Get Used to It: Ep. 29, "Education"

(typewriter clacking) (upbeat music) - Hi, I'm Sheila James Kuehl, and this is "Get Used To It." As you know, if you've ever seen the show before, this is a discussion show on issues of interest to the lesbian, gay, bisexual community. And today, we're very lucky to have three wonderful guests. And our discussion topic today is going to be really, gay and lesbian education programs. Often we are caught in the larger world, sort of making our way coming out if we can. But the education that we receive rarely has anything to do with our real lives, our history, our culture, anything having to do with what we know to be true. Conversely, straight people rarely have an opportunity to experience our community. Some of them just wouldn't do it, even if they had the opportunity. So today, we're going to talk about some of those education programs that are available, that are springing up all around the country. And I'm very pleased to introduce my three guests. First, Simon LeVay, who is the co-founder of the Institute of Gay and Lesbian Education. And as many of our viewers know, also did the work on the experiments concerning the hypothalamus, and the difference in the brains of gay and straight men, which I think was published in 91. So welcome, Simon, very happy to have you here. My next guest, Virginia Uribe is a teacher at Fairfax High School. But much more than that, the founder and coordinator for the Project 10 Program for the Los Angeles Unified School District, which is a program to support and deal with the education of gay and lesbian bisexual youths in our schools here in LA Unified, and I think other schools too, as well, right? Great, welcome. Happy to have you here. - Thank you Sheila. - And our third guest is Paulino Tamayo, who's a student at UC, actually was a student, I think, at UCLA, is the director of a campus retention program targeting underrepresented student populations at UCLA. And last year, was a recipient of the UCLA Lambda Alumni Scholarship given to one undergraduate every year for being actively involved in the gay and lesbian community and organizations on campus. Welcome, very happy to have you here. Simon, let's start with you. You heard sort of the way I introduced the show. And I know that the Institute of Gay and Lesbian Education is sort of unique. Would you tell us a little about it? - It's basically a night school that operates here in West Hollywood, in a city-owned building, next to West Hollywood Park. And what we're trying to do, it's been running out since, for three years since 1992. We're trying to put together educational programs that really fill that missing gap that you mentioned in your introduction. You know, this part of our education that has to do with our own identity as lesbians and gay men and think lots of gays and lesbians are very well educated. You know, I've had so many years of schooling, I can't even think about it. But in all that time, I hadn't learnt one single fact, I think, related to my identity as a gay man. I think we did once read Plato's "Symposium." So that was like one bright moment in my education. But aside from that, nothing. And I think that that silence, that gap is incredibly damaging or limiting to gay people in their ability to present themselves in society and work for the gay community and feel good about themselves and generally, function well as gay people. - So what kind of courses are offered at the institute, and who teaches them? - Well, the people who teach them, they're a mixed bag of people. Some of them are academics at colleges in the area. Some of them are professionals, lawyers or doctors. And we have creative people, writers and screenwriters, people in television. So it's quite a mixed bunch people who teach. And the courses are on topics like gay and lesbian psychology, history, politics. We had a law symposium once. And I've taught biology classes. So it's a lot of range of different disciplines. But they all have this focus, most of them, that they're focused on this theme of what is special about gay people? What do gay people need to know about themselves and their place in the world that they might not otherwise have learned? - I heard you say, that part of the reason why you thought this was important was in terms of people's involvement in the community. What's the connection between, really I guess, about learning about ourselves, which seems very personal, and community work? - Because I think, you know, to be a good ambassador for the gay community, if you like, you need motivation, and knowledge, and skills. And the motivation, well, I think now that a lot of gays and lesbians really do have the motivation to get involved to do something for the community, partly as a result of the AIDS epidemic, but also because the general history of development of the community. But in terms of knowledge and skills, that's more what you really need to go to school for, if you like. You really need to know something about the history of our movement, our place in the world in different societies, psychological development of gay people, political issues, legal issues. This all stuff, you really have to sit down and consciously learn. And that's the kind of thing that we're trying to provide. - That's an interesting shift for you, though. I mean, as a scientist, I mean, you hit every newspaper, every magazine in the world, really, I think, with your work on the hypothalamus now. But you've really shifted your focus to education. - Yeah, well, I have been an educator all my life as well as being a scientist. I did a lot of teaching when I was at Harvard and also at UCSD. So I have been an educator as well as a bench scientist. But yes, it is a shift. And it really comes down to my own psychological development probably. You know, since I really want to do something for the community and something more directly for the community than simply sitting at a microscope and looking at brain cells or something like that. - Virginia, you had somewhat the same experience, although you are a teacher, and you are essentially working in the school system. But, tell us a little about Project 10 and sort of the related programs and what they're for. - I think it was rage. I think that I was so angry that we had a portion of our school