By Kyle Shiells, Data Science Manager & Queersera Co-Lead
Queersera, Coursera’s LGBTQ+ employee resource group, celebrated its fourth anniversary at San Francisco Pride in June of this year. In the last four years, we’ve had the opportunity to not just march in Pride parades, but also host community events for Coursera employees, connect our team to volunteer opportunities with the broader LGBTQ+ community, and advise Coursera’s product and people teams on how to support LGBTQ+ people at Coursera and around the world.
I signed up to co-lead Queersera because I wanted to make sure that as Coursera grows, we work to increase access to informative and affirming content for queer people and allies around the world.
Earlier this year, we invited our partner universities to create new, affirming content and allyship resources for LGBTQ+ people and communities. Thanks to the dedication of Coursera’s partners and their course teams, we now have more courses specifically designed to help allies understand and support LGBTQ+ students, patients, and the broader transgender community.
From parents to doctors, to educators and friends, each course has been developed to offer practical advice and real life stories that can empower anyone, anywhere to create more inclusive environments at work, at home, and at school.
We encourage you to explore and enroll to learn something new. Together with our partners, we’re proud to make these courses available to the world for free*:
Explore LGBTQ+ History
- New! LGBTQ Pride: From Origins to Evolution Teach-Out, University of Michigan
Get a better understanding of the history of Pride in the United States, while diving deeper into sub-themes of representation, community, and space.
- New! Queering Identities: LGBTQ+ Sexuality and Gender Identity, University of Colorado System
This course is for anyone interested in learning more about queer and transgender people, or about key issues in LGBTQ+ inclusion.
- AIDS: Fear and Hope, University of Michigan
Uncover the cultural, historical, and medical overview of the history of AIDS, including the economic, social, and political factors that determine who gets sick and who remains healthy.
Build Your Awareness
- Health Across the Gender Spectrum, Stanford University
Take this Gender 101 course to better understand the nuances of gender, as well as resources for supporting gender non-conforming children in healthcare and school settings.
- What does it mean to identify as Transgender or Gender Non-Conforming (TGNC)?, University of Minnesota
Hear transgender people discuss their life experiences with modules focused on issues like bathroom rights, access to healthcare, employment and housing discrimination, and military service.
- Representaciones culturales de las sexualidades, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Explore how gender and sexuality are constructed in societies and how they are reflected in cultural media in this Spanish language course.
Be an Ally
- New! Queering the School House: LGBTQ+ Inclusion for Educators, University of Colorado System
Uncover insights and strategies for building an inclusive learning environment for LGBTQ+ students in this Specialization designed for educators.
- Transgender Medicine for General Medical Providers, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Build an understanding for why it’s important for doctors to learn about treating transgender patients and uncover resources for supporting transgender patients in primary care with lessons that cover everything from how to administer hormone therapy to an overview of the various surgeries transgender patients may want to undergo.
- PreP for Providers and Patients, Johns Hopkins University
In this short course built for medical providers and patients, get an overview of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), which is used for preventing new HIV infections. Learn who can benefit from PrEP, how to access services, what to expect, and how to stick with a PrEP program long-term.
- Gender and Sexuality: Diversity and Inclusion in the Workforce, University of Pittsburgh
Identify strategies for improving inclusion in your workplace and walk away with resources and checklists that you can use to develop an inclusion policy at your organization.
*Take a Queer Studies course on Coursera for free. Brought to you by Queersera, Coursera’s LGBTQ+ employee resource group. Discount will be applied at checkout after choosing a course from this promotion page. Offer valid until 12/31/19.