which was just last year, we were experiencing COVID 19, which meant that a lot of these youth were locked at home, secluded. And if they were not in affirming home, they might have had to go by a different name, a different pronoun for a whole year that they didn't feel most comfortable with. Which is why it's so important now than ever once youth are getting back into these schools that we have affirming places that we have teachers that are able to see them as their true identity with their true
056names. And this is our near the ending of our presentation but simple uh institutional organizational changes which again we can use all these skills in different settings. So read up, continue seeking out webinars, trainings, seeking out movies with positive representations of the LGBTQ plus community. Step up, be an ally. Like I said, an ally is someone who's not part of the LGBTQ plus community, but who's a friend, who's an advocate and supporter. If you see someone being bullied in the hallways, if you see someone being called by a different name or going by a gender that you know that they don't go by, make sure you go over to them and support them and say, "I know this just happened, but I support you through this." So, I'm just going to share this uh Trevor
057Project. More than 80% of LGBTQ plus youth stated that CO 19 made their living situation more stressful. And only one in three LGBTQ plus youth found their home to be LGBTQ plus affirming. So again, out of 35,000 LGBTQ plus youth within America, only one in three youth found their home to be affirming. And this presentation was solely focused on LGBTQ plus matters and lifestyles. However, there's so much more oppression going on in this world. There's racism, there's sexism, there's people that's being discriminated against based on their citizenship status and so on, agism. And it's so important that if we're fighting for equity and equality that we recognize all the different intersections that someone's dealing with within their life experience to achieve this. And thank you all so much. I truly appreciate and totally value this
058opportunity to be here to present this information to y'all. This is my name. This is my email. n.lapered new jersey.org. This is my passion. This is what I love to do. So feel free to email me tomorrow, tonight, a month from now, two months from now. And you can just say, "Hey, I have a question." Or, "Hey, I'm working with this student or client, or I have a friend who might need extra supportive services, or I have some questions to better affirm their identity, and I'd be more than happy to respond to that email as soon as I can." The next contact is Kelly Martins. um since this presentation was made, she's moved up. So, she's now the program director. She's the best person to get in contact with if you have a referral, right?
059Or if you have a specific question based on a specific program that we have. But this image is of our new Edge New Jersey Wellness Center. We're so excited to move in. We're going to be moving in on May 18th. Um again, we're so excited. It's going to be huge, which means we're going to do a lot more programmatically. We're going to have an art gallery and a library with an HIV positive and an LGBTQ plus uh uh take on it. So, we're going to have authors and artists with those experiences and portraying those experiences in those books. We're going to have a computer lab. We're going to have several conference rooms. We're going to have all our original social service agencies that I mentioned in the beginning such as prevention, housing, uh mental health,
060social work, and um also case management. On the second floor, we're going to have all our clinic services, which is including our gender affirming primary care and our um soon to be dental and our own in-house pharmacy and psychiatric care. So, we're so super excited. The address is going to be 295 East Main Street in Dunville, New Jersey. So, thank you so much, [Applause] Mr. Leper. Thank you so much for your present. Sorry, I'm over here. Uh, thank you so much for your presentation. I know we were really, really looking forward to it. You jammed a lot into 45 minutes um and gave us a lot of really useful um information that we can use both as schoolboard members and in our day-to-day jobs and our lives um in our community. Thank you so much.