population, our gay, lesbian, bisexual students, who were either totally ignored by the system or treated as objects of hate and bigotry within the schools. And the public school system is supposed to exist for everyone, and here was a group that was not only ignored, but terribly stigmatized, and the kids just suffered enormously. So that was probably my motivating factor that got me started. I wanted the schools to provide some kind of a safe place for the gay and lesbian population. Someplace where the young people could go, people that they could talk to. I wanted really to make them feel safe on the school campuses. And that was how I started the project. I started in Fairfax High School, we began to train the faculty there at Fairfax, provide a little support group there. And as people heard about it, it kind of caught on because everyone was saying, well, yes, we do have gay, lesbian, bisexual students, nobody wants to acknowledge it. We do have them, they do suffer terribly, and they're at very high risk for dropping out of school. So that's what has been happening in the last 10 years. Of course, the program evolved and it was not possible to simply provide support groups for the students without providing a broad educational program, because it was like a cry in the wilderness. I mean, people are just so uninformed about gay, lesbian issues. So we had to develop an educational program to go along with this support program. - So is there an actual curriculum that the students can participate in? - No, there's not a curriculum, and Project 10 is not a class. It's not a course of study or anything like that. I think it's more of a concept. It's a concept that this is part of our school population, that these students deserve equity in the school system, and that our school system must buy into that concept. And we try to do that by having workshops, having speakers come speak to classes, speak to groups of teachers, groups of counselors. And at the same time, we try to provide the support groups on the campuses. We try to take out of the closet, the subject of gay and lesbian youth and get it in as much of a visible form as possible. - And there's a prompt too, isn't there? - [Virginia] Yes. - Everybody has read about that by now. - That's all part of the evolutionary process. The first thing that we did that was really unusual, branching out from the support groups, was that we held a conference at Occidental College two years ago. Now we've already had two of them. That was called Models of Pride, where we invited gay, lesbian, bisexual, although it wasn't limited to them, but students from all over the school district to attend an all-day conference. And that which we had was, you know, we had panels and groups and speakers and entertainment and so on. It was wonderful. We had three or 400 young people that attended each one of these conferences. So that was our first branch into something off the campuses. Then we got some people, I was even a little afraid of this, but some people said, you know, we really ought to have a prom. That's what the kids want. And that's what they feel is something that they have missed, an experience that they have missed on the high school level. So we put our resources together and we did hold a prom at a hotel in Los Angeles. Now we've held two of them. And they were great events. And each time something like that happens, well, it fills not only the young people, but everyone who knows about, it fills them with such a sense of their own identity and their place, their role in the whole school system. So those are the kinds of things that we're involved in. - Well, Paulino, you're I guess, among the four of us, the closest at this moment, to sort of being fresh out of the educational experience. Your junior high and high school experience, your undergraduate experience at UCLA, and your graduate student experience. And I wanted to know a little bit, I guess, from you about two things. One is, what that was like, what your experience was like in relationship to whether it might have helped at all if you'd had such programs really to be involved in. And then I hope to tell us a little bit about the new program at UCLA that I think is evolving. - Actually, talking about the prom, I'm reminded, at this past year, I've been a volunteer with EAGLES Center, which is a continuing high school for lesbian, gay students. And a lot of the students participated in the prom. And I was glad because we took the students at EAGLES to a studio in Paramount to screen a videotaping of the prom. And I think, at least on the university level, in higher education in that kind of atmosphere, students are provided with several opportunities, at least in my case, to relive high school experiences that I was not able to live. I remember going to my prom and not being able to take someone that I wanted to take or being set up on a blind date with the girlfriend's girlfriend. But watching the tape of the prom, was really exciting. And some of the students didn't really know, couldn't really understand my excitement or because I wasn't really there. But just being able to watch other students, I think, high school students being able to have a prom that they wanted to have and to be in a problem where they're with the person that they want to be, regardless of their gender. And as well, I was involved with SHOUT, Students Honestly Opening up Together. It's a program on UCLA that helps. It came out of Project 10. - [Sheila] How? - That helps facilitate college students going out to high school students to kind of act as mentors among peers, to kind of be role models for high school students to pursue higher education and go on into colleges and universities. So I think in those ways, I'm trying to relive my high school experiences. - But it sounds like a lot of our activities, and I think this has probably been the case through generations, where we could even be out at all, are really concentrated outside of the classroom, outside of the sort of subject matter areas that educators consider the real education. I mean, what you do with your social life, that's not the academic, the real center of it. But in essence, we're seeing something different really happening now, aren't we? In terms of the subject matter of our lives entering something more