“Better Together: Racial Justice and the LGBT Community”

This report “prepared by the Applied Research Center (ARC) in partnership with the Arcus Foundation, this study examines the relationship between racial justice organizations and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) communities, finding the lack of resources, funding, and community support are obstacles to engagement between the two communities.”

SchoolTube – TransGeneration Review

Check out our first ever videoblog with Sunshine, Recruitment and Retention Specialist with the Office of Recruitment and Retention sharing one of his favorite transgender (trans*) resources: TransGeneration.  An eight part documentary from the Sundance Channel that follows four trans* college students by showing viewers the different aspects of their life, relationships, and family. Click the link below to watch.  Enjoy!

SchoolTube – TransGeneration Review.

10,000 Dresses

10,000 Dresses: ” Bailey (a white girl of maybe 5-8 years old) dreams of a staircase of 10,000 beautiful dresses, each unusual and unique. She tells her mother, then father, then brother about her dreams, and asks each in turn to help her get one of the dresses she falls in love with, but each time she is rebuffed, because they say she’s a boy and “boys don’t wear dresses.” Discouraged, she runs away (“all the way to the end of the block”), and meets an older girl, Laurel, who is trying to sew dresses, but is disappointed because they each come out the same. Bailey shares one of her ideas with Laurel, and they make two dresses out of mirrors. Laurel declares that Bailey is “the coolest girl I ever met”, and asks Bailey if she can come up with any more dress ideas; Bailey assures her she “can dream up 10,000 dresses!” Raising My Boychick

Read interview with the author here.  Check out the ALA Rainbow List Project here.

The presence of books like 10,000 Dresses help create spaces that are free from discrimination and prejudice.  This leads to a learning environment that is safe and supportive of all people in the Burlington School District. Perhaps, for some, the need for this safe space is emphasized by the suicides of two gay youth, this week: a 13-year-old named Asher in Texas and a college freshman, Tyler, in New Jersey.