eSignature Summer Camp Letter to Parents Made Easy

E signature summer camp letter to parents

all right well hello everyone um i'm so glad that you're here um and i do want to set the the bar you know at the normal level for this because i i just feel it's so important to say this work cannot be solved in just one webinar um but hopefully this will at least get the conversation conversation started um we're so excited to be teaming up with the summer camp society um who is doing just incredible work um elevating the voices of minority and minoritized communities so that we can get every kid at camp in a safe space um with no exceptions so i just want to let you know some of the content is going to be pre-recorded um some of it's going to be live so it's going to look like i threw three costume changes in the first three slides but i'm just wearing this cool dinosaur shirt um but we have so much to get through i i talk way too fast naturally so try to keep up if not um like like kurt said it's gonna be recorded so feel free to rewind start over whatever you need to do um the first couple of slides are going to be me kind of talking about transplanting and what we do and then we're going to talk about some statistics and i do want to include a trigger warning for those statistics i think it's very very important that we understand why this work is important um so as we are doing this work you know there's going to be people who who want to be roadblocks or want to hold you back and and it's gonna be hard so i really want you to walk away from this with a good why of why this work needs to be done um so it is gonna include some some pretty grim statistics um so we are gonna talk a little bit about suicide rates and self-harm so if at that point you do feel a little bit too uncomfortable feel free to hop off hop back on i just wanted to let everybody know that that was that was kind of common so i'm gonna i'm gonna put on these cup first couple of videos and then and then i'll be back live with you all right so let's just hop right in and talk a little bit about transplanting um what we do and how we do it so uh but we are a company that's working to create more equitable safer spaces for transgender and gender non-conforming people through education community conversations and empathetic guidance and so right off the bat we just want to define expectations and give you a little preview of what to kind of expect as we do this work together and really set the tone for how we are going to create impactful change so we are a justice minded organization meaning um we want to go beyond just diversity we want to go beyond inclusion um and really get even past equity to justice and defina lazarus stewart said it best when they said justice challenges whose safety is being sacrificed and minimized to allow others to be comfortable maintaining dehumanizing views and this is what we so often often see with the lgbtqia plus community is that our safety is sacrificed in order for other people to be entitled to their own opinion and what we will never be is complicit in our own oppression now that being said we understand that we are all a product of a really biased system that privileges many and oppresses many um it's it's not our fault that we are in the system and it's not our fault that it was constructed the way it is but it is our responsibility to dismantle any type of construction that allows some to be privileged and some to be oppressed um so there there is no such thing as social justice neutral um to not talk about these things is to uphold the ideals that some are less than or some people are be to be devalued or their their identities are to be silenced um and it's gonna get uncomfortable you know we all have a lot of stock in a in a two and two only gender system um but it's dangerous it's dangerous to trans people it's it's dangerous to anybody who has a gender identity that's outside of very simple male and female so we know that shame does us no good our responsibility is to help you have the greatest and safest organization for transgender and gender non-conforming people and as long as you're a willing ally as long as you're willing to learn um we want to help you do that now that being said um we are people um i'm a transgender man that means i i have to be vulnerable to be in the space with you and have this conversation um so i'm i'm not gonna present to you the other side of the argument um that lgbt folks deserve acceptance um i'm not going to present why people think that transgender people don't exist or are just uh making up their gender identities and the science is faulty it's dangerous and it results in the the oppression of of myself and my community so if you're still on the fence about um how you feel about that um unfortunately we're not the best place um to be to be having that conversation but i do urge you to find an ally to continue doing research if that's something that you can open your heart to um but i i'm not willing to have the conversation about whether transgender people exist or not now that being said we wanted to make sure that we were really open and honest about the the things that we believe and the lines that we won't cross and the discussions that we won't have so that being said these are the truth that we live by trans girls are girls meaning even though they were assigned male at birth if they are a trans trans girl they are a girl and they should be treated as a girl whether or not they have permission from their parents um whether or not we look at them and say that is a girl if they say they are a girl they are a girl same for trans boys trans boys so boys who were assigned female at birth who say they are boys are boys whether or not their parents agree they are boys um non-binary identities exist and are valid um there's there's so many ways that we try to fit people into this dichotomy of male and female that is just faulty there are people that exist that are not male or female and we will not argue about that they is a acceptable singular pronoun um miriam webster has um has said that they is an acceptable singular pronoun and if someone leaves their umbrella somewhere and you don't know whether it's a male or female you would say they forgot their umbrella that is um the use of theirs as a singular pronoun um not only that but to argue about grammar over someone's identity is is harmful and hurtful and and really doesn't help with acceptance um lgbtqia people should not be treated as controversial just for existing