Daily Bruin – Page 155

Women in higher education encounter inhospitable environment

This post was updated March 5 at 3:41 p.m.

A woman’s place isn’t at a university.

That’s been UCLA’s message for nearly a century. And judging by current trends, it’s going to be for another.

Westwood’s largest employer has a long history of alienating women. At first, nearly 76% of the university’s 1,232 faculty members in 1919 were women. But as the university transferred over to the University of California Board of Regents, these numbers dwindled: In 1920, 61% of faculty were women. By 2012, women only made up 34.7% of UCLA’s faculty.

It might seem like things are better today. The number of women within UCLA’s departments is slowly increasing, up 3 percentage points from 2012. And according to the U.S. Department of Education, the majority of college graduates today are women.

But academia is still a man’s world. Women face a multitude of barriers that prevent them from entering into higher education institutions. When they are able to, they’re presumed to be less competent than their male counterparts. They’re also boxed off from climbing up the ranks.

This is more than just a frustrating experience.

Saraliza Anzaldua, a doctoral student in philosophy, said she has felt scrutinized in her classes for her ability to understand the subject matter.

“There are times when I feel invalidated not only as a philosopher but as a human being,” Anzaldua said. “That’s very hard to deal with, especially if you’re in an environment where that type of invalidation happens on a daily basis.”

This type of questioning doesn’t happen to men. Instead of spending time proving themselves to their peers, men are able to focus on their research and other academic endeavors.

Moreover, women’s experiences can vary depending on the departments they’re in. All of UCLA’s gender studies faculty were women in 2016. That number is 20.2% for the economics department. The mathematics department is made up of only 9.8% women as of 2016.

And it’s not hard to see how microaggressions within academia impact the fields women choose to study for their advanced degrees.

Anzaldua said she studied biology in her undergraduate career, but left the field because she didn’t feel welcome within it. There was only one female lab technician in her lab.

“You’re expected to perform on a team, but you’re not part of a team,” she said. “It can be very difficult to deal with.”

When Anzaldua approached her advisor for help, he told her she should leave biology if she wasn’t happy with it.

This is a common experience for women. The lack of female representation in fields like STEM and philosophy only fuels a system in which women are driven out from research and faculty positions. If an advisor had been there to encourage rather than dissuade her, Anzaldua could have pursued a different area of study for her doctorate.

These barriers only intensify after graduate school.

Ashley Katrine Blum, a doctoral student in political science, said the education system hasn’t adapted to having women in the field.

“You have a lot of women who are entering graduate school. And you have fewer women as you look higher up the ladder of academia,” she said. “Among the tenured professors, these gaps start to emerge more often.”

While UCLA may be increasing the number of women hires, many of them only take up adjunct professor positions. Men still make up more than two-thirds of full-time professor positions.

This discrepancy is largely because of implicit biases. Studies have found that women make up the majority of adjunct positions – women are less likely to be hired than their male peers, and if they are, it’s probably in nonpermanent positions.

Jessica Collett, a professor of sociology, said she doesn’t think there’s blatant sexism in higher education today, but we are still influenced by preconceived ideas of what positions are suitable for woman.

“The majority of what seems to hold women back from pursuing advanced degrees is these kinds of cultural ideas and institutional structures that somehow create this kind of institutional sexism and unconscious sexism,” she said.

There’s also the issue of the tenure clock, the range of time in which professors prove their worth to universities before they apply for tenured positions.

Sarayu Sundar, a doctoral student in higher education and organizational change, said there’s a difference in how men and women are able to be productive on the tenure timeline. Women who chose to have children, for example, have to take care of children too.

“Women are more likely than not going to be on the tenure clock at the same time their biological clock is ticking,” she said. “And so there really is this trade off of ‘Am I going to be a tenured professor or am I going to be a mother?’”

These trends can be traced back to the fact that universities are already rigged against women. Colleagues, professors, administrators and hiring committees all hold implicit and explicit beliefs that ultimately make academia a challenging space to enter.

Sure, things are better than they used to be. Women can get advanced degrees, and depending on their departments and universities, there are spaces on campus that proactively aid them in their scholarly work. But academic spaces are still largely male-dominated, and just because women have access to them doesn’t mean they are welcome.

UCLA still isn’t a place for women. You don’t have to hang a “boys only” sign at the front door to know that.

Admissions essays should ask for applicants’ values, not their sob stories

Milking one’s trauma isn’t the only road to university admission.