061Um does anyone on the board have any questions for Mr. Leper or comments that you would like to make? Miss Ruiz. Thank you. Um, Dr. Ser, thank you. I'm sorry if I'm mispronouncing your name. I can't see it very well from here. Is it LP? Yes, it's Nicholas Leper. Leper. Thank you, Mr. Leper. Um, I I have a few questions. Um, if you can answer them or I'll email if if not right on the moment. I'm curious as to um when conversion therapy became illegal in New Jersey and why it is illegal in New Jersey. So, I don't know the exact date of that, so I'm gonna have to follow up with you on an email, but yeah, as of right now, it's currently illegal in New Jersey. Thank you. And um the policy slides,
062those are all federal, not state. You um there were three acts. Yes. So, those are all federal. Thank you. And the referrals, you mentioned that we can make referrals to Kelly Martins's. Um, is there more information? I haven't checked on the website. I I will if if that's where you direct me, but when is a referral appropriate? Who can make a referral? Are there brochures um uh to to refer youth and and is it just for youth to edge or also adults? All ages. Yeah, we have programming for all ages. And the best way to answer that question is on our website. So on our website, we do have a program tab. If you go on that program tab, there's a drop down and there'll actually be a program inquiry form and there's just a
063very short probably 10 question form where you're able to answer a few questions as to what services you might be seeking and to better gauge the need of what we might be able to provide for you such as social support groups or housing or behavioral health and then someone from our team will probably reach out within a day or two. So, um I I'm looking for something that I can actually hand to somebody, not in my role as a board member, but in my um day job. And I I work in the mental health field. Um I'm not a mental health care worker, though. And often, sadly, disproportionately often, um, my clients, uh, are in similar situations to what you described, youth that are having a mental health crisis and or homelessness crisis, uh, due
064to, and I don't remember the way you worded it, but the the home not being affirming affirming to the sexual identity and gender identity. So, for youth who are in those situations whose loved ones and caregivers may not be willing to go on the website to get them support, um how might we get those youth resources either as a school district or in our other lives? Yeah. No, great question. So, we do have um forms that I can pass on to you. So, if you do email me, I would be more than happy to send you those. We have our social support group flyer which again like I said has the list of all our social support groups. Our LGBTQ plus youth support group, parent and guardian support group, our transgender non-binary support group, our
065HIV positive support group. And then we also have our new support group which is our thrive which is for individuals who are newly diagnosed with HIV because we do recognize that they do need different conversations and needs than someone who has been living with HIV for a lot longer. But it's all in one form and I'd be more than happy to pass that along to you. Yeah. Yeah. And then we also have our general program guide which has everything on it. Thank you, Miss Mendes. First of all, thank you, Mr. Leper. Um, that that that presentation was amazing. Um, I have two questions. In your opinion, how effective is professional development in ensuring that LGBTQ youth feel included, safe, and affirmed? Yeah, I would have to say extremely important. I've been doing these trainings for
066a lot of schools. Um I'm very happy to announce in a lot of Dover schools. So that's you know a whole thank you to everyone here and to all the principles and all the co-workers that are over there. But I do notice a difference in the students when classrooms do have you know all are welcomed and rainbow letters or rainbow stickers on desks. It truly does make a presence difference. And then when I talk and when you say professional settings, I also do professional trainings for other organizations. And you definitely do notice a difference in their client engagement when their forms do have recognized places for people to put not only their legal name but their actual name. Um it definitely does build a huge rapport and people end up trusting them more, right? Which
067means that their needs are becoming more visible and they're being take taken care of a lot more better. Thank you. Um, my second question, you kind of touched on it a few times, but you mentioned safe spaces and GSAs. What are some important steps we can take to create these spaces and extracurricular groups for the students? Yeah. Um, I think the the best way is just for visibility like I was saying with teachers that have um stickers, right? That is all of a sudden a telling stance that okay, this is a teacher that I can share my identity with, right? This is a safe place. And for youth, they might not get that. Like the statistic said, out of 35,000 American youth who are LGBTQ plus identified, only one in three households actually affirm their
068name and and their gender identity. So here at school, this might be the only place in their entire world where they're actually seen by the name that they want to be seen by and by the pronouns they want to be called, referred to by. So it is so important to have that inclusivity recognized in any way, shape, or form. Even that is even if you're not a teacher and you're working in a professional setting to just have your pronouns and your email signature. That's what I do. So by having those kind of stances on there, you all of a sudden invite an inclusive warming environment for people to say, "Okay, this is a safe person to come out to to share my pronouns." And you build a better rapport that way. Anyone else? Thank you
