REFLECTING ON OUR SEMESTER
PB POORMAN PRIDE CENTER
'19
EVERYTHING FROM PICNICS TO CHANCELLOR WATSON & HIS LEGENDARY CHILDREN WHAT WE'RE DOING TO BUILD COMMUNITY ON CAMPUS.
FALL SEMESTER | VOL 1
PRIDE MAGAZINE FALL 2019
WRITTEN & EDITED BY
PJ Taylor Cell Biology/Criminology
WRITER
Avery Grams Women's & Gender Studies/English
FRONT COVER
Steffany Garcia Spanish/Women's & Gender Studies
PHOTOGRAPHER
Kaya Saia Women's & Gender Studies/Social Work
Note from your editor: Hi everyone! I’m PJ Taylor. As a Pride Center Intern, I create LGBTQ+ resources focused around outreach and advocacy. So welcome to this magazine! I think it's important to preserve our memories and solidify our place as an LGBTQ+ campus community, which can help queer and trans students feel like they belong. To our campus partners: you matter and the work you are doing makes a difference! Thanks love you - PJ TaylorPN14@uww.edu
TABLE OF CONTENTS Fall Highlights 04 - Welcome Back Picnic 06 - LGBTQ+ & Ally Reception 07 - UW-System Awards 08 - National Coming Out Day 10 - Queer & Trans Memoir 12- Trans* Day of Resilience 13 - Queer Joy Zine 14 - Purple Pride Learning Community 15 - LGBTQ+ Visit Day
16 - Coming up in Spring 2020!
FIRST ANNUAL IMPACT & PRC
WELCOME BACK PICNIC The P.B. Poorman Pride Center teamed up with IMPACT, the LGBTQ+ & ally student organization, to welcome students, faculty, and staff back to campus. This family-friendly (and dog-friendly!) picnic in Starin Park provided the perfect opportunity for new and returning members of campus to mingle and build community. Students have reported feeling disconnected from LGBTQ+ & ally professors and even each other. This mixer was one of several events intended to establish camaraderie in a low-key environment outside of class. Attendees did everything from share advice, to play games, and even worked
together to learn how to actually start a grill (hint: YouTube can really help with this!). From new students, returners, pets, happy kiddoes, parents, faculty, & staff we all got to know each other a little better throughout the evening. With 80 people in attendance, the 2019 Welcome Back Picnic felt homey and celebratory. We can't wait for next year!
THE FIRST OF ITS KIND
LGBTQ+ & ALLY RECEPTION WITH CHANCELLOR WATSON With over 90 attendees, this university-sponsored event was more successful than anyone anticipated and brought campus together. On October 3rd, the Pride Center & Chief Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Officer Dr. Kenny Yarbrough, co-hosted an LGBTQ+ Reception with Chancellor Dwight Watson to help kick-off our National Coming Out Day celebrations. Chancellor Watson spoke honestly and powerfully about how beautiful it is to choose and be able to live as your authentic self. He encouraged all LGBTQ+ students--who he called his legendary children--to remember that "we are prideful, we are powerful, we are family." Following Chancellor's Watson's story, Pride Center Interns Brianna DonaldsonMorton and IMPACT President PJ Taylor had fun helping the room imagine the dream of a top-to-bottom LGBTQ+ inclusive campus.
STATE-WIDE RECOGNITION
UW-SYSTEM AWARDS On Thursday, November 7th Dr. Artanya Wesley received the Outstanding Women of Color in Education Award and Dr. Stephanie Selvick received the Dr. P.B. Poorman Award for Outstanding Achievement on Behalf of LGBTQ+ People. The former award started in 1994 to recognize work that fosters social justice and organizational change toward equity and inclusion. The latter was established in 2008 and honors the memory of late UW-Whitewater psychology professor P.B. Poorman, who was a founding member of the UW System LGBTQ+ Inclusivity Initiative. P.B.'s partner, Susan Simmons, has attended the awards ceremony every year and delivered the tribute.