without their full personhood um so we believe that staff members that campers should be able to express themselves their sexualities their gender identities um without feeling like they are a burden or that they are shameful or that they should hide who they are and we believe that the safety of transgender and gender non-conforming people should be prioritized over the discomfort of others so through statistics it is shown that transgender and gender non-conforming youth are at a very high risk for suicide they are a danger for harassment harm in schools and we just can't continue to ignore that because it makes other people uncomfortable to have this conversation wow that was pretty intense and after a lifetime of being asked to keep who i was a secret or take up less space than i deserved it's still really hard to draw boundaries like that but it's vital that we come to a mutual understanding about the humanity and the validity of transgender and gender non-conforming people to do this work together trans youth face incredible hardships and although they prove their resilience time and time again sometimes they're hopeless then in schools 77 percent of those who were out or perceived as transgender were verbally harassed 24 were physically attacked and 13 were sexually assaulted 61 percent of transgender and non-binary youth have been discouraged or prevented from using a bathroom that corresponds with their gender identity which is up three percent since 2019. in their homes only 51 percent of trans and non-binary youth feel safe enough to share their identity with their parents and only one in three find acceptance there with at home acceptance rates so low it's no surprise that 38 percent of transgender and non-binary youth have experienced housing instability while shelters are being told they don't have to open their doors to transgender people and almost half of trans and non-binary youth who have wanted to receive mental health care don't seek treatment due to concerns that they wouldn't be able to find a transcompetent mental health provider so with widespread mistreatment in our schools and rejection in our homes and our faith communities and emergency shelters being barred from playing sports being afraid to seek help from a mental health provider and even being disallowed from using a bathroom sometimes resilience isn't enough in the past 12 months alone 60 percent of transgender youth have engaged in self-harm 52 percent have seriously considered suicide and 21 percent have attempted to take their own life that's one in five who thought that they would choose death over life of alienation and exclusion one in five every year but there is good news all we have to do is change that we believe kids and affirm who they already know that they are studies also show that for every context that a trans youth's name and pronouns are respected their suicide rate is cut in half for trans youth that have thriving and welcoming communities their suicide rate falls to equal or below the national average camps can be that community and in fact camps must be that community we have to stop making decisions out of fear of who we may lose and focus on who we stand to gain for every parent who wants to fight you about gender inclusive policies there's a parent hoping that their child will be safe at your camp because they haven't found acceptance in their schools and for every camper that doesn't quite understand why you want everyone to share their pronouns when you're doing introductions there's going to be a camper who gets to use a pronoun that fits them for the first time in their lives you are the most powerful people in the world to these kids and they need the magic of camp just as much as anyone else so let's get to work all right um i don't think it's any shock why i recorded that um it was very hard to record uh it's very hard to listen back to um so i just want to give everybody just a minute to to kind of sit with with that um before we kind of get into the work so we'll just take just maybe 10 seconds um and and get ourselves together okay that wasn't 10 seconds but that was enough silence for me okay all right so what we're going to do is we're going to go through um it was supposed to be a dozen but i couldn't stop there so i added one more so it's 13 a baker's session doesn't um of do's and don'ts for your camp um so starting with um have an inclusion statement as part of your marketing pieces um nobody should have to call your camp to ask if their kid will be welcome there they should know that without making that phone call it's an incredibly vulnerable thing to have to do over and over and over and over again for parents um especially if it's a camp that this kid has been to their whole life um and then you have to make this phone call to say is my kid going to be welcomed back well let's cut out that trauma let's make sure we're front loading that this is what our camp stands for um and and get that right out there there's no reason to do this in the dark there's no reason to be ashamed that you're doing this i want to take a minute to think of the difference between we don't discriminate against and we're actively working to create an affirming space for so discrimination is kind of like a um a lawyerly thing right like um you know laws and and suing people and things like that but like that's not enough you not being allowed to be somewhere is different than you being affirmed in that environment like was this place built for you um on top of all of that i do want to mention in 2020 2020 the supreme court case boss.v clayton which just happened last summer um was a 6-3 decision that makes it illegal to discriminate against someone based on their gender or sexuality um in employment citing title vii protections so what that means is you can't decide not to hire a transgender person or a gay person because they are trans or gay um it it's um because of title seven on the basis of sex it requires job holders to align with certain stereotypes of male and female behavior um that title seven says you're not allowed to do that um so you know a stereotype would be that men can't date men or men have to do this or men can't wear skirts or men can't be women um which is a little bit um a little bit more um out there not out there that's not the right word um but but it's a little bit more deep than we want to go i have to say i could talk about every single one of these slides for an hour so i'm trying to really keep it focused um so yes have an inclusion