When Ya-Ya Fairley first saw the job listing for womxn’s coordinator at Salt Lake Community College, the deliberate spelling caught her eye.

“I saw myself,” Fairley recalls saying in her interview for the position. “My response was, ‘This is one of the first times I can see that a job is for me.’”

Fairley got the job, a newly formed position within the school’s Gender and Sexuality Student Resource Center, and started in February. The center was established in 2019 following a push from students and staff for a physical gathering space dedicated to gender issues and the LGBTQ community. It is currently supported by student fees.

Student Thonda Lillian Naluyima said the center has been purposeful in its inclusion of people of color, and women of color in particular, who fall under the umbrella of LGBTQ.

“The center has been a safe space for women, women of color, and LGBTQ folks. Intentionality is very important for these groups of people,” Naluyima said.

Student leader Patricia Salgado agrees.

“With people of color, it can be more challenging to express themselves and accept their identity. The center has done a great job of including these individuals,” Salgado said.

The GSSRC team — comprised of staff and student leaders who are almost exclusively trans, nonbinary, and women of color — agreed on the addition of a womxn’s coordinator position.

“We felt it was important to have a woman coordinator lead the women’s initiative for the center,” said GSSRC coordinator Peter Moosman.

But the term “women,” Moosman noted, encompasses more than cisgender women — a term used for people who identify as the gender they were assigned at birth, according to the Trans Journalist Association. The position for a womxn’s coordinator was created with the “x” spelling, he said, to include all people who identify as women or are affected by women-related issues.

While the position received broad support from the college community, the spelling of “womxn” caused confusion.

Heather Graham has followed the creation of the womxn’s coordinator role since it was announced. Graham, an SLCC student who is also majoring in writing and rhetoric and minoring in gender studies at the University of Utah, said the spelling originates from feminist movements that tried to separate “women” from patriarchal language by using terms such as “womyn” instead.

“The ‘x’ was born from queer people of color looking to signify that it was more inclusive than just the white narrative of feminism,” she said.

However, some say “womxn” is used to exclude trans individuals.

“There is an assumption made with the different spelling that it makes it so trans women are not women,” said Graham.

Moosman explained this is not the case at the GSSRC.

“The spelling here is intentional in being representative of all women, whereas not all women are included with the spelling of w-o-m-e-n,” Moosman said.

Fairley echoed that view.

“When we say ‘womxn,’ that includes all women. White cis women; Black trans women; disabled queer women,” she said.

Confusion about the spelling prompted the GSSRC to post an open letter elaborating on its decision to use the spelling as well as acknowledgment of the discourse surrounding it.

Elevating voices

While Fairley’s new position is meant to help anyone who identifies as a woman or is affected by women’s issues, she said her hope is to support groups and individuals with histories of marginalization.

“There’s an emphasis on highlighting marginalized experiences we don’t typically see illuminated at the college. Women of multiple marginalities including, but not limited to, of the queer and trans experience,” said Fairley, who received her bachelor’s in gender studies and focuses on Black, queer, womxn/femme identities in higher education.

Fairley’s goal is to enable women at the college and help amplify their voices. For example, during Womxn’s Heritage Month at the college, Fairley helped schedule March events that included the Unsung Sheroes Awards Ceremony, which honored women involved with SLCC’s Black Student Union.

“I want to be that bold light of advocacy and support for students who are oftentimes silenced,” she said. “As a coordinator, I would love to impart empowering knowledge onto students so they can also advocate for themselves. That would bring me so much joy.”

Queer students in Utah’s middle and high schools say they feel left out of the standard health and human development discussions, arguing that what students learn about their bodies and sexuality is not adequate or inclusive.

“Whether you agree with homosexuality or transsexuality or not, it does not negate the fact that you should be educated on it,” said Ellie Uber, 17, a Brighton High School senior who came out as a lesbian two years ago. “It is a school setting where we have the right to learn.”

Students are taught human development as early as kindergarten, and the curriculum evolves as students get older, according to the Utah Core State Standards for Health Education. For example, fifth-grade students, with parental notification and consent, learn about puberty and maturation.

The curriculum must “describe the basic structures of the reproductive and endocrine systems and identify their respective functions” and portray how the body changes and prepares for reproduction.

In middle school, students again learn about physical maturation, and go deeper into the social, cognitive and emotional changes of adolescence.

At middle and high school levels, students are taught to “recognize and respect individual differences in attraction, growth and self-identity,” according to the standards.

In Utah high schools, students are introduced to sexual education. The core standards state the curriculum must provide an “abstinence-based” approach to sexual and reproductive health education.

Feeling ‘awkward’ and isolated

Uber said she experienced insecurity in her human development courses.

“It becomes awkward when you’re younger, and all the other kids your age are learning about what their sexuality means, and you’re like ‘I don’t know anything about myself or what my sexuality entails,’ “ she said, recalling the isolation she felt in sex education. “[There was] a definite lack of acknowledgment. There’s no education for queerness.”

