Workshops

• Introduction to the Gender and Sexuality Center: Women’s and LGBTQIA+ Community Center
• Affirming LGBTQIA+ People: Interpersonal Allyship (Allyship Toolkit Part 1)
• Affirming LGBTQIA+ People: Organizational Allyship (Allyship Toolkit Part 2)
• Affirming LGBTQIA+ Students & Colleagues
• Identifying and Interrupting Sexism in Classrooms and Workplaces (Staff/Faculty Only)
• Working Towards Gender Justice (Student Only)
• What Do Thriving Queer Communities Look Like?, Presented by Peers for Pride
• Bi and Beyond: Talking about Fluid Sexuality Identities
• From Allyship to Advocacy: Supporting Transgender Communities
• Histories of & Accountability to Trans Feminisms
• Intersectionality & Allyship
• Request a custom workshop (Note: Please request 1 month in advance)

Attend an Open Workshop(s):

During the fall and spring, we offer workshops open to ALL students, staff, faculty, and administrators employed at The University of Texas at Austin. If you do not have access to UT Learn, please consider requesting a workshop and you can find more information below. Email gsc@austin.utexas.edu for more information. Workshops are generally provided in buildings with both ADA accessible & gender-inclusive restrooms. ASL and captioning are available upon request. For any accommodations, please contact the GSC at least 3 business days in advance at gsc@austin.utexas.edu.

UPCOMING OPEN TRAININGS: (Register on UT Learn NOW!)

• Ally Toolkit Part 1 – Tuesday, March 21, 2023 from 10AM-12PM on Zoom 
• Ally Toolkit Part 2 – Thursday, March 23 from 10AM-12PM on Zoom 

To learn more about the upcoming training/workshop schedule and register, click on this link.  (You will need to have access log in to UT Learn, and search for the training)

If you are a student who wants to attend this workshop, email michelle.ramirez@austin.utexas.edu 

Request a Workshop:

If you would like to request one (1) or more workshops or a workshop specific to your needs, for your faculty, staff, and/or students, in or out of the classroom, please fill out a workshop request form two (2) weeks in advance of desired training/workshop date. The GSC will contact you in 3 – 5 business days to gather more information about intended learning goals and confirm your request. A minimum of 10 or more participants is requested for a requested workshop/training. Please keep in mind that there is only one (1) facilitator who presents and facilitates the GSC workshop. Therefore, we ask that you submit your workshop request at least two (2) weeks to a month in advance. The workshop requester is responsible for providing a computer/laptop, projector, and audio to present the presentation for in-person training.

Introduction to the Gender and Sexuality Center: Women’s and LGBTQIA+ Community Center

Workshop Length: 30 Minutes-60 Minutes

What resources does the Gender and Sexuality Center have? How can I get involved? Gender and Sexuality can answer all your questions! A GSC staff will talk about all the resources (i.e. workshops, events, leadership opportunities, library, etc.) that are available to UT students, staff, faculty, and administrators.

Note: The GSC offers tours for groups but would need to be scheduled in advance.

Affirming LGBTQIA+ People: Interpersonal Allyship (Allyship Toolkit Part 1)

Workshop Length: 2 Hours

Note:

• LGBTQIA+ Identities (Ally Toolkit Part 1) is a prerequisite for Practicing Allyship (Ally Toolkit Part 2).
• Attend this workshop on its own or continue on to Practicing Allyship (Ally Toolkit Part 2) with the option to join Allies in Action.

In this intersectional workshop for LGBTQIA+ and non-LGBTQIA+ identified people, you will learn and practice a series of vocabulary tools for your support of LGBTQIA+ justice in your classrooms, offices, and conversations. You will learn and practice describing the differences between assigned sex, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, and romantic orientation; you will reflect on your own identities. You will practice identifying – and enacting bystander intervention in – microaggressions around gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, and romantic orientation. And you will set your intention for inclusive language (including pronouns) for your communities. You will also learn about existing and necessary campus resources for LGBTQIA+ people.

