Confessions of An Athletic Training Student: In The News 2

Sunday, October 5, 2014

In The News 2

In the news this week, I stumbled upon an article about gay rights in the Gordon College campus. Although this article may be a bit different from the usual athletics news, I felt that this article was important to the way we, athletic trainers and future aspiring athletic trainers, run our athletic training facilities. This summer, Gordon College was under attack following their presidents decision to "exempt to federal workplace protections for gay and transgender people." After Gordon College's decision, the city of Salem ended their contract with Gordon College to look after the Old City due to Gordon's College's discrimination against LGBT.

Paul Miller, a graduate of Gordon college and current graduate student, leads a group called One Gordon. In his meeting with Gordon College alumni, the topic of the discrimination against gays and transgender and students are saying that they will transfer due to the decision made by the president. Alumni said they had a great experience at Gordon but change must be made. At the meeting the alumni and current students are fighting for the LGBT community. Miller has a petition against the presidents decision and has about 800 signatures. The One Gordon group hopes to create a positive atmosphere and a safe environment for those that are a part of the LGBT community.

After reading this article, I was genuinely shocked about the conservative decision made by Gordon College. Today, we live in a world where the LGBT community is safe to acknowledge their sexual orientation to the public. In the collegiate setting, colleges are a melting pot of genders, races, ethnicities, and sexual orientation. It is a place where a student figures out who they are and not what their families tell them they are.In the past year, several student athletes and professional athletes are coming out as gay. Many sports are defined as a "masculine" and usually "straight" sports but does it define sexual orientation? Absolutely not. As a future practicing athletic trainer, I will not allow any discrimination against LGBT within my facility. As a minority myself, I have experienced discrimination against my race and understand the mental effects that succumbs an individual. Athletes should feel safe and comfortable being themselves and being comfortable to talk to their athletic trainers about any discrimination they are faced with.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/10/03/alumni-stand-for-gay-rights-gordon-college/jE3pA4qoBOfkbeWCpqpg3O/story.html

1 comment:

smstarksOctober 5, 2014 at 5:04 PM
Very appropriate article Annie, as yes, as ATs we treat patients, My hope would be that one day, we don't differentiate by race, sexual orientation or religion, to name a few differences in patients, but rather, treat the whole person. Yes, the facility and the atmosphere we create may or may not lead one to want to seek out assistance from their athletic trainer - I hope we create inclusive, safe environments.
ReplyDelete
Replies

Add comment

About Me

Hi my name is Annie Chen and I am in my second and final year as a graduate student at Bridgewater State University. I earned my undergraduate degree in Kinesiology with a minor in Chinese at UMass Amherst in 2013. My interest in athletic training started when I was a collegiate athlete at Nichols College back in 2009. I was curious about how the body worked and how injuries and rehabilitation worked to bring the athlete back to the field. I loved my athletic trainers and appreciated all their hard work they did in the athletic training room to get us back into the game. When I attended UMass, I had a great opportunity interning with the UMass Football team in 2012-2013 as an athletic training intern. During my time with UMass Football, I learned many treatment and rehabilitation skills and found such a reward in seeing athlete return to play with my help. My current clinical placement is at Bridgewater State University. My experiences at these different clinical site have given me great admiration and appreciation for athletic trainers. I am Chinese and also speak Cantonese fluently at home. During my free time I love to travel, experience different cultures, and swim.