statement as part of your hiring pieces and your marketing pieces um queer and trans kids need role models that mirror their experience when you're a little queer or trans kid out there like you're constantly looking for someone who looks like you who's an adult because if if they can survive then you can survive so if you're not allowing your staff to to be themselves you're cutting off an incredible amount of support that they could be lending now a lot of camps on the note of sexuality will say well we don't allow anybody to talk about their relationships but in assisted heteronormative world we often assume that someone's gender identity or sexuality falls into kind of our preconceived stereotypes right so like this person doesn't look gay or this does person doesn't look trans and unless they look gay or trans then they're just assumed to be a cis straight person um and it's not only important for queer and trans kids to have queer and trans role models but it's important for cis and straight peers to learn and admire someone who's kind of outside their demographic group i just want to share with you this it's from the 2019 glad harris poll survey it actually shows something that's really disturbing comfort is on the decline um with lgbt identities um so in 2016 and i'm not sure something happened in 2016 and we've just seen a decline um since then and this is this is a trend that is continuing um so five percent more people now than in 2016 think that we shouldn't be learning about lgbt history in school history is history like this stuff happened um and and people less people think that we should be learning about it now than they did then up four percent from 2016 people think that they would be uncomfortable if their child had an lgbt teacher that's 32 percent or one in three one in three non-lgbt adults would be uncomfortable if their child had an lgbt teacher and the only way to increase comfort is exposure um we can't erode this discomfort unless we're talking about this you know sometimes your silence says more than words do all right so forms are huge i was 35 years old before i ever filmed out a form that i didn't have to cross something out or ask somebody a question about or question a piece of the form or have a really uncomfortable conversation about um or write little asterisks or notes or whatever forms don't they weren't built for trans people um including things like your name um the question of sex or gender those are two different ideas um and they just don't always fit the mold when it comes to trans and non-conforming or gender non-conforming people so we're constantly having to fit ourselves into these boxes that don't fit or ask really vulnerable questions in order to gain clarity so take a look at your forms and think of it if you were coming at it from that perspective what parts of that form might make you uncomfortable this is a really really important one i mean it we kind of already touched on lgbtqia staff but it's so important that when you're asking for help to make your policies more affirming that the only people you ask aren't people that you pay who aren't on your payroll um and the reason that is is because they can't have the same type of open conversations if they're paying you that somebody from the outside could and if you are going to ask them to do this work i do recommend that you at least allow them more compensation than they would receive in their normal staff package um it puts them in a vulnerable position and um you know minority minoritized people are constantly being asked to do this work for free because it feels good to us but it doesn't feel good it's hard it's hard work it's labor um and so asking people to do that without making some gesture of compensation um is isn't the the best idea and i'll also say this if you're going to ask your staff to do this work i want to be really upfront that you should be able to say yes to anything that they're asking of you so let's take pronouns and email signatures for example so if i say to my ceo i really want to put my pronouns in my email signature that will make us a more accepting organization that will make me feel more safe as a transgender staff member and that ceo thinks about it and then says like no we're good we're not we're not gonna do that it's it's it's not good for us as an organization so let's let's take a few steps back there so i've said this is what will make me more safe and people like me more safe and then you're told no because of these reasons which comes across as i don't really care about your safety or i'm prioritizing something else over you the other piece of this is not every queer trans person wants to do this work or has the skill set to do this work um you know there are there are people who just want to do their job and they just want to show up and maybe they were assigned female at birth and and now they're a man and that's that's what they want to be and they don't want to talk about it they shouldn't be required to do the work either so just really think about kind of who you're asking um to help you or give input so built into the fabric of camp is trust and community and when you have trust and you have community people share things that they might not have shared before and so i don't think it's probably uncommon that people come to realizations about their identity and want to share that for the first time while they're at camp so be prepared for that in that moment that a kid or a staff member wants to come out that needs to be uh hills are alive with the sound of music moment in their life like there should be nothing but joy and affirmation of that kid if you don't have a plan for that then you don't know what comes next and and we can always tell like i can always tell when somebody's uncomfortable having these conversations so so create a comfort around it you know have these conversations the more we have them the easier they are to have um so if if that if that camper comes out to you and then you have to talk to the head counselor who has to talk to the director who has to talk to the ceo it's three days later and then that camper has has given you their deepest darkest secret and they still don't know what to do with that so so be prepared for it this isn't this isn't a win situation or this isn't an if this is like a win um this is going to start happening at your camp and start thinking about what you want to do when it happens this i can't stress enough don't ever tell a parent if a camper just closes their gender