Introduction

As in past years, Queer Commission was actively involved in campus life. Their work ranged from collaborating with the Queer Student Union and other campus groups to organize Queer Pride Week to creating a video about queer identified people who are part of our campus community.

Project Queer Love

Project Queer Love is a 12 minute interview-based documentary featuring queer identified people and allies on the UCSB campus. It’s a warm, lighthearted glimpse into the local queer community showing that love transcends all notions of sexual and gender identity. 30+ participants with diverse identities and at various stages of their academic/professional lives share their very personal experiences of gender, sexuality, love, and relationships.

Spearheaded by Shae Xu a Chinese exchange student, the documentary was started in 2011, as a year-long project of the A.S. Queer Commission. Instead of an academic campaign or political forum, this documentary reveals a narrative story of queer identified peoples’ day-to-day thoughts and concerns, and introduces viewers to their community. It’s the first video documentary made by, and made for our beautiful community and beyond. The documentary was premiered in March 2012, at the MCC Theater.

 

Queer Com is actively involve in a range of activities throughout the year with the year culminating with the UCSB/Isla Vista Pride Week, led by Pride Planning Committee and coordinated with the Queer Student Union. During the Pride Week the queer community and allies host numerous events to both educate and entertain the broader campus community.

The opening ceremony featured several speakers including Executive Director of the local Pacific Pride Foundation David Selberg and Congresswoman Lois Capps.

Signature events included the Queer Wedding in Storke Plaza officiated by Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Michael Young (for video click here). Photos of this event can be seen in the A.S. Galleries by clicking here (thanks to Sean Lieberman for the great pics!).

The annual Queer Wedding is a space for affirmation and acknowledgement. Participants include couples celebrating their commitment to each other, allies publicly showing their support, groups affirming the bonds they share and more.

Pride Week also includes workshops and this year both student and professional drag shows in IV Theater. To get a taste of the student drag show there are numerous videos on You Tube. You can get to one of them by clicking here.

Queer Com. Safe Zone Coordinator Danielle Bermudez provided Safe Zone Training/Training for Trainers. The trainings helped allies understand how they can best support their LGBTQI friends and the community in general. Unfortunately, hate is still part of the campus and IV communities and this support can range from advocacy to knowing how to actively intervene as a bystander when harassment takes place or a hate crime is committed. Training workshops are also available through the Resource Center for Sexual & Gender Diversity.

Distributions of community shirts was led by RJ Thomsen (Transfer Intern). Check out the design!

– Queer Alumini Dinner/ Queer Alumini network maintenance, lead by Alexis Roldan (Outreach Coordinator)

– Queer Prom (in collaboration within a new emerging program Queer Youth Leadership Conference/Beyond the Basics), lead by Alexis Roldan (Outreach Coordinator)

 

New Programs:

– Project Queer Love/Premiere—a video documentary that interviews over 30 LGBTQ identified people in UCSB campus, which later became a part of Davison Library’s collection as a LGBTQ resource, lead by Shae Xu (Co-chair);

– Queer Zine—the first community zine in the UCSB queer community, lead by Raymond Rivera (Internal Coordinator);

– Campaign of Policy 17—a year-long campaign to protest for Blood Drive Policy 17 which contains discrimination against the LGBTQ community, lead by Evan Gillogley (Queerstorian);

– Eucalyptus Seed—a mentoring program that allows queer students to meet with queer staff and faculty members, lead by Shae Xu (Co-chair), in collaboration with Eucalyptus and RCSGD;

– Founding of Keshet—a potential queer Jewish OSL group, lead by Andrew Farkash (First-year Intern)

 

Conferences participated (at least 1 commission representative to each):

– T-Camp,

– Facing Race Conference, UC Santa Barbara

– Queer Pin@y Conference, UC Santa Barbara

– Student of Color Conference, UC Davis

– Queer Jewish Conference, Hamshire College

– Western Regional Conference, UC Merced

– Human Rights Week, UC Santa Barbara

– Reproductive Justice Week, UC Santa Barbara

– Queer People of Color Conference, Cal-state Northridge

– Queer and Asian Conference, UC Berkeley

– UC LGBTQQIA Steering Committee Retreat, UC Santa Cruz

– Queer Youth Leadership Conference, UC Santa Barbara