Formation | 2001 |
---|---|
Legal status | 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization |
Purpose | Scholarship funding for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) students in higher education |
Headquarters | Los Angeles, California |
Executive Director | Jorge Valencia |
Website | https://www.pointfoundation.org/ |
Point Foundation is a scholarship fund that provides financial aid for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) college bound students in the United States. Founded in 2001, the overall mission of this organization to give these individuals the opportunity to receive the resources that they need to become pillars in society. It is one of only a few scholarship organizations that is solely for LGBTQ+ students. [1] [2]
The foundation's mission statement is: "Point Foundation empowers promising lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer students to achieve their full academic and leadership potential – despite the obstacles often put before them – to make a significant impact on society." [3]
Since 2002, Point has offered its Flagship Scholarship for LGBTQ students pursuing undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral degrees in the United States. The award is renewable for up to four years. [4]
In 2016, Point initiated a new Community College Scholarship Program, a one-year transformative experience offering academic and personal development for community college students as they plan to transfer to a four-year institution. Wells Fargo funded the inaugural year of the program which assisted 11 students. [5] Students accepted into the program will receive $2,400 per semester or $4,800 per academic year scholarship, admissions counseling, coaching, and financial education. [6]
The Point BIPOC Scholarship supports Black, Indigenous, and People of Color students who also identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer students. In addition to financial support, Point BIPOC scholarship recipients receive community resources and professional development. [7] The first BIPOC Scholarship class was awarded in 2021. [8]
The LGBTQ community is a loosely defined grouping of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer or questioning individuals united by a common culture and social movements. These communities generally celebrate pride, diversity, individuality, and sexuality. LGBTQ activists and sociologists see LGBTQ community-building as a counterweight to heterosexism, homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, sexualism, and conformist pressures that exist in the larger society. The term pride or sometimes gay pride expresses the LGBTQ community's identity and collective strength; pride parades provide both a prime example of the use and a demonstration of the general meaning of the term. The LGBTQ community is diverse in political affiliation. Not all people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender consider themselves part of the LGBTQ community.
LGBTQ culture is a culture shared by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer individuals. It is sometimes referred to as queer culture, LGBT culture, and LGBTQIA culture, while the term gay culture may be used to mean either "LGBT culture" or homosexual culture specifically.
The origin of the LGBTQ student movement can be linked to other activist movements from the mid-20th century in the United States. The Civil Rights Movement and Second-wave feminist movement were working towards equal rights for other minority groups in the United States. Though the student movement began a few years before the Stonewall riots, the riots helped to spur the student movement to take more action in the US. Despite this, the overall view of these gay liberation student organizations received minimal attention from contemporary LGBTQ historians. This oversight stems from the idea that the organizations were founded with haste as a result of the riots. Others historians argue that this group gives too much credit to groups that disagree with some of the basic principles of activist LGBTQ organizations.
The bisexual community, also known as the bi+, m-spec, bisexual/pansexual, or bi/pan/fluid community, includes members of the LGBTQ community who identify as bisexual, pansexual, omnisexual, polysexual and sexually fluid. As opposed to hetero- or homosexual people, people in the bisexual community experience attraction to more than one gender.
Bialogue, a portmanteau of the words bisexual and dialogue, is an American activist group that started in New York City, working on issues of local, national, and international interest to the bisexual, fluid, pansexual, queer-identified communities and their allies. Bialogue's mission is to dispel myths and stereotypes about bisexuality, address biphobia and bisexual erasure, educate the public on the facts and realities of bisexuality and advocate for the bisexual community. Its slogan is "Taking Action not just Offense".
CLAGS: The Center for LGBTQ Studies was founded in 1991 by professor Martin Duberman as the first university-based research center in the United States dedicated to the study of historical, cultural, and political issues of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBTQ) individuals and communities. Housed at the Graduate Center, CUNY, CLAGS sponsors public programs and conferences, offers fellowships to individual scholars, and functions as a conduit of information. It also serves as a national center for the promotion of scholarship that fosters social change.
