Join us for our regular monthly meeting welcoming the entire spectrum of LGBTQ+ community, friends, families, and allies for support and education. Our regular support group will follow the education portion.

Our PFLAG general support meetings will be held both IN PERSON and VIA ZOOM. Please note: all persons who wish to attend our in person meetings must be Fully Vaccinated against Covid-19.

Virtual meeting attendees still require RSVP. If you are new to Zoom, CLICK HERE to get set-up.

Please RSVP to rsvp@pflagmanhattanbeach.org

EDUCATION PORTION:

LGBTQ+ Studies in Schools: A Not-So Queer Idea
with Graham Lockett (he/him/his)

ABOUT THIS PRESENTATION:

Public school sites across the United States are far from homogeneous. In fact, some studies suggest that one fifth of all students identify somewhere on the queer spectrum. Yet, while diversity reports include race and socioeconomic status percentages, sexual and gender minority youth often remain invisible or worse: subjected to an onslaught of bullying. Studies suggest that 85% of queer-identifying youth have experienced homophobic-related bullying and 70% of those surveyed do not feel safe at school.

Consequently, more inclusive curricula is desperately needed to mitigate further disenfranchisment of queer students. While some universities offer courses in LGBTQ+ Studies, it is blatantly absent in the high school setting, despite courses in Gender and Ethnic studies being made available. Therefore, I will talk about the importance of queer curriculum in school environments, including discussing a semester-long course at my secondary school site. The hope is that it will create positive visibility for LGBTQ+ students, reduce homophobic bullying incidents, and ultimately improve the overall school culture of the school site.

ABOUT OUR PRESENTER:

Graham Lockett is a gay-identifying high school Science teacher at Culver City High School. In addition to being an educator for thirteen years, he is also currently pursuing a doctoral degree in Educational Leadership, with research focusing on the importance of LGBTQ+-inclusive school culture and curriculum in promoting safer school environments for all students. His main objectives are to promote more diverse, equitable, and inclusive school environments; this includes establishing his classroom as a safe space for all students, while tenaciously working to adopt more diverse, equitable, and inclusive school curriculum. This includes developing one of the nation's first "LGBTQ+ Studies" classes offered at the high school level. In his free time, Graham loves to travel (having been to over 40 countries), work out, attend live music concerts, and explore all of Los Angeles' exciting restaurants!

A NOTE ABOUT VIRTUAL MEETINGS:
We will be utilizing Zoom features that provide the highest level of safety and confidentiality possible.  Zoom is free to you and you need not have an account to join us.  If you are new to Zoom, you can follow the links [here] for brief tutorials on all you need to know to sign on to a Zoom meeting with us.  We ask that each of you that would like to participate in the on-line support, contact us in advance by email at rsvp@pflagmanhattanbeach.org to RSVP for the meeting.  We will cut off RSVPs at 5 p.m. on the day of the meeting.  All participants will receive a follow-up email with the link to the Zoom call and a password.  For confidentiality’s sake, please do not forward these to another participant — they are welcome to contact us directly to receive the link.

We ask that youth who may want to join for our support groups to please be joined by a parent.  Some heavy emotions can emerge in the course of our sessions and having a parent on-hand helps to ensure that the needs of any youth on the call are met.

There are some benefits to utilizing new tools like Zoom. We recognize that our typical evening support group meetings are not feasible for everyone due to work, family or other demands.  If there is a need, we would like to offer an additional support group Zoom conference call sometime during the daytime hours. If you are interested in a daytime support group, email us at info@pflagmanhattanbeach.org and let us know what times might be more workable for you.

If you need more personalized assistance and support, we remain here for you.  Email us confidentially and we will work with you to identify the best member of our team to assist with your individual needs.