positive, not just the pathologies that we used to always be taught when it was mentioned at all in psychology. Do you find that happening at UCLA and other places? - Most definitely. In particular, I think a lot of the students that I was active with and involved in these community-type services, we began to look within the campus and kind of examine exactly what's happening in our classes, what's happening with professors, with instructors, with other students in terms of coming to recognize that there's a lot of history and a lot of contemporary issues that pertain to lesbian, gay, bisexual population that's not addressed in the classroom. I remember on several occasions, my very minimal attempts at questioning professors and instructors about how this particular subject relates to the lesbian, gay, bisexual experience. Why is it that we're not discussing lesbian, gay authors? Why is it that we're refusing to examine lesbian, gay issues in various works of art. That to me is very obvious and even at a point where I can point them out, it's still not explored. To a point now where from one of the courses that was set up with the counselor and a teacher of development program on campus, that helps facilitate bringing in classes that are unique in various ways. It was an introduction to lesbian, gay studies. I remember it running for two years. I took it the second year that it was on. And out of that class, actually out of the class prior to that, but starting with that class, a committee on lesbian, gay studies, lesbian, gay bisexual studies, was set up by students to explore the possibility of setting up a curriculum that's inclusive of lesbian, gay, and bisexual history. Lesbian, gay, bisexual peoples and their experiences. It started very small, and what came out of it was a journal, which is a collection of papers and thesis of students from the Introduction to Lesbian, Gay Studies course. And then it's evolved to a point where now, the chancellor has initiated a task force on lesbian, gay bisexual studies at UCLA. Basically, a task force is set out to create a curriculum. Basically, to set up a lesbian, gay, bisexual studies minor, similar to specializations on campus for students who want to pursue this kind of specialization, to pursue studies on the experiences and the history of lesbian, gay, bisexual people. And it's very exciting on campus. It's a very exciting thing on campus. For the past year, it's been about the only thing that has been a major focus for a lot of the campus organizations to get involved, to start working out, weeding out among the various courses taught at UCLA, those classes that do discuss lesbian, gay, bisexual issues, and the classes that should have been inclusive of lesbian, gay bisexual studies, and courses that need to be created that pertain to the experiences of a population at UCLA that's been ignored. There are several students on campus that I'm aware of who have made attempts at bringing discourse in the classroom to be inclusive of lesbian, gay, bisexual experiences. And a lot of them have completed their stories, having failed professors. - Well, and it's kind of scary too, I mean, in a sense. Every time you, I remember in a discussion that we had, you said, every time you turn in a paper that has anything to do with a gay issue, you wonder, what will be the evaluation of this paper? Will it be evaluated on its merits? Or is the content, is it kind of scary even to include that content? - And I'm not alone in that. A lot of students I know, I've worked on group papers with other students, gay and straight, and asked them what would they think if we were to turn in a paper that was relevant to lesbian, gay, bisexual studies. And students are open to that kind of study, that kind of exploration of in academia. But that moment, when we turn that paper in, all of a sudden, it's kind of a question of, okay, well, let's see what happens. - Have I blown the whole grade? - Yeah, you know, how's this gonna be graded, evaluated? - There's sort of a relationship here. I want to ask sort of an evaluation, I guess, among the three of you. There's an ongoing discussion about, in essence, a sort of notion of separatism. Separatism in academia. A criticism of Black Studies, Chicano Studies, Asian Pacific Studies, Women's Studies. And naturally we will, you know, sort of trailing along all the major movements in this country as we are, strong as we are, coming into that same notion. In essence, you started a whole new school in order to study these issues, Simon. - When I told my stepmother that I was getting involved in running a school, she said, how can you do this? No, why cut yourself off from society and from this little clique, this little island? That everyone should be dealing with everyone else and everyone should love each other and so on. Of course, I believe that but there's this problem that gay people really have to go through this developmental process where they step outside of their family of origin or whatever, and really, sort of very consciously join the group of gay and lesbian people. And I think that's why you need to have something that's aimed at gay people specifically help them to learn what they need to learn. And I don't think these things even though they kind of address particularly gay people, probably this minor that Paulino is talking about, it'll be almost all, or mostly gays and lesbians who take the class. But nevertheless, it sort of radiates out from that, and you have a sort of secondary effect that really is much broader because the people who take the classes are then better equipped to be good ambassadors for their community. And also, it affects the faculty. Because right now UCLA still has very few openly gay and lesbian faculty. I mean, it's amazing. It's probably less than six or something, out of a faculty of God knows, how many 100. Once you have something like this in place, then other faculty, you can have permission, if you'd like to bring up this topic and say, yes, this book is about a gay and lesbian theme even if it's not in a gay, lesbian class. So it's kind of snowball effect. - But we're criticized for that kind of focus, because it's trivialized. I don't know if you found the same thing with your own scientific work. But I remember when Black Studies was first