As a student body officer and spirit leader at Brighton, Uber focused her campaign on inclusivity.

Uber said she has aimed to be a resource for both queer and straight students, by answering questions from her peers and helping to comfort those who are questioning, confused or just curious.

She said some students are hesitant to learn about their sexuality because they might feel the need to identify with one term immediately, whether that is gay, lesbian, trans, straight or something else.

“There’s no talk about how, even though there are a variety of labels under queerness, you don’t have to pick one,” she said.

If none feel right, she observed, students may begin to repress their sexuality out of confusion and feelings of insecurity.

“Without any resources or people to turn to, you start to push it down, and that is mentally exhausting,” said Uber. “I would know. It pushes a lot of kids to the edge, because there is no escape from your thoughts.”

According to the Children’s Hospital of Montefiore, a nationally ranked pediatric teaching hospital in New York City, same-sex crushes are common during the teen years. Teens may experiment with someone of the same gender during adolescence, but that does not necessarily mean those feelings will last. Some of those attractions fade, and some only get stronger.

“You don’t have to know right now, it’s an ever-changing and fluid thing,” Uber said, explaining she wants to see that information relayed in school health courses. “That is something that a lot of kids don’t understand.”

Canyons School District spokesperson Jeff Haney said Utah schools, including Brighton, are bound by state laws around health education, including discussion of identity and sexuality. He encouraged students to read the law and district policies if they want to know more about what topics can — and cannot — be covered in their health classes.

“Students ... are urged to engage in dialogues with their parents and guardians if they have questions or would like guidance in finding information from community organizations,” Haney said.

Getting involved with activities like the Gay Lesbian and Straight Education Network, which is offered as an extracurricular club at Brighton, is also an option, Haney said.

A need to cover ‘all their bases’

Lillie McDonough, a 17-year-old senior at Highland High School and trans woman, began transitioning during her sophomore year, and found human development confusing. She recalled feeling the education was lacking as early as the fifth-grade maturation program.

“I left the room after and thought, ‘I wish I could have been in the other one,’” she said.

Utah’s maturation program teaches male and female anatomy, reproductive systems and the general physiology of male and female development, according to the Salt Lake City School District.

“They divided us into men and women,” McDonough said. “My thoughts after that were, ‘I wish you got to pick your gender, so I didn’t have to be stuck with this,’ but they never covered that. So, I kind of just had to sit with that [thought].”

McDonough said the course did not mention intersex individuals. Although that information may not apply to most students, she still wishes it had been included in her human development courses.

“They don’t cover at all how it works for trans people, with hormone blockers and reverse hormone therapy,” she said.

McDonough says she wishes she was taught the basics of LGBTQ+ health such as defining different sexual preferences, saying schools should “teach it along with all of the other [topics] and cover all of their bases.”

Gender identity and sexuality media in schools

In the Canyons School District, a conservative group of parents has targeted an emotional health program known as Second Step, and books available in the school libraries. Although intended to help students make responsible choices and build positive relationships by understanding their emotions, links were found in the Second Step program that led to other sites about sexuality and dating, generating concern from parents and the removal of the program from the curriculum.

The district, which includes schools in Sandy and the south Salt Lake valley, is now re-examining its policies on library books, after the group of parents began sending in concerns over the content of some of the books available in the district’s libraries.

Canyons School Board held a Nov. 30 meeting, where students, parents and faculty discussed the decision to remove nine books from school libraries following complaints over inappropriate content. On the list of banned books is “Gender Queer” by Maia Kobabe and “Beyond Magenta” by Susan Kuklin, which center around queer and transgender stories and characters. Controversial literary classics, such as Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye” and Vladimir Nabokov’s “Lolita,” also were on the list.

Connie Slaughter, who encourages parents to read books from their children’s school libraries to note inappropriate content, told board members she supported the removal of the books — saying the content is sexually explicit, includes “filthy” language and is violent.

“I’m nervous about what’s going on,” Slaughter said, mentioning she has grandchildren attending school in the district. “I want them to go to school and not be wondering if they are learning something I don't want them to learn, and I know [their mother] feels the same way.”

Slaughter said the content is divisive and not suitable for adolescents, and that institutions of education, librarians and faculty members should not “continue to push divisive and destructive ideologies and personal agendas.”

She added that “as parents, we really should have a say in what's in our libraries.”

As The Tribune reported in November, librarians and civil rights attorneys have argued that the argument is about limiting what viewpoints — particularly ones from historically marginalized groups — that students can seek out on their own with a library card. None of the titles, they note, are required reading.

Richard Price, an associate professor of political science at Weber State who tracks censorship in school districts, told The Tribune in November: “If you don’t want to look at it, then you don’t have to check it out. But I fear what this group is trying to do is forbid all people from reading them. They’re trying to parent for all parents.”

The district, Haney said, is meant to be a welcoming learning environment for all of its students. “Canyons District’s nondiscrimination policy clearly and specifically prohibits unlawful discrimination or harassment of students on their basis of gender, gender identify and sexual orientation,” he said.