And yet, it’s exactly what college applications look for.

The University of California’s admission process, like that of other universities, aims to be holistic by requesting a history of applicants’ classes as well as their talents and achievements. The University’s undergraduate personal statements ask applicants to describe how their experiences have shaped their interests in their potential fields of study, asking them to draw heavily on personal experiences and relationships.

These statements are substandard for a variety for reasons. For starters, they encourage applicants to curate sob stories to tug at admission officers’ hearts. More troublingly, though, is that they do little to ensure applicants are truly cognizant of the importance of diversity and inclusion.

Fortunately, there’s an alternative: diversity statements.

Graduate applicants and faculty candidates nationwide are often asked to submit diversity statements, which require them to describe their past and possible future contributions to an environment of equity, diversity and inclusion. These statements allow applicants to showcase their commitment to contribute to the intended institutions and highlight what they could bring during their time there.

Diversity statements, while also rooted in applicants’ experiences, ask what their values are, ultimately seeking to understand how they came to be. That kind of questioning at the outset can compel future Bruins to walk on campus ready to think about issues like diversity and socioeconomic disparity. That kind of mindset can predispose students to bridge campus divides through discussion about these difficult topics.

Like graduate school applications, the UC’s undergraduate applications should include diversity statements to encourage potential students to think critically about core values of diversity. Personal statements have the potential of exploring applicants’ pasts, but don’t touch on anything substantial. They don’t ask about applicants’ potential contributions to UCLA or what their presence will bring to the table. They also don’t give students space to critically consider their role within the university.

Additionally, working on a personal statement can be mentally exhausting, which can be limiting for some.

Mia Glionna, a second-year American literature and culture and African American studies student, remembers being stressed out about her personal statement, despite having gone through a college prep program.

“I felt like I had to write a sob story to get in,” Glionna said. “(A diversity statement) doesn’t rely on the assumption of your family or like your personal life. I feel that takes off a lot of pressure to write about your personal traumas.”

Diversity statements don’t rely on personal traumas or hardships, and they can explore applicants’ experiences more deeply – and equitably – than personal statements.

“A lot of admissions processes can be excluding and marginalizing even if they’re not intending to be,” said Andrea Gambino, a graduate student in the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies.

Gambino, who was a high school teacher for four years, said diversity statements are more personal than personal statements.

“How do you deconstruct diversity and inclusion and who you are from your personal statement? That is who you are,” she said.

A diversity statement has the opportunity to truly review an applicant holistically because students aren’t simply retelling their past narratives – they’re critically analyzing their own values and how they came to be.

Getting students to start thinking about diversity before even being admitted can help them know their identities matter and that they’re playing a role in fostering diversity on campus.

On top of that, the UC would be better able to ensure applicants follow through on what they’ve written if it uses diversity statements, said Elizabeth Fasthorse, a GSEIS student.

“You follow up with (those) questions,” Fasthorse said. “A lot of the schools here have additional (communication): They’ll have a question or you have interviews and telephone calls where you can ask the individual where you can check up.”

Diversity statements are also less invasive, as well as a lot more accurate. Students can write about what they hope to contribute without having to paint out their entire lives on a piece of paper.

Selena Cartznes, a GSEIS student, said diversity statements are easier to write in high school because they don’t hone in on past experiences.

“You’re really just talking about yourself. That’s the cool thing about it,” Cartznes said. “Yes, you talk about your life, but you don’t talk about what happened to you. You’re focusing on what happened and how are you going to move forward.”

And while diversity statements deconstruct applicants’ core values, using them wouldn’t necessarily be ideological filtering. The prompt would still require applicants to draw from their personal experiences, but in addition would ask them how they hope to contribute to the UC environment. That kind of introspection would only help students start to think about UCLA’s – and the University’s – core commitments and help make the campus more inclusive.

University admissions have a long way to go before they can truly claim equity, diversity and inclusion. A big piece of that puzzle: making sure admissions essays are more than just trauma porn on paper.

Without effective outreach, diversity deficit will continue to plague student body

Los Angeles is the picture of diversity.

UCLA, however, is not.

The University of California is prohibited from using race as a factor in the admissions process due to California Proposition 209, which was passed in 1996. The University has consequently implemented a class-based admissions approach, which doesn’t take race into consideration.