established at UCLA, I was an Associate Dean of Students and Women's Studies. It was a risk not just for students turning in papers or taking the classes because they could always take six other classes at the same time. But supposing you were doing your doctoral thesis on something relating to women, oh, my God, it wasn't real academic work, you know. And you would be advised, oh, don't do that, you should do something seriously academic, not this kind of trivial thing. I don't know if you had the same experience with your scientific work, but. - Well, no one else (mumbles) was gonna tell me what to do or not do. I mean, there's academic freedom of thought. So I don't think that was a problem for me. But in general, that can happen. Another sort of thing that people bring up is the question about whether when you have an academic discipline that's linked to a group of people in society, you can turn into something more like advocacy or boosterism rather than really being, if you like, academic, being objective, or something like that. That's a serious issue that people have to think about. - Did you find it's this sort of isolating? I mean, I don't know whether to call it a push pull, but you're just in your own professional life, Virginia, where you suddenly were so identified and yet, also you teach gifted students at Fairfax. I mean, you have a larger context for your academic work. Were you accused of separatism or I guess, as our governor calls it, tribalism as though we invented making ourselves separate? That's one of my very favorite. I think one of the regions, or someone testifying at the region said, that's like blaming chemotherapy for cancer. - I've not been accused of that, because, frankly, gay and lesbian issues have never reached the level where they could be accused of being separate. The way I see it, all these things really relate to each other in such fundamental ways, because in education, I find that part of the problem is getting people comfortable with the issue, that there are a lot of people who are not real redneck anti-gay people, but they're not comfortable with the issue. So how do we, if I can use the word normalize, normalize the conversation to bring it in, so that people are not so self-conscious and talking about it? Then the other problem is that, most people really don't have a whole lot of information. And that's where your institute comes in, and the work that's being done at UCLA. Because I think there are teachers who would talk about the influence of authors in English or the influence in various aspects of art or (mumbles) They simply don't know the information. And even though they might be willing to do it, they don't have the information. So part of what we do and the level where I am, is we just try to get people to bring out their feelings so that we can talk about those feelings, and how do you respond to issues that are brought up spontaneously in class? How do you examine your own thoughts to be sure you're okay with the issue yourself, so you can just respond normally to things that go on in a classroom situation? And I guess as time goes on, the word I hear so often here is evolution. We are in the midst of a great evolution in education. I mean, from a few years ago where you just didn't bring up the subject at all, to now. You know, how to bring it up, how to sensitize people, how to give them the information that they need to encourage discussions in class. Because the kids bring the subject up all the time. And so it's question of teachers either sweeping it under the rug or acting awkward about it, or, how do we get them comfortable with this subject? So that's what our job is, I think. - Well, and also, I think there's no sort of respect to get a handle on the subject matter itself. I think we've probably all had very similar experiences growing up, even though we grew up in very different places in which our own people were essentially invisible. Now, in our generation, we didn't even know there was such a people, at least I didn't. It was so bizarre and so invisible. But I don't remember any discussion within the context of any class anywhere. Do you? Did you have a discussion reading Plato? - Yes, actually. Yes, I mean, the topic was discussed I mean, not in the sort of detail I would like today, but it was mentioned. And I think that was one thing I clearly remember. I mean, the school I was at, a traditional all boys boarding school in England. It's very different environment from Fairfax High or something like that. It was actually much more acceptance of homosexuality in that tradition, than there is in LA Unified School District. - Have you had sort of much success in terms of attracting students? I mean, do people want to come to the institute and study? - Oh, yes, yeah, definitely. We have lots of students. Actually, our problems are more in terms of financial problems and getting enough space to teach and so on, than in attracting students. But we definitely want to expand because we'd like eventually to be able to develop a MA program degree. Right now we don't grant degrees. So we'd like to expand so we can do that. And for that, we do need a larger student body, more space, more permanent faculty, that kind of thing. - And Paulino, it sounds as though the administration at UCLA has been supportive so far. But do you get a sense of any antagonism or antipathy at the university about it? - I wouldn't necessarily say administration, because I haven't seen. I don't think I've seen a lot of administration coming into the process of putting together this proposal and writing up this program. A lot of the faculty, however, has made commitments to supporting this movement for an LGB Studies Program. A lot of professors have made commitments to set up courses that would be inclusive of LGB studies, or classes on LGB experiences. So in that respect, administration, I think has has provided its support. The fact I think that there's the chancellor's task force for the past year that has been working on this on a consistent basis throughout the whole year, suggests that the administration has some inclinations to see something like this happen, to provide funding for it, and whatnot, class spaces. - Well, let me ask you to hold the answer to the second part of it, which was about any antagonism. So we need to take a break. We'll be right back. Don't go away. Come back and watch more of "Get Used To It." (bouncy music) - [Announcer] Pick up your telephone right now and call the number on your screen. 