QTBIPOC Spaces: Coexisting Not Compromise

Written by: Vinn Chow and Judah | Illustrated by: Kit | Layout by: Martha Cabot and Cami Miceli

At the end of the corridor on the leftside of Kerckhoff Hall, there is a door decorated with vibrant stickers and helpful flyers. To a normal bystander, it’s nothing eye-catching. It’s just another room in this building filled with rooms. The room behind the door may seem like nothing special either. It’s small, a few pieces of furniture set up in a lobby-esque way. The room is modest. This is the QTPOC CUSP (Queer Trans People of Color Cultivating Unity, Solidarity, and Pride) Lounge - a safe space for queer trans people of color - that meet every Thursday night to eat, make crafts, relax, listen to music and talk about anything and everything.

It’s often hard to find spaces on campus that cater to people of color, let alone trans and queer people of color. There seems to be a lack of spaces that connect race, gender, and sexuality. As of now, there are three closed spaces curated specifically for QTBIPOC (Queer, Trans, Black, Indigenous People of Color) on campus. One includes the QTPOC lounge mentioned above, created near the end of the previous school year. The other two (the QT- POC Mycelium Healing Circle and the QT- POC Space in the LGBTQ+ Campus Resource Center) were created in Fall 2019. All three of these spaces are relatively new, small, and unknown.

Being queer is one thing - it’s an experience shared by many people, regardless of race or gender. Combining that experience with being a person of color can often leave us estranged to both our culture and queerness. We feel pressured to choose a struggle because queerness has been associated with whiteness, despite QTBIPOC existing since the beginning of time. It’s the struggle between two halves of a whole identity, threatening to tear us apart.

In many queer spaces on campus, it is often hard to discuss the racism that plagues the LGBTQIA+ community. In many POC spaces, it’s often hard to discuss homophobia and transphobia that run rampant in our cultures. These things should be intersectional. Intersectionality was coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw, and it basically means your identities and oppression connect. For some odd reason, there seems to be a wall separating the two.

Spaces have made their efforts to be more intersectional. For instance, the inclusion of brown and black on the pride flag was an effort towards inclusivity. It brought attention to the fact that people of color can identify as queer and have every right to be a part of queer spaces. There was opposition against the addition of these colors; many denied that there was a problem with racism within the community. Rather, they felt that the original flag was something that shouldn’t have been changed because each color meant something to the community, however, it was this type of discourse that seemed to alienate people of color from a community they made strides for.

Often, we encounter colorblind sentiments in these spaces. Colorblindness is just racism disguised as a positive. QTBIPOC are forced to assimilate to ideas of white queerness in many LGBTQIA+ spaces. We are often the victims of racism in the dating scene. We are either fetishized or people too often state their “preferences.” White gays are often the only form of representation on TV as opposed to QTBIPOC representation. Many of these issues are swept under the rug and ignored in favor of barebones diversity.

The erasure of the QTBIPOC experience is the sole reason why we need QTBI- POC spaces. QTBIPOC spaces allow us to be heard and seen, a place where we don’t need to pick a struggle. We are allowed to be queer and POC. We don’t need to sacrifice a part of ourselves to be accepted. Our culture and queerness can coexist within these spaces, as they are both essential, intertwined parts of our identity.

Not everyone has a privilege to find spaces like this. Like mentioned earlier, there are only three spaces dedicated to QTBIPOC, which are small and relatively unknown to the general public because they were established so recently. We should really be advocating for more spaces and support groups for QTBI- POC that cater to our needs.

And if you really want your space to cater to QTBIPOC needs, then you need to address the racism within the community. Speak out, listen to queer and trans people of color. Uplift our voices, don’t speak over us. Establish that queerness is not synonymous with whiteness. When a QTBIPOC says that something is racist, then it’s racist. Get yourself educated on the issues that QTBIPOC face. Get acquainted with the ways queerness presents itself in our cultures.

The intersectionality of being queer and a person of color is an experience that is unique and beautiful but often drowned out by homophobia, transphobia, and racism. We need QTBIPOC spaces because they are where we don’t have to worry about intolerance from either of our communities. The truth of the matter is that QTBIPOC need our own spaces to exist, without compromising core parts of our identity.