Items
topic_interest is exactly
transition
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2022-04-15
The Years of Covid 2020-2022
How covid affected my transition from high school to college -
2022-03-17
Working Remotely, Some Transgender People Saw an Opportunity to Change
This is a news story from the New York Times by Jenny Gross and Alyssa Lukpat. This story is about people that have transitioned during COVID, or before that, and their work experiences. Some of the data present is interesting to look at. In 2021, healthcare providers reported a stronger demand for confirmation surgeries compared to 2020 when many elective surgeries were postponed. Though, demand was even higher in 2021 compared to 2019, before the pandemic. Some doctors say that this influx is partly due to surgeries being postponed, but there are other explanations. At Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, the Center for Transgender medicine and surgery performed a total of 938 surgeries in 2021, 60 percent more than the previous year, and 43 percent higher than 2019. While there is this influx, the story links to a YouGov poll showing that many Americans are still divided on if others should be legally allowed to switch their sex. The article then goes on to discuss other inequalities trans people face, such as earning 32 percent less than the general population. Trans people are also twice as likely to be unemployed compared to the general population. Later on, there is a discussion on what trans people face in the workforce. Even in more liberal and progressive work environments, some trans people still report feeling unsafe working in person. There are complaints that diversity training in the workplace focuses mainly on gays, but glosses over trans people and their issues. Other trans people, like Rae Lee, fears she will be fired if she came out to public administrators. Working from home has allowed Rae Lee to feel safer. -
2020-03-15
Community Engagement: Transitioning to Zoom
Previous to COVID-19, everything related to community engagement was hands-on, face-to-face, and in-person. However, right after spring break in 2020, everything changed because of COVID-19, and new ways of interacting with the community and each other were used. To demonstrate this I uploaded for this item a screenshot from the Instagram page of the Community Engagement Office of St. Mary's University. Almost none of us were used to zoom and in a couple of weeks zoom turned into the number one platform used by businesses and schools as a means of communication and our community engagement was not the exception. One of the activities that were made during COVID-19 was a Netflix Party through zoom with many students engaged through the network. As a personal experience, I was part of a group/class called Empower: Ecuador that was very focused on personal relationships and community building, and transitioning to zoom was not easy. However, we were able to culminate our semester and encounter new ways to connect with each other through zoom and other social platforms in meaningful ways while keeping each other safe from getting sick. It was a matter of caring for each other so deeply that connecting in person was no longer an option, but our intentionality to connect and interact with each other grew in many other creative ways to achieve the goal of community engagement despite all the difficulties that we were all going through.