There are so many more marginalized/diverse gender and sexuality identities beyond LGBTQ. Which is why you might see longer acronyms used. Rather than continue to add letters (and make an unwieldy thing) the + is often added to the end of an acronym to indicate this expansive list of gender/sexuality identities.
Few different ways. (1) Reach out to universities/colleges in your local area to see if they offer Safe Zone training. They may also call it ally training, safer spaces training, or a myriad of other names. When you reach out describe what you’re looking for, i.e. “a foundational LGBTQ+ inclusion workshop” rather than a specific… Read more »
It’s awesome that you want folks who visit your website to know that you’re LGBTQ+ friendly. However, to us, Safe Zone stickers imply that you went through some sort of training (which is why ours say “Safe Zone Trained”). Many folks want to put Safe Zone trained stickers on their website so they can visually… Read more »
Yes! We have a Spanish translation of our Foundational curriculum. We will be releasing it on the site soon but in the meantime, if you want to join our group of beta testers please send us a request at [email protected] and we’ll send you a copy!
That’s entirely up to you. In our Self-Guided Foundational Safe Zone Training, for example, we have enough material, prompts, and exercises to keep you occupied for several days of intense learning. Or you could complete it in 2 – 3 hours. Because our courses are self-guided, you determine how long they’ll take. Some of our activities… Read more »
Yep! It’s important for us that our courses are offered in the spirit of the gift, and that you’re grateful with what you’ve received. If you’re not, we want to make it right. If you enroll in a course and aren’t satisfied, simply fill out this form to request a full or partial refund. We’ll process… Read more »
🙂 If you want to pay for the course, but can’t (or don’t want to) pay the standard tuition, we have a few options for you: You can sign up for the course under the “full scholarship” option and make a donation of whatever amount you chose using this link. You can sign up… Read more »
Nope! Once you register you’ve got “lifetime access” which means you can access the course indefinitely (as long as the Safe Zone Project, and our online courses, exist). Bonus: whenever we improve/update/add to the course, your materials will be automatically updated and added to.
Right on this website. You can complete the course and never leave this website or need to download anything. There are options to add some materials to your Google Drive, or to print them if you prefer, but that’s all optional and you can do everything right here.
Immediately! As soon as you enroll in the course, you’ll be able to jump right in. All the course material is all right there at your disposal for you to work through at any speed you like.
Because you want to. Because you’re able to. Because you want to support us! Because it feels good to pay for quality things you care about and you have the means to do so. Because you really got something out of our website and this is a mechanism that allows you to give back. Or… Read more »
Here are four, of so-many-more-we-could-list, reasons. At an in-person training, you have the chance to… Meet other people in your community who are interested in learning more about gender and sexuality. While workshops and trainings are awesome they often are just the start of the conversation and it’s great to have folks you’re already connected… Read more »
Few things on this one. If you ask someone “how do you identify?” they may not really understand what you’re asking so it’s important first to clarify (for yourself) what do you mean and then why are you asking that question? If you’re asking someone “do you identify as a man or a woman” so… Read more »
Nope! It’s easy to get this confused, particularly because T is included in the LGBTQ+ acronym (T standing for “Transgender”). The key is to remember that transgender is referring to someone’s gender identity and not their sexuality orientation. Transgender people can be gay, straight, pansexual, queer, asexual, or any other sexual orientation (just like cisgender… Read more »
Anyway that you’d like! Honestly we don’t mind, feel free to just cite the website name, cite our names, don’t cite us at all, whatever works best for you.
Email us! Seriously. We create everything on this website so that people have better resources, and if you’re looking for a resource likely someone else is too! So let us know what you need, we’d love to hear from you.