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(bouncy music) - Hi, I'm Sheila James Kuehl. Welcome back to "Get Used To It." Today we're talking about gay and lesbian education by, for, and about gay, lesbian, bisexual people in the context of junior high, high school, university, graduate, separate institutes, etc. My guests, Simon LeVay, Virginia Uribe and Paulino Tamayo. Welcome back. We were talking about the program at UCLA that's just really getting off the ground, and whether, all sounds very rosy, Paulino, but I've been at UCLA, I don't believe it. There's got to be some enemies of this program somewhere. - I would say, yes, just (mumbles) I mean, having worked in different departments at UCLA and having worked with different majors and students of different majors, there's always a problem with administration in terms of policy issues, and actually just helping alleviate the work of just getting the work done. Students just getting the majors that they want, and that they need, that they want to pursue. And there's just all the policy, the bureaucracy that gets in the way and all the red tape of an LGBT Studies minor just can be set up until you've gone through a certain process. At this moment, we're expecting that the minor will begin at fall quarter this year. But we're also kind of expecting some drawbacks from any particular member of the administration. You know, I'm not aware of anyone who will explicitly be against instituting this kind of a program on campus. I'm not aware of. And I'm sure, again, with the thought in mind that the chancellor is in support of this, we can only assume that he's got this. He's got the final word. Antagonism, you know, and I've shared with you some stories about faculty members who blatantly made it explicit that they were not going to discuss LGB issues in their classes. Students who have come to me and said that they don't know what to do in terms of how to pursue their interest in exploring LGB studies and experiences of LGB people because professors would not allow it. I mean, in that respect, I see administration being antagonistic to the process of creating a program. The idea you mentioned earlier, I guess the validity of having that kind of a program is a separatist. Is it really inclusive of students who aren't LGB identified? And how can this kind of minor be helpful to students who aren't LGB identified? And the answer to that, I think, is the way that the program is being set up. It attempts to be very inclusive, very interdisciplinary and very multidisciplinary to ensure that students who consider taking a specialization, a minor in LGB Studies won't be taking just classes on LGB people but classes that are connected to, or cross-listed with history, with English, with the arts, with the physical sciences, and life sciences. As well, there are students who take courses like, there's a Biology 40 class that's taught yearly. And it maximizes capacity of over 500 students who attend this class. And it's a class on AIDS. And it's inclusive of exploring the way AIDS has affected the lesbian gay, bisexual community, as well as the heterosexual community, and how the disease has developed and progressed and what it means to individual students. - Well, that sort of brings to mind the notion of the, I guess, the underlying power of education. I mean, I know in the assembly now, the greatest battles we're having really are about education, and not just about whether it should be fully funded or whatever, but I'm talking specific programs, what shall students learn? What shall we require them to know in order to be considered educated people? I remember when I graduated from Harvard Law School, we were welcomed to the ranks of educated men and women. That's what they say when they grant you your degree. Welcome to the ranks of educated men and women. So they must have something in mind when they say we're educated, right? That's what a curriculum is about. Each of you in your own way are spending your lives now, including information about ourselves for ourselves as an aspect of Education. I use it with a big E. Why is this such a powerful arena in which you want to play? There are two different kinds of education. Is, a goal-oriented education where you're basically being professionally trained this specific purpose, why you need to know this, because it's going to allow you to do this later on, you know that? And then there's the more general kind of education just to make you to kind of better person, someone who contributes and fits in better in society, sort of thing. It includes an appreciation of diversity in society, which you try and hopefully help younger people to understand that diversity is a good thing in the world. And I think, in a way is that second kind, which is very contentious, which is basically, there's a moral issue there, which is very difficult for some people. I mean, okay, diversity in the abstract is great. But, you know, some specific example of diversity like gays and lesbians, there's a lot of people who hate gays and lesbians, and think that it's very wrong to present them, you know, homosexuality is an unacceptable lifestyle or anything like that. So that's why it's so contentious, that aspect of education that addresses these very basic ways of being a human being in the world. - Well, I certainly am interested in that, the second part of the educational process. That would be my focus. Because I see education as teaching our children to live in an increasingly diverse society. I guess, maybe the goal would be to transcend all differences, ultimately, so that we could all live together and it wouldn't make any difference if we were black, or white, or gay, or non-gay, or whatever. But I think that society being what it is, that if our children do not learn how to live in a diverse society, they are going to have some trouble, because the society is changing, and is so different all the time. - But if they make us invisible, in essence, if we're not allowed to be who we are, it's not a big problem for society, is it? I mean, in a sense, our children wouldn't