The tone of discourse in the everyone-you-love-is-being-accused-of-sexual-assault era is intense at best. It’s intimidating to say anything when even a simple Facebook post can see backlash.

That’s why I’m here. Raised in the Phillippines with a Catholic school education, it was only when I came to the United States that my understanding of the gender dichotomy was smashed into pieces.

I’m not an expert. But I love to learn and analyze the occurrences behind certain events to see what they might mean for people like you and me, especially when discussions about gender and sexuality don’t stop at the fight for gender equality.

They extend beyond the cents-to-a-dollar argument. They’re not just topics we see on the news or on social media. They’re the topics that are difficult to talk about.

Syracuse University’s 2016 Campus Climate survey indicated that 714 respondents — or 12 percent of the pool — said they experienced some form of unwanted sexual contact. And 25 percent of the respondents who explained why they didn’t report relationship violence described doubts with the effectiveness of the reporting process, according to the survey.

Even when provided with a variety of campus resources, students still find difficulty in trusting the system. And these issues don’t just affect college students, either.

Within the state of New York, sexuality education is still not mandated. Local school boards can choose to make it a requirement, but it’s not always a guarantee. If academic institutions don’t choose to have sexuality education, they run the risk of children and young adults lacking the education necessary to make safe decisions with regards to sexual activity.

These problems only are the beginning of what we will discuss here together.

Gender and sexuality discussions make me uncomfortable, and that’s exactly why I want to involve myself in them. There’s enormous privilege that comes with being a cisgender woman. But beyond issues of gender identity and dichotomies are the pervasive dangers of eurocentric beauty standards, or the correlations between women of color and higher probabilities of poverty and depression.

And the impacts of society’s gender and sexuality standards don’t only apply to women. For men, the exposure to toxic hypermasculinity running rampant in mainstream culture damages emotional stability and influences sense of self.

My opinion is not the be-all-end-all. You can disagree, and I can disagree with you. But two things I can promise are to look at the facts and be open to change. I want to bring light to stories that aren’t always available, and reinforce education around the ones that are. And if you realize something on the way, then I’ve done my job.

Dear reader: My name is Lianza. It’s nice to meet you.

Lianza Reyes is a sophomore broadcast and digital journalism major. Her column appears biweekly. She can be reached at lireyes@syr.edu and followed on Twitter @ReyesLianza.

Published on January 17, 2018 at 12:17 am