Queer Commission

Introduction

As in past years, Queer Commission was actively involved in campus life. Their work included collaborating with the Queer Student Union and other campus groups, including A.S. Take Back the Night, Womyn’s Commission, SCORE, and the A.S. President’s Office to draw attention to LGBTQIA issues on-campus and in the IV community. Queer Commission collaborates with queer minded individuals working together to increase awareness, educate, elicit appreciation, offer insight, and make safe spaces in the LGBTQIA community at UCSB and the Tri-County areas. They work together with other campus and community groups to overcome problems such as homophobia, transphobia, biphobia and other forms of oppression. UCSB PRIDE, Queer Prom, Eucalyptus Seed, Queer Zine, Beyond the Basics conference and Queer bomb activism are all brought to you by Queer Commission.

Anti-Homophobia Campaign

Queer Commission/Take Back the Night March

During Winter Quarter Queer Comm partnered with Take Back the Night and held a joint march to advocate for the rights of victims of sexual violence and LGBTQIA students. Participants marched from Cheadle Hall to Pardall Tunnel and then along Del Playa Drive.

The protest was headed by Queer Commission chair RJ Thomsen and was for the most part well received, though there were also boos and negative responses. The negative responses are what make actions like this necessary. Take Back the Night Co-chair Danielle Burmudez also emphasized that collaborating on the march amplified both groups’ messages.

Pride Week

Each year Queer Commission works with the UCSB Pride Committee and Queer Student Union to celebrate Pride Week with a series of events.

The week’s events included:

Pre Pride Week Sunday:

“Because You’re Brown Honey Gurl” at the Multicultural Center (MCC)

6:45 @ MCC Theater

Monday:

Opening Ceremony in Storke Plaza

“Who Wears the
Pants?”
 A Critical
Discussion on
 LGBTQIA
 Relationship and 
Homonormativity in the Women’s Center Conference Room

Student Run Drag Show
 in the Hub

Wednesday:

FUQIT Tie Dye on the Annex Lawn (Free Shirts!)

“Undocumented, Unafraid, Queer, and Unashamed” event in the
 Arbor

PPF Safer Sex Workshop in the MCC Lounge

“For the Bible Tells Me So: Reconciling Faith and Sexuality”
 at the Non-traditional Resource Center in the Student Resource Building (SRB)

“It Gets Messy in Here” in the McCune Conference Room

Thursday

Free Professional Run Drag Show -Featuring William Belli and Detox in Campbell Hall

Friday

Queer Wedding in Storke Plaza with keynote speaker Cristina Madrigal and Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Michael Young officiating

Queer Alumni Panel
 in the MCC Lounge

Kink Workshop
 in the Loma Pelona Center

Pride Week with Shabbat: Dinner with Queer Jews and Allies
 in San Rafael Tower

Pride/Magic Lantern film screening of ”
How to Survive a Plague” in IV Theater

Saturday

Isla Vista Pride Festival featuring HIR BOIs Drag Kings
 of Socal, and  Free Popcorn, Cotton Candy, Jump house
, information tables, Free HIV testing
, DJs, and Music. All in Anisq’Oyo’Park

Professional Drag Show

One of the highlights of Pride Week was a Professional Drag Show co-sponsored with the Pride Committee and Queer Student Union. The  featured Ru Paul’s William Belli and Detox as emcees, plus local drag queens, Jenna Cyde, Deja Re, and Isis. Belli and Detox had full audience participation for a show that was both hilarious and deeply emotional on a more serious note. Local queen Jenna Cyde, Andrew Hamlin, performed a spoken work piece that brought many to tears. As he said to the the Daily Nexus, “Drag shows celebrate everything mainstream society says is wrong and lesser about a person,” Scyde said. “For me, it is my femininity that I struggle with, and through drag, I celebrate it. For others, it may be their complexion, their weight, gender-queer identity, trans identity, etc. What is hard is that the dominant culture provides criticism about these things that hurt really good people. It is definitely hard to emotionally and mentally break away from what mainstream society says and the stigma that is placed against you, but once you are there, that elevation in personal freedom is pure bliss.”

