Seeking safe spaces at UK in light of Kentucky’s SB 150

By Casey Sebastiano features@kykernel.com

As Kentucky legislators debate a bill determining the fate of LGBTQ individuals in schools across the commonwealth, groups at the University of Kentucky are working to make campus more inclusive.

Senate Bill 150, “AN ACT relating to rights in public schools,” passed on Feb. 16 with a 29-6 vote.

The bill will require educators to disclose a child’s sexual orientation to their parents, even if the student does not give them permission. Educators will no longer be required to use a student’s preferred pronouns if they do not conform with the sex stated on the child’s birth certificate.

“The Kentucky Board of Education or the Kentucky Department of Education shall not require or recommend policies or procedures for the use of pronouns that do not conform to a student’s biological sex as indicated on the student’s original, unedited birth certificate issued at the time of birth pursuant,” according to the introduced SB 150 document.

The day after the Senate approved SB 150, legislators sent the bill to the House of Representatives, which filed House Floor Amendment 1.

This action is a move to “delete provision forbidding local school district from requiring the use of pronouns that do not conform and replace with a provision requiring school personnel use names and pronouns requested by a parent or guardian,” according to the House Floor Amendment 1 summary written by the Kentucky General Assembly.

SB 150 working its way through Kentucky legislation has left many outraged. The work of Kentucky legislators has the LGBTQ community and its allies at UK feeling stressed and anxious for

what’s to come.

Evelyn Huth, a freshman at UK, said the bill is “awful for students who could be figuring out their identity or who identify differently than most people.”

For these students at UK, the LGBTQ* Resource Center serves as an open space where visitors can visit to eat, talk and simply hang out, whether they identify as queer or not.

J’Lissabeth Faughn, the center’s director, said students see the resource center as a place “that they can get away and that they’re safe.”

Since the LGBTQ* Resource Center is part of the Center for Student Success, Faughn describes her job as being charged with the responsibility to help students succeed in the classroom as well as life in general.

There are 11 student organizations that stem from the LGBTQ* Resource Center such as OutGrads, OUTlaw, Med Pride, QPA: Queer People of Color Association, GSA: Gender Sexuality Alliance, StemGQueers and other college-specific organizations.

Faughn encourages students to look for the Safe Zone stickers that residential advisors and UK faculty might have on their doors or in their offices. These stickers signify allyship and indicate a place where students can go if they are struggling with their sexuality or gender identity.

“It basically just indicates that we’re a safe space to talk with,” Emily Greenwell, a residential advisor for UK undergraduate housing, said.

Safe Zone is a national program that offers training sessions that teach those attending about the LGBTQ community, micro and macro aggressions and how to be an ally to those in the community.

According to Faughn, in Kentucky, 23% of people under the age of 25 never return home after coming out. This statistic shows the level of support the LGBTQ community is in need of.

“We have students who are legally emancipated or who have not spoken to their parents in years,” Faughn said.

Faughn said that the most vulnerable people right now are those of the trans- gender community. The bills moving through Kentucky’s legislature will directly affect members of the transgender community both mentally and physically.

The LGBTQ community has one of the highest rates of suicide ideation, but the transgender community specifically has the highest rate for suidide ideation, according to Faughn.

“It’s going to kill people, it’s literally going to kill someone. People’s blood will be on the hands of these legislatures,” she said.

LGBTQ resource centers like UK’s are vital to opening the conversation, showing support and “(stopping) people from harming themselves,” Faughn said.

In addition to providing support for the LGBTQ community in light of SB 150, Faughn expressed a clear need for awareness regarding the legislature on UK’s campus.

One student, a freshman who chose to remain anonymous, was unaware of SB 150 entirely.

“This university has a responsibility to educate,” Faughn said.

The LGBTQ* Resource Center is working on counter programming as SB 150 is making its way through Kentucky’s House of Representatives, according to Faughn. These counter programming meetings will teach students about what SB 150 means for the people of Kentucky and the LGBTQ community.

