The Ohio University LGBT Center is headed to Kansas City, Mo., to attend the Midwest Bisexual Lesbian Gay Transgender Ally College Conference.
Delfin Bautista, director of the LGBT Center, said this is a way for the 20 students and three staff members the center is taking to be a part of a larger community.
“It’s an opportunity, especially given where we are; our community here is rather small. To be with two to 3,000 other queer folk is exciting to be the majority rather than a minority and to connect with what’s happening in other parts of the country,” Bautista said.
This sort of community is not apparent in areas like Athens, said Sarah Tucker Jenkins, program coordinator for the Women’s and LGBT centers.
“Especially in more rural areas, any opportunities that you can have to create a sense of community for sexual and gender minorities should be taken advantage of,” Jenkins said.
Students do have to pay a portion of the trip cost, but the rest of the trip is being funded through grants and money provided by uFUND, University College, the Office for Diversity and Inclusion and the Women’s and Gender Studies departments, said Megan Villegas, graduate assistant in the LGBT Center.
Villegas, along with Gabe Mitchell, a graduate assistant teaching English, and Sarah Chadwell, a senior studying European global studies, were accepted to speak at the conference. Chadwell is presenting “A Call to Activism: LGBTQ Rape Culture,” and hopes to make an impact about rape culture and inclusion and with F--kRapeCulture presidents Allie Erwin and Claire Chadwick.
“This is meant to be an extremely proactive presentation,” Chadwell said. “Hopefully we can get a lot of other universities signed up for an FRC sister chapter and be able to get the administrations of all these universities on board with what we’re trying to accomplish here.”
Bautista said they are looking forward to the conference for what can be learned through sharing and interacting with people from other communities.
“For the professional staff who are going, it is also an opportunity for us to learn and to hear what works on other campuses, what we can tweak and bring back, and also share the things that we’ve done and hope that that helps other schools,” Bautista said.
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