海角直播

Publish Date: April 20, 2023

海角直播鈥檚 Gaypril Speaker Series brought in a powerful voice, someone who hopes to change the landscape of how you think about yourself.

Dr. Jonathan P. Higgins, aka DoctorJonPaul, is an award-winning educator, professor, national speaker, and freelance journalist who visited the campus on Tuesday, April 12, to speak openly about their experience within the LGBTQIA+ community with their presentation titled 鈥淐elebrating The 鈥楿鈥� In Queer.鈥�

鈥淭he world has never been easy for us. And when I say, 鈥楩or us,鈥� what I mean specifically is for queer people,鈥� they explained. 鈥淏ut when you add on the blackness, and when you add on the fatness, and you add on the poor and you add on all of these different people that make up folks like myself, you have to figure out how do I love and navigate in a world when I鈥檓 being told every day that I鈥檓 not wanted?鈥�

It takes a lot of work.

DoctorJonPaul is not afraid to share that they have been in therapy to work on themselves. In fact, they encourage it, telling the more than a dozen in attendance that a lot about what they had believed about themselves in the past were 鈥渢hings that were told to me.鈥�

鈥淎nd a lot of what you believe in about yourself is rooted in white supremacy and anti-queer rhetoric,鈥� they continued. 鈥淭he one thing that you will hear me always talk about is how everything we think about oppression 鈥� is all a system. No matter if you believe it or not, it is still impacting you, it is still affecting you, and it is still going to shape how you feel about yourself.鈥�

DoctorJohPaul鈥檚 presentation was accompanied by a PowerPoint that allowed for those in attendance to take notes. To help draw the point, DoctorJonPaul broke down their remarks into three categories: 鈥淭he Power of Unlearning,鈥� 鈥淗ow do we learn/re-learn how to like and love who you are?鈥� and 鈥淭he importance of community both in and outside of 海角直播 Hills.鈥�

For example, learning to unlearn some of the past is more powerful than you think, they explained, and embracing radical self-love is an ongoing process that allows for an individual to unlearn toxic beliefs about one鈥檚 inferiority and replace them with compassion and self-acceptance.

"A lot of us feel that people have to give us love with constraints or feel like we are not worthy of love, or we鈥檝e been told that we鈥檒l never be loved,鈥� DoctorJonPaul explained. 鈥淚 will say this, up until I met my partner, I 鈥� [thought] that I would never be loved, but my partner has helped me understand what love can truly mean.

鈥淚 guess the biggest thing you can take from this conversation is if you are queer, if you鈥檙e an ally, or whatever the case may be, be kind to yourself,鈥� they continued. 鈥淭his world has already beaten all of us up.鈥�

The Gaypril series continues throughout April to educate those looking for a deeper understanding of LGBTQIA+ issues, whether they are a member of that community or not.

鈥淥ur campus has a little bit of a difficulty navigating the waters of the [CHC] community with what we want to accomplish here for our students,鈥� shared Gwendolyn Diponio, a 海角直播 English professor. 鈥淎nd so, the idea that DoctorJonPaul was bringing forth here is that we just have to be brave and do what we need to do here and hope the community will follow in that light.

鈥淚t鈥檚 about us knowing our directive and to follow that directive and hopefully the community will join us. That鈥檚 the key,鈥� Diponio continued.

To learn more about Doctor Jon Paul or to follow their work, go to or follow them on social media with the handle Doctor Jon Paul.