The Resource Center is working with UK’s counseling center to provide support for students who are struggling during this time.

Meetings held by organizations such as these will give students a place to process what is happening in Kentucky’s government.

Those experiencing a mental crisis can call or text the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988.

By Alexis Baker features@kykernel.com

Joe Bologna’s Restaurant and Pizzeria is widely recognized as a staple for the Lexington community, but its famous pizza and bread - sticks aren’t the only thing that keep customers coming back time and time again.

The driving force behind the restaurant’s success is its owner — Joe Bologna.

As a result of Bologna’s com - mitment to his establishment, patrons often feel more at home at the pizzeria than in traditional eateries.

“It felt like a little neighborhood place,” Lois Gillespie, a Joe Bologna’s patron, said after eating lunch during the week of Joe Bologna’s 50th anniversary celebration.

Over the past 50 years, there has been hard work put into the restaurant to create this environment for the community.

See page 9

Continued from page 8

Leading up to the creation of the restaurant, Bologna said he was continuously surrounded by the food industry. He worked in fast food, washed dishes in his neighbor’s Italian restaurant, observed and recreated his grandmother’s recipes, cooked for 3,000 people in Vietnam while serving in the Air Force and taste-tested pizza crust around Lexington, failing to find one better than his wife’s.

“My wife was making bread one day, she rolled it into the first pizza crust and she had some neighbors over, and they said that there’s nothing like that in Lexington,” Bologna said.

With his experience and recipes in hand, Joe Bologna opened his original location at 903 West Maxwell Street in Lexington before moving to its current location at 120 West Maxwell — a renovated Jewish synagogue, with its tall ceilings and stained glass windows still intact.

For many businesses, this relocation may have been a risky move, but customers stayed loyal to Joe Bologna’s for its quality food and service.

Jane and Greg Hosley have been patrons of Joe Bologna’s since it was at its original location. They started dining at the restaurant in their 20s, and Greg is in his 70s now. Over the years, the Holseys said they’ve come to know Joe Bologna’s as inviting and unchanged and Bologna himself as a “sweetheart.”

Jane Hosley said that she participates in hospice volunteering in Frankfort, Kentucky, and when her organization hosts galas, Bologna always helps out.

“It hasn’t changed,” Greg Hosley said. “It’s still the same good tasting, good quality from 50 years (ago).”

The entrance of Joe Bologna’s serves as a stairway of history. There is an abundance of antique decorations and memorabilia that is capable of unearthing fond memories and invoking positive demeanors for all that enter.

Currently, the memorabilia is appropriately juxtaposed near Bologna’s 50th-anniversary decorations.

Over the course of Bologna’s 50 years running the restaurant, he said he faced challenges. One of a restaurant owner’s biggest nightmares came true for Bologna when kerosene got too close to the water heater. According to Lex Today, a fire broke out in 1979, and the restaurant shut down for 10 days.

Another shutdown was during the COVID-19 pandemic. Like many other restaurants, Bologna had to adjust to curbside service and socially distanced dining, but the restaurant prevailed.

Bologna said that all of his employees came back after reopening and that most of them are still working at the restaurant today.

“I’ve had employees that have worked for me going on to their own professions saying working here made them put extra effort into their jobs and they were very successful,” Bologna said.

Three current lawyers who worked for him during college still come to the restaurant for a reunion.

“Those were always great memories,” Bologna said. “It’s fun to see them come back after that many years.”

Sue Coffey, a Lexington native and one of the employees, has been working at the restaurant for 27 years. With little experience, Coffey was hired by Bologna, who wasn’t in much need of employees at the time but hired her anyway.

Throughout Coffey’s over two decades at Joe Bologna’s, she has formed bonds with fellow employees, regular customers and Bologna, who she said treats her like a daughter.

“It feels like you’re home,” Coffey said. “It’s like a big ol’ family.”