qsa workshop #2: queer & family

qsa workshop #2: queer & family
designed by talia young, talia@sccs.swarthmore.edu, fall 2000

objectives:

to make people think about how queerness relates to other "unconventional" family structures
to make people think about how queerness can thus help redefine "family"
to give people tools in helping them to deal with queerness and their families

materials needed:

preparation:

icebreaker:

name game:

we're going to go around and each talk briefly about where our names come from. i'll start.

ground rules:

confidentiality: not that you can't talk about what goes on here (on the contrary, please do continue discussions outside of the workshop) but don't go around saying "so-and-so was at the workshop and said such-and-such"
respect: there are probably a lot of us coming from different places; please respect each other. feel free to disagree with each other but please use "i" statements
no stupid questions: on a similar note, there are no stupid questions here; you should feel free to ask everything. i realize this can sometimes be a risky position to take, but i think it's important. if you think a question is offensive, you should say so, but that doesn't mean that it was stupid. anyway, we'll see how this one works.
any others?

activity:

who makes up your family now?

who do you anticipate will make up your family in the future?

are they different? how is each family "unconventional"?

break into groups of three (by alphabet?) to share your charts
come back to the big group to report
fill in part two of the chart, answering each question twice, once for you and once for your family:

what languages do you speak?

where were you born?

where do you live or where do you expect to live in the future?

what jobs do you have now or do you expect to have in the future?

how much money do you make or do you expect to make in the future?

do you classify yourself by race? if so, how? ("i don't know" is an acceptable answer.)

do you classify yourself by sexual orientation/gender? if so, how? ("i don't know" is an acceptable answer.)

what kind of friends and friendships do you have? (also: what race and class and sexual/gender orientation are your friends?)

do you talk about g/l/b/t/q issues in the way we're doing in this workshop?

do you talk about g/l/b/t/q issues in different ways than we're doing in this workshop? how?

what entries here are the same for you and your family? what entries are different?

do the similarities and differences bother you? if so, what and how?

what in this chart do you like?

what in this chart do you wish that you could change?

follow up/wrap up/conclusion: