Back in May, Peace Corps put out this press release, titled “Peace Corps Announces New Service Opportunity for Same-Sex Couples.”
It stated:
“Expanding service opportunities to same-sex domestic partners who want to volunteer together further diversifies the pool of Peace Corps applicants and the skills of those invited to serve overseas in the fields of education, health, community economic development, environment, youth in development and agriculture. Married heterosexual couples have been serving together in the Peace Corps since its inception in 1961. Currently, 7 percent of Peace Corps assignments are filled by married volunteers serving together.”
As LGBTQ volunteers saw this news, coming out before even the Supreme Court’s decisions regarding DOMA and Prop 8, there was much excitement. Then, news spread among my fellow volunteers that Thailand was one of the approved countries to accept same-sex couples, which started a lot of conversations among the currently serving LGBTQ volunteers. In these conversations, a common thread was that we didn’t currently feel particularly well supported or understood by the Peace Corps staff in the country and that we worried about the potential same-sex couple that would be serving here.
Proposing and Planning a Safe Zone Training
After some conversations to discuss what we felt would help to address our needs as volunteers, the Volunteer Advisory Committee brought up some of our concerns and the reception was somewhat lukewarm, but there was a response from the staff that they would like more guidance with the focus on same-sex couples. After more conversations, among ourselves and volunteers serving in other countries, it was proposed to do a Safe Zone training, which was well received by the staff. A date was set and we decided on who would facilitate, which included three other current volunteers and myself.
In our planning for the meeting, we figured that the needs of the staff were not well address by the standard Safe Zone training and the time allowed would not have been sufficient, so we pooled our experiences and experiences of people we knew who had done similar type workshops and came up with something that we felt would best suit the staff’s needs: to understand what having a LGBTQ identity in the States means, what the LGBTQ experience is like in the villages and rural Thailand and how to best support volunteers as they grapple with the differences, including the effects on mental health of not being able to “come out” and perhaps changing the language of the Welcome Book that all volunteers receive before coming to Thailand that recommends “staying in the closet.”
Training the Peace Corps Staff
Last Friday was the day and we started off by introducing ourselves, how we identify, what that meant for us in the States and our experiences LGBTQ people in rural Thailand. We used the Genderbread Person 2.0 and encouraged the participants to think of where they would fall on each of the spectrums and took questions about what the labels mean.
Then we moved outside to do an activity called the Walk of Life. Each participant was given an identity stating an age, American or Thai and a sexuality and sometimes whether they were in a relationship or not. They all lined up, shoulder to shoulder, and I read aloud different life events or situations, such as “Can become a monk” or “Can buy clothes without judgement.” If the participant, with their identity card, felt as if they could do the things I read aloud they took a step forward, and if they could not, then they remained where they were. At the end of the activity, some people were at the top of the stairs and others had not moved very far from the starting place.
After taking note of where people were and thinking about it, we moved back inside for a debrief to talk about how some things made them feel as they took on another identity. We talked about judgments that were made of people who didn’t go as far as other and how the people who didn’t move very far felt. The discussion moved into asking for help from people who were ahead of you or offering help, and feeling helpless in both cases. The discussion ended there, with a suggestion to think over the coffee break about how these things would affect a Peace Corps volunteer.
When we came back we played a game where you told a partner about a date you went on, but doing it without using any kind of identifying pronouns or words that would reveal the gender of your date. Then we posed some discussion questions about how early experiences shape and inform our views and attitudes towards LGBTQ people.
From there, we went into ways that the staff could better support LGBTQ volunteers in Thailand, from being sensitive in language class when working on the class about partners and marriage to working through the process of deciding to come out at site or not and then we ended with questions and passing out stickers for the staff to have indicating that they foster a Safe Zone.
Overall Feelings
Overall, the workshop was very well received and the participants were actively engaged with lots of good questions about how they can help the volunteers. A conversation has certainly been started and thought is being given to how things are handled, with regard to maintaining cultural awareness. I think that some of the unique challenges that we as volunteers face were seen in a new light as well and I’m looking forward to helping the staff in this regard.