ARC Listening to and Supporting LGBTQ+ Students: An Intersectional 4-Part Workshop Series (Fall 2024 Edition)

This series has been moved online to make it more accessible to everyone across the district.

Facilitated by: 

Sara Smith-Silverman (she/they), ARC History
Jose Alfaro (he/him), CRC English (for the third workshop on racial justice and queerness)
Rachel Stewart (she/her), Los Rios WorkAbility III (for the fourth workshop on disability justice and queerness).

According to interviews, LGBTQ+ students in the Los Rios district say that their educational needs are going largely unmet. They report near-total exclusion from the curriculum, little other support from their campuses, and struggles with mental health, all issues compounded for LGBTQ+ students from underserved communities: BIPOC, disabled and neurodivergent, low-income students, and trans students broadly. These students feel their struggles more intensely as a result of an incredibly transphobic and homophobic political environment in the U.S. due to the passage of a record number of discriminatory anti-LGBTQ+ laws being passed at state and local levels (including in California!), as well as anti-immigrant and racist rhetoric and legislation over the past several years.

Our LGBTQ+ students need your support. In the Spring of 2024, please consider participating in a 3-part workshops series on the lives and educational needs of queer and trans community college students, being led by Professor Sara Smith-Silverman at American River College. Though friendly to beginners, the workshops are intended to go beyond the typical introductory-level flex events focused on LGBTQ+ students by focusing on students’ multiple, intersecting identities and by centering their voices. This offering can build upon the self-directed online Safe Space training being offered by the ARC Pride Center.

The workshop series centers approximately 50 video-recorded interviews Professor Smith-Silverman conducted in 2023, with funding from the ACLS Mellon Foundation and Type A Leave. Get a sense of the interviews by watching this 1-minute video with Mico, a trans community college student, discuss his experiences.

To learn more about the research project and watch LGBTQ+ students tell their stories, visit QueerTransCollege.org (under construction), and follow the Queer and Trans Community College Student Oral History Project on Instagram and Facebook. 

Bios of Facilitators:

Sara Smith-Silverman (she/they) is a full-time Professor of History at American, where they teach American Women’s History and Introduction to Queer Studies. Their research has centered around social and labor movement history of the U.S., with a particular focus on the topic of queer labor history/studies. Over the course of 2023, they led a research project on the lives and educational experiences of queer and trans community college students. They are also active in Jewish Voice for Peace, a Jewish-led anti-Zionist organization calling for an end to the genocide in Gaza and freedom for Palestinians. They are facilitating/co-facilitating all four workshops.

Jose Rivers Alfaro (he/him) is the author of Something More Splendid Than Two published by punctam books press (2022). He is a professor of English and Queer Studies at Cosumnes River College. Both his teaching and his research are in the areas of Latinx Studies, Queer of Color Feminism, Dance/Performance Studies, and C19 American River Literature. He is a co-coordinator of Puente at CRC, a program dedicated to promoting equity for Latinx students. He is helping to lead workshop #3, focused on the intersection of race, ethnicity and queerness.

Rachel Stewart, Ed.D. (she/her) is a coordinator/counselor for the Los Rios Community College District WorkAbility III program, funded by Department of Rehabilitation (DOR) to support the transition to employment for students with disabilities. Over the last 15 years, she has worked for several organizations aimed at increasing employment of youth and adults with disabilities. A wheelchair user since the age of five, Rachel holds a strong commitment to the independent living movement and a passion for supporting individuals with disabilities in recognizing their strengths, finding community, and reaching their fullest potential. Rachel received a Doctorate in Educational Leadership from CSU Sacramento; her dissertation was focused on disabled student activism to create disability cultural centers on college campuses. She is co-facilitating workshop #4, focused on disability justice and queerness.