The Women and Gender Studies Department welcomed Professor of Religious Studies Adam Ackley from the University of Redlands to two workshops focusing on building meaningful and respectful vocabulary on Thursday, Feb. 4

The goal was to transform dialogue and engagement with diverse people and explore the variety of views by and about LGBTIQ people in various world religious traditions.

Anna Torres-Bower, the chair of the women and gender studies and philosophy departments proudly explained.”Part of Women’s and Gender Studies is the coordination of the Women’s History Month Celebration, so he is one of the first guest speakers who is going to be here on campus to acknowledge the celebration”

Torres-Bower said, “He came to Cerritos college for the first time last October to give a presentation on behalf of the department of philosophy and religious studies.

“He talked about the LGBTQIA+ community and the religious experience. In that case it was only an hour and fifteen minutes and it was not possible to cover everything so that’s why we decided to have a three hour workshop.”

This event was well attended by philosophy majors in fact the room was filled.

Walking into room LC 155 one may have thought to leave after being educated by a lecture on the eurocentric perspective of the visible issues that the gay community deal with in terms of Christianity.

Attendees of the lecture were met with literature explaining “Trans Gender Terminology” published by the National Center for Transgender Equality.

During the presentation Ackley went into detail about the various world views of the gender binary, the mood of POC for the queer members of their community prior to European involvement, and pertinent talking points on the varying degrees of acceptance amongst modern and influential religious leaders.

In short the lecture was fitting for the occasion as it was as comprehensive in its diversity, accommodating the student body of Cerritos College’s own diversity.

Ackley stated in between the first and second session, “I expected to engage the community in a discussion of gender and sexual orientation identities and how religions around the world have diverse views about that. It seems people were paying attention and those expectations were met”

Most of the students filed out of the room to stretch their legs and have a snack during an intermission.

Daniel Shaper, linguistics major said, “I have gone to a lecture like this before. It pretty much just talked about terminology rather than history and religion and connections with mortality.

“It would be nice to have more. It would be great to have more representation.”