These days, everyone wants to be safe. And at New York’s Adelphi University, the administration is lending a hand.
The private research school offers Safe Zone Training, which — per the website — is “a great first step to becoming an ally for LGBTQIA community members at Adelphi…and beyond.”
The program’s goal:
[T]o contribute to an open campus climate that is safe, accepting and just for all members of the University community, regardless of gender or sexuality.
Participants are given a language guide to protect members of our modern sexual alphabet. Additionally, they’re enlightened about the “forms of oppression and discrimination faced by” LGBT people.
The Safe Zone Participant Manual lays out some primary terms. A few:
Berdache: A generic term used to refer to a third gender person (woman- livingman). The term ‘berdache’ is generally rejected as inappropriate and offensive by Native Peoples because it is a term that was assigned by European settlers to differently-gendered Native Peoples. Appropriate terms vary by tribe and include: “one-spirit,” “two-spirit,” and “wintke.”
Biphobia: The fear, hatred, or intolerance of bisexual people.
Cissexism: Discrimination and invisibility experienced by TGI (Transgender, Gender-nonconforming/nonbinary, Intersex) people who do not conform to binary gender, body concept, or anatomy that matches their sex designation at birth.
Down Low: Often used in communities of color. Refers to men who secretly have sex with men, frequently while in relationships with women, but who do not identify as gay or bisexual. Sometimes abbreviated as DL. Use with caution, as people generally do not identify themselves with this term. “Downe” is a variation on Down Low, and is typically used to describe those who are out of the closet, but may not be open about their identity.
Genderqueer: A person whose gender identity is neither male nor female, is between or beyond genders, or is some combination. They can see themselves as different times, both, male, female, or no gender at all.
Heterosexism: The individual person, group, or institutional norms and behaviors that result from the assumption that all people are heterosexual. The system of oppression, which assumes that heterosexuality is inherently normal and superior, negates LBGT people’s lives and relationships.
Pansexual, omnisexual, and pomosexual: (postmodern sexuality):
Sometimes substitute terms for bisexual that rather than referring to both or “bi” gender attraction, refer to all or “omni” gender attraction, and are used mainly by those who wish to express acceptance of all gender possibilities including transgender and intersex people, not just two. Pansexuality sometimes includes an attraction for less mainstream sexual activities, such as BDSMSame Gender Loving (SGL): Commonly used by communities of color to denote attraction to the same gender.
As for oppression, the manual has students agree to a “Free to Be Me” Statement. They commit to “struggle” as they “change [their] false/inaccurate beliefs or oppressive attitudes toward lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people.”
Perhaps most profoundly, all squares have to confess their privilege:
“I am a product of a heterosexist and transphobic culture, and I am who I am.”
And:
“[I]…need to take responsibility for what I can do now…”
The world is changing fast. In just a few years, private, corporate, and governmental institutions have embraced America’s all-new gender ideology:
Public School Teaches Five-Year-Olds They May Be Transgender
Harvard Trains Medical Students to Treat Transgender ‘Infants’
Christian Church Prays to the ‘God of Pronouns,’ the ‘Great They/Them’ Who Breastfeeds
Bank Adds Pronouns to Name Tags, Invites Unwoke Customers to Close Their Accounts
New Smartphone Emojis May Include a ‘Pregnant Man’
Gillette Trans Commercial: Proud Father Helps His Biological Daughter Shave Her Beard
Back to Adelphi University, its Safe Zone Training is sponsored by the Center for Student and Community Engagement.
The Center hails a revolution of respect:
Through education, advocacy and awareness, the Adelphi community will be empowered to speak out against homophobia and heterosexism.
So goes our current situation concerning sex, which — as made clear by Adelphi — is a social construct:
Sex: a socially-constructed identity that is usually based on biological markers such as chromosomes and genitalia. In western culture, two sexes are institutionally recognized – male and female.