Hi, all -

I'm Yarrow Koning (they/them) and I'll be co-presenting with Charzy Jones (she/her) and Libby VanWhye (she/her) at this year's NAAEE Conference. Our virtual live presentation is titled "Responding to Legislative Attacks on LGBTQ+ Communities in (Environmental) Education". This session will dive into impacts of the recent surge in anti-LGBTQ legislation (e.g. anti-trans sports bans, restrictions on gender affirming healthcare, school censorship bills, and bills restricting supports schools can provide to LGBTQ+ students and staff). Our presentation will focus on how this attacks impact LGBTQ+ youth, LGBTQ+ educators, and the field of environmental education.

One of our goals for this session is to incorporate perspectives from other LGBTQ+ people working in environmental education and EE-adjacent fields. We'll be collecting video, audio, and written testimonials (can be anonymous) and weaving them into a video to be shared as part of our session and potentially as part of future presentations on this topic.

We'll be conducting short (max. 20 minutes) interviews via Zoom. Interviewees can decide if they'd like to be on-camera, audio only, or provide written responses that can be read by one of the presenters. We'll be asking for responses to the following questions. Interviewees should try to keep their responses under 3 minutes for each question.

1) What do these legislative attacks on LGBTQ+ people mean for the field of environmental education? How would you like to see environmental educators and EE organizations respond?
2) How do these legislative attacks and broader cultural scrutiny of LGBTQ+ people and educators impact you as an environmental educator?
3) Thinking back on your own experiences with (environmental) education, what kinds of support were important to you? What support do you wish you had?

If you'd like to be interviewed, please use the linked Doodle poll to schedule a time with Libby. Interviews must be completed by September 16. Interviewees do not have to be specifically affiliated with NAAEE, so please feel free to share this information with others you know who you think would like to speak to these issues.