NATIONAL COMING OUT DAY CELEBRATION On October 10th, the Pride Center and IMPACT celebrated National Coming Out Day with writer and activist Jacob Tobia. Tobia is a member of the Forbes 30 Under 30 and the OUT 100, a Point Foundation Scholar, a Harry S. Truman Scholar, and recipient of the Campus Pride National Voice and Action Award. They graduated from Duke University with a degree in Human Rights Advocacy and, most recently, is the first non-binary actor hired to voice a non-binary character in Netflix’s She-Ra and the Princesses of Power.
Jacob read from their debut memoir, Sissy: a Coming-ofGender Story (2019), in the
Warhawk Connection Center to a crowd of 160 people. They added funny anecdotes, and even sarcastically yelled “shut up!” while shaking their fist angrily to conversations and friends past. After their public talk, Jacob visited “Queer and Trans Memoir,” who had just finished reading their book. Jacob kicked their feet up, talked about the writing process, their family, and even asked budding writers-to-be what they would title their own memoirs. Jacob spent nearly an hour signing copies of their book, taking selfies, and
*Jacob now knows that coming out is not their responsibility, and reiterated this fact to themself
spending time individually
and everyone else. Since coming
with students and their
out is something queer and trans
guests. In a moment of queer literary cuteness, a visiting middle schooler proudly told
people do everyday, none of us are required to fulfill the so-called “coming out story” trope.
Jacob that Sissy was the first memoir they read.
Written by: Avery Grams
QUEER AND TRANS MEMOIR BY AVERY GRAMS
With much excitement, the Women’s & Gender Studies Department offered its first (hopefully not the last!) trans studies class on campus, taught as a special topics in Queer & Trans Memoir. Students learn about trans experiences through a diverse selection of first-person
Photo by Craig Schreiner
Wanna catch up on the latest trans memoirs?!
accounts, write book reviews, and
Sissy: A Coming-Of-Gender
end their journey with a gender joy
Story (2019) by Jacob Tobia
final project. As a queer and trans
Gender Queer: A Memoir
English major enrolled in the class,
(2019) by Maia Kobabe
I’m thrilled for the opportunity to
Femme in Public (2017) by
find community through literature
Alok Vaid-Menon
while reading narratives that
Kiki (2017) by Sara Jordön
represent the complexity of gender
Fierce Femmes and
and sexuality.
Notorious Liars: A Dangerous Trans Girl's Confabulous Memoir (2016)
by Kai Cheng Thom Gender Failure (2014) by
Rae Spoon & Ivan Coyote Kate Bornstein is a Queer and Pleasant Danger (2014)
by Kate Borstein
REVIEW OF SISSY: A COMINGOF-GENDER STORY
By: Avery Grams Adapted from a Queer & Trans Memoir book review.
Hearing that Sissy: A Coming-of-Gender Story was written by trans activist Jacob Tobia (they/them), I was excited, yet worried. Would this be another trans 101 pitched to mostly cisgender readers, or would they just get it? Thankfully, Tobia's candid and hilarious narrative poked fun at, and also explained, harmful transgender tropes in literature. They spoke honestly about their own gender journey, sometimes metaphorizing it as a software update, or as a snail who only comes out of their shell when the environment is safe. Tobia starts off Sissy in a unique way that doesn’t immediately lend itself to a fun, campy read. It’s an angry piece; a manifesto; a chapter that calls out transphobia in the bluntest way possible. Tobia then clarifies that writing this book was a cathartic act of healing. When Tobia visited “Queer & Trans Memoir,” one student asked how their family reacted to seeing their life in print. That was the moment we realized the extent of Tobia’s writing-as-healing process. Tobia sent proofs to every member of their family and gave them permission to veto entire scenes. Tobia’s relationship with their parents was especially transformational. They read every. single. page. out loud to their mother over the phone, crying together, contributing to the labor of memory work, and even laughing at (very specifically) eight of the many dick jokes Tobia sprinkles throughout the text as homoerotic relief. Tobia’s striking honesty and hilarity throughout Sissy made this book an amazing read and one I would recommend to both those within and outside of the trans community.
IT WAS A PLEASURE TO CARRY JACOB’S STORY AROUND CAMPUS IN THE COSTUME OF A BRIGHT PINK GLITTERY BOOK JACKET. I LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING HOW THEY CONTINUE TO IMPACT THE WORLD AROUND US.