have to learn to live with gay and lesbian people, because there wouldn't be any, because you wouldn't see them, and you don't need to know about them. And haven't we done just fine for 1000 years of education without knowing about these people? - There are some people who feel that way. I think, of course, that we should be yelling and screaming and saying, we're here, and you need to know about us because we are a part of society. And we have made tremendous contributions. And the world needs to know about those contributions, and they need to know about the contributions that we can make, if we're not crippled by hatred and prejudice. And education is the way that you break through those things. - But Sheila is right in the sense that, it's when you try and break these things down that then you have these growing pains, because then you make people face these issues. And previously, they did often didn't have to. So that's why (indistinct) - Of course the whole don't ask, don't tell. - Yes, precisely. - It is based on that premise. Just don't tell us. You can be who you are but just don't let anybody know about it. - [Simon] Exactly. - I think I would more look at the process of education as something, I mean, as something, as a vital part of an individual's identity processing. I mean, I would choose to explore that aspect of education, how it affects an individual. I mean, I walk out of school now, and you know, I'm bold at stating that I'm a sociology and Asian American Studies major. And I have family members who laugh and kind of chuckle, what does that mean? What does that mean in terms of what you can do with yourself. I think that my whole process of looking at education, as an aid in my identity formation, and exploring the types of thing that was relevant to me, the types of subject matter and the aspects of my identity that I needed to explore is why I chose the majors that I've chosen. And I think for a lot of students, it's kind of where it boils down to in terms of looking at education. I've done some tutoring on several schools, as well as I do academic counseling with students and we try to have this holistic approach of examining a student in terms of where the student is in formulating their identity and who they are, and what being who they are is going to mean to them. And I think to provide a curriculum to institutionalize lesbian, gay, bisexual studies, allows, or permits them, use the word permitting, to give them permission to explore those things without having to search them out and without having to really question it, but it's just (mumbles) It's there, they can take the opportunity to explore it or they cannot but at least it's there for those individuals that I think it's gonna make a difference for. - But I think, it's even more powerful than that. I think that there is an unconscious collaboration or conscious collaboration to normalize a very small percentage of the population and the rest are considered outside the norm, and therefore not of interest, not of academic interest, not anyway seen as participating in the future in leadership, in developing ideas. If ideas are potent in society, and they are, because ideas create our ideas of what the truth is. We think things are true because of ideas that we've had developed. If we can't do research on that, if we can't present it as authentic, and academic conclusion, then we're always marginalized, we're always on the fringe. It's people of color, women, everyone's issues are treated as fringe issues. And I think that is the power of it. And I would say that the work that you're doing, though, you may not get up every morning and think of yourselves, as you know, heroes of the movement, the work that you're doing is really, very upstream. Haven't you found that it's been very upstream? - There's a kind of ferment going on in academia generally. I think we started, perhaps, you know, feminism has as much to as anything in terms of really changing people's attitudes and saying, yeah, you know, we've got to look at scholarship from multicultural point of view. And that they'll never be a final definitive word on anything really on this, but there'll always be many different attitudes, which one has to take into consideration, different groups with their own motivations, their own histories, and so on. And unless you voice to those different groups, you really haven't given a complete expression to people's identity. And it's uncomfortable in a way for people to deal with that. Because then, you're saying there really is no absolute body of knowledge that's the required. It's really something that will be continuously evolving and changing, depending on different groups that come into society and make themselves known. It's a kind of continuous turmoil. But that's good for education, I think. - I think that's a really vital point to make. Because LGB studies, the way it's being presented now isn't, it's presented as complete. I mean, it's certainly when we talk about students who write papers and who explore a specific area of study that is relevant to LGB people. Students are thinking, it's never been written before but here I am writing it now, and maybe someone else can take from it what they can and move on and learn something else. I know, with the Asian American Studies Program, it wasn't until a group of me and my friends came together, and we said, you know what? There's never been a study on LGB, on the Asian Pacific Islander experience, or Asian Pacific Islander lesbian, gay bisexual experience. We need to start this up now. And we sat together and we said, let's create an independent studies, let's go to the library, let's talk to people, let's put together our own course, and present it to the department and tell them, you know, look, this is very important to at least 10 students in your program. And the program is small enough as it is, but this is 10 students who say this is very important and we think a lot of students will feel this is very important. It's never been done before, but we're offering you the opportunity to explore the issue and to provide it to other students. Take it. They took it, and the class has been taught for the past two years. And we've gotten a commitment from the head of the department to continue exploring the issue. First year it