This spring, Sara Smith-Silverman, who uses she/they pronouns, found themself needing to take on an extra section in their class load and she knew just what to fill it with.
Introduction to LGBTQ Studies has been offered since its inception at American River College in 2020. Despite this, the course has only recently found the shine of a spotlight through outreach and advertisements done by Smith-Silverman.
The two biggest hurdles Smith-Silverman says she faces when teaching this class are a lack of knowledge of its existence and making sure there are enough different sections to offer so it can fit into students’ schedules.
“Exclusion is so normalized, [students] don’t know to look for the class,” Smith-Silverman said.
This was the reason she pushed to have it advertised and seen this semester.
Through that need for an extra section in her course load, Smith-Silverman increased the course offerings to two: a hybrid and an asynchronous option. This growth is something she says the class needs and is hoping to continue offering that and more going forward. However, she notes that a full-time professor for the course would be helpful to get that goal off the ground.
The course description offers a very in-depth look into what the class covers, mentioning issues like how LGBTQ+ individuals and communities are impacted by various social, cultural, historical, and political factors, as well as covering resistance to oppression and queer activism. Smith-Silverman says they cover other topics that could fill more than one class such as pop culture, queer literature, film, disability and the prison system.
“Most people don’t know what it means to look at LGBTQ issues through an academic lens,” Smith-Silverman said.
They further explained that the course covers broader social implications and issues as well, like how heteronormativity and cisnormativity have shaped American culture and hurt both LGBTQ+ and straight communities.
Smith-Silverman said that students enjoy the class; it has difficult topics, but she tries to pair the hard with the hopeful, like discussions of the history of oppression along with the revitalization of Indigenous culture’s two-spirit identity. There’s affirmation and hope to be found along with the violent history of queer America.
“They’re almost in awe of being able to take a class with LGBTQ at its center,” Smith-Silverman said. “It’s a space that’s welcoming and supportive,” she said,
Smith-Silverman said they interviewed 50 queer students about their prior education on the LGBTQ+ community and “universally” the response was that nothing at all was covered or even briefly mentioned in high school. For this reason, Smith-Silverman is passionate that the class will fill a “large gap” in students’ knowledge and understanding of this topic.
When asked about their passion for the course, Smith-Silverman cited her ties to the queer community and that she saw a need and wanted to meet it.
“I’ve always been an activist,” they said with their chin held high. “I studied queer history in grad school because I was never taught it before. The ARC community needs this representation and normalization [of LGBTQ studies].”
To those who might be interested in an LGBTQ+ studies course, Smith-Silverman says now is the best time to take the class, even if it’s only out of curiosity. Lower division classes offer more flexibility and chances to take courses for fun, even if it doesn’t apply to one’s major.
The subject of LGBTQ+ studies applies to more than just the LGBTQ+ community as there’s a lot of intersectionality with other communities in today’s culture and anyone with an interest is encouraged to sign up.