Workshop Materials:

• Pre-Evaluation Form
• Post-Evaluation Form
• Handout – LGBTQIA Definitions
• Handout – A Gender and Sexuality Model
• Handout – LGBTQIA Histories
• Handout – Heterosexual & Monosexual Privilege

Affirming LGBTQIA+ People: Organizational Allyship (Allyship Toolkit Part 2)

Workshop Length: 2 Hours

Prerequisite: LGBTQIA+ Identities (Ally Toolkit Part 1).

Note:

• This workshop is available only for people who self-select or volunteer to attend. If you supervise someone whom you would like to see build their familiarity with LGBTQIA+ terms and concepts, please advise them to attend the LGBTQIA+ Identities (Ally Toolkit Part 1) workshop.
• At the end of this workshop, you will have the opportunity to sign the Ally Program Pledge and receive the Ally Card.

In this workshop for LGBQA+ and straight people as well as for TQIA+ and cisgender people (and people whose identities overlap), you will learn and practice interrupting systemic oppression of LGBTQIA+ people in your classrooms, offices, and conversations. You will learn about and practice identifying how multiple systems of oppression (including racism, ableism, classism, and sexism) overlap with heterosexism and cisgenderism on our campus. You will reflect on your own social identities, your relationship with systems of oppression, and your roles in interrupting oppression to make campus safer and more welcoming for all LGBTQIA+ communities.

Workshop Materials:

• Pre-Evaluation Form
• Post-Evaluation Form
• Handout – Daily Effects of Cisgender & Heterosexual Privilege
• Handout – Identity Wheel
• Handout – GSC Allyship Program Pledge (signing optional)

Affirming LGBTQIA+ Students and Colleagues

Workshop Length: 60 – 120 Minutes

Note: This workshop is not part of the Allies in Action Program. To complete the Allies in Action Program, you must attend an Ally Toolkit Part 1 and Part 2.

In this workshop, we will work through a series of strategies for creating gender and sexuality affirming offices, conversations, and classrooms. This workshop describes why it is important that we all do this work, and how affirming all LGBTQIA+ people also means affirming people of color, people with disabilities, undocumented people, and people of more than one marginalized identity. In this workshop, we’ll share how-to practices for doing our homework, practicing an assumption-free language, hearing and affirming and using the language folks ask us to use for them, representing as well as intervening, and learning from mistakes, then beginning the cycle again. This is a workshop for LGBQTIA+ people and straight people, transgender people, non-binary people, and cisgender people, and people of more than one of these identities.

Workshop Materials:

• Pre-Evaluation Form
• Post-Evaluation Form
• Handout – LGBTQIA Definitions
• Handout – A Gender and Sexuality Model

  ---

Identifying and Interrupting Sexism in Classrooms and Workplaces – Staff / Faculty Only

or Working Towards Gender Justice – Students Only

Workshop Length: 60 Minutes – 120 Minutes

Note: At the end of this workshop, you will receive an official GSC sticker for completing this training/workshop. Identifying and Interrupting Sexism in Classrooms and Workplaces workshop is offered once a semester and participants can register through UT Learn. Additionally, Identifying and Interrupting Sexism in Classrooms and Workplace workshop is one of the requirements to complete the DDCE Diversity Certificate.

Workshop participants will learn about and practice identifying how sexism affects each of us and how to interrupt sexism. We will discuss what sexism is, how—in large and small ways—it diminishes women’s and femme people’s quality of life, and how different women and femme people experience sexism differently. We will talk about how sexism affects people of all genders through social expectations about gender roles and gender expression. This interactive workshop also engages participants in describing how racism, homophobia, and transphobia amplify and are interconnected with sexism, and then offers practice interrupting moments of intersectional sexism in your daily life.

Workshop Materials:

• Pre-Evaluation Form
• Post-Evaluation Form
• Sexism Definitions

What Do a Thriving Queer Communities Look Like?, Presented by Peers for Pride

Workshop Length: 50 – 90 Minutes

Note: At the end of this workshop, you will receive an official GSC sticker for completing this training/workshop.

“What do thriving LGBTQIA+ communities look like?”

Each spring semester, UT student peer educators engage audiences in building answers to this question through performance-based workshops. Facilitators perform and engage audiences in discussion of fictional and realistic scenes of interrupting exclusion within and of queer communities on campus.

