Welcome to the Student Organizer, a bi-weekly update of News, Info and Resources to help you change the world!
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STILL CALLING ALL STUDENTS AND STAFF FOR HELP WITH A NEW GLSEN RESOURCE ON HETEROSEXISM!

***Here's an idea for your next GSA meeting***
Discuss the ways in which heterosexism creeps into the daily rules and rituals at your school and share your thoughts with GLSEN. A GSA in Pennsylvania did just that and came up with the detailed list below!

Why should you discuss this? GLSEN is compiling your experiences for a new resource that will define institutionalized heterosexism, give specific examples of how it operates, and provide concrete strategies for dismantling it in your school.

If you've already responded to this request, thanks!! If not, see the details below and send in your feedback asap to shirschfeld@glsen.org!

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Feedback from a GSA in Pennsylvania:

1. Examples of institutionalized heterosexism in our school:
   • At graduation, boys have to wear navy sport coats and khaki slacks; girl must wear white dresses. No exceptions.
   • Sports are gender segregated (no girls allowed on the football team, no boys in field hockey, no girl's in the Weight Lifting Competition group)
   • Math classes have, upon occasion, made projects out of marriage economics.
   • Teachers, the college counseling office, and the admissions office all ask for "mother's name" and "father's name," not "parents' names"
   • It's cheaper to buy dance tickets as a couple, but same-sex couples have to buy tickets separately.
   • The dance sign-up sheets have a chart:Ticket #, Boy's Name, Girl's Name.
   • The dress code forbids boys to wear dresses or skirts.

2. Specific examples of what has happened to us.
   • A senior was forbidden from attending a school assembly for which formal dress was required because she was wearing a suit....[so] she had to serve a detention and miss the assembly.
   • I was told that I had to wear a dress to the school dance, or else my date and I couldn't get our picture taken by the photographer. I was also told I had to bring a date of the opposite SEX, not just gender.
   • Another student received a lot of harassment for her unshaven armpits.
   • At my old school, we had an event called Hush Day each year, in which the girls couldn't talk all day and the boys had to try to make them talk. If a boy could make a girl talk for any reason (including if he was sexually harassing her and she said "No!"), he would get her paper heart. The boy with the most paper hearts at the end of the day would win a color tv.

3. What have you done to change this?
   • Several girls have walked into the boys bathrooms, as they are often more conveniently located.
   • I met over a dozen times with various administrators to try and get the dress code changed to be more inclusive, as well as to get the dance policy changed.

Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2002 12:56:07 -0500
Sender:Student Pride Organizer studentpride@GLSEN.ORG
From:Student Organizing studentorganizing@GLSEN.ORG
Organization:GLSEN
Subject: SPECIAL ALERT
To:STUDENTPRIDEORGANIZER@LISTSERV.GLSEN.ORG

Welcome to the Student Organizer, a bi-weekly update of News, Info and Resources to help you change the world!
*****************************************************

Calling all students and school staff! Help GLSEN with a new resource on heterosexism by sharing your thoughts and experiences.

• Do you dread school dances and proms because traditional rituals make it uncomfortable for you to show up dateless or with your same-sex partner?
• Is using the school bathroom a daily anxiety because neither "boys" nor "girls" match your gender identity/expression?
• Do the curriculum guidelines, textbooks and other instructional materials in your school erase your identity and history?

Rules and rituals that reinforce heterosexuality and a narrow view of what it means to be male or female exist for many reasons-- certainly due to overt prejudice, but also because these systems have long existed and are unseen or taken for granted by many.

The first step toward undoing "institutionalized heterosexism" in schools is naming it and then offering alternatives to traditional practices with which schools have grown too comfortable.

Toward that end, GLSEN is developing a resource that will explore examples of heterosexism in school practices, and offer concrete strategies for moving toward greater equality. And we need your help!

Please write to us and share your thoughts on one or more of the following questions:

1. What are the forms of "institutionalized heterosexism" that bother you most in your school? (This may include prom rituals, athletic traditions, gender-specific bathrooms, school curriculum, celebrations of Valentine's Day or Mothers/Fathers Days, dress codes, course offerings, library holdings, school forms, or anything else that reinforces heterosexuality as the norm).

2. What personal experiences or observations have you had with regard to institutionalized heterosexism in your school? Describe specific rules, practices or incidents that you know of and which illustrate heterosexism.

3. What have you or others done to change institutionalized heterosexism? Has any particular individual, group or the school leadership taken specific action to change heterosexist practices?

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Join us at the Los Angeles Marriott, October 4 - 6, 2002 for
GLSEN's Sixth Annual TEACHING RESPECT FOR ALL Conference
http://www.glsen.org/templates/events/article.html?section=50&record=617

The Day of Silence Project - April 10, 2002
Join thousands of students to protest the silencing of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in schools across the country.
Register online at http://www.dayofsilence.org today!

How can you make a difference?
Take action immediately by logging onto the Safe Schools Action Network.
http://glsen.policy.net/

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• If others wish to receive this directly, please register online @ http://www.glsen.org (in the "students/GSA" section)!

• To UNsubscribe, please email ctuttle@glsen.org w/ the Subject line "SPO-XX REMOVE" (Where XX Appears, please enter your state's initials.

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