Although Tuesday morning’s Pride Center LGBTQ Awareness training session saw zero attendance by CSUN students, Sarina Loeb, Pride Center and LGBTQ initiatives coordinator, encourages students to consider attending the remaining two sessions.

“The goal of the training is really to educate people on the LGBTQ community and create a more inclusive campus for the LGBTQ community,” said Loeb.

Loeb said the trainings assist people, for example, in using correct terminology when identifying a LGBTQ person or supporting them. The trainings, she said, provide people with the tools to identify current terminology and ways to support people who may, for example, have just come out as gay.

“Are we really being respectful if we’re calling a student by a name that they don’t identify with or a pronoun that they don’t identify with?” said Loeb. “Being more aware, I think, is the point.”

Loeb originally held the trainings by request from faculty, campus clubs and organizations. Over time, demand grew for a more formal setting, and the open trainings welcoming the entire CSUN community were born.

Although last semester’s trainings saw a modest amount of attendance, this semester’s lackluster attendance of the January and February trainings has Loeb considering the timing the trainings are held and whether or not she can do something different, she said.

Additional trainings will be held from 10 a.m. to noon on March 19 and April 17 in the Thousand Oaks Room of the University Student Union.

For more information, call the CSUN Pride Center at (818) 677-4355.