identity to you every person has the right to own their story and again that's going to be an incredibly vulnerable moment in that kid's life um and they should be able to have the autonomy to make the decision to tell their parents or not tell their parents now i have to tell you as a parent myself i can't even imagine what would happen if my kid went to camp and told their camp counselor this and then i didn't find out about it but i would also have to take a step back and ask myself why didn't they tell me why aren't they ready to tell me yet because if they haven't told me yet then that means that they're not ready for me to know and if they aren't ready then that's got to be about them and that's got to be about their journey campers know their parents and better than we do again only one in three of these kids find acceptance at their homes and they know that um if they're not ready to tell their parents and there's no reason that we should do it or force them to do it in order to affirm their identity um it's so important that we find ways to talk about gender in inclusive ways and this goes beyond just just transgender things this is about all gender i find it really interesting that we tell girls girls girls can do anything you can do anything girls and then our culture at large really tells them the opposite of that so we're constantly telling people what they can do what they can't do based on their gender what toys they can play with what clothes that they can wear it can't maybe all the girls do this activity all the boys do this activity or we just assume that all the girls are gonna like this activity better and all the boys are going to like this activity better that's an idea called gender essentialism that there's something at the center of gender that binds all of the boys together and all of the girls together and it's just it's just really a myth um on top of that i find it really interesting that we don't tell boys that they can be anything they want to be and i think this is for two reasons either we assume that they know that they can be anything because of male privilege or we really don't mean that boys can be anything so i don't think it's a secret to anyone that male genders are actually much more rigid um than female genders um you know we we put a much darker box around masculinity you know you won't be a dancer you won't be in touch with your feelings you won't paint your nails you won't wear a skirt um those kind of things so what we should be working towards instead of girls can be anything our boys can be anything is that anybody can be anything and we have to really mean it um so that is to say if someone who is assigned female at birth wants to use male pronouns then awesome and if someone who is male at birth wants to have a really rad fingernail painting party in their cabin at night then awesome like let's make that happen um and as we do that as we erode some of that each generation isn't going to keep recreating these same ideas of what gender is and isn't okay so everyone is entitled to their own opinion i i've learned this we've said it since we were very very young kid um everyone is entitled to their own opinion only works for pizza and favorite colors invalidating a whole group of people as sinful or dangerous or too controversial or not entitled to full participation that's not an opinion that's bullying it's using social power to degrade an entire population and it's not okay if we could just get past making these spaces for opinions like we could really do the work um to make trans kids safer in our camps in our schools and everywhere else so just looking at the way you're allowing those dehumanizing views to exist in your space is huge in this work okay i love talking about pronouns all right this is going to be a total it's a little bit out there okay so we want to create cultures that normalize sharing pronouns so i ask you which one of these cats is a boy and which one of these cats is a girl we don't know and really it doesn't matter it doesn't matter which cat is a boy and a girl in very few cases what you really need to know the answer to this question but when we talk about grammatical gender like in spanish or other languages um we add a gender to these cats for just no reason so if you're a male cat you're el gato if you're a female cat you're like atta which is like the bow and the hair of a female cat alright so let's talk about grammatical gender bridge in spanish has a male grammatical gender and in german it has a female grammatical gender so when native speakers are asked to associate adjectives with the word um with those words it's startlingly different so spanish speakers give the word bridge characteristics like strong big towering and sturdy german speakers who attribute the names elegant fragile peaceful and slender have the female grammatical gender it's the same word that we're just talking about bridges it's the same thing but we have given them two different grammatical genders all right so that's that's bridges so if we're talking about bridges what do you think that pronouns are doing to kids pronouns are simply words that keep us from having to say a proper name over and over and over again but somewhere along the way we decided that those pronouns also needed to correspond with someone's perceived gender so whatever we think their gender is we are going to reach into our brain and pull out a pronoun that matches what we think and that's just not the case you know everybody again anybody can use any pronoun and they should have the right to do so so think about where you're including pronouns in your paperwork in your opening circles etcetera now as for names only 11 of transgender people have changed their names on all of their documents it's an incredibly hard demoralizing expensive process when i changed my name i had to take out an ad in the paper with a name that was on my birth certificate so everybody could know that i was changing my name i live in the columbus metropolitan area a lot of people saw this if that's the way that's the law that's what i had to do changing a name is very difficult i had to appear in front of a judge imagine if you're a kid and you have to appear in front of a judge to tell a judge why you think you deserve a name other than the one you were born with so when this comes to the context of camp i just really want you to think about if somebody says i want to be called meatball call them meatball what what harm does it do to not call them the name that they want