Supporting Our Youth (SOY) is an organization based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, which runs programs and events geared to supporting the special needs of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, transsexual and intersex youth. SOY gets support and involvement from local youth and adults that volunteer their time to help improve each other’s lives. SOY’s main focus points are helping the youth create healthy arts, recreational spaces, culture, supportive housing, and employment.
LGBTQ student centers and services are administrative offices of a college, university or students' union that provide resources and support for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) students. LGBTQ has expanded to LGBTQ2IA+ to include lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, two-spirit, intersex, aromantic, asexual, agender and other identities.
The Greater Seattle Business Association(GSBA) is an LGBTQ+ chamber of commerce based in Seattle, Washington. The majority of the organization's membership are small businesses located throughout the Puget Sound area. The association's stated mission is "to combine business development, leadership and social action to expand economic opportunities for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer community and those who support equality for all."
Campus Pride is an American national nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization founded by M. Chad Wilson, Sarah E. Holmes and Shane L. Windmeyer in 2001 which serves lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) and ally student leaders and/or campus organization in the areas of leadership development, support programs and services to create safer, more inclusive LGBT-friendly colleges and universities.
The Houston GLBT Community Center was a community center for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people and their allies in the Houston metropolitan area and southeast Texas. Its last location was in the Dow School building in the Sixth Ward of Houston.
The Spectrum Center is an office at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor that is dedicated to providing education, outreach, and advocacy for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and allied (LGBTQA) community. Since the organizations' creation in 1971, the Spectrum Center's mission statement has been to "enrich the campus experience and develop students as individuals and as members of the LGBTQA community." The organization achieves this through student-centered education, outreach, advocacy and support.
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Aggies is an officially recognized student group at Texas A&M University. Originally known as Gay Student Services (GSS) and later as Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Aggies, the organization was officially recognized by Texas A&M University in 1985 after a lengthy court battle.
OutHistory.org is a public website about lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and heterosexual history, with a non-exclusive focus on the US and Canada. Historians contributing to the site are especially interested in documenting under-represented histories and fostering historical research that contributes to positive social change. The site features over 200 digital exhibitions on various topics of LGBTQ+ history, built from primary sources and contextualized by brief texts written by guest scholars, who have curated each exhibition. A “bookshelf” features books written by historians on LGBTQ+ topics. OutHistory is increasingly being used by teachers to introduce students to primary sources and historical analysis relating to the LGBTQ+ past. The content of OutHistory.org is provided primarily by volunteers. OutHistory receives non-profit status as a project of the Fund for the City of New York. The organization is funded by donations from users like you. To donate, see https://outhistory.org/donate.
The Alliance of Queer and Ally Students is a student organization for LGBT and straight ally students of Michigan State University. One of the oldest Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender groups in Michigan, it began in the early 1970s. First dubbed the Michigan State Gay Liberation Movement (GLM), some sources state the organization began in 1970, while others state it began in 1972.
The Pride Center of Vermont, formerly the RU12? Community Center, was founded by two students at the University of Vermont and Middlebury College in 1999. The organization was run by volunteers until the first Executive Director was hired in 2002. RU12? is the only non-profit organization mission-driven to serve lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) Vermonters of all ages. The mission of the organization is to celebrate, educate, and advocate with and for LGBTQ Vermonters.
Rev. Trinity Ordoña is a lesbian Filipino-American college teacher, activist, community organizer, and ordained minister currently residing in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is notable for her grassroots work on intersectional social justice. Her activism includes issues of voice and visibility for Asian/Pacific gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer individuals and their families, Lesbians of color, and survivors of sexual abuse. Her works include her dissertation Coming Out Together: an ethnohistory of the Asian and Pacific Islander queer women's and transgendered people's movement of San Francisco, as well as various interviews and articles published in anthologies like Filipino Americans: Transformation and Identity and Asian/Pacific Islander American Women: A Historical Anthology. She co-founded Asian and Pacific Islander Family Pride (APIFP), which "[sustains] support networks for API families with members who are LGBTQ," founded Healing for Change, "a CCSF student organization that sponsors campus-community healing events directed to survivors of violence and abuse," and is currently an instructor in the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Studies Department at City College of San Francisco.