069so much. Thank you. Um if the uh at this point we'll move into our second public comment section. The board recognizes the value of public comment on educational issues and the importance of allowing members of the public to express themselves on school matters to ensure fair and orderly expression of such comment. Each statement shall be held to a time period of three minutes. Public comments not restricted to items on this agenda shall be entertained for approximately 30 minutes upon the discretion of the presiding officer. Please understand that public comment portions of our agenda are not structured as question and answer sessions, but rather they are offered as opportunities to share your thoughts with the board. The board may or may not respond to public comments. However, all comments are considered and will be investigated and
070addressed as appropriate. Please be courteous and mindful of the rights of others when providing comments. Comments may not be abusive, obscene, threatening, or irrelevant. Please understand that students and employees have specific legal and privacy protections. The board is not permitted to respond in public to comments about students or employees. Please be advised that you are commenting at your own risk. Any public comments that are directed at a particular individual or individuals could subject you to legal liability for defamation. If you have a question, please come up to the podium, state your name, and um you have three minutes. Um, Mr. Leper, you are welcome to stay and address these. You also do not have to. Thank you so much. Um, hello. My name is Maria Chakon. I live in 82 East Blackwell Street, Dover, New
071Jersey. I am um happy that uh we are moving forward with uh workshops like these. This is a big um improvement from from past times. So, thank you to the superintendent for um being open um to see the needs of our students. Um I'm here as a parent of my child who will be 13. Um and they're experiencing uh their year in middle school. Uh we have been lucky to have uh principal Haime be our uh leader of the school who has been also very helpful working alongside with EDGE in building workshops for teachers, administration and students. Um I I'm also here to speak on the behalf of my child and other LGBTQ um children. Um noting that we still have a strong need that we need bathrooms uh the um non-gender bathrooms. Is it
072genderneutral bathrooms? Um um kids that are transgender or LGBTQ, some of them do not feel, like Nick said, comfortable going into a female bathroom or a male bathroom. And they feel intimidated to go to either. Even when we go to the movies, I am scared to death to send my kid into the male bathroom because I'm scared that they're going to something a bullying incident or kicking them out or something. So, it is important that we are allies, true allies that really will help our students, which is having these bathrooms available for these kids. These kids do exist. And like Nick said, this could be the only safe haven that they have. They don't have help from home. They have rejection from their families. This is the only place that they could be themselves, that
073they could use their real pronouns and use their other name. Um so having these bathrooms will be helpful, having locker rooms for these kids and also um more awareness or more workshops on bullying, bullying for the LGBTQ community, but bullying in general because a lot of the kids are going through that. Um I have stories to tell, but I'll share that in an email. Um not towards my kid, but other experiences from other children. So thank you. I will um I am happy again uh for this workshop and I hope to see more. I hope that the Dover High School gets the same thing. I hope that um next year we get to see the same thing hopefully at the beginning of the year to set a tone and I hope that maybe we have
074different workshop in different faces because like you said in 45 minutes you can't just learn it all. It would be nice to be offered maybe three during the year um so the parents could feel more comfortable to be able to understand their children more to be able to provide their support so all the pressure is not on you. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Shle. Uh seeing no more public comment, I will now close the public comment section. If no one has any other comment, Mr. Robas, just curious if uh the presentation can be made available to us or the information from the president. I don't know if it's proprietary to your organization or what you shared. Um and I believe this was this is being recorded so it'll be up on our website. So um
075at New Jersey another program that we also do offer is educational opportunities. So our training that we just presented tonight is actually for free for anyone who is in Morris, Warren, Essex or Union counties. Um so if you are an organization, if you are a community member and you definitely want to listen to this presentation or have your organization have this presented, it would be absolutely for free. And we also do offer this for outside counties as well just for a donation base. But like it was stated, it'll be on the website and we do have booklets that have all the content without the imaging that I would be more than happy to pass along to you. And we do have a copy of Mr. Leper's PowerPoint so I can share it with the board.
076Thank you. If there are no other comments, I will entertain a motion to adjurnn. So move second. All in favor? I. All opposed. Motion carries. Thank you and have a good night.