Date: Fri, 19 Dec 1997 17:34:23 -0800 From: Jean Richter Subject: 12/19/97 P.E.R.S.O.N. Project news 1. Australia: Gay & lesbian teachers organize 2. Online blocking hurts gay teens ====================================================== From: TWO Radio Date: Fri, 19 Dec 1997 02:13:44 EST Hiya Jean - Thought you might be interested in this transcript of a feature on this week's "This Way Out" about GALTAS - Australia's Gay And Lesbian Teachers And Students Association, which sounds like a not-too-distant cousin of GLSEN. Wonder if the 2 groups know about each other? All best wishes for a happy holiday season and a pleasurable and productive 1998. -Greg Gordon, Coordinating Producer ************************************************************* AUS L/G Teachers Organize Lucia Chappelle: Students, parents and teachers are organizing in many countries to provide support for lesbigay and questioning adolescents. That often means developing strategies that take into consideration the kinds of homophobic backlash both adults and young people may encounter. Reporter Carla Omiciuolo [from Australia’s national lesbigay radio show "Out & Out"] talked with a spokesperson from an Australian group that dealt with those issues at a recent conference: Carla Omiciuolo: If you're a gay teacher or student, you'll know it's not easy to raise the issue of sexual diversity at school, and although many teachers and students are moving mountains in the area of sexuality education and anti-homophobia training in individual schools around the country, most are reluctant to call themselves gay or lesbian activists. The Gay And Lesbian Teachers And Students Association -- GALTAS -- recently held a national conference in Sydney to discuss the issues faced by teachers, students and parents in trying to gain recognition of sexual diversity in school communities and curricula. Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli is a GALTAS spokesperson, academic, and consultant in the issues of ethnicity, gender, sexuality, HIV/AIDS and social justice. Maria, I heard that many teachers are reluctant to be part of GALTAS. Why is that? Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli: There are many factors for that, Carla. One of the factors would be that GALTAS is seen as being an activist organization. It promotes a whole lot of issues which some people are too frig ing seen as members of GALTAS by their employers, especially in schooled areas, and that's really sad, because I think GALTAS has done an incredible amount of work and we need organizations that are able to stand up and speak for those issues, but I can also understand some people's concerns. Some people actually prefer to conduct politics in all sorts of different ways ... but I think there are many ways to do politics and GALTAS has a very important place to play. Other teachers are really worried about the whole coming out -- you know, if they are seen as being members of GALTAS they are immediately assumed to be gay, lesbian or bisexual and immediately -- unfortunately because of the homophobia out there -- the implications in their professional lives and the kind of work that they can do in these issues is actually decreased because of membership to GALTAS, and I think that's just saying something about the fears out there in this world of ours. Carla: I guess it's surprising that you could've brought together so many people from all over Australia to have a conference. Maria: We were just thrilled. We were really excited at the people that arrived ... and also, however, some of the people that arrived were also under strict kinds of thoughts or definitions -- for example, they were saying things such as "we can't let our name be given out to the media and we can't really speak openly about this", so there are some people who are very activist in their own states, in their own systems, both Catholic systems and state school systems, and they're doing the most incredible work, but as soon as they take on some kind of public profile to be seen doing that, they actually risk being allowed to get on with the work they're doing, and this kind of dilemma is just ridiculous. Carla: Yes, it certainly is. What sort of work are people doing? Maria: Well, it ranges from trying to get sexuality and homophobia issues on to the curriculum. So if for example that you're trying to incorporate lesbian, gay, bisexual er issues into the schooling basically -- every subject, every area should be addressing this. They're trying to get issues into policies, say for example where the policies talk about "our school as a safe place for all students" and then they mention sexism and then they mention racism. You'd be surprised at the number of schools in some states that don't even have sexuality on their agenda as one of the issues to deal with as part of their safe school policy ... Carla: It doesn't surprise me at all. Maria: ... and so they're trying to do ... they're working in those sorts of ways. There are other teachers who are really subverting the most incredible systems. Say, for example in Victoria -- where the Catholic system has got George Pell as their archbishop who's making statements about how homosexuality is still a disorder, etcetera -- you've actually got teachers who are colluding with their students and the parents of these students into being able to present information, actually inviting gay and lesbian young people, for example, into the school to address other students, inviting gay, lesbian, bisexual people into the school to talk about