Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Aggies [1] (LGBTQ Aggies, LGTBQA, or QA) 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 (GLBT Aggies), the organization was officially recognized by Texas A&M University in 1985 after a lengthy court battle.
In the spring semester of 1976, a group of Texas A&M students organized a gay support group. In April of that year Michael Minton, Michael Garrett, and Sherri Skinner approached John Koldus, the Texas A&M Vice President for Student Affairs, and requested limited recognition for an organization to support gay issues. The students did not want full university recognition, which included partial funding from student fees as well as official office space in the Student Programs Office, because several of their members wished to be discreet about their sexual orientation. Instead, the group requested only meeting space on campus and the right to post notices on school bulletin boards and in the student newspaper. [2] Koldus informed the students that the university did not offer limited recognition, and that to gain the access they had asked for the students must apply for full official status. [3] What followed was the lengthy court battle Gay Student Services v. Texas A&M University . At the conclusion of the litigation, GSS was recognized as an official student organization by legal decision in April 1985. [4] Over the years, the name of the organization has evolved to be more inclusive. Today GLBT Aggies is an organization for queer people and straight allies alike, where anyone is welcome to join regardless of how they identify.
LGBTQA is led by an executive council of democratically elected members. Elections are held at the end of the academic year, with special elections held for vacant seats during the academic year as needed. Elected positions include: President, Vice-President, Secretary, Treasurer, Historian, and Social Chair. LGBTQA also has a seat on the Graduate Student Council. This position is appointed by the elected officers of the LGBTQA. These leaders make up the voting members of the Executive Council, and it is their responsibility to establish programming, set policy, and guide the organization to better serve its members. The organization also has up to two advisors who hold non-voting seats on the executive committee. The Advisors are selected by the elected leaders of LGBTQA each year.
LGBTQA hosts weekly meetings that provide an opportunity for members to socialize, learn about the history and current issues affecting members of the LGBTQ community, and organize outreach efforts within the Bryan–College Station area.
In April 2010, 2011, and 2012 on the National Day of Silence LGBTQA partnered with Atticus Circle to bring the Fine By Me T-shirt project to the Texas A&M campus. Each year, LGBTQA was able to fundraise enough money to give away 1,000 T-shirts bearing the phrase "gay? fine by me." In 2012 LGBTQA were the first group to expand the Fine By Me project to include T-shirts bearing the phrases: "lesbian? fine by me." "bisexual? fine by me." and "transgender? fine by me." [5] [6] [7]
LGBTQA has participated in many activities designed to engage and educate citizens of the broader Bryan-College Station area about the LGBTQ community. The organization has officially participated in MSC Open House, The Big Event, and the Day of Silence. The organization has also occasionally set up a table in Academic Plaza, where they distribute information on upcoming activities.
Texas A&M is often perceived as an unwelcoming university to LGBTQ students, a challenge LGBTQA has faced since the initial struggle for LGBTQ recognition. In 2011 and 2012 it was ranked as the least-LGBTQ friendly public university in the United States by the Princeton Review. [8]
During the 2011 Texas legislative session, the Texas A&M Student Senate and state representative Wayne Christian filed concurrent bills that would require public universities in Texas to spend equal state dollars on a center promoting "traditional and family values" as campus LGBTQ resource centers. The measure eventually failed in the Texas A&M Student Senate after the student body president vetoed the bill. The bill in the Texas legislature was ultimately withdrawn by the author after a point of order was raised that would have derailed the entire budget bill it was attached to. [9]
A similar measure was introduced in the Texas A&M Student Senate in March 2013. The proposed bill would allow students with religious objections to "opt-out" of paying a portion of their student fees to the Texas A&M GLBT Resource Center. [8] In a statement, the organization called the bill "a direct and blatant attack against the LGBTQ Aggie community." [10] They continued:
We stand for commitment to each other as fellow students of Texas A&M University. Our LGBT members are not separate from the community as a whole; they are an integral part of the backbone of the student body and of campus life. Depriving them of the resources that meet their unique needs and that help them succeed affects the entire community. The Texas A&M family includes students with diverse backgrounds, beliefs, and needs, bound together by our commitment to our university and to each other. An attack on our LGBT students is an attack on the Aggie spirit we all share.
On April 4, 2013, the Texas A&M Student Senate passed the bill by a vote of 35 in favor and 28 against. [11] On April 5, 2013, the Student Body President at Texas A&M University, John Claybrook, vetoed the bill. [12]
In the fall of 2013, GLBT Aggies officially changed its name to LGBTQ Aggies. This change shows homage to the modern gay rights movement, in which feminists exerted their rights to be known. Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Aggies strive to be inclusive of all identities, and this positive change allows for open dialogue to occur in an ill informed society.
