Better Serving Gender Minority Veterans: Gender, Military Service, and Veteran Identity

When: March 24th (12 - 3 pm PST, 3 - 6 pm EST)

Where: Virtual/Online

Trainer: Lindsay Church

Description:

Throughout our nation’s history, gender minorities, including women, transgender, and gender diverse individuals, have served in our Armed Forces with dignity and distinction. Despite a history riddled with restrictive service limits, legal barriers to accessions and authentic service, rampant sexual assault and gender-based violence in the ranks, and a culture that has struggled to equitably serve and appropriately transition gender minority veterans, their share of the community continues to grow year-after-year. 

Military service is deeply rooted in a culture of masculinity and service members who exist outside of majority identities hold drastically different experiences than their dominant culture counterparts. This session will explore gender and military service throughout history, the unique experiences of those who exist on the margins of gender and military service, and give providers and communities tools to better serve gender minority veterans through deepening their understanding.

This session is a part of the Beyond Diversity series, a monthly training series designed to foster intercultural understanding, promote inclusive strategies, and help participants build programs and services that are culturally informed, inclusive by default, and focused on retention and sustainability.

Objectives:

• Create understanding of sex, gender identity, and the impacts to the experiences of service members and veterans
• Understand how historic and current policies have shaped military forces, impacted the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs’ organizational cultures, and resulted in many of the inequities we see today
• Discuss unique inequities, including in healthcare, housing, mental health, and more, that women, transgender, and gender diverse veterans experience
• Develop tools for creating stronger relationships and design more inclusive programs for women, transgender, and gender diverse veteran patrons and clients

**Zoom link will be included in your registration confirmation email**