Support System (1)

What can straight people do to support their gay and lesbian friends and co-workers? How can someone learn more about transgender people? At Case Western Reserve University, faculty, staff and students turn to Liz Roccoforte, the director of Case Western Reserve University's LGBT Center, for guidance. She runs CWRU's Safe Zone Program, a three-hour workshop in which participants learn more about LGBT people, think about their own assumptions and become more effective allies. "We're hoping to create allies who'll go back into their offices and residence halls and be advocates," Roccoforte says.

Q. What parts of the training most often come as a surprise to people?
A. I think people are surprised that these identities are not simple. [It's] not one experience, being lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer. People are unaware of the small, unintentional ways people in the LGBTQ community experience marginalization. I use myself as an example. I have a ring on my ring finger. When people meet me, often the first question is, "What's your husband's name?" People are not trying to impose, but it puts me in a position of instantly having to come out or deny. Someone who asks a different question, "Are you married? What's your significant other's name?" or "partner's?" — that would be a cue for me. I would automatically feel safer with them.

Q. Which myths, stereotypes and misinformation come up most often?
A. People assume bisexual people sometimes are not monogamous, or that they really are gay and can't make up their mind, or really they are straight and just trying to get attention. We've been raised to understand gender as binary: women and men, male and female. It's not true. Some people don't fit in these categories. I find the myriad of expressions about gender beautiful, because it challenges what we've always assumed to be a given. With the trans community, people just don't have the information. What they know is from RuPaul's Drag Race, which is not the best example. There's a lot of stigma from well-intentioned people, around trans identities and transsexuality.

Q. What do people come in with based on seeing trans people in pop culture?
A. What other representations in media are there? Maybe Law and Order: Special Victims Unit — a sex worker, someone murdered. That's why Laverne Cox from Orange Is The New Black has been such a positive media presence. She's trans in real life, and she's playing a trans person on a show. Her story is real and emotionally honest and seen with some humanity. We switch to that and ask if people are familiar with her. We're bringing her to campus in November.

Q. What can a reader who finds this interesting do to be more of an ally?
A. Read and listen a lot. Be aware of your own language and assumptions about gender and equality in everyday life. Be committed to thinking about it and making a change in your own self.