was taught it was just an introduction to API LGB experience. And the next year, it was talking about the API LGB, gay space, their conceptions of space. And it's a totally different topic from when it originally started, and I'm excited to see where it goes next year. But it really is, I think, a growing process. It's never going to just end. And I think LGB Studies Program as it's being set forth by the committee is a baby. But there's so much potential for growth. And I think if a lot of students see it and see that it's respected, Maybe it won't be respected immediately, but it needs to get to that point somewhere, and there need to be a starting point, students can really take off with it, in ways that I wish I could have. I think I could go back to all my papers that I've written and maybe put them together and compile a book. Maybe this is a place to hand that over and say, use what I've done so that no one just repeats it, but they take on from it and they explore new things, and it gets bigger and bigger and bigger. I mean, this is how the other, the ethnic studies programs have started. You know, it's not (indistinct) - And you know, it's interesting what Simon said too. It reminded me of the ways in which we discover knowledge. I mean, even the notion of the kind of scientific method has really been attacked by, I think, by feminism to begin with. Because, you know, there's a lot of storytelling that goes on in every community except the sort of most ancient rigorous, rigid kind of academic community still left. In Asian Pacific Studies, in African American Studies, in Women's Studies, we tell stories, because you can't do a lot of research and find your history. You need to listen to the stories of people who've been through it. I mean, the history of lesbian culture in Los Angeles is not in a book, yet, it was rich through the 20s and 30s, and 40s. And there needs to be such a thing. The stories are there, but we can't do the research. I mean, the oral history notion is also an important one. And I don't know, your students may be having to discover their identities on their own. Is there anything in the curriculum itself, or in what, sort of teachers can do that help gay, lesbian, bisexual students sort of at that critical age in junior high and high school? I mean, what is their identity? - There isn't much in the curriculum, I have to be honest with you. I think what our teachers can do is, by the affirmation that they give, by simply acknowledging the subject when it is brought up in the way they present it, I mean, that might light the spark for some young man or woman to come forth and pursue it more on his or her own. I mean, I think it's inspirational to hear with, obviously, you're of a different generation, this is a younger generation. I mean, I wonder when I hear you talk, what was the spark that got him going somewhere along the line in this great educational process, where not much is being said about this? So I think that our teachers can provide that spark. The curriculum, that's going to take, I mean, there are efforts being made along those lines. But rather than a single curriculum, there are kind of piecemeal efforts being made on all levels of education. You know, how do you in elementary school? You know, how can you incorporate this subject, which is so controversial and everything, in talking about diversity and families? How can you address subject name calling? The way a teacher presents that in response to the class can be very affirming, or it can be very defeating? - I'd like to ask questions, Virginia, if I may. One thing that's always struck me is that with children, often they don't know whether they're going to be gay, or lesbian, or whatever. But you have this sort of gender variants. You know, have boys who are relatively feminine, girls who are relatively masculine even before puberty and so on. And sometimes these people become gay and lesbian later, sometimes they don't maybe But it seems like that is a very public aspect of their identity when they are children, or their children react very strongly, and they get stigmatized or whatever. Is that something you deal with also in your program? And how does that sort of show itself in the way that these kids grow up? - I wish I could say that we had a program that dealt specifically with those issues. But I think that, as part of our educational efforts in our workshops, and everything, I think we do try and attack that issue, which is an issue of sexism really. And how do we sensitize teachers to deal with students who are different, and not place a stigma on boys who may have an artistic flair or girls who are very athletic? And I think we are helped in that by, there a lot of efforts being made through the Sex Equity Commission in the district. And so we do deal with it that way. But again, it's a sensitizing process. And I think that if your teachers, your teachers have to be comfortable about who they are, and they have to be comfortable about these issues themselves. If they're comfortable about the issues themselves, then I think they can provide a safe atmosphere for the students. - [Sheila] I'm sorry, go ahead Simon. - It seems like the kids who are gay or lesbian, but are not especially gender, a nonconformist, if you like, go through their school life fairly easily, if you like. I mean, they're not necessarily out. They tend to be good academic performers often, and they're not picked out and maybe they don't come out until they're in college or later or something. Whereas these kids who are gender variant are really tremendously exposed. - Well, they are the most highly stigmatized of all, and they have the most difficult time. And it's very difficult for teachers in dealing with those students. But I think that the important thing is, one of the most important things is that, teachers from elementary school level on have to somehow communicate the idea that it is okay to be different. It's okay to be gay. It doesn't mean everyone is gay or lesbian, but it is okay to be that way, if that's what you are. Now, they're not going to be able to say it in first grade with those words. And they're going to have to develop their own format for bringing differences into the class and for making kids respectful of differences. But I think that's