UCLA’s recent methods of getting a more diverse student body include high school visits and partnering with faith-based organizations. The UC system also implemented the Early Academic Outreach Program in 1976 to help students prepare for college by providing them with academic advising and information about the application process.

Needless to say, these mechanisms have been wildly unsuccessful in fostering campus diversity.

Gary Clark, UCLA’s director of undergraduate admissions, said the university currently does outreach in local high schools around Los Angeles to encourage minority, first-generation and other underrepresented students to apply.

“Recruitment isn’t about driving up the volume,” Clark said. “It’s about attracting high-quality students who will be competitive in the process who can engage with students like them and have a diverse undergrad experience.”

However, the impact of these programs has been on the number of applications, not on the number of enrolled underrepresented students. Just about 11% and 9% of black and Latino applicants, respectively, were admitted to UCLA in 2018. These low admit numbers contribute to the 3% African American and 22% Hispanic population on campus.

Enrollment should be the focus instead of admissions. Black and Latino students have lower retention and graduation rates than white students. So even if there is a more diverse pool of applicants, the university can’t call that a victory and forget about those students. Moreover, the recent college admissions scandal only serves to prove that those who are rich and white have a leg up in university admissions.

Because UCLA cannot use race as a factor in admissions, it must increase outreach to underrepresented communities and establish roots within these communities on an admissions level. The university must make it a priority to reach out to communities year-round and support student organizations that foster diversity, through partnerships and funding. Just visiting schools to drive up the volume of applications isn’t enough to increase diversity on campus.

UCLA has yet to recover from the effects of Prop 209. In 1995, 7.1% of the university’s undergraduate student body was African American. In 2005, that number plummeted to 2.8%. Similarly, Latino students represented 21.6% of UCLA students in 1995 before the number dropped to 14.5% in 2005. Though both black and Latino enrollment have increased since, members of those communities are still sorely underadmitted at the university.

In addition, UCLA isn’t focusing on programs that make the campus seem welcoming to students of color. Rather than providing institutional support, the university has relied on student groups to make its campus appear supportive of people of color.

The Afrikan Student Union, for example, puts on events such as Admit Weekend. The event brings admitted students to UCLA, houses them and gives them food, so they can experience the black community on campus.

Isaiah Njoku, chair of the ASU, said a lack of support from the administration puts too much pressure on the organization to recruit and console the entire black community.

“With the amount of work we have to take up as the ASU – and not getting paid for the support for the diversity that UCLA wants so heavily – it needs to change,” Njoku said. “It’s not our job. We should not have to be retaining ourselves. UCLA should be taking care of us.”

If students of color don’t see themselves represented on campus, it’s hard for them to see themselves going to UCLA. The burden of retention and graduation of minority students shouldn’t fall on the minority students, but on the university.

“Consistently over the years, UCLA has not supported the minorities and underrepresented communities,” Njoku said. “For (the recent admissions scandal) to arise shows UCLA is not continually trying to counteract the inequality for students of lower socioeconomic backgrounds. This perpetuates segregation of the communities.”

If the university wants to improve its students of color population, it needs to take a hard look at how it recruits and whether it is putting enough funding and time into cultivating this community on campus. UCLA should work on increasing funding for student organizations and work alongside them to revise and improve its community outreach while also maintaining close bonds with high schools.

Some may argue UCLA already has programs to engage with students across Los Angeles. The Early Academic Outreach Program, Project Welcome, and the Strategic Partnerships and Community Engagement office all work to increase the diversity at UCLA. However, there’s significant room for improvement. There is still rampant underrepresentation in the undergraduate student body that pamphlets and words alone won’t mitigate.

UCLA has a lot of work ahead of it. Someday, though, it might actually look like the city it calls home.

Movie review: ‘Pet Sematary’ revival falls flat, fails to deliver fully fleshed-out horror

The plot of “Pet Sematary” is almost as nonsensical as its spelling.

An unclear timeline and inconsistent performances do not exactly help, either.

Following the 1989 film adaptation of Stephen King’s 1983 novel, “Pet Sematary” takes yet another visual incarnation. The movie opens on Louis Creed (Jason Clarke) and his family moving into a remote home in a small town. Though the house is initially quite charming, Louis and his wife Rachel (Amy Seimetz) soon learn that their 50-acre property comes with a cemetery dedicated to local pets. Beyond it, Louis discovers an ancient land that revives the family’s dead cat, but with a catch – their once-friendly feline turns malicious.

