ALEXIA BIANCHI FROM CAMPUS REFORM
Florida State University (FSU) offers its students a variety of educational handouts through its Allies & Safe Zones program. Handouts include “Transgender Etiquette,” “Bi-Basics,” “Allies & Safe Zones 101 Vocabulary List,” and more.
The Transgender Etiquette handout teaches students “about what is and isn’t polite in conversations with transgender people or how to interact with an individual who is gender transitioning.” It also warns students not to “police anyone’s gender expression.”
The Bi-Basics handout states, “For bisexually identified people to maintain their integrity in a homo-hating heterosexist society, they must have a strong sense of self, and the courage and conviction to live their lives in defiance of what passes for ‘normal.'”
The Allies and Safe Zones 101 Vocabulary list teaches students about “misgendering,” which consists in “[u]sing the incorrect name, pronouns, or gender for someone that is transgender.” According to the handout, misgendering is a “form of discrimination, when done consciously.”
A main stated goal of FSU’s Allies & Safe Zones program is to “push participants to examine the roots of their assumptions about gender and sexuality in hopes they will continue to do so in everyday life.”
