‘Coming Out’ conference tackles harrasment

November 16, 2009 by Kristan Obeng 

Scheduled events reflect growing interest in understanding LGBTQ youths

Educators and young people seeking to understand and cease the effects of bullying and discrimination against LGBTQ students came together last week for the first “Coming Out” Conference.

The two-day conference on Friday and Saturday, sponsored by the Multicultural Center and the Office of Civic Engagement and Diversity in the Student Union, focused on the harassment of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people in schools and how educators can help prevent it.

“UNLV stepped up to the mark right off the bat,” said Andrew O’Reilly, the Clark County School District teacher who was in charge of the conference.

He explained that UNLV leaders said they wanted to reach out to the LGBTQ community and youth in the school district.

“The energy here is amazing,” said Coreen Haym, a UNLV professor who teaches human sexual behavior.

As a therapist who works with gay and lesbian youth, she said that she needed to be at the conference because “working with these kids is important” to her.

She said that 90 percent of gay or lesbian youths she counsels have thought about or attempted suicide.

“Last year, two 11-year-olds committed suicide because they were being taunted and called ‘gay’ and ‘fag’ at school,” said Mel Goodwin, a youth and volunteer services director at the Gay and Lesbian Community Center of Southern Nevada.

“That touched me so deeply and hurt me so much,” she added. “It wasn’t taken care of properly at school. They weren’t safe.”

The keynote speaker was the transsexual author of “Hello, Cruel World,” Kate Bornstein.

Bornstein told the audience that she was a cutter and anorexic. She said she didn’t feel like a woman or a man but wouldn’t mind being referred to as “she.”

Bornstein talked about serious aspects of her life in a way that made the audience laugh.

“I’ve been suicidal six times in my life,” she said. “Luckily, I had other things to do instead.”

Bornstein addressed bullying and said society was the problem.

“What do you do if a student tells you life isn’t worth living?” she asked educators.

“Tell them do whatever it takes to make life worth living,” she said, adding that she believes it is not possible to stop someone from killing themselves, but one can give them alternatives.

The conference consisted of eight workshops that attempted to aid faculty and staff in understanding LGBTQ students and sought to give them alternatives to suicide.

Haym said she was impressed by the Trevor Lifeguard Workshop for Educators. The Trevor program has a 24/7 helpline for LGBTQ youth who feel they have nowhere to turn.

“I had no idea this existed. I thought it was an amazing resource,” she said.

In Barbara Radecki’s workshop, “Taking a Stand: Safety and LGBT Issues,” she emphasized the idea that schools must be made safe for all students.

“160,000 students miss school everyday due to bullying,” she said.

If a teacher told antagonistic students to stop making anti-gay slurs, Radecki said, students are more likely to listen to a teacher they respect.

She showed a clip of, “Let’s Get Real,” a film about perceived gender stereotypes. The teenagers interviewed in the film said the common insult at school is accusing each other of being gay.

Jane Heenan, a therapist, held a workshop, “Beyond the Binary: Talking Sex and Gender.” Heenan, who is transgendered, spoke about growing up uncomfortable in her skin. She said she did a lot of drinking in high school and moved to harder drugs in college because of these issues.

“I now feel more integrated and at home with myself,” Heenan later said.

She talked about the problems transgendered individuals face and the violence against them.

“One transgender person a month is killed on average,” she said, “and it’s rarely talked about.”

Heenan has been teaching at the College of Southern Nevada for nine years. She said she faced opposition from faculty within the department of human behavior about her employment there.

“My students respond to me by telling me they’re proud of me and that I inspire them,” Heenan said with tears in her eyes.

O’Reilly talked about his own experiences as a teacher in Clark County.

“Whenever possible, I make sure there is no discrimination of any kind in my classroom whether it’s based on ethnicity, religion, social class or sexual orientation and identity,” he said.

“My students know not to say certain words in my classroom or if they do, Mr. O’Reilly is going to come unglued,” he said.

He later discussed the number of participants in the conference.

“We did a preliminary count,” O’Reilly said, “It looks like we had [more than] a hundred people come through the door throughout the day.”

He said the entire conference went incredibly well.

“Nothing like this,” he said, “has ever been done before.”