What's it like as a Community Educator at PFY

by Jill Estes In my role as the community educator here I go into a lot of high schools to talk about LGBT topics. The topic I speak about most often is homophobia, and how it affects our society and our social structures. March was a very busy month for community education here at Pride for Youth! I did over 20 workshops across several Nassau County schools. Many public schools host a special day once a year where instead of the kids sitting in their regular classes, they get to hear guest speakers and attend different workshops. These speakers deal with a variety of topics such as suicide prevention, cyber bullying, and discrimination, among others. Schools often have special titles for these days like “Wellness Day” or “Human Relations Day.” I was fortunate to be invited in to a few of these days to speak about homophobia. These workshops really do help open the eyes of many youth to how much of an impact homophobia has on our society and what they can do to combat homophobia in their daily lives. Any community educator can tell you that you never know which direction a class will take even when each workshop of the day is on the same topic. Personal interactions with a group of kids can bring up many different opinions and questions. I can honestly say that during each workshop I do I learn something about myself and about our growing community! These amazing kids are actually helping me learn as well. As a grown lesbian woman doing workshops on homophobia I can definitely say that I’m passionate on the topic I speak on. The other day during one of my presentations we were speaking about LGBT and the media. As we know there is much more negative media than positive. The AIDS epidemic came up in conversation. One of the kids stated, “Gay people just get AIDS more than straight people”. I responded with, “I want you to all put yourselves in the shoes of an 11 year old boy who just realized he is gay. All he see’s in the media is that a lot of gay people are dying of AIDS, that it is illegal for him to get married (which implies there’s something wrong with him) and the high amount of hate crimes committed against the LGBT community. Then this boy goes to school. Every day, all day long he hears things like ‘that’s so gay’, ‘no homo’ and ‘faggot’. Try to imagine how he feels. If you were in his shoes would you tell anybody that you were gay”? Instantly this group of kids who at first it was difficult to keep their attention, turned to a group of kids who were attentively listening and obviously putting much thought into what I had said. It was an amazing turn around that I will never forget. And I don’t think they will either. I am truly grateful to be able to do the work that I do and to reach as many people as I do.