Have you heard of ‘Queer Made Easy’?
Matthew Neumann may be a name you’re familiar with. He’s a graduate of our Community Animator Network and is currently in the community building phase! He recently launched an education course to help people understand the history of Queer people as well as modern lingo and vocabulary.
Matthew’s brother, Brandon, gave him the original slides that he was using to teach it to professors. Matthew thought to make it accessible to everyone, and about a year and a half ago started organizing and adding new information.
Courtney Hayden Equity Community Liaison & Coordinator Kansas Department Of Health and Environment
In his own words, “Queer Made Easy is a class designed to be a basic 101 discussion class about the LGBTQ+ community to better help you serve them. This class is for anyone and everyone who serves this community from schools to law enforcement to everyday street corner busniesses. This training is a four hour intense training full of discussion. It provides a safe place to ask the hard questions. And even the availability to ask the harder questions in private afterwards. Queer Made Easy is best in person. However, it can be done over zoom.
Queer Made Easy started as a few training classes for the staff at Ball State University. The training was created by my brother Brandon Million, Ball State University’s Assistant Director of the Office of Inclusive Excellence. I took the slides and thought, "What would it look like if I took these and transformed them for everyday people?” That’s where the building of the class started. I decided to add in a history lesson. I hear people say on social media, “Why are we talking about this now?” or “Where is this talk coming from?” So I wanted to answer those questions in the first hour of the class. We go back to 1924 to the first gay nonprofit started by Henry Gerber.
Then I wanted to give the class a purpose. Why do we need to learn about this? Why is it important? That’s when I added in the statistics. Did you know you can lower someone suicide rate by 65% just by showing them acceptance? I wanted to show this training can and will save lives. It’s more than learning how to better serve the LGBTQ+ community.
The class covers basic terminology, pronouns, legal names vs. preferred names, what to do when you make a mistake, and so much more. This is again a safe place to get the answers to the questions you have always wondered. How is they/them singular? How am I supposed to use preferred names on legal documents? What if I mess up someone’s pronoun or preferred name? If you think you or your company would benefit from having this kind of knowledge I urge you to reach out. This has been a passion project of mine. My hope is to lower the suicide rate by providing knowledge. My motto is Knowledge is Power.”
To request information please reach out to Matthew directly, at LGBTQKansas@gmail.com
The class is going to constantly evolve with new lingo as the terminology changes in the queer community. A couple things to note:
So far, Matthew has taught it at Rise Up Kansas in Great Bend this past February! It was discussion based, so Matthew was able to get feedback and ideas regarding the curriculum. For example, the intersectionality of race and transgender issues!
The money from this class is going to fund connections in the queer community. Programs for LGBTQ of KS, and hopefully as time goes on adding a staff person as well!
Check out his website. There’s merch and other ways to keep in touch! lgbtqks.org
