On Thursday night, Penn State’s National Council of Negro Women teamed up with Penn State’s Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity to host “Watch and Learn,” a Zoom session to “help better understand and advocate for the Black LGBTQ+ community.”

Put together by undergraduate student Deja Workman and graduate student Symone Mccollum, the Zoom session began with watching a portion of the documentary “Kiki.” The documentary featured Black LGBTQ youth, their journey growing up within the LGBTQ community in New York City and their participation in “ballroom” competitions.

After the video, Workman moderated an open discussion with attendees regarding various aspects of the film.

A topic that arose during the discussion was the term “intersectionality.” Student Jada Pender mentioned the term in relation to the youth in the film and defined it as being a minority in more than one category.

Another key topic during the discussion was the use of family terms — like house, gay parents and gay children — within the LGBTQ community in the film.

Attendee Judith Newman, associate professor in Human Development and Family Studies at Penn State Abington, mentioned that these youth would band together within houses.

These houses were how the youth were grouped in teams for the ballroom competitions. Each team had a mother or father who were responsible for 15-20 members.

Pender discussed how society doesn’t like to accept what’s not considered “normal” in relation to a comment made in the film. During the film, Gia Marie Love, a transgender woman, said people who are one of a kind get “targeted,” referring to herself and the LGBTQ community as a whole.