Pride Month activities featuring community workshop on identity

The workshop looks to provide the vocabulary and space to advance dynamic conversations for both those within the community and its allies, according to Ishani Dugar, lead trainer and peer group coordinator for the Pride Center. 

Rather than just listing labels, they said the training focuses on intersectionality and individualized experiences.

“It’s less of breaking down what the different terms within the LGBTQ+ community are, and more focused on talking through these identities that everybody has,” Dugar said. “We just all have different relationships and experiences with them.” 

Sexuality and gender, and the varying ways to identify within these facts, is not something limited to the queer community and the Pride Center’s efforts to promote this dialogue and understanding looks to destigmatize finding relation to LGBTQ+ community. 

Gender, particularly, is something so ingrained in our society and through this workshop Dugar hopes people can spend time considering the social construct and think about how to avoid using gendered language in their everyday lives. 

“Gender is the first thing that we think we know about a person,” Dugar said. “That kind of core attachment to gender has a really significant impact on all of us, whether or not that assumption ends up being true, and very much so when that ends up not being true.” 

As the topics of sexuality, gender identity and expression change and increase in visibility, Dugar said the best piece of advice is to “put people in a position where they’re giving you information about themselves, not correcting what you assumed.” 

Giving individuals the time and grace to come out and share their identities is also important, they said. Though defining labels isn’t the priority of the workshop, Dugar said having at least the vocabulary to describe your identity can be a first step. 

“Very often it’s hard to have that answer, even if it’s long, if you don’t have the vocab to start with,” Dugar said. “Even if people don’t use labels, we all have a relationship with them and that’s not just within the queer community, that’s at large.”

Expanding resources to those in the queer community, and the general public, is the goal of these educational workshops, Dugar said. They emphasized the center’s efforts are for everyone to ultimately become more empathetic, inclusive and respectful of one another. 

“Making sure we are developing at least some acknowledgement, if not like a full relationship, with all aspects of who we are is really important, I think on a personal level, in feeling like a more fulfilled human being,” Dugar said. 

The sexuality, gender identity and gender expression workshop will be held virtually from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Tuesday, June 9. Visit sanmateopride.org for more information.  

The Pride Center and other local organizations will kick off Pride Month with the ceremonial raising of the Progress Pride Flag at 9 a.m. Monday, June 3, in the courtyard at 400 County Center, Redwood City. 

The 12th annual Pride Celebration and second annual parade including floats, food trucks and local information will be Saturday, June 8. The parade begins at 10:30 a.m. at Second Avenue and B Street in San Mateo and ends at Central Park where the rest of the day’s festivities will be centered until 5 p.m. Go to smcpridecelebration.com for more information.

ana@smdailyjournal.com

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