Nope! Much of the content and structure of these activities exists in what we think of as “the commons,” or the collective knowledge and wisdom of educators who have been doing gender and sexuality education/activism for a long time. Most of the activities exist out there already in multiple iterations and variations, and we (Meg… Read more »
A 101 activity is one where the participants/learners do not need any prior knowledge in order for the activity to go well and for them to learn/get something out of the activity. However, those with prior knowledge will still likely benefit! On the other hand, a 201 activity requires some prior familiarity with the topic… Read more »
Yes, it 100% is. And there are no catches. For serious. We get it. The way we do things is a little, well, different. A lot of people have grown to expect curriculum to cost hundreds of dollars to use, and to come with a lot of caveats, usage restrictions, and hoops to jump through. A lot… Read more »
Google! We’re not being snarky, either. We suggest searching [Your Town/City/Region Name] + “Safe Zone LGBTQ Trainings” and seeing what comes up. Even if the training isn’t called “Safe Zone,” (and they often won’t be) you’ll likely find something that will scratch a similar itch. If that doesn’t work, reach out to any local LGBTQ+… Read more »
Our curriculum is used by a whole lot of educators (over 25,000 in over 100 countries at last check), but it is definitely not the only “Safe Zone” curriculum out there. Nor was our curriculum the first “Safe Zone” curriculum. Tons of schools and organizations offer “Safe Zone” trainings that are dissimilar, and have existed… Read more »
Heck. Yes. Our curricula, activities, and resources are all uncopyrighted, and reasons like this are WHY THAT IS SO EXCITING FOR US. So you have our permission 100%. Here’s one word of caution: people often think they need to customize our Foundational Curriculum for a ton of reasons (their group is more “advanced,” or older, or… Read more »
Nope. Our curriculum is evidence-informed, but not evidence-based. Here’s why: We tweak the curriculum several times a year based on changes in culture, research, and feedback from facilitators. We overhaul the curriculum every year (including frequent substantive changes to the structure, or replacing activities) Our curriculum is used in over 100 countries in more capacities… Read more »
No, Sometimes, and Yes. For many people (especially those who are younger, or in more urban areas) queer is a word of pride and the best way to “umbrella” diverse sexualities and genders. For some, queer is considered a “bad word” (i.e., a slur) in some contexts, and okay in others (e.g., who is saying it,… Read more »
Depends. The material covered in Safe Zone trainings evolves over time — at least, it should. If you’re doing a Safe Zone where the material hasn’t been updated in years, it’s at best out of date, at worst harmfully inaccurate. And tons of folks do trainings using the “Safe Zone” moniker that include very different activities and… Read more »
Nope! We actually don’t offer certifications anyhow, so you can’t be certified by us. Our curriculum is provided here for your use — no strings attached.
Yes yes yes! Please do. Everything is uncopyrighted, and we did that for YOU. No need to ask permission, but we would appreciate you sharing back anything cool you make, so we can spread the word.
Nope. Just to clarify there is no “right” or “wrong” way to run a Safe Zone workshop, we just think there are “better” or “more effective” ways to go about getting the information out there and meeting your goals. Our curriculum is what we think is the bestest and most effective way to accomplish our… Read more »
Great question. First off – you’ve come to a great place to start! You’ve got few things to take into consideration. What are your goals for the program? Who do you want to train and how many individuals would that be? How can you access some (don’t need much) funding? Can you do this without… Read more »
As you may have noticed, on the site and in our curriculum we tend to use the acronym LGBTQ+ when referring to the queer community. Is this the right acronym to use? No, there really isn’t a “right” one — they all have their pros and cons. This is just the one we feel has… Read more »
The term transgender is often used as an umbrella term for many other terms that indicate an individual is not cisgender. We use the word trans* throughout this site to indicate this umbrella term-y-ness and as an inclusive way to indicate a variety of non-cisgender identities in one simple term. We pronounce this term simply… Read more »
Yes! One of our goals for this project is to turn it into the go-to resource online for sexuality and gender education activities, so we’d like to add as many as possible. If you have a great activity we don’t already have on the site, drop us a line. No guarantees we’ll add it, and… Read more »
Our Foundational Curriculum is a designed to create a Safe Zone 101 overview workshop. We recommend this workshop for all audiences – gay, straight, queer, allied, and anywhere in between (or outside) those categories. While some of it may be old information for some, we believe that everyone, no matter their knowledge level, will get… Read more »
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