With the foundation laid for a seemingly straightforward plot, what could go wrong? As it turns out, a lot. Irrelevant characters dilute the plot, while unclear time jumps and offbeat acting fail to conjure a sense of depth.

Toward the beginning of the movie, an unexplained character is introduced: Louis is working as a doctor for a nearby college when he encounters a student hit by a car. Though it has no connection to the “sematary,” the mangled body haunts Louis’ thoughts and appears in multiple scenes over the course of the film, even narrating the vocalizations of the cursed forest as it beckons to the protagonist.

Similarly random is the focus on Zelda (Alyssa Brooke Levine), Rachel’s dead sister who initially serves to explain Rachel’s fear of death. Yet Zelda appears in several scenes, overstaying her welcome as a useful explainer for her sister’s strange response to the cemetery.

Much of the plot swiftly kicks into gear as the film starts, with one of the couple’s children, Ellie (Jeté Laurence), stumbling across the gravestones of dozens of animals. But for some reason, the story soon jumps to Halloween, with Ellie spending time with two other kids an unknown number of days after finding the cemetery. Then the audience is brought forward to Ellie’s post-Halloween birthday party. Yet another indeterminate amount of time passes, making it hard to invest in the characters, but the film settles into a clear timeline in the party’s gloomy aftermath.

Playing the role of Ellie’s mother, Seimetz fully realizes her potential in the scarier scenes of the film, expressing what feels like genuine fear through shaky movements. Unfortunately, it seems she got the role based solely on how well she could pretend to be scared, as the rest of her screen time relies on lazy vocal intonations and uninspired facial expressions, particularly within her family role. Her most memorable line – “stay-at-home wifey” – best exemplifies the character’s more cringeworthy moments through disingenuously delivered lines.

The only notable acting comes from Laurence, one of the youngest members on the cast. Her portrayal of Ellie captures childhood innocence, serving as a tether to ground the family in a sense of realism. Her tutu-clad dances around the house rounded the movie out and served as the only satisfying nonhorror moments within the hour and 43 minutes of runtime.

The only aspect the film nails is the pervasive sense of terror it invokes, which makes it good horror, but not necessarily great film. “Pet Sematary” finds its redemption in moments of drawn-out, unpredictable action. One scene in particular involving Rachel’s dead sister plays a single moment into a full minute of suspense, each second increasing the stakes. Stretching one idea into such an intense experience can often actually ruin the reveal, but the scene felt expertly crafted due to its simplicity – thumping sounds intensifying over time with minimal background music.

Unpredictably horrifying moments also manifest themselves in scenes involving Louis’ investigation into the effects of the cemetery. As he walks down to his basement late at night, viewers are likely prepared for cliche jump scares, and instead are left disoriented in ways that parallel Louis’ own confusion toward his cat’s newly monstrous nature.

The refreshing nature of the film’s fear-inducing shots set it apart from most horror films of late but does not fully make up for the iffy plot devices or underwhelming acting. “Pet Sematary” made more mistakes than just spelling a word wrong.

Mask exhibit to explore intersection of Catholic, Guatemalan tradition

Going as far back as the precolonial era, Guatemalan communities performed masked dances on important religious holidays. This tradition exists even today after the Spanish colonization of the Mayan people.

For decades, collectors Jim and Jeanne Pieper have been accumulating these masks, which depict figures ranging from Catholic martyr Saint George to Mayan ruler Tecún Umán.

The Piepers’ exhibition, showcasing 80 Guatemalan masks from the late 18th to the mid-20th century, will be at the Fowler Museum at UCLA from Sunday to Oct. 6. The opening event Saturday will celebrate Guatemalan culture through performances, including a marimba ensemble and a dance troupe, and a preview of the collection. Patrick Polk, curator of Latin American and Caribbean popular arts at the Fowler Museum, will highlight the origins of the masks as well as give firsthand insight on the cultural mixing of Catholic and Mayan religions.

“Masquerade is a universal tradition – the way in which people represent and perform sacred ideas and ways of becoming and transforming into the supernatural,” Polk said. “What you get is a continual kind of working out and reworking ways of representing the holy (figures).”

The masks depict sacred animals as well as historical and religious figures. Dancers wear these masks and reenact significant stories. One dance-drama featured in the exhibit tells the tale of Saint George and the dragon, Jim Pieper said, which was adapted from a prior dance about a serpent. The serpent was worshipped and represented water in the Mayan religion, but when the dance was converted to Catholicism, the serpent became a dragon who was defeated by the saint.

