North Orange County Community College District Employees will meet October 14, at Fullerton College to undergo training on how to create a safe space for LGBT students on campus.
“It’s for district employees only,” Vincent White, Cadena Cultural Center Coordinator said, “The emphasis was seriously wanting to have some kind of LGBT training for all of the district staff and now the district is doing this Friday.”
The training is a part of the district trying to highlight the importance of October in the LGBT community, with the Cadena Cultural Center teaming up with the Gay and Lesbian Association of District Employees (GLADE) and FC’s Queer People of Color (QPOC) who will be hosting events on campus this week before the training.
“It’s national LGBT history month, and Tuesday is the 6th annual LGBT forum,” White said, “normally this is a student forum but this year we have a keynote speaker who is also the trainer for Friday.”
The person who he is referring to is author, speaker, advocate and educator Ronni Sanlo.
“Part of the district’s payment to her is that she’s coming in to do something that’s a little bit more celebratory to mark the history month,” White said, “the students are still going to be apart of the forum, and we’re going to watch Letter to Anita.”
Sanlo lost custody of her children in 1979 after she came out as Lesbian and divorced her husband, largely due to the “Save Our Children” anti-gay parenting campaign led by Anita Bryant. The film is based around her struggle through this law and her life in the gay rights movement.
“She’s coming out to speak, and I believe she started UCLA’s LGBT center. She’s very active in higher ed training and she trains a lot of people, so she’s coming in on Tuesday and Friday.”
While the training Friday is for district employees only, students can attend the screening of “Gay Pioneers” on Thursday, Oct. 13 at 2 to 3:30 p.m. in Room 327.
“Thursday, the library is bringing in this 30 minute documentary about gay pioneers and about the early gay rights movement,” White said, “then we’re going to be bringing in a representative from the Long Beach LGBT Center, and student’s are going to have a discussion of where are gay rights standing now.”