Local advocates discuss public safety, pronouns, and more
By Nicholas Papini
Assistant Editor
MWCC’s Sexuality & Gender Alliance (SAGA) club hosts events and discussion panels throughout the year, including the Alphabet Soup Panel Discussion, which took place last fall. This panel brought to light the lesser known issues the LBGTQ+ community faces, including preferred pronoun usage and public safety.
The panel members included: John Gatto from the Justice Resource Institute; Melissa Manzi, MWCC’s mental health counselor; Kate Milligan and Toni Diaz from Youth Opportunities Upheld, Inc. (YOU, Inc.); and Shane Franzen from Fitchburg State University. The event was hosted by the SAGA club and their advisor, David Iannaccone.
Manzi stated that although rights have made huge leaps in recent times, prejudice certainly still exists. Gatto agreed that they do not feel comfortable holding their husband’s hand in some places, and don’t believe that feeling safe should come before a person being who they are.
“It’s a healthy, adaptive thing to be aware of where we’re safe and where we’re not,” said Gatto.
Manzi noted that the LGBTQ+ community is remarkably resilient in the face of its diversity. They are uniquely supportive of each other.
Gatto stated that they feel that the letters of LGBTQ+ in and of themselves don’t matter that much. They feel that people get hung up on them or conflate their knowledge of the letters and their meanings to mean that they know everything there is to the community. However, the people who care the most about those specific letters are those who identify by them.
Milligan believes that the reason new letters keep getting added to LGBTQ+ is that it helps their community to be more inclusive. New members feel more free to express themselves if there is a specific letter they can firmly identify with.
On the subject of preferred pronouns, Milligan feels that they are incredibly important. They stated that trans people already feel like the “other,” and that preferred pronouns help to validate them and make them feel more welcome.
Diaz said that, when uncertain which pronoun to use, they/them/their are good alternatives. They added that the pronoun a person uses is a part of them. Milligan agreed that using a person’s preferred pronoun validates their identity.
Diaz recognized that it is difficult for some people to use pronouns, and that sometimes mistakes happen. She encourages simple apologies in the case of slip ups.
With the current political climate, the panelists stated that they feel that society is taking the wrong steps with the LGBTQ+ community. Milligan said that they feel a lot of fear within the community, and Gatto believes that society is moving in the direction of exclusion and limited rights.
Franzen stated that this is the first time in his career that he has felt a little nervous about rights in colleges. While Franzen stated that he doesn’t believe that their college’s administration would support fewer rights for LGBTQ+ students, he fears for those in less accepting places than Massachusetts.
SAGA plans to host another panel discussion in Spring 2020, where a group of student panelists will discuss some of the other issues affecting the LGBTQ+ community. Details of the time, date, and location will be announced later this semester.
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