One Guatemalan dance even depicts the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors, Polk said. The traditional narrative sheds a positive light on their arrival rather than suggesting that it was a tyrannical overthrowing of a culture because it brought Catholicism to the Guatemalans, he said.

But Jim Pieper said the masks are not always used in religious dance-dramas, and he has noticed that, at times, it becomes more about the group simply dancing together. In such situations where the dance is less scripted, the masks could still have individual significance, such as a religious symbol engraved on the inside. The primary purpose in this case, however, is entertainment and recreation.

“You’re not going to be aware there’s a cross inside the mask. We have one mask in the exhibit that has a Liberty dime implanted in its forehead, meaning this person may actually be making a political statement while he’s dancing,” Jim Pieper said.

Greg Sandoval, who is coordinating the opening performances, said the marimba ensemble and dance troupe will not add to the religious component, but will rather complement the exhibit as a celebration of Guatemalan culture. The presence of these performers will create an event that mirrors any important celebration in the country, such as a wedding or holiday.

“The Los Angeles community has a pretty dynamic and diverse Guatemalan community – the women themselves will be in traditional Guatemalan dress,” Sandoval said. “As part of the celebration, we want to make sure that the masks themselves kind of come to life through different types of live programming.”

The traditional Guatemalan masks are primarily made of wood, Polk said, but also include leather, metal and components of animal horns. They are usually carved by men, Jim Pieper said, and sometimes the crafting process is accompanied by prayer. Carvers do not rely on anything written down to instruct them in their work, he said, because each relevant figure and technique is passed down orally over generations. However, maintaining their craft in modern times is more difficult because of the lessening demand within the country, since carvers are competing with mass production as well as relying heavily on tourist demand for traditional artwork, Jim Pieper said.

The exhibit at the Fowler is only a portion of the Piepers’ collection, which they have been working on for about 50 years. Jim Pieper said he and his wife discovered the colorful Guatemalan culture in the 1970s and have been working to interact with the community and learn more about it ever since.

“I collected some good masks, not because I knew what I was doing, but because I had a good eye for it,” Jim Pieper said. “It led me into studying humanism and how the mind differs with indigenous peoples and how they look at the other god.”

Archive opens doors to restoring films made by The Doors members

Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek are best known as the founding band members of The Doors. But many do not know that their friendship dates back to their time as UCLA film students.

Between 1963 and 1965, the pair contributed to five student films that are now held in the UCLA Film & Television Archive. The archive, with The Jim Morrison & Ray Manzarek Preservation Project, is campaigning to restore these films using crowdfunded donations in an effort to make them available to the public online or in the Billy Wilder Theater at the Hammer Museum.

“The Doors were a very iconic musical group, and I think a lot of people don’t realize they met at UCLA in film school,” said Randy Yantek, the archive’s digital lab manager. “Before the first music was ever made by these people, they made these films.”

The archive initiated the project as a way to honor UCLA’s centennial, said the archive’s director, Jan-Christopher Horak. The films will be part of an end-of-the-year program meant to highlight the works of well-known graduates – including members of The Doors, Horak said. After restoring the films, the archive plans to screen them in late 2019 or early 2020. Yantek said the restoration process can be challenging, depending on the condition of a film, but still rewarding.

“Once you’ve brought a film back to its original luster, or as close to it as you can, it’s rewarding,” Yantek said. “It’s impressive to see something … how it was intended to be seen.”

Manzarek directed two of the five films while at UCLA and played a supporting role in a third. Morrison, on the other hand, worked as a cameraman and sound technician on the remaining two. The archive’s priority restoration projects are “Evergreen,” directed by Manzarek, and “Five Situations for Camera, Recorder and People,” which Morrison worked as a sound technician on. If the archive’s goal of raising $65,000 is exceeded, it will work on restoring one of the remaining three films as well. Horak said the process to restore the 16 mm prints of the black and white films will involve cleaning them up, digitalizing them and most likely placing the film’s content on 35 mm film, which can last up to 500 years in a controlled environment.

“Evergreen” portrays a jazz musician struggling to agree to a long-term relationship with an art student. It shows the neorealistic and pre-hippie rock ‘n’ roll era of the early 1960s, said John Ptak, a board member for the archive. Horak said the film shows the stresses of maintaining and managing relationships at a young age. Dorothy Fujikawa, who attended UCLA and later married Manzarek, plays the protagonist’s love interest, Horak said. Additionally, a few of the scenes in the film are shot in an apartment Manzarek and Fujikawa shared at the time in Venice Beach, Horak said.