On November 14, 2018, the Texas A&M Student Senate passed a resolution that expressed support for the LGBT community at Texas A&M and GLBT Resource Center. [13] Paired with a resolution in support of constructing more gender-inclusive restrooms on campus, this legislation was the first positive legislation regarding LGBTQ students to pass through the Student Senate. [14]
The LGBT community is a loosely defined grouping of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals united by a common culture and social movements. These communities generally celebrate pride, diversity, individuality, and sexuality. LGBT activists and sociologists see LGBT 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 LGBT 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 LGBT community is diverse in political affiliation. Not all people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender consider themselves part of the LGBT community.
A gay–straight alliance, gender-sexuality alliance (GSA) or queer–straight alliance (QSA) is a student-led or community-based organization, found in middle schools, high schools, colleges, and universities. These are primarily in the United States and Canada. Gay–straight alliance is intended to provide a safe and supportive environment for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and all LGBTQ+ individuals, children, teenagers, and youth as well as their cisgender heterosexual allies. The first GSAs were established in the 1980s. Scientific studies show that GSAs have positive academic, health, and social impacts on schoolchildren of a minority sexual orientation and/or gender identity. Numerous judicial decisions in United States federal and state court jurisdictions have upheld the establishment of GSAs in schools, and the right to use that name for them.
LGBT culture is a culture shared by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer individuals. It is sometimes referred to as queer culture, while the term gay culture may be used to mean either "LGBT culture" or homosexual culture specifically.
The origin of the LGBT 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 LGBT 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 LGBT organizations.
COLAGE is an organization created in 1990 by the children of several lesbian and gay parents and guardians who felt a need for support.
Robyn Ochs is an American bisexual activist, professional speaker, and workshop leader. Her primary fields of interest are gender, sexuality, identity, and coalition building. She is the editor of the Bisexual Resource Guide, Bi Women Quarterly, and the anthology Getting Bi: Voices of Bisexuals Around the World. Ochs, along with Professor Herukhuti, co-edited the anthology Recognize: The Voices of Bisexual Men.
LGBT student centers and services are administrative offices of a college, university or students' union that provide resources and support for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) students. LGBT has expanded to LGBTQ2IA+ to include lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, two-spirit, intersex, asexual and other identities.
The Queer Student Cultural Center is the current incarnation of the coming out, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, genderqueer, intersex, and allied communities organization of the University of Minnesota campuses that has been active since May 1969.
The GLBT Historical Society maintains an extensive collection of archival materials, artifacts and graphic arts relating to the history of LGBT people in the United States, with a focus on the LGBT communities of San Francisco and Northern California.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) affirming denominations in Judaism are Jewish religious groups that welcome LGBT members and do not consider homosexuality to be a sin. They include both entire Jewish denominations, as well as individual synagogues. Some are composed mainly of non-LGBT members and also have specific programs to welcome LGBT people, while others are composed mainly of LGBT members.
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 Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Straight Alliance (GLBTSA) of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is the largest LGBTIQ student organization in the Southeastern United States. GLBTSA sponsors the annual Southeast Regional Unity Conference as well as Lambda magazine, the nation's oldest LGBTIQ student publication. The general body holds weekly meetings as well as guest speakers, drag shows, retreats, trips, and service projects. GLBTSA has three additional programs: Colors, Committee for a Queerer Carolina (activism), and Fruit Bowl (social).
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.
Arlene Istar Lev is a North American clinical social worker, family therapist, and educator. She is an independent scholar, who has lectured internationally on topics related to sexual orientation and gender identity, sexuality, and LGBTQ families.
In the post-Stonewall era, the role of libraries in providing information and services to LGBTQ individuals has been a topic of discussion among library professionals. Libraries can often play an important role for LGBTQ individuals looking to find information about coming out, health, and family topics, as well as leisure reading. In the past 50 years, advocate organizations for LGBTQ content in libraries have emerged, and numerous theorists have discussed various aspects of LGBTQ library service including privacy concerns, programming, collection development considerations and librarian/staff education needs, as well as special services for juvenile and teen patrons.
This is a timeline of notable events in the history of non-heterosexual conforming people of Asian and Pacific Islander ancestry, who may identify as LGBTIQGNC, men who have sex with men, or related culturally-specific identities. This timeline includes events both in Asia and the Pacific Islands and in the global Asian and Pacific Islander diaspora, as the histories are very deeply linked. Please note: this is a very incomplete timeline, notably lacking LGBTQ-specific items from the 1800s to 1970s, and should not be used as a research resource until additional material is added.
Austin, Texas, has one of the most prominent and active LGBT populations in the United States. Austin was acclaimed by The Advocate in 2012 as part of its Gayest Cities in America, and was recognized by Travel and Leisure as one of America's Best Cities for Gay Travel. Much of Austin's gay nightlife scene is clustered around 4th Street. LGBT activism groups Atticus Circle and Equality Texas are headquartered in Austin.
Dragonsani "Drago" Renteria is a deaf Chicano transgender man, CEO of DeafVision, founder and executive director of Deaf Queer Resource Center (DQRC) and long-time resident of San Francisco.