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Dub's testimony-

I grew up in hickville Iowa, a small town known as Victor, Iowa.  A town with a population of 900, a school with 130 students in high school.  As you may be able to imagine, you knew everyone, and everything about them.   There were no people of other races, or of other sexual preferences.  This caused a lot of racism.  Yes, how pathetic is that.  The main reason for this is because our great grandparents passed this to our grandparents, and then to our parents, and they in turn had some influence on us.  But we, the students that left for college knew that we did not believe in this assinide concept.  So coming to Iowa State was a great relief from the narrow mindedness of my hometown.  I chose to take Women Studies 203, lesbian cultures and communities to broaden my awareness of people with different sexual orientations.  I felt did have somewhat of a homophobia for gays and lesbians, and was hoping to shed that for good.  What did my parents think of this, they were shocked that the university had a class about homosexuality.  They wanted to know why I was wasting their money to take a class like this.  I let them know as kindly as possible that there are people in this world that are different than those of Victor. 

Well now that you know a little about my past and why I took this class, let me tell you have it has broadened my outlook on life.  I didn't really know what to expect that first day of class.  I walked in and saw people that I had never seen at the university before, usually I will know a couple of people in all of my classes.  Honestly I did have some stereo types of some of the students from the first impressions.  As the class progressed, I got to know some of the students and all of my small town stereotypes vanished.  For each class we had assigned readings that we would discuss.  The discussions were great.  People with different aspects on life, different sexual preferences, all of us just talking about sexuality, homophobia, racism (to a point), and just flat out talking about people and cultures with different interests than those of what I grew up around.  Some of you are saying big deal, this is nothing new to you.  Well it might not be to you, but to the many students at Iowa State that grew up in an area where diversity is not a word, and world they have experienced, or will, the same great mind blowing experience that I have.  We learned quite a bit about the hardships that lesbians and gays sadly had to face.  We saw them struggle at times, and leap 2 steps forward at times,  I loved going to class, I knew that each day we would watch a movie, listen to a speaker, have a great discussion, or just do some kind of a activity that would free all of us our everyday problems, and open our minds to a whatever activity we were doing that day.  My friends even noticed a change in me.  They said I was much more easy going, open minded, and became someone that they loved to just hang out with and shoot the shit with.  ( That's a term from my home town for talking).

So if you come from a background like I did, and are sick of not knowing what society is like outside of your town, take this class.  And if you are looking for a positive change in your life, one that many people will take notice of, I again suggest taking WS203x, it will open your mind up to the real world.

Crenshaw's Testimony

I grew up in the suburb of Des Moines and then I moved to a small town in Southwest Iowa. Growing up I never heard or talked much about lesbians. I really had no background knowledge until I came to Iowa State. When I got here I heard all about the different lesbian and feminists groups. I still didn't know much about lesbians and there life styles and the different struggles that they go through that deal with discrimination. My soph. year I finally decided to open up my mind by taking lesbian studies 203x. At first I was kind of skeptical about it but, by the end of the semester my mind has changed on lesbians. I have enjoyed learning the about the history and every other aspect of lesbian life. For our project me and a friend designed a website that educates and hopefully will change peoples views on lesbians. I want everybody to know about lesbians and how they live and that they are no different from you and me. I choose to participate in the making of the website because I feel that in this day and age the best possible way to communicate is through computers.

If you have any questions or comments about our site please don't hesitate to respond by e mail me at Crenshaw54@aol.com. I hope you enjoy the site.