This is the very true story of working hand in hand with social workers who are homophobic
Working in child welfare, I was excited to learn that the company I was contracted with was going to complete LGBTQ training. As a member of the community, I had been subjected to vast discrimination against my way of life, and it was a struggle that was a regular secret kept in the State of Florida.
With the exception of Key West, being homosexual in Florida is a hard way of life. It was unacceptable, and something you needed to keep to yourself. It was a regular practice to hear my fellow social workers say things like, "why are gays so flamboyant?", or "why do they have to throw it in my face that they are gay?" I knew it was a battle I would never win, so I didn't even entertain the conversation. Most people believe that homosexuality is a mental health issue that can be treated if you pray the gay away. I had also heard that it was a cry for attention, a phase, or a person was just completely confused. It was hard to wrap my head around this being the opinion of highly educated professionals that were supposed to work ethically in our diverse communities, giving them the ability to serve our customers and clients that were the most vulnerable.
One specific child we took onto our case load in rural Central Florida was transgendered. She was born biologically male, but was committed to a mental health facility to fix her identity issues. I remember discussing her case with the IT worker (who also did a million other jobs, like transport) who had transported her in the past. The IT worker told me he would never address the youth as a woman, and would only call her by her birth name. He went on to explain what it was a call for attention.
During the same time transgendered bathrooms came into the news and was a hot topic in our conservative community. The Program Director of my child welfare program came in one day, stating, "can you believe it? You can just wake up one day and say you feel like a female. Then you can go perving in the bathrooms. You can check the "female" box on government forms. What's next? I can be Chinese if I want?" Again, being gender fluid I was concerned that the man that hired mere a year prior had an opinion on my way of life, but because he didn't know, I was in a safe zone.
So here I was, driving to my LGBTQ competency training, hoping to convert some of my coworkers to be a bit more understanding to the lack of equality in our State. The training was being put on by one of our co-workers who was not related to the community in any way, but I had an open mind, hell, the most open in the company, so it couldn't be the worst training I had attended. Boy was I wrong.
The training started off with a preface that this training was mandatory. That we may not leave competent, but we need to leave tolerant. The trainer asks allowed, "Who here feels that our company is not tolerant to LGBTQ?" My hand quickly shot up out of reflex, almost as if they asked, who likes chocolate cake? I looked around, and everyone stared at me with horrified looks on their faces. A social worker never considers that they could prejudge someone and treat them like dog shit because of preconceived notions, but they all did.
The trainer started to explain the different gender identities and sexual orientations that existed. Of course there was the regular snickering and giggling of someone hearing this for the first time, but what I heard come out of a Manager sitting behind me was much more disgusting. He leans over to talk to his Case Manager he supervises and says lowly, "they are all called fucking faggots". I know he said it loud enough, hoping others would hear and think it was funny. But it wasn't. He was in a room of aquaintances, and didn't even care to think that someone in the room would or could have been that "fucking faggot".
The next part of the discussion was about the new law that passed in the State of Florida at the time that homosexual couples now had full rights to adopt children as couples, as opposed to only allowing a one parent adoption in the past. A worker stood up to share her thoughts on the new law, and stated, "I had a belief that if homosexuals would adopt our kids, they could turn the child gay as well". Now, even if you think this stupid comment to be true, it's something that should never be said out loud. Especially to a room of social workers who were supposed to have an open heart and open mind. I looked around the room, hoping to see some disgust on their faces, but I saw quite the opposite, an agreement among my coworkers. Was this really happening?
After listening to the anti-gay propoganda for way too long, it was time to do a team exercise to understand the trials and tribulations that the LGBTQ community is subjected to in regular every day life. As we are lining up to complete our activity, and hearing the details of how the exercise was going to go, a co-worker says, "I completed this same exercise to understand the LGBTQ community when I interned at the AIDS clinic". I felt completely emasculated at that point. My coworkers were lumping the disenfranchisement of our lives with the AIDS epidemic. So, if I said out loud at that point, that I was in fact homosexual, would the whole company think I had AIDS as well?
After the mandatory training that was put into place by my company, I had felt completely defeated. I felt like we had taken 2 steps back from what we believed, and bringing it light in the training in no way liberated my community, nor established rights. Florida has a long way to go until they can say they are LGBTQ competent, let alone even try to use the word tolerant.
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