essential. - Well, you know, education has an even, I think an additional tool or responsibility in that, what we're talking about has an underlying social or cultural purpose in life. That is, education is also a way to explore the reasons why our culture does what it does. And the reasons why it wants to draw such incredibly rigid lines between female and male. If you ask the question, why is this such an important distinction? So important that it's the first and only question we ask when a baby is born. Essentially, we could ask a million things about a new human life. What's the only thing we ask? Did you have a boy or a girl? And we don't even ask that question. Sometimes we just say, what did you have? And everyone knows that the only question that's being asked here is a question of gender. So we ask then somewhere, hopefully, in our educational process, why is this such an incredible distinction, that we are thrown into the breach of it, so as to keep these rigid distinctions? If you vary a little bit toward the feminine, toward the masculine, and you're on the wrong side of that line. And we're the worst offenders, allegedly, because we're the example of gender benders. Education can also ask why is this our culture? And what is it about this that's so dangerous? The other thing I was going to ask you, though, that we also can ask is, is there really something in gay and lesbian history and culture to be taught that's really different? Because this is the other question you get about sort of the separate studies questions, and I'm sure you too. - Oh, I think totally. I mean (mumbles) There's some people who say that you know, gays and lesbians are, like everyone else, they happen to be attracted to people the same sex. Why make a big deal of it? I really come from very the opposite side. I think that gays and lesbians are very different. I mean, they're tremendously diverse, but really, they do have their own culture and history. It's very different in many ways from that history people. - Is it culture and history of an oppressed people that had to develop something different in shadows, or? I know there's not a yes, no answer to this, but I love thinking. - I think oppression is part of it. And I think that any out group has the quality that it belongs to an oppressive group. Like traditional Jewish culture is definitely the same thing and many other groups. But I think also there's something intrinsic to being gay or lesbian, something biologically. There's something in the brain, hypothalamus, whatever, which tends to make gays and lesbians a little different. It's something I think connected somehow with gender and not blind to a strict gender class but being in this sort of third gender area. And if you look at Walter Williams work with the Berdache and the Amazons in Native American cultures, you see that. That there's something about the way gays, lesbians look at the world. Their interests, their spirituality, and all that. It's really different and has something special to contribute. - Well, we've been shamans and witches and artists. And I think not by virtue of being exorcised from the group, because shamans and witches were really not in their own cultures separate. So I guess, that this freedom to sort of be who you are along quite a continuum of sexuality must have been important. - Oh, absolutely. And then I mean, you know, lesbians so often have been leaders basically. And that's something, they basically led the feminist movement or were very, very active in it. And in that sense, they really contributed something to the entire population of women, - Well, the social welfare movement. I mean, we weren't socially able to be on those days. But when you start looking at those women who started the whole notion of taking care of the poor, you know, that kind of devotion. But I was going to ask you too, Paulino, as a double minority, with experience in Asian Pacific Islander culture and also targeted discrimination. And as a gay man, do you see a similarity in those, the way those communities are treated in the context of the university or education? - It's a very difficult question to answer. My positionality, I guess is never to have ever separated the two and that they've always been one and the same. I know even in the context of Asian American discourse and in the movement of an oppressed group, I'm very much aware of my own oppression within that oppressed group very much so in the different organizations that I'm involved with. I think I can say that I've done my work with friends who are also gay Filipinos, stay in the Filipino community, where we're at a point where the hiring committee for a project like SPEAR, the campus retention program, is hiring an openly gay man to direct the whole program. And I think that's very much exhibiting the evolution that at least that community has taken at UCLA. It's a very hard question to answer. I don't know. - I recon that. - It's hard for me to say whether one minority status is more oppressive than the other minority. So if it's certainly given a particular situation, where being Asian is more salient than being gay, one minority status is gonna stand out more and becomes more my issue, and one of the kind of thing that I scream about, that I'm angry about, and vice versa when it's the other way around. - Well, I know that all communities have been trivialized in their time. There was nothing to teach about Black Studies. It was said when they were first proposing it on the campuses. And now I don't think anyone would say such a thing, because we're so much more aware of all the ways in which, and all the subject matters that can be found. And now when I hear that about, well, what is there about lesbians and gays? Aren't they just everywhere and they just happen to be gay, like you said, Simon? We will have something to say about it. You're not going to believe this, but our time is up. It sort of went fast. And I want to thank you very, very much for being here today, and for talking about this subject matter in terms of our own education for our community. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. I hope you'll stick with us for all of our shows. And I hope whenever anyone says to you, why should we have lesbian gay education, just say, it's here, get used to it. (upbeat music)