to be called the first time i was ever comfortable with the name that i was called it was when i had a camp name and it wasn't a gendered name anymore and i was always more proud of that cam name than the name that i was assigned at birth and so commonly we say no no you got to go by your legal name but we just need to put that to bed because legal names really don't mean that much and we don't even own them um so think about that next time you're doing opening circles as well okay this is a this is a really important one because camps are yes people we want to say all are welcome and i want us to say all are welcome but i also want us to mean it when we say all are welcome so if you're going to say all are welcome all that i ask is that you do the work to make this true so if you say all are welcome you put it out there and you bring all of this beautiful diverse community into your space and then you don't have the infrastructure to support that community you've just broken down their trust so this type of thing is something that's really common um for all minority groups and all minoritized groups um that we say all are welcome then we're somewhere and then there there is no space for us um and it continues to break down that trust and that trauma of continuing to find spaces where we are really allowed to exist with our full personhood so everyone should have the right to change in privacy and i don't think that this is just a transgender issue um and i know y'all don't have a million dollar budgets and if you do i'm super happy that you do um but i have run camp on a shoestring budget um as i know many of you have so i think just really thinking about what we can do to make this a reality nobody should have to sh to show their naked body to another person um that should just be kind of something we are moving past in our culture um not only is this important for trans kids it's important for kids who maybe have a body that's different than everybody else is or just are shy or who have experienced some kind of sexual assault in their lifetime we need to normalize the practice of privacy when we're changing i would also consider having training about how to talk about this on day one of your camp it's incredibly vulnerable and it you don't want kids to feel singled out because they don't feel comfortable being naked in front of everybody else so finding the words to help your staff have that conversation with kids is going to be really important um okay so when when this first started happening when we first started talking about trans kids coming to camp there was this trend that what we should do is if stephanie came to camp last year and stephen is going to come to camp this year and that's the same person then we're going to send a letter home to every parent that might be in that kid's cabin just we're going to let them know that we are affirming we are on board we are excited about this and i think that's a good a good thought um i think it shows that you're trying to prepare people but also it's a violation of that kid's privacy and even if they've agreed to it so even if you've said this is what we want to do you have the power in that situation and that kid wants just to be at your camp no matter what they don't really understand what they have the right to ask for and they have the right to privacy so secondly if you send this letter home you've given every parent the ability to read that discuss it with their kid their kid will form their own their the opinion of whatever the parent is probably um and now you have created an environment that's going to be really hard for that trans kid to have a normal camp experience and that's what we really want is we really want to be creating a space where trans kids can just exist right we don't need any special protections like all of this should be baked into your culture and not something that you're doing as soon as a trans kid gets there and you're scrambling to to make to make this work for them all right so here's the bonus this is the one i couldn't not do um it is so it it's not surprising that we want to say we're going to take it on a case-by-case basis because there are so many cases right like you cannot write a policy that is going to cover all of the cases that you could see again gender is a spectrum parental acceptance is a spectrum there's there's just no limit to you know how many of those things that can be happening at one time but just saying a case-by-case basis is actually really dangerous for for trans kids um because if it's case by case then it's going to be personal so if i come to you and i say i want to come to your camp this is who i am and you say no it's going to be no to me and there's a trauma that comes along with that being very very personal um so that means that every decision that you make will be personal to that camper or that staff member or their parents and again that personal nature of that decision might degrade the nature of the trusting relationship that camper has developed um with you and your camp all right so that was that was so much and again this is just a conversation starter and i'm so excited um to take some of your questions and first i just wanted to talk a little bit more about translating kind of what we do and what we've got going on this part makes me really really super comfortable but i tell myself if people can do this with leggings then i can do it for trans kids so um this is my my elevator sales pitch here all right so we offer monthly courses over all of these topics introduction to trans inclusion will help you write your inclusion statement how to write a coming out plan for affirmation gender inclusive housing how to advocate for trans youth getting names and pronouns right kind of all of the things that we talked about in this 12 piece laundry list um that we we have a session for that um we have a session for that so we're also really really excited in the new year um to be bringing on some incredible guest speakers we have somebody who's going to be doing um the magic of drag at camp um their name is sharmi mares they work for camp brave trails and the trevor project incredible human being um trans inclusion in single gender camps single gender in quotes um will be done by my good friend aaron and we're going to have intersections of race and gender at summer camp um with special guests from from the groups more melanin so we are so excited about that our monthly fee is only 12 a month um and that provides you access to a live training