 "Photo: Adam Jungwirth")
The UW-Oshkosh LGBTQ Center, nestled underneath the Center for Equity and Diversity, is a place where its members are working to create a more diverse and friendly campus when it comes to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning students.
Liz Cannon, the director of the center, and her team create and organize programs and events that encompass that main mission. Essentially, though, she said they are a resource center.
“We have a library, journals and we have a lot of pamphlets about things that are useful to LGBTQ students,” Cannon said. “We also provide a lot of educational programming. We have a film series, we have a brown bag series and we have what we call a discussion series.”
This Friday Cannon attended a conference sponsored by the Rainbow Alliance for HOPE which focused on the issue of LGBTQ students who are bullied by fellow students in middle and high schools. Cannon said the conference consisted of keynote speakers and breakout workshops.
“It was about how professionals who deal with youth can be more supportive of the youth that is LGBTQ,” Cannon said. “And in addition to that there was a lot of educational workshops around transgender and what that means and how to help. I definitely was inspired because there were a lot of stories by LGBTQ youth.”
Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton was also there to give the keynote speech. Cannon said she really enjoyed what Lawton had to say and stressed that we need to be inclusive of all types of people.
“She talked about how important it is to make the LGBTQ youth viable citizens and how they have so much to contribute,” Cannon said.
Cannon said the center hasn’t had much interaction with middle and high schools in the community, but this conference makes her want to coordinate efforts with other schools in the community.
“We haven’t yet, which doesn’t mean I don’t want to,” Cannon said. “It does inspire me to at least want to make sure they know we have a center here at the University.”
The conference did have a great effect on her even though she already knew about bullying, she just didn’t know how much it occurs outside of college.
“I know about it intellectually but not emotionally,” Cannon said. “I knew it but to actually see it was one of the strongest impacts of the day.”
Serena Knowles, the president of Rainbow Alliance for HOPE, attended and helped out at the event too. She worked with helping people get to the different workshops and helped more behind the scenes.
Knowles said the last speaker impacted her the most because of his story about how the help of a couple teachers changed his life.
“He had three teachers who had made a very big difference for him,” Knowles said. “It only takes one person; one person reaching out can end up saving their life.”
Knowles also works with the LGBTQ Center and Cannon because they have similar interests and they can bring together people from each group to create a support system. The Rainbow Alliance for HOPE is more about the social factor, finding people who support each other and their differences.
Knowles said the center provides more educational resources, so she has learned a lot while helping the center.
“Mainly we try to help advertise their events,” Knowles said. “We’ve co-sponsored programs with them, coming up we are co-sponsoring the Keith Boykin event. We work closely with them getting programs started.”
Knowles and her group have the same ideas as the center when it comes to the mission of their work. Both organizations are working on making sure students have somewhere to go when they need it.
"We need to make sure we are supporting the LGBTQ students,” Knowles said. “So we definitely want to make sure we let them know we are here for them, they have a safe place to go.”
One of the issues the center is currently focusing on is gender-neutral bathrooms. They sponsored a series of events like gender bending and they had a brown bag lunch where the issue of the gender-neutral bathrooms was the main topic.
“A lot of people don’t really understand what it means to be transgender or what their lives are like and why we should support them,” Cannon said.
One of people the helping Cannon in the center is Nick Janis. He is the STEP assistant and is in charge of keeping up on the social media and helping Cannon when she needs it.
“I’ve been involved with College Democrats since my freshman year, so we’ve always kind of partnered with HOPE,” Janis said. “I’ve been an ally since forever. My parents taught me to respect everybody. This is kind of the work I want to be doing after I graduate, for non-profit organizations.”
One of the upcoming events Janis is most excited about is the Ally March, which takes place on April 14. It is going to consist of speakers that are LGBTQ along with straight allies and a member of Fair Wisconsin will speak. After the speeches, Janis is hoping the march can take place on Main Street downtown, but they are still working out the details.
“The entire event is basically a day to honor the straight ally members and community members that try to advance the cause,” Janis said.
Another event coming up the center is hoping to be a big success is Boykin, who will be speaking about the intersection of race and sexuality. Boykin was the highest-ranking openly gay person on the Clinton administration and he is a host of a show on the BET channel.
“I know he’s a dynamic speaker and I know they would really like him,” Cannon said. “I guess part of it is we are in a climate where we’re being told that diversity is being expanded to include sexual orientation, gender expression, disability status, veterans and yet most students on this campus in their everyday life may not really be understanding or experiencing diversity. So here’s a chance to come hear someone who is engaging.”
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