During this presentation given by guest speaker Chris Woods from the NYU LGBTQ+ Center, we learned about the meaning of the acronym LGBTQ+ as well as explored more terms and definitions when referring to someone's sexuality and gender references. A new word that ws brought up today was the idea of cissexism, which upholds the idea of the gender binary of male or female, and denys the existence of transgender people. I was aware that this was an issue before the lecture, but was never aware of the term associated with it. One of the interesting topics that came up during the discussions was how we can adapt technology to better assist LGBTQ+ students and the LGBTQ+ communnity as a whole during the COVID-19 pandemic.
I think that currently, there are some features in technology that are helping LGBTQ+ people better identify themselves to people. For example, during the Zoom meeting, it was possible for people to pick out what pronouns they would like to refer to themselves as, allowing for people to properly call each other by what they'd want to be called. In addition to this fact, I also think that since everyone has more access to technology now that we are all under quarantine, we can have more exposure to each other as people in various communities, and within those communities, gain a sense of respect for people, regardless of how they might identify. Online communities are becoming more popular and prevalent as a result of COVID-19, and by engaging people more to eachother from various backgrounds, it hopes to generate more of a sense of understanding of everyone in said communities.