Angela Simon is Excited About What’s Going on for LGBTQ+ Students & Staff at El Camino College

This interview was conducted by PFLAG Manhattan Beach’s President: Cindy Byrne in the Summer of 2020

Tell me about your role at El Camino:

First of all, I’m a psychology professor. I’ve been there since 1996 and I hope to retire soon. I’ve been the co-advisor of what we used to call it the Gay Straight Alliance but a few years ago the members wanted to change it to the Gender Sexuality Alliance. I’ve been the co-advisor since, I looked it up, since 1999… I’m also the liaison for the school to the community for LGBTQ information. People can email me. We have our own email now specifically for the Safe Zone Project. It’s SafeZoneProject@elcamino.edu. So any student could email us and one of us involved with this Safe Zone Project, there’s quite a few of us, and we’ll get back to them. Or they can always email me – my email is asimon@elcamino.edu

That leads perfectly into my next question, which is what is the Safe Zone Project?

The Safe Zone Project is something started a couple of years ago. It is led by one of our counselors, Salvador Navarro. He’s been the big guiding force. What we do, we’ve presented two workshops to employees of ELCO, that’s administrators, classified staff and faculty. When we do it on campus, its about a 3 ½ hour event. We give them information on how to deal with the specific population of LGBTQ+ students. For example, history, terms, we give them a brief lesson on the difference between gender identity and sexual orientation. Then we do small group discussion of scenarios where a student will come to them with an LGBTQ+ issue and they have to figure out how to solve it. Then we as a large group come together and talk about it and introduce them to more of the resources available at El Camino. Its to give staff and faculty more information on how to deal with the sometimes special challenges of LGBTQ+ students. Then, after they finish the course, we give them a sticker that says they’re an ally -- they can put on their office door and students can know they can go to that person, it’s a safe person right off the bat. We’re doing a training for the ambassadors, those are student ambassadors at El Camino, so they can be more educated as to how to deal with their peers who are LGBTQ+.

The programs sound really ambitious. Do you find ELCO to be a welcoming place for LGBTQ+ students? And is this new?

What’s new is that we got an influx of newer faculty and staff who are really interested in getting a lot of stuff going for LGBTQ+ students. For years it was just me and one of my colleagues with the club. Then this influx of new energy came, which I’m so grateful for, Salvador and several counselors and staff and some administrators and faculty. New vibrant energy and they were really excited about getting a lot of stuff going. They’ve been helping with the club. The club has been more involved on campus now. I have two younger co-advisors in line to take over the club. They’re younger and have different ideas than me. We did the first gay PRIDE. Salvador had a whole queer conference planned for Spring, but it was cancelled. So we’re going to try to something like that, maybe on Zoom. But the administration has always been supportive and the current administration is too. I’ve had some students that have had some incidents that have occurred, which we always try to take care of right away. But I always believe we’ve had a pretty supportive administration.

What kinds of services and resources does ELCO offer that specifically address the needs of LGBTQ+ students?

One thing is a great resource that was put together by the group the last few years (I can’t tell you how good it is when you’ve been somewhere for awhile to have new energy come in, it gets you excited), anyway the El Camino website now has a LGBTQIA+ section. If you go to the website, at the bottom it says “LGBTQIA Students,” it has all sorts of information on it. It has resources available on it, information about coming out. It has stuff for students of color. It is full of information. I think that’s the best source for students to go to if they’re coming into El Camino and want to find their tribe. Another place to start is to email me or use the new Safe Zones email and someone will make them aware of what’s going on. There’s a lot going on at El Camino. In terms of things going on on campus, the student health center, they’re calling it the Wellness Center, has been fantastic and we’ve worked with them on different projects. The director of the health center has been fantastic and they’re very supportive of LGBTQ+ students. For example, they can get 6 sessions of free therapy. By the way, that’s something any university or college offers. At every school you pay a health fee, and that’s part of it, a certain number of counseling sessions free. They’re licensed counselors. Right now at El Camino, they’re doing them virtually. We also have STD testing and HIV testing there. We also work really closely with the SB LGBT Center. A lot of our students go there, participating in some of their groups and activities. They’ve helped us throw a Halloween party there. They also did a sleepover there for our students. We now have a scholarship especially for queer students. That’s brand new. We also have gender neutral restrooms, although all schools should have those by now. We were trying to get those for years and years, and then we made headway when it became the law. The Resource Fair is part of PRIDE week. We had a lot of different tables where people from campus and off campus to talk to students who identify as LGBT. PFLAG would be invited if we ever do it again. The library has a whole database with LGBTQ+ articles and materials. We’ve heard about ELCO’s student services focusing on the LGBTQIA+ community, can you tell us something about academics that explore the LGBTQ+ experience? Yes, that major is new this fall. Professor Stacey Allan of Sociology is the one who spearheaded this. If you complete the requirements you can get an AA in Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies. For LGBTGQ students there are some specific classes, not to toot my own horn, but I will… I do Psych 19, Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity, but I’m going to change that to LGBTQ+ Psychology. There’s English 46, called Sexuality and Identities in Literature, where their focus is on exploring LGBTQ identities via literature. In Psychology we have a Human Sexuality class, which I teach, others teach it too. In Sociology, they have Sociology 118, which is Sociology of Sexuality. That professor, Professor Wosick, she spends a lot of time on LGBTQ in that class. I spend some time in my Human Sexuality class, but it’s a much more general human sexuality class. We have several gender classes, and gender classes always have something on gender identity and sexual orientation. We have gender classes in anthropology, psychology and sociology, all of which cover gender and sexuality topics.

Especially in this time of coronavirus, how would you suggest a new LGBTQ+ student integrate themselves into campus life and find their tribe? Any other tips, especially for kids going away to college now – there’s so little opportunity for people to connect personally.
Most colleges now have some kind of LGBTQ resources, you just have to find it. Some are much better publicized than others. You can find sympathetic faculty and staff to help. At El Camino we are going to list people who’ve been through the Safe Zone training. These are people who students can go reach out to. Once students are on campus, a lot of professors, staff and administrators may have that Safe Zone sign on their offices, which means we’re people who are safe to talk to about LGBT issues. We’ll be having a GSA meeting every week on Zoom. Students will probably want to have some opportunities to meet in person. It’ll be every Tuesday from 1 to 1:50, just like our on-campus meetings. At other schools, you just need to do a little research to find out what’s happening. They could also go to a Center in their community and find out LGBTQ friendly contacts. Or a student could ask me if I know anyone at [their campus]. They could try the health center too as a place to go for information. Most places, especially in California, are going to have LGBTQ friendly events.