organizations and support services, and they're doing this without being able to inform their heirarchy. Carla: How are they managing it then? Maria: It just shows how people can be very ... you know, despite organizing within themselves and saying "look, you know, our students are demanding this, our accountability and responsibility is to the students, so let's see if we can do this". The parents are on side -- and this is something that we forget, that there are many parents out there who are really on side with these issues, but often don't raise their voices and don't actually get out there to do this, or that one parent who complains, suddenly the whole school is in enormous terror and often doesn't take these issues on. So, there's just different ways that people are finding within the limitations of their own systems of really constantly pushing on, and t is going to be very gradual, but it's going to happen ... and we've got a lot of students now in a lot of schools who are becoming great activists. They're insisting that teachers put diverse sexualities on to the agenda, they teach in these ways that they actually speak up when there's some sort of homophobic intimidation going on, so it's really broad based kinds of politics, and I guess we can't coerce people in some systems to take on politics in ways that is not appropriate for them. We've actually got to allow people to find where they're from, what they can do in those systems, and keep moving it on from there ... but in some schools, the dilemma seems to be more the teachers and the policies rather than the students. Carla: Or the parents. Maria: And sometimes the parents, and that's really interesting. We have got a lot of students who are actually becoming more aware of and more wanting to understand and discuss these issues. I'm not saying that's the way it is in all schools, unfortunately, but we've got some so-called adults who have still internalized the taboo stuff and who are finding it really difficult to move on, and we've also got adults who are worried about what they're going to lose -- you know, careers are in this thing, and mortgages have to be paid, and they can't lose a job ... and parents want to be seen as ... I mean, parents have got their own peer groups that they have to be responsible to, so there are all these factors that are in the way. We have a lot of young people, a lot of adolescents in schools, who are actually saying, "well, what the hell, you know? I'm growing up with/I'm friends with/I am gay. I am in these situations. I want this to be dealt with." Carla: The conference -- what was that about? Maria: We talked about the kinds of strategies we can use, the kinds of resources that we have. For example, New South Wales has got some of the best resources and educational systems -- the best policies, materials out there. We need more. For example, we certainly more material on lesbian students. There's been a lot of material for gay boys but we really need a lot more material that's sexually gender equitable. We also discussed issues such as what can you do if you're the one teacher in a school who wants to take this on, so we looked at strategies of resistance, strategies of politically getting things moving on, and we tried to address ... we tried to be really inclusive where people were coming from. So, for example, being an outspoken member of GALTAS may not suit some people. If they do become that, they may be able to actually do less than they're doing now, so we looked at different strategies that we can adopt. Carla: I've been speaking with Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli, spokesperson for the Gay And Lesbian Teachers And Students Association, GALTAS. Lucia: ... And that was Carla Omiciuolo in Sydney. ************************************************************* "This Way Out" is the award-winning internationally-distributed weekly gay and lesbian radio program currently airing on over 85 community radio stations in eight countries, on Costa Rica-based global shortwave station RFPI (Radio For Peace International), and on the Internet. Transcripts and *audio* of "This Way Out" programs are available online via Planet Out (http://www.planetout.com -- click on the "news & entertainment" area, then click on the "This Way Out" option; you'll also find a direct link there to downloading free RealAudio software), or through America Online via keyword "thiswayout". ======================================== Hungry for more frequent queer news? Run for coverage to the "NewsPlanet" area of Planet Out, or on America Online via keyword: "newsplanet" for weekday text news updates, prepared by many of the same people who bring you "This Way Out". ======================================== For lots of other information about "This Way Out" (including audiocassette subscription information), please visit our web page at: http://www.qrd.org/qrd/ ********************************* ===================================================================== Subject: When You're Blocked Online, Where Can You Go? Date: Thu, 18 Dec 1997 23:34:34 -0800 x-sender: chris@mail.cyberspaces.com From: "Channel Q" Sender: Channel Q News Desk December 9, 1997 WHEN YOU'RE BLOCKED ONLINE, WHERE CAN YOU GO? by Andy Oram American Reporter Correspondent CAMBRIDGE, MASS. -- Seventeen-year-old Virginia represented the kind of success story that should make any proponent of Internet access proud. Before going online she suffered from "a bout of clinical depression that had been with me since middle school, a condition