‘Removing the fear’ of being queer

Censorship debates over gender and sexuality, like the one in Canyons School District, contribute to the lack of inclusive education for trans and queer students, said Peter Moosman, coordinator at Salt Lake Community College’s Gender and Sexuality Student Resource Center.

Schools and institutes of education have a “responsibility to incorporate all lived experiences and histories into their curriculum,” he said.

“The queer experience is a lot more visible now than it ever has been, but in hyper-conservative communities, [the experience] is still very lonely and isolating,” he said. “If these things are incorporated into education, it’s mental health care and it’s suicide prevention.”

LGBTQ youth are at a higher risk for negative health and life outcomes than their heterosexual and cisgender counterparts, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About a third are bullied at school, the CDC reported in its most recent Youth Behavior Risk Survey, and 47% have seriously considered suicide.

Moosman said some of this loneliness and isolation comes from avoiding LGBTQ topics in schools, and that talking about queerness, from sex to mental health issues, in a classroom setting can create a more supportive environment.

“The more we’re talking about [queerness] and creating visibility and representation around it in our education and otherwise, it destigmatizes [the experience] by removing that fear,” he said.

Moosman wants to see changes in Utah’s education system, beyond incorporating queer sexual and reproductive health in the curriculum. He said he hopes for inclusion in history courses, and wants to see schools put “a concerted effort in hiring queer [faculty], so queer youth can see adults and leaders that are queer doing great things.”

Learning about queer existence, Moosman said, is important for students of all sexualities and gender identities, and people of all ages. Providing more accessible queer education in schools, he said, will help people develop a better understanding of the people around them.

 Alexie Zollinger wrote this story as a journalism student at Salt Lake Community College. It is published as part of a collaborative including nonprofits Amplify Utah and The Salt Lake Tribune. 

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This story is jointly published by nonprofits Amplify Utah and [Your Media Organization's Name] to elevate diverse perspectives in local media through emerging journalism. Alexie Zollinger wrote this story as a journalism student at Salt Lake Community College. For more stories from Amplify Utah, visit amplifyutah.org/use-our-work.

The Bruin Pantry at Salt Lake Community College — where essential items are available to students, faculty and staff for free — has recently seen greater demand, amid a nationwide rise in the cost of goods.

Diya Shah, coordinator for Bruin Pantries, said more people are visiting the pantry, which offers goods ranging from dry and canned foods to fresh fruit and hygiene products.

“Yes … inflation and rising cost of foods [is] impacting people going to the pantry,” Shah said. “My basic needs coordinator, myself and my student staff are all educating people to de-stigmatize using the food pantry and food insecurity in general. It is rewarding to see people come back and feel comfortable.”

According to the September 2022 Consumer Price Index, the cost of all items increased 8.2% over the last 12 months, and the cost of food was up 11.2% in the same period.

Shah said the pantry has been through difficult times before, and said she has even dipped into her own pockets to keep the pantry stocked with such items as sanitary pads and diapers. Earlier this year, Shah said, she purchased containers of baby formula for the pantry during the formula shortage.

The pantry has locations at four SLCC’s campuses: Taylorsville Redwood, South City, Jordan and the West Valley Center. Shah said the pantry diversifies its items to cater to wider populations.

“West Valley is a very unique location because it primarily serves our Latinx community,” Shah said. “So because of that we are very good about taking culturally relevant food there that the community can utilize.” The pantry, she added, also does its best to supply patrons with gluten-free, vegetarian and vegan options.

Recognizing the impact of inflation on people’s cost of living, coupled with the pantry’s rising demand, Shah said she and her staff work to make patrons feel comfortable.

“I consider myself an introvert, but … connecting with people and talking to people … I think that’s really rewarding,” said Alex Bonifaz, a SLCC student who works at the pantry through the college’s internship program.

The majority of the pantry’s employees are students, Shah said, and she is mindful of their needs.

Students who do not work with the pantry through work study or the internship program are compensated with financial assistance in the form of tuition waivers. Bonifaz said he believes the recent 4% increase in tuition, along with the rise in the price of goods could hurt many students.

The pantry is always looking for help, Shah said, especially now that it is so busy. Those looking to help can stop by any of the pantry’s four locations during hours of operation or go online to submit a volunteer application.

The pantry also accepts donations during distribution hours. For more information about those hours, how to donate and currently requested items, visit the Thayne Center’s web page, slcc.edu/thaynecenter.

Patrick Kennedy wrote this story as a journalism student at Salt Lake Community College. It is published as part of a new collaborative including nonprofits Amplify Utah and The Salt Lake Tribune.

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NOTE TO MEDIA PARTNERS PUBLISHING WORK
We also request organizations include the following text either at the beginning or end of the story text:

This story is jointly published by nonprofits Amplify Utah and The Salt Lake Tribune to elevate diverse perspectives in local media through student journalism. Patrick Kennedy wrote this story as a journalism student at Salt Lake Community College. For more stories from Amplify Utah, visit amplifyutah.org/use-our-work.