access to my inbox i'll email you back whatever questions you have um and then the other opportunity that we have um is i have four spots available for very very low cost consulting at seventy dollars a month which is pretty low and considering normal consulting rates um and that will give you one-on-one um with me one hour a month via zoom and then you can also attend as many sessions as you like um of the courses that we present you can also book a training for your staff i'm working on some online opportunities to train staff about frontline conversations um and and i'm always i'm always available on the zooms to to pop in and talk with your staff so that is my presentation and i hope that somebody um has the the courage to ask the first question here so i'm going to stop my screen share here thank you and you have been rewarded with 10 questions in queue i know so i don't know if we'll get through all of them some of them have a little overlap so i thought i'd just start um and ones i thought were most universal and go from there so take a drink all right and um and some folks are asking for your email address and website could you type that into the chat real quick and i'll pull up the questions i will do that wonderful that's my email here's our website i want to get it right so i'm going to go slow right yeah send them to the right website please okay super all right it's our patreon there okay so this first question is from mindy and mindy says in a group setting should presenting pronouns be optional so it does not force someone to be other in either unintentionally outed or to feel forced to select a pronoun they with which they don't identify what about kids are people that are in a pinch kind of here yeah i think any time that you have um a conversation about any of this stuff it should always be it should be optional obviously mindy like you said um i think the other part of that is you know where are you um with creating a culture where they feel safe to do this right like maybe on day one they're not they're not ready to do that um maybe as as they build trust with their their other campers and they do feel safe to disclose that but i would always say um i would always say to to make sure that it is front loaded when you have that conversation that if you feel comfortable to if you feel comfortable to share this but then you also don't want a situation where nobody's going to share it because like people still have a really hard time doing this you know people still have a really hard time saying you know these are my pronouns because it still feels unwieldy like we're not we don't have the muscle memory to do it yet um so and somebody said but we have to call them something that's that's right um and there are there are some people who don't use pronouns at all um all they want to use is their name um and it in language it it is hard because saying someone's name over and over and over again again isn't kind of part of our normal lexicon but if they're not ready to share their pronoun that is what i would go with is just using their name instead of a placeholder yeah i learned a workaround from alex myers who's another consultant and he said that you can always say you're welcome to share your pronouns now or at any point in the future just to kind of keep the door open i just really liked that um as a way to do it so i don't know what you think about that chris but yeah absolutely you know we my my kids at kindergartner and we ask her for her pronouns every day so we can put it into her zoom and it's just like so normal for hayden and it changes every day and i i think that they probably are pretty strongly uh drawn to their sex assigned at birth but they will use any pronouns and it changes every day because again we we have invested so much in in pronouns more than necessary i think cool yeah hayden sounds very cool she is um okay so um here is an interesting question um could you talk a little more um jen is asking this question jen says please help us think through if a camper wants or asks us to talk to their parents or help with that conversation maybe they just need a bridge or some fuente that's our word today support between you know them and their parents yeah i think that the most important thing is that the camper is driving the bus right like they are in charge um you know i think letting them lead in that conversation is the most important thing if they are ready to talk to their parents about it um then i think helping them find the tools is really important um my suggestion would be to see if you have a local lgbtq organization that can kind of really help you with that conversation or provide support to that person and those parents um and then if if they want you to tell their parents i think that's got to be a really individual situation camp to camp um and then again i think you would just really want to think through is this something this kid wants or is this something that they think we want you know again like they've just got to be in in charge of that narrative um but yeah i think i think those are those are my greatest suggestions with with that conversation so we have kind of like a level two or three build from that question from okay all right yeah i'm just warming you up here jessica asks um what if a camper is self-harming because of stress and their parent not accepting them as trans do you try to be a mediator between camper and parent and help the parent understand what's going on this is very this is a very complicated question but i guess it's not it's not always so clear as tell or not tell right there's other factors coming in if self-harm is involved i think that that discussion can be separate from the discussion of why and again especially if they are self-harming because of their parents i don't think that the parent is going to be the best person to have that conversation with again there are so many incredible youth to youth resources or or online resources or peer group resources um that you can support that kid with that doesn't necessarily involve telling their parents now this gets really muddy because you know if the parent doesn't want that you know you you have to make a decision like how far you're gonna go um like i remember making the decision when i was a counselor we were told we're not gonna talk about sexuality with our campers and i personally decided i was not i would never fall if it came up which it never did like i was willing to risk that for myself because that is what could save that