This workshop generates participants’ capacity to describe and imagine affirming intersectional communities of LGBTQIA+ people on campus, with the support of allyship of people who do not identify as LGBTQIA+, in order to make our campus a place where LGBTQIA+ students thrive.

Bi and Beyond: Talking about Fluid Sexuality Identities

Workshop Length: 60 Minutes – 120 Minutes

Note: At the end of this workshop, you will receive an official GSC sticker for completing this training/workshop.

In this workshop, we will talk about bisexuality, pansexuality, and fluid sexuality, the terms people use to describe their attraction to people of more than one gender. You will learn a little bit about the history and work of bisexual advocates, and you will build your understanding of and practice strategies for interrupting biphobia and bi-erasure (both inside and outside of LGBTQIA+ communities). We will brainstorm actions for supporting the work of bisexual, pansexual, and fluid advocates to make UT a more welcoming place for bisexual, pansexual, and fluid people.

Workshop Materials:

• Pre-Evaluation Form
• Post-Evaluation Form
• Non-Monosexuality Terms & Concepts
• Daily Effects of Monosexual Privilege

From Allyship to Advocacy: Supporting Transgender Communities

Workshop Length: 60 Minutes – 120 Minutes

Note: At the end of this workshop, you will receive an official GSC sticker for completing this training/workshop.

In this workshop, you will have the opportunity to create a practice of collaborating to make UT safer and more welcoming for transgender and gender-nonconforming people. You will practice setting an expectation of using gender-inclusive language, respecting and honoring each person’s own gender identity and expression, noticing and interrupting how stereotypes about race and ability amplify transphobia, supporting the work of transgender and gender non-conforming advocates, sharing information about UT policies, and complying with Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.

Throughout, we will build your understanding of and practice strategies for interrupting transphobia, transmisogyny, and cisgenderism (both inside and outside of LGBTQIA+ communities) in order to follow the leadership of trans advocates to make UT a more welcoming place for trans people.

Workshop Materials:

• Pre-Evaluation Form
• Post-Evaluation Form
• Handout – LGBTQIA Definitions
• Handout – A Gender and Sexuality Model
• Handout – Daily Effects of Cisgender and Heterosexual Privilege
• Handout- Privilege for Sale

Histories of & Accountability to Trans Feminisms

Workshop Length: 60 Minutes – 120 Minutes

Note: At the end of this workshop, you will receive an official GSC sticker for completing this training/workshop.

In this workshop, we will learn a little bit about the history and work of trans feminists as central to feminist movements, and we will build our understanding of and practice strategies for interrupting transphobia, transmisogyny, and cisgenderism (both inside and outside of feminist spaces). We will define terms and reflect on our own gender identities, gender-based privilege, and experiences of oppression in order to understand how transphobia, transmisogyny, and cisgenderism operate, how these oppressions are part of sexism, and how vital trans feminisms are to all feminist projects.

Workshop Materials:

• Pre-Evaluation Form
• Post-Evaluation Form
• Transfeminisms Definitions
• Transfeminist Histories
• Handout – A Gender and Sexuality Model

Intersectionality & Allyship

Workshop Length: 90 Minutes – 120 Minutes

Note: At the end of this workshop, you will receive an official GSC sticker for completing this training/workshop.

What is intersectionality and allyship? Intersectionality, coined by Dr. Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, is the theory that multiple identities intersect to create a whole that is different from the component identities, which relates back to systems of discrimination. Being an ally is an ongoing process of unlearning, re-evaluating, and journey, and not an identity. Allyship is recognizing by whoever we choose to ally ourselves with. It is important that allyship is about creating platforms and spaces for those without privilege. You will learn about and practice identifying how multiple systems of oppression (including racism, ableism, classism, and sexism) overlap with gender and sexuality on our campus. In this interactive workshop, we will learn more about intersectionality and how it relates to being an ally.

Workshop Materials:

• Pre-Evaluation Form
• Post-Evaluation Form
• Identity Wheel
• Handout – LGBTQIA Definitions