{"id":7633,"date":"2013-09-18T08:50:23","date_gmt":"2013-09-18T15:50:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=7633"},"modified":"2013-09-17T11:12:43","modified_gmt":"2013-09-17T18:12:43","slug":"all-day-lgbtq-workshop-at-uvic-welcomes-and-celebrates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2013\/09\/18\/all-day-lgbtq-workshop-at-uvic-welcomes-and-celebrates\/","title":{"rendered":"All-day LGBTQ workshop at UVic welcomes and celebrates"},"content":{"rendered":"

An all-day workshop at the University of Victoria hopes to provide as many attendees as possible with strategies to build inclusive services for LGBTQ families.<\/p>\n

Welcoming and Celebrating Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity in Families, led by Canadian activist, educator, and author Rachel Epstein, will feature activities to get people thinking and communicating about easy changes that can be made within organizations and businesses to provide a more welcoming environment for gay- and lesbian-led families.<\/p>\n

\u201cOften it\u2019s the first time that people get to talk about LGBTQ-related things, and we try to create an environment that\u2019s open so they get to ask the questions that they don\u2019t always get to ask,\u201d explains Epstein, who emphasizes that the environment is more educational than confrontational. \u201cWe\u2019re not there to lecture people, we\u2019re asking people to really question themselves and reflect on early beliefs that they were raised with and look at them with a different perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hosted by the BC Council for Families, Epstein believes the workshop is the first of its kind in Victoria. Epstein, who has spoken to many postsecondary students as an educator on LGBTQ issues, says that it\u2019s particularly important that other educators are aware of these issues, and says that she encourages postsecondary faculty and staff in Victoria to head down to the workshop.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Activist, educator, and author Rachel Epstein (photo provided).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cIt would be great if they would attend, particularly anyone who is teaching in the world of social services and health,\u201d says Epstein. \u201cFor anyone who is out there in the world seeing lots of people, we\u2019d really, really encourage them to come to the workshop. They\u2019d be very welcome.\u201d<\/p>\n

Camosun College Student Society (CCSS) Pride director Piotr Burek believes postsecondary campuses can always improve services on campus to be more inclusive of LGBTQ people.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are still problems that need to be addressed for queer students on campus,\u201d says Burek, pointing out that, like all of society, Camosun operates \u201cwithin a larger heteronormative framework.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, Burek, whose job within the CCSS is to make sure LGBTQ students have the services they need, is always encouraged by the networking ability of queer students.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile queers still face marginalization, the campuses can be a great space for them to meet, gain friendships, and work on queerly awesome projects together,\u201d he says. \u201cSo, while problems exist, Camosun can be a pretty rad place for queers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Epstein explains that LGBTQ people have to deal with living in a heteronormative society at every step, and says there\u2019s always work to be done to make campuses more accepting and welcoming for everyone.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt gets played out in thousands of minute ways every day in our daily lives, walking into schools that are highly heteronormative, what\u2019s in the books or on the walls, it\u2019s all really based in heterosexuality,\u201d explains Epstein. \u201cIt\u2019s one of the most important concepts to understand, maybe even more than homophobia, because with homophobia you know when someone is being that way, but with the concept of heteronormative, it\u2019s in the air we breathe.\u201d<\/p>\n

Epstein\u2019s workshop takes place on Wednesday, September 25 from 9 am to 4 pm in the Cadboro Commons Building at UVic. To register for the workshop, go to bccf.ca or call 604\u2013678\u20138884.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An all-day workshop at the University of Victoria hopes to provide as many attendees as possible with strategies to build inclusive services for LGBTQ families. Welcoming and Celebrating Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity in Families, led by Canadian activist, educator, and author Rachel Epstein, will feature activities to get people thinking and communicating about easy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7634,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,112],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life","category-september-18-2013"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7633"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7633\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7635,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7633\/revisions\/7635"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}