that left me vulnerable to causing myself injury, marring that pretty skin, and thinking about committing suicide." Reading articles at her favorite Web site "was like a lifeline for me...Nowhere else could I read about people who were experiencing everything I was, and not feel like a freak for being able to relate to them...Now I'm the one getting e-mail from people, and now I'm the one trying to help other people get a glimpse of what it's like, of how to cope and how it really happens." This sounds like a story that President Clinton and Vice President Gore could trot out whenever they want to promote their goals for the Information Highway. But instead, Clinton and Gore are trying to make stories like Virginia's impossible. They are lashing up with right-wing "family values" groups and companies offering censorship in software. Virginia is a lesbian, and her support group at Oasis Magazine is one of the many sites for gays, lesbians, and bisexuals blocked by the software being promoted last week at the heavily publicized Internet/Online Summit: Focus on Children in Washington. While the summit promises "parental controls," few of these products actually give control to parents. Instead, they maintain secret lists of sites they consider inappropriate for children, including many that have nothing about sex or violence. Many public libraries have been forced by local governments to reverse their traditional role and use Internet filters to deny access to information instead of facilitating it. Both the U.S. government and the European Commission make no secret of their hope that Internet providers were install these filters right on their servers, giving individuals even less choice. Would-be censors "don't want us to tell you about things like rape and violence, and don't seem to care that many of you are raped and that many of you are victims of violence," says Clinton Fein of the annoy.com site, which challenged the Communications Decency Act. And certainly, filters would take away these children's key capacity to talk anonymously about their victimization on support groups aboutsexual abuse. Some sites that are blocked because they talk about sex can actually save lives. How many cases of AIDS or unwanted pregnancies could be avoided if young people could get access to Web sites that discuss the safe-sex practices many schools (not to mention parents) refuse to teach? Even talk about abortion is blocked by some filters. We might as well just shield our children from all the controversial political issues of the day, then release them at age 18 to join the rest of the ignorant voting population. Attorney General Reno spoke at last week's summit, absurdly conflating access to pornography with scares of "luring" young people away from home. But the young people who go online with concerns aboutsexual orientation hardly ever fall victim to luring -- rather, they find a helpful hand extended by people of the same age or slightly older, who can help combat depression and suicidal tendencies. "Traditional books and magazines are good resources," says Ben Jenkins of the Peacefire anti-censorship site, "but you can't use them to chat to with someone who's going through exactly what you're going through." Here are a few more testimonials to the value of the Internet. "Fooling around with married men, drinking alone, starving myself to avoid coherent thought, and chain smoking were only a few of the ways I mutilated my body and my self-esteem [before going online.] The lesbian message boards allowed me to learn and question without the stigma that my age carries in real life...Within an hour, I found an essay on gay Christians that proved that I could love God with impunity; within two, I found an online 'zine just for gay youth." -- Riki, 18 "If it weren't for the Internet, I'm sure that I would have killed myself by now. [Online] I met someone who always had an open ear to listen." -- Shaun, 18 "Throughout Jr. High and my freshman year of High School, I was deeply depressed and even suicidal. Finding only hatred for queers among my friends and family, I turned to the online world...Only through knowledge can we acheive understanding, and the censorship of such websites as Oasis would only push us as a nation and global community further back into a These stories were reported to me personally, but many more can be found in a report titled "Access Denied," released this month by the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. GLAAD is one of the organizations -- including Oasis, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Quirk at America Online, PFLAG, !OutProud!, and many others -- that offer online support for gays, lesbians, and bisexuals. These sites contain no pornography, but lots of political information and psychological help. And, increasingly, information about the threat of censorship from government laws and filtering products. It is important to protect these sites and the people who desperately need them. Don't install a filter on your computer, and don't let your Internet provider or computer vendor install them as a routine matter. -30- Andy Oram is moderator of the Cyber Rights mailing list for Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, and an editor at O'Reilly & Associates. ====================================================================== Jean Richter -- richter@eecs.berkeley.edu The P.E.R.S.O.N. Project (Public Education Regarding Sexual Orientation Nationally) CHECK OUT OUR INFO-LOADED WEB PAGE AT: http://www.youth.org/loco/PERSONProject/