Gerri August "Safe Spaces" & Erin Zelle "11 and Gender Fluid: Suits, Ties and other Staples From My Daughter's Closets"

Safe Spaces 

Gerri August 

            In the reading “Safe Spaces” by Gerri August, explains that classrooms are considered to be a safe zone where common interest and individual differences coexist. Many students encounter cultural and ethnic norms different from those of their family. The author also addresses how we need to pay more attention and keep LGBT youth more safe. Many people aren’t accepting of any sexuality besides being straight. August states, “Justin, a promising musician, was bullied because of his sexual orientation. He took his life after finishing freshman year. After Justin’s death, his mother campaigned to change district policies that required teachers to remain neutral regarding issues of sexual orientation” (pg.84). In today’s generation LGBT is becoming an up-raising situation where younger adults along with children and older parents or people in general aren’t sure how to react or handle the situation. A few years ago, this situation wasn’t as accepting as it is today, many people hid it from the world and still most do today! Sadly the ones who don’t and are more open to it, have to pay the price. On page 85 explains how if people learn to tolerate this situation and learn to except people for the way they are, we can learn from each-other and enjoy everyone’s company. August states, “The idea is that tolerance will grow as students gain appreciation for difference. We can learn from each other and enjoy each other’s ways of being family. So far, so good-until the family is two moms and their children or two dads and their adopted daughter. Such families rarely make the curricular cut-they are invisible.” The way I look at this situation is as long as someone is happy with who they are regarding if they are gay or not we should except them for who they are. In today’s generation we shouldn’t have to hide who we are because we are scared to be accepted by everyone, as long as your happy then that’s truly all that matters. Furthermore my statement should be carried through a classroom situation. 

Erin Zelle 

11 and gender fluid: suits, ties and other staples from my daughter’s closet

            As you read this article, the author Erin Zelle makes it clear that the message she is trying to send to her readers is that, people should except people for who they are. Zelle tells a story on how a woman’s child struggles for people to except who she is.  The child explains how she is a girl but she considers herself not girlie. The child explains that at day camp, other kids would say, “The girls tell me I’m in the wrong bathroom and don’t believe me when I say I’m a girl, they ask me to leave.” Later the mother explains how this makes her extremely frustrated and angry because she wants her child to be happy and lets her be who she wants to be. Children are scared of the unknown and don’t like change but sometimes it’s not only children that fear this. Adults along with children need to start excepting people who they are meaning if they are lesbian or gay or bisexual, anything as long as they are happy that’s all that truly matters. People or children no matter what age you are need to start realizing that times are changing along with people, we live in a world were LGBT is becoming a more acceptable thing were we see this almost everyday, no matter where we are. Later in the article the author explains how the mother’s daughter transformation become final when she decided to cut of her shoulder-length hair. The mother states, “A lightness followed. It was as though Sullivan’s skin finally fit, gloriously and comfortably, and she was finally her own – exactly as she wanted to be.” Reading this put the biggest smile on my face because if I was a mother all I would want is my child to be happy with herself and happy in general. If that means if she still considers herself to be a girl but dresses like a guy so be it, as a mother she accepts her child for who she is and for her own mother too so should everyone else especially if you have nothing to do with that child’s life.