 

 

Queer Wedding

The Annual Queer Wedding caps off Pride Week with a public ceremony officiated by Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Michael Young. The event is an affirmation of the LGBTQIA community as fully equal citizens and on a more personal level of the bonds of love and respect that bind together individuals committed to each other. It’s also where allies can declare their support in a public space.

After the ceremony, many couples and groups walked under the rainbow arch and down the aisle to have their picture taken before grabbing some snacks and drinks. As in past years, the weather for the event was glorious and the participants’ smiles showed that they clearly enjoyed each other’s company.

Text of Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Michael Young’s Queer Wedding Speech

“Good afternoon!  My name is Michael Young and I am the Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs.  I am honored to be here today both personally, as an individual who views himself as an ally to the Gay, Lesbian, transsexual and transgender community AND as a vice chancellor and representative of the highest levels of the administration of UCSB.  While I cannot prove it, I think it is the case, that I am the only member of the UCSB community who has participated and spoken at all of the Queer Weddings since they began.

The Queer Wedding has always had two aspects to it.  It has always been a political event, a political statement, a symbol of the growing movement on the part of the LGBT community and its allies to push and fight for full personal, political, civil, and human rights for lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender people. Possibly the most visible symbol of that struggle for full human, political, civil rights is the right for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people to marry the person they love—marriage equality!   The Queer Wedding from the very beginning has always been a powerful political statement.

Additionally, the Queer Wedding has been a celebration of community pride and love for each other.  It has been an opportunity for members of the LGBT community at UCSB to declare and celebrate gay pride, and pride in self and community!

Over the years as the struggle for full equality has evolved, the Queer Wedding has maintained both its political and celebratory roots.

I was asked by the organizers why I think having such an event as the Queer Wedding is important. For me, that is a great question and goes straight to the heart of why I am honored to be here and participate in this year’s ceremony and why I have eagerly participated as an official in the Queer Wedding for all of these years.

For me the answer is simple, unambiguous, and crystal clear!  This event, the Queer Wedding, symbolizes the struggle for full and equal rights for all of the people of this nation.  The Queer Wedding is an extraordinarily important reminder that we, as a nation, are continuing to struggle to ensure basic and fundamental rights for all members of society—all of us—regardless of our race, regardless of our gender, regardless of our health and ability, and regardless of our sexuality.   The Queer Wedding helps ensure that we keep our eyes squarely on the prize of full, complete, and unambiguous civil and human rights for all of us, no matter who we are, what we are, or who we love!

Which brings me to the final question the organizers asked me to speak to, which is, “What do I think love is?”  What is love?

As I think of love and have experienced love, Love is a deep and tender, almost indescribable and at times uncontrollable feeling of affection and caring for someone.  As a close colleagues described it, “you don’t pick who you love, love picks you!”

Also, love is universal!  All human beings from all societies love!  Love is a human universal.  In the context of the Queer Wedding , if , indeed, love is a human universal, then how can something so natural, so distinctive, so beautiful and so fundamentally human, be kept from some members of society, simply because of who they love.  Love is a human universal and who you love and who you bond with or who you marry should not be dictated by someone else’s religion or by the government.

Human rights are fundamental and are not situational.  You either have them or you don’t.  I am proud and honored to have been asked to participate once again in the Queer Wedding and to both stand with the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender community in their struggle for full equality and to celebrate the pride and beauty of the LGBT community at UCSB.”

 Allison Moon Speaks on Artivism

Allison Moon spoke on art as activism. She explored the politics, privileges and identity issues involved with creating art.

In her interactive talk, Moon deconstructed notions of “privilege guilt” into useful components for creativity, discussed the intersection between art and social justice, deconstructed activist skill-sets to turn them into useful tools for the creation process, and shared methods for distilling passion from conflict to turn activism into relevant art.
The event was co-sponsored by the Student Commission on Racial Equality, Commission on Student Well Being, and Take Back The Night.

Reach Out to Queer Alumni

This year Queer Com. reached out to Queer alumni and began work on an alumni database.  If you’re an alum, check out the link and submit your info at: http://tinyurl.com/UCSBqueeralum