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Our Space's Know Your Rights Project

For many LGBTQIA+ youth, finding their voice and learning how to use it can feel scary, yet is often pivotal in being able to fully express themselves.   “Know Your Rights” is a youth-driven project sponsored by Side by Side’s Our Space program that explores LGBTQIA+ civil rights and the history behind those rights. But the main objective of the project, beyond its educational aspect, is to instill a sense of agency and greater confidence in the youth participants, while simultaneously training them to become leaders in the LGBTQIA+ community.

Our Space Educational Youth Advocate Jasmine Cervantes explains, “There is a lot of legal language about our civil rights that most of us don’t fully comprehend. We teach youth how to inform themselves about their rights in a way that they can understand, and then in turn be able to explain to their peers.”

While “Know Your Rights” has been an in-person event in the past, going virtual this year due to the pandemic created additional opportunities for youth leadership. “We decided to have youth create webinars to teach others about topics they are passionate about. We want to honor their voices,” says Our Space Program Manager Diego Basdeo Fitzgerald. Four participants researched their chosen topic and identified gaps between what youth need and what our society or the legal system provides. Then, they taught others what they had learned by creating webinars on each topic. “Our goal was for these youth to leave with the confidence that they can teach and encourage others. We want to inspire community leaders!” says Basdeo Fitzgerald. When participants felt intimated by the process, Cervantes helped by teaching a bit of history. “There have been LGBTQIA+ young adults throughout history who were trailblazers and changemakers,” Cervantes says. “Placing these young people in that lineage is incredibly inspiring and motivating.” The results speak for themselves.

Lavender-Cygnet de Julia’s workshop on Queer Disability Justice teaches that access is the key intersection of queer and disabled justice. She says, true social justice for queer and disabled folks is “the ability to navigate public space without the fear of being policed, hurt or otherwise ridiculed for existing.”

In Your Right to Grow, Jessica Reynoso teaches that plants can help you cope with tough days and emotions and shares how plants are symbolic of our human rights to relax, to feel our emotions, and to not feel overwhelmed by negativity.

John Jaco teaches about Housing Rights for queer BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) tenants, digging into legislation and tenant’s legal rights, highlighting where the system falls short, and how tenants can inform themselves and use local resources. “Housing is a human right,” he says.

And finally, Kaitlyn Kanani encourages other to find a creative outlet – as she did through dance – that speaks to them in Your Right to Personal Expression. Basdeo Fitzgerald was inspired watching this group come together as a team. “The sense of mutual understanding and support they created as a team was beautiful. They came together to support each other, and there is no value you can place on that experience.” Special thanks to Byrd & Jim Baldwin, the Flynkins Fund of Horizons Foundation, and Sutter Health-Eden Medical Center for supporting the Know Your Rights Project.

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