On Thursday November 10th, our group went up to the Bronx on the D train for an hour to get to an organization called FIERCE. They help with LGBTQ youth and kids of color with helping them be more adaptable and comfortable in their own skin. We met Mustafa Sullivan, the executive director, to learn more about the organization and about LGBTQ youth across the nation. We got there and he welcomed us to their new and temporary office. He lead us to the upstairs part on the office and we settled there till we got started. Mustafa lead a discussion with us about the importance of being comfortable in any space with who you are. He told us his personal story and what it was like for him helping other kids feel safer. He is a gay man of color that helps out with making the world a better, and more loving place for LGBTQ people. The first activity we did was, we were given these “flower power” papers and what we had to do was use two different colored markers to color the topics that we felt we had power in, and the categories that we thought we didn’t really have much power in. For example, one of the categories was race and ethnicity. If you feel that you had power in that topic of your life, then you would color it in with a specific color that indicated power. But if you felt that you didn’t have power at all in that area, then you would color it the other color. You could also color it 50/50 if you feel like you have power, but also don’t sometimes. On the back of the “flower power” sheet, we did another activity which included us putting our experience and feelings on the gender and sexuality spectrum. Each one went to masculine, to feminine. They each represented the stereotypes that people have in society today of be very masculine, or very feminine. One spectrum was the sex you were born with, one was gender identity, another was gender expression, than sexual orientation/romantic orientation. After we filled all those out, we shared with each other. We learned a lot from each others papers, and even changed some things because of what we saw on each others made more sense. We also realized that many people have even less power in many of these topics, and we didn’t realize before that some things we didn’t have any power in at all. The last activity we did was we made a poster that represented justice in our world today for all LGBTQ people together. We came up with ideas that showed justice, like a rainbow, and people standing together. Overall, we had an amazing time and learned so much about justice, the gender and sexuality spectrum, and things that we may have power in or not. We had a lot of fun and hope that we can gain more from FIERCE in the future.

My Social Justice Group making a poster that represents justice in the world for the LGBTQ community.

The FIERCE logo.