English teacher Jason Hinojosa will moderate a one-hour Country Day Queer Voices panel on Jan 12 at 1:30 p.m. in the Matthews Library. All seniors will be attending the panel, but Hinojosa encourages interested students of other grades to attend, too.
The panel is being held to supplement “The Laramie Project,” a play about the aftermath of the murder of a gay man, Matthew Shepard, in Laramie, Wyoming in 1998. Hinojosa teaches the play to his Advanced Topics English classes.
Hinojosa began inviting members of the Sacramento LGBT Community Center to hold a panel with students. The panel was held twice in person and on Zoom in 2021 due to COVID-19.
This year, the LGBT Community Center canceled due to COVID-19, but Hinojosa decided to hold the panel with members of the Country Day community.
“I think it could be really powerful,” Hinojosa said.
Panelists include six students, including at least one from each grade in the high school.
Questions for the panelists will be generated by Hinojosa and students in his AT English classes.
“I’m hoping that we can humanize a social issue,” Hinojosa said. “When you put an actual human face to an issue or to an identity, I think it changes things. So I’m hoping people grow in empathy as they listen.”
— By Ethan Monasa
