The minutes of the OUTSPORT TORONTO directors' meeting from 15 November 2011 will be published once approved by the board, but there was a motion passed unanimously of which I want to make you all aware, and the events leading up to that motion.
As a result of OUTSPORT TORONTO's successful Scrum 2011 and the media attention we received leading up to it (I suspect), unsolicited, OUTSPORT TORONTO was contacted by the Planning Team of the Toronto District School Board’s FUTURES Conference 2012, the theme of which is Equity and Inclusive Education. The purpose of the contact was to invite OUTSPORT TORONTO to submit a proposal for a workshop at that conference. I remember receiving that eMail and thinking, "Wow! We got noticed! And this is the kind of stuff we want to be doing!"Â
Certainly, this is very much in line with OUTSPORT TORONTO's mission, vision, and values.
I forwarded that eMail to my fellow directors, and we passed a motion to proceed with submitting that proposal, and following through should the proposal be accepted with delivering the workshop. A working group met this past Sunday to work on drafting the 250-word abstract that is due 30 November 2011.Â
While we are still refining the wording, the abstract cites the statistic from a 2009 EGALE study that three quarters of all LGBT students feel unsafe in at least one area of their school, that half of their straight co-students agree with that perception, and that the most unsafe place is physical education change rooms. Bizarrely, in 2009, the Ontario Ministry of Education released a policy statement on inclusive education that addresses that. And yet nonetheless, two years after that policy statement's release, teenagers like Jameie Hubley are still taking their lives because they can no longer endure the torture (referred to as 'bullying') they suffer because of their sexual orientation.Â
It's got to stop! It can't just get better later. It has to get better now!Â
PE change rooms, and in particular high school sports teams, are microcosms for an entire school; they contain the idols, the thought-leaders, and the influencers of an entire student body. The change has got to start there.
OUTSPORT TORONTO has the opportunity to help with that. The conference is in May 2012. We have a starting committee to begin working on this initiative. While we are not guaranteed acceptance of our proposal, we are optimistic it will be accepted, as we were invited. And of course we can use help.Â
If you or anyone in your organisation is interested in helping with this initiative, please contact me directly at shawn.sheridan@OutSportToronto.org . And, if you know educators involved in Physical Education and Sports programmes in the school system who would potentially be interested in helping, we'd like to talk to them too. That includes LGBT and our straight allies.
This is an exciting opportunity for all of us to make a real difference. This is why I got involved. I was almost one of those teenagers. Help us make schools safe for LGBT kids... and everyone else.
Warm regards, Shawn
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Shawn Sheridan, Chair
OUTSPORT TORONTO