kid's life right so i think that's where you have to just know like how far you're willing to go to really affirm that kid um and i think that's where it gets really difficult because also camps are businesses and who's your client is your client the parent is your client is your client the kid um obviously the parents are the ones paying the money but at the same time like it's just there's just so much risk benefit there that it's really hard to to figure out what you want to do um and and what resources you have to do it i guess well i did give you the warning right you did you did i was prepared um yeah and with mandated reporting and all these other pieces camp directors really can find themselves in a pinch one of the nice things about overnight camp is you have a little bit of time sometimes to really like talk to some folks it's not always only on your shoulders to make the decision about what you're going to do right you have you have an hour you know you can keep that camper safe and and really make a plan instead of just doing you've got you know first reaction um okay so we're um getting um some questions about camps that are really divided into the gender binary or camps that are just girls camp or boys camp um so where where do you even start with a single gender camp um we have an anonymous attendee zoom has fancy functions like this yeah and the person says what advice do you give to a single gender camp we are girls camp we've had campers and staff come out as non-binary and trans in the past i want to support them and be welcoming but we're not sure the best way to do that at the you know traditional girls camp for them you know yeah so this is the one that aaron is helping me out with in january because this is an hour-long conversation um and it really starts with the basis of where is that kid going to be safe right so if if they feel like they are still safe if it is if somebody assigned female at birth and they still feel safe at a girl scout camp my take on it is that's where they should be because if you look at it whose safety is going to be at risk with a trans boy at a girl scout camp that trans boy is still at a higher risk um for harm than a cis girl at the girl scout camp again like you want to front load that um in a way that is is responsible um so yeah we still live in such a binary world that how do you figure out where to put these kids but i always say like that's what it comes back to is where is that kid safe because again like in most rules or in most situations they're going to be the most vulnerable camper in the room so i would always lean into like what does that kid need to feel safe what does that kid need to be to feel affirmed and then you prioritize that over somebody being uncomfortable and then you train your staff to say like this kid is safe here and this kid does belong here and the minute that kid feels like the minute that boy who's at the girl scout camp feels like this isn't the place for me anymore then it's not the place for them anymore um but there's so many variations of of what transgender means and especially what non-binary means and who feels safe where and variations and like medical transitions or how society identifies you as you know if you put a kid who doesn't look look whatever that means male at a boy scout camp that's going to be very dangerous for them um or it could be very dangerous from them depending on their policies um so again that's an hour-long um discussion and that aaron's going to be helping us out with in the past so thank you for that one i hope at least i got some wheels turning there um the people want to know where you buy your shirts okay this shirt came from old navy um the the grapefruit shirt that matched my my background um in my kids room came from kohl's that was indian cool soon i appreciate that one i appreciate that the answer is yes that's great um what if a staff member changes pronouns during the summer how can we validate that we didn't talk as much about the staff experience yeah during our conversation today but maybe just to mix it up a little bit um what are your thoughts on that question um so i i just did some some studying on neuroscience and pronouns and it's all very fascinating because our our brains create connections to people and pronouns that make it very hard for us to change what pronouns we're using for somebody and that doesn't mean we don't have to do it that means we have to figure out how to do it um and that's through a lot of repetition so if somebody changes pronouns during the summer um some of the suggestions that i've heard is make sure like take you and another friend who's not the person changing pronouns out you know on your night out and just talk about that person and always use the right pronouns like you build connections that way um the other important thing is if you mess it up if and when you mess it up you just say thank you and move or you say i'm sorry and move on quickly don't dwell on it and certainly don't say like this is just really hard for me um because if if you say this is really hard for me imagine what it feels like for that person um who's going through like where they're feeling that that feeling like burdening everybody all the time um and then it comes back to like your coming out plan like just expect that this is gonna happen with your staff and that gets that also gets really messy because of course we're all overstaffed and have an abundance of counselors and can move one person from you know the boy side to the girls side or whatever at any time obviously not but really think about how do you make that transition mid-summer if that is what that person is going to have a more um you know impactful experience at camp as a staff member there's so many good questions coming in so i'm going to apologize to the group but i think we'll get more chris as the weeks go on so don't despair um so um chelsea asked this question is there an appropriate way to ask our transgender staff or campers how our existing policies or culture is working for them for example we already have a norm about sharing pronouns with names but i wanted to ask our staff if we were facilitating it in a way that's comfortable for them i don't want to tokenize a staff person or ask if they don't want to be asked so how do you do that i mean i think it's just it's an easy opt-in um you know i say like you don't want to force anybody to have that discussion um but i'm also a person that if these discussions were happening without me i wouldn't be