“Ray Manzarek, in particular, was a very talented filmmaker,” Horak said. “If he hadn’t of made it as a rockstar, he probably would of ended up being a really important film director.”

Ptak, who graduated from the film and television program in 1967 and attended around the time of Morrison and Manzarek, said the two were considered to be talented students. It is important to restore the films now, Ptak said, because they are a storytelling representation of political and artistic turmoil of events, like the Vietnam War. The films also provide insight into the pair’s transformation from film students to musicians, Ptak said. Audiences can see their personalities as students and again as musicians, but, he said, greatly intensified.

“Student films … are like the early sketches of Leonardo da Vinci,” Ptak said. “Origins are always important when it comes to any kind of work of art or any kind of films.”

Manzarek’s films, like “Evergreen,” were often shown at student film screenings in the 1960s due to public interest, Ptak said. Though these films have been forgotten about for a period of time, Yantek said fans of The Doors may have an opportunity to view them.

“I think the expectations from the project would be to (restore) the films to its original glory so that fans of Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek, especially, can enjoy things that they … hopefully have not yet seen before,” Yantek said. “It’s satisfying to let people that are fans of The Doors to actually see the (films) and let the stuff live forever.”

LGBTQ dance group to raise awareness for AIDS in 26-hour Dance Marathon

In 2017, tens of thousands of people in the queer community were affected by HIV in the United States. This weekend, Taste The Rainbow, an LGBTQ dance group, will take the stage to dance for a cause that has troubled their community.

TTR will perform Saturday during the 26-hour Dance Marathon, an event that aims to raise money and awareness for those affected by pediatric AIDS. Phoebe Glick, a second-year chemistry student and the internal director of TTR, said the group’s goal is to keep audience members energized and moralized as they stay on their feet for the entirety of the marathon. Glick said the group members want to stand in solidarity with children affected by HIV.

“Dance Marathon is also something that is really special to us because we are queer and AIDS has had such a history with our community, so it is important to take steps to combat it and to get awareness out,” Glick said. “It’s just really important that everyone is talking about HIV and AIDS and how to deal with it so that we are less at risk.”

[RELATED: Dance Marathon 2018]

TTR will perform some hip-hop pieces and more feminine-queer pieces that defy heteronormative expectations of dance performances, said Jazlyn Ocasio, an alumna and the external director of TTR. The audience can expect routines performed to openly queer songs like “Let’s Have A Kiki” by Scissor Sisters.

Founded in winter 2016, TTR aims to provide a safe space where queer dancers can dance without the expectations that arise from a primarily heterosexual environment. Female dancers who want to dance with more stereotypically masculine choreography are encouraged, nonbinary dancers aren’t restricted to pieces built around a specific gender and typical boy-girl partnerships aren’t held as a standard, Ocasio said.

When fourth-year Spanish language and cultures student Alicia Arellano-Perez was asked to yike, she expressed her discomfort regarding the hypersexualized and feminine dance move to the director. The director was more than willing to alter the dance moves and respect her comments, she said.

“I’ve danced with other dance groups before, but it was never like this. All the leadership is very understanding and very open-minded,” Arellano-Perez said. “That is another reason why I stay in this dance group.”

But the freedom to express one’s sexuality isn’t the only reason students join TTR, Ocasio said. The group’s involvement in the Dance Marathon will create awareness for HIV and AIDS, which will raise unity across communities to help fund research and treatments for the virus.

“It is not something that a lot of people know about. It is not something that people choose to educate themselves about. AIDS is not necessarily a topic that people are comfortable talking about,” Ocasio said. “For me, this event is a lot about visibility, being in solidarity and supporting the cause.”

TTR, along with its goal to build a safe and supportive environment for dancers, hopes to eradicate the silence and invisibility of sexual health within the queer community. Ocasio said she feels comfortable talking about her sexual health and relationships with other TTR members, among other topics that are sometimes left out of conversations. She also said the reluctance of society to talk about children affected by the virus resembles society’s lack of response during the AIDS crisis, especially in the queer community. Glick said initiating conversations about the virus is an important step in creating and funding a cure.

“The more we talk about AIDS, the less dangerous it becomes,” Glick said. “Less stigma means more unity.”