LGBT+ talk

June is LGBT+ Pride Month. This year, on the 28th, we celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Stonewall riots, the demonstrations that are considered as the beginning of the LGBT+ liberation movement. So we decided to explain and discuss LGBT+ topics in class in order to raise awareness among our students, and we also managed to organize a talk with a professional.

Yesterday, a small group of about forty students aged 15 to 17 — an unfortunately small group, I would say, but June is also finals month — attended a talk by Gonzalo from Asociación Arco Iris, an LGBT+ association working all over Andalusia, Spain. Before starting his presentation, Gonzalo handed out a questionnaire that was rather uncommon. You could tell from the students’ faces that they were quite confused. Why was that? Because the questionnaire contained questions such as «When did you find out that you are straight?», «Did you tell your parents?» or «Have you ever thought of having gender reassignment surgery?». A rather witty way of nudging the students’ minds.

From there, Gonzalo started its talk. The best part was that it was never a lecture, but more of a journal. He told stories about himself and how some of his family members and friends had to cope with homophobia and how they came out to him. Then, between one story and the other, he explained the basics of sexual orientation and gender identity, while adding some statistics on what percentage of the population is intersex or bisexual or gay, and so on. I think this is what most interested the students. The anecdotes were entertaining, funny, relatable for some, but not sterile. They were meant to raise awareness about such important topics as homophobia and transphobia. And we were so caught by his words, that we forgot to take pictures. Sorry about that.

We are thankful to Gonzalo for coming to our school and helping us raise awareness on such important topics. We hope that this was just the first of many LGBT+ talks that IES Picasso will host. Bye!