happy about it so like just asking them like do you feel comfortable to have this conversation this is how that's gonna look um and maybe having like a i don't know i feel like even like having the conversation live might be a little bit more vulnerable than doing it in a survey format or even having um an affinity group of just that staff have that conversation with a share out at the end yeah it's not really something you want your supervisor to be asking you right right so like right exactly question of who asked that question could make a big difference as well um we have some questions from joe and elise about kind of like non-binary um villages what are your thoughts on that or cabins um like spaces non-binary spaces at camp or spaces specifically for trans campers um i think that they can be incredibly empowering um i think you know if you really think about why why do we separate male and female i i have not i have yet to come up with a really good answer for that besides that's the way it's always been um and you know we don't allow staff to say that about the way songs are saying so why are we gonna allow staff to say that about where kids sleep um i'm i'm sure you guys are all adults enough to know that like any two people can sleep together um regardless of their gender which is also another reason um that we say that so i think that gender inclusive housing if done appropriately um can be really really impactful and empowering but i can also understand why people would still want to have some all quote unquote all male or all female spaces so including um a gender inclusive option i think is is really really a good idea um and then you just have to find the policies that are going to work for your staff um and then it's a lot to talk about respect and boundaries um you know like we are going to respect the space enough not to do xyz um you know and being really open and honest about those those things and it goes back to the privacy piece you know making sure everybody has a conversation about what is appropriate and what is inappropriate yeah so much about what you're saying today kind of just goes back to this fundamental safety and privacy kind of point you know unless you can ensure those things don't move forward so work on those things first right okay maybe i'll squeeze in two more questions sure um so philip has an interesting question um in short a camper wants to use they them pronouns respecting that we don't want to out the camper to their guardians the camp director then is having a discussion with the camper's grandparents who keeps using he him pronouns so what do you say but you just start acting weird right right maybe that's okay too right yeah just just scream and it stops um no just pull the fire alarm um no i i think again like that the camper's in charge you know i this is something that comes up i it's not uncommon you know that a kid uses a specific set of pronouns at school they're not ready for their parents to know and then you know it is our responsibility as as canceled folker educators to say like okay well when i'm talking to your your guardians i will i'm going to use what you want me to use in front of them um that's a little bit tricky because of the brain thing that makes it hard to do that but it's vital that if that kid is not ready to share those pronouns with that set of people that that we use the ones that they're asking in that space like the last person that found out what i used like pronouns with in front of was my mom and it was just like but i'm saying it doesn't matter so use a pronoun that i'm asking for in front of my mom and everybody would be like but you're already it's like but but i'm asking for this you know and that's that goes back to that power and autonomy and control thing yeah so even asking the camper hey what do you want me to use when your grandparents come around and let them drive right right yeah right because they know they know their grandparents don't know yet it's not no a secret right um so just a couple of logistical questions there's so much to talk about so and i want to be respectful of everyone's time um but if people are interested in more content from you um can they um attend a webinar through transplanting on a one-off basis do they need to purchase the subscription um we're still still deciding what do you what do you think yeah so any any webinar that we do um can be purchased individually obviously we they're a little bit more expensive than the subscription service um and it does kind of build on top of each other um but you know we we also people are strapped for cash i get that especially camps um so we definitely yeah anybody can attend any webinar one-off um or shoot me an email and we could sit down and we could talk about your options for your camp depending on um you know your budget one of the things that we always want to be um is accessible um we have a scholarship fund so if there if there are times that if there's something that will be really incredibly impactful for your camp reach out um and we'll see if we can find some money laying around for it yeah good well i go back to what you said before which was funny but also true if people do this for leggings they can do it for trans kids right um and so i i think um money is tight but this is super important and valuable stuff and it can save kids lives and what the heck like you know very cool thank you for offering all this and um so generously answering all the questions and sharing your knowledge um so logistically speaking i will email a recording to everyone that attended it will be on youtube so feel free to share it with colleagues board members staff you know whatever whoever you'd like and i'll also include again just for your reference chris's information in that email so you can reach out and think of other things and we'll continue to think of collaborations as well i loved having you as a guest thank you collaboration thanks for letting me host i learned so many things um and thanks to everyone who um stuck around with us for another hour on zoom i think it was an hour well spent so um yeah wow we are getting lots of thank yous in the chat wonderful wonderful yes everyone says thank you chris thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you and they want requests oh no everyone's typing so fast everyone says amazing job thank you so much so okay well i will um stop the recording log off thank you to our attendees to chris and hopefully we'll meet again soon all right thank you guys bye