Friday, December 11, 2009
Educating the Educators
I am debating emailing the head of the Physical Therapy department at my university. I want to discuss there lack of knowledge in dealing with GLBTQA cases aka "students". They need a very direct and concise education on appropriate language, terminology, and needs of students. My experience in my internship that I technically failed because of my "gender issues" has lit a fire underneath my ass. My university advisor who has been handling this case and making sure I don't fail and making sure my next internship has an oh shit plan, while she has been great has not been great as well. My clinical internship teacher specifically used the term "gender issues" and said that is why I failed. My advisor addresses everything we have done as taking care of this issue. Now I want to be clear I don't have a gender issue the only issue are the people around me. There is a need to educate so that the student isn't blamed for others' ignorance and mis-education.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Yes, please do so. You got clobbered in your internship because of transphobia. This will happen again, if not to you, someone else--because there are no formal mechanisms in place Granted, this might happen even with safeguards in place. But at least there will be established policy and procedures to address any problem.
ReplyDeleteMy own institution is trying (in fits and starts) trying to get up to speed to be Trans inclusive. But for most non-Trans faculty and administrators, there's a significant learning curve.
I wish you the very best of luck on this. And thanks for being so brave.
This a comment that was emailed to me because it couldn't get posted. I am sorry there was trouble posting I wanted to just to make sure this individual gets a voice too.
ReplyDeleteDear Corbyn,
I tried to post this in a comment on your most recent post about coaching, but for whatever reason it wouldn’t post. I’m sure you already know about this, but in case you don’t or in case someone who reads your blog doesn’t (I was hoping to share this with them via the comment space), GLAD launched an initiative to study homophobia in sport and LGBTs’ athletics experiences. They’re collecting anecdotal information on their website, here: www.glad.org/help/share-sports. They’re interested in hearing from individuals from all “levels” and “roles”—youth, high school, collegiate, beyond, rec, coach, athlete, administrator, parent, etc.
Also, I don’t know if you know about the Women Talk Sports network. It’s a collection of blogs that deal with issues in women’s sports. The blogs are authored by both men and women, but they’re about issues in women’s sport. Being FTM and competing in the women’s division, I thought this might be a resource for you should you be interested in reaching a larger audience or being a part of a larger network.
All the best,
Risa