LGBT community looks inward after big campaigns

This year, Columbia’s LGBT community has been increasingly focused on internal reorganization, after several high-profile campaigns dominated campus conversation on sexuality and gender identity over the last few years.

Queer groups, in partnership with student councils and other groups, spent the last several years rallying behind gender-neutral housing, a program that allows any two students, regardless of gender, to live together in double-occupancy rooms. Students from LGBT groups said they were on the defensive after the College Republicans challenged their safe spaces flyer campaign, in which students were asked to post pink flyers on their windows proclaiming their rooms to be safe spaces.

Kellie Foxx-Gonzalez, CC ’13 and a co-chair of Queer Awareness Month, said that now that these publicity-generating campaigns have passed the LGBT community can work increasingly on internal reform.

“We are starting to see queer groups turning inward into their own community,” Foxx-Gonzalez said, adding that programming for October’s Queer Awareness Month has reflected that shift. “QuAM is really looking at ourselves and trying to better our own community.”

Last May three prominent leaders of the LGBT community—Lianna Reagan, BC ’11, Avi Edelman, CC ’11, and Sean Udell, CC ’11—graduated, leaving Columbia’s queer community noticeably quieter.

Foxx-Gonzalez explained that although QuAM may be focused inward this year, Edelman’s vocal nature was a particular inspiration to her.

“I came out a little late in college and to see these people who had worked so hard for their college community was inspiring to me personally,” Foxx-Gonzalez said.

Barry Weinberg, CC ’12 and president of Everyone Allied Against Homophobia, said that the publicity of earlier work united the LGBTQ community. Weinberg said that although the criticisms were disrespectful and offensive, they acted as a binding force for the LGBT community.

“[It] brought communities together that weren’t always as close as they could’ve been considering their shared mission,” Weinberg said.

Members of queer groups said they are looking to work with groups they haven’t worked closely with before, minority groups and religious organizations in particular.

Kia Walton, CC ’12 and treasurer of Proud Colors, said her group, which is devoted to the Queers of Color community, is looking to improve its outreach. She said that the group is making practical changes like making bigger signs to advertise their meeting places.

EAAH has planned joint events with Lucha this year for Latino Heritage Month and Weinberg said the QuAM organizers intend to reach out to religious groups before the month ends.

“So last year we had our first conversation about faith and sexuality that we had with members of the Muslim community, what it meant to be religiously observant and an ally,” Weinberg said. “This year will be spent being a bridge between other communities we might not have been before.”

Foxx-Gonzalez said that she also hopes QuAM can support groups on campus year round. QuAM is also interested in reaching out to the Muslim Students Association, as well as the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, and maybe planning an interfaith dinner.