TRANS* DAY OF RESILIENCE On November 20th we honored Trans* Day of Resilience--a day that has transformed from a vigil, where people around the country remember trans people who died that year, to a celebration of trans resilience & gender euphoria. This year, IMPACT general members wrote postcards to Wisconsin politicians. Students discussed how recent political decisions and legislation around transgender access to healthcare and employment protections have impacted their lives as LGBTQ+ Wisconsinites. In a supportive environment, members then crafted testimonials to state representatives. IMPACT proudly brought this "postcards to politicians" event to campus after attending the 2019 Wisconsin LGBTQ+ Summit in Madison last semester! The Pride Center held their annual Black & Pink "card party," where students, faculty, and staff decorated 150 cute, anonymous holiday cards to LGBTQ+ people who are incarcerated. Black & Pink is a nonprofit organization that works to support LGBTQ+ people in prisons. Their Holiday Card Drive is a harm reduction strategy, since LGBTQ+ people in prison experience harsher treatment while receiving fewer visits and letters. 85% of Black & Pink members report having been held in solitary confinement at some point during their incarceration, for instance. Nearly half served two years or more in solitary confinement. Hosting a card party is an easy way for "free world allies" to show support to members of their community who are experiencing the harms of incarceration.
QUEER JOY ZINE Pride Center Intern, Brianna Donaldson-Morton, focused her LGBTQ+ advocacy efforts on cultivating community through a queer joy zine-a physical representation and reminder of LGBTQ+ campus joy and individuality. Taking inspiration from Electric Dirt: A Celebration of Queer Voices and Identities From Appalachia and the South, Bri
collected and transformed poems, jokes, stories, paintings, collages, and photographs from across campus. She created a punk-style zine to capture the radiance of what queer joy feels like from the voices of our own community. The response has been immediate! Women's & Gender Studies/Social Work major Ash Anderson was beyond thrilled at the big reveal of their photo shoot turned dream come true: Bri super imposed Ash into a picture with their favorite band, My Chemical Romance, to which Ash claimed that "Bri captured me so well!" Grab your copy in the Pride Center today!
PURPLE PRIDE: A LEARNING COMMUNITY FOR LGBTQ+ & ALLY STUDENTS UW-Whitewater's LGBTQ+ & ally learning community, Purple Pride, is officially in its second year and we couldn't be more excited! Women's & Gender Studies instructor and queer historian, Dr. Ashley BarnesGilbert, stepped up to serve as the Learning Community Coordinator with Purple Pride alum, Kat Hunt, serving as the Peer Mentor. Everyone knows that the transition from home to college is a tough one, and having this sense of belonging right away is crucial for student success. Students live together in Tutt Hall and take classes together relevant to their lives, including "Introduction to LGBTQ Studies" and "Sex, Gender, and Health." This community building and curricular support was bolstered by a group field trip to Chicago, where students experienced the Legacy Walk. This historical landmark is the world's only outdoor museum that celebrates LGBTQ+ history and culture. Purple Pride offers first year students an opportunity to start college right, with names, pronouns, and identities being sources of study and celebration!
IDENTITY-BASED RECRUITMENT
LGBTQ+ VISIT DAY The Pride Center has teamed up with Admissions to organize a new recruitment opportunity for LGBTQ+ high school students! Juniors and seniors will be welcomed to campus by the first openly gay and first African American Chancellor (who we hope he calls his legendary children!). Participants will attend a student panel and reception, network with supportive faculty and staff, visit the Purple Pride learning community, and join a Women's & Gender Studies class. Students will leave knowing what resources and opportunities are available for them. With already 20 students signed up, we hope the visit day will get students excited to start their college career.
Coming Up Spring 2020 March 12th IMPACT's 12th annual Drag Show 7:30pm Hamilton Room April 1st Rosśa Crean "Preistess of Morphine" performance 7:10pm Light Recital Hall April 15th LGBTQ+ New Student Visit Day April 23rd Rainbow Celebration of Excellence graduation & awards ceremony 3:30pm Fern Young Terrace April 28th IMPACT & Pride Center's cookOUT 6pm Starin Park