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Student Life
Welcome to the Stonewall Center: An LGBTQIA+ Space Paving the Way for Inclusion
Nestled in the Southwest area of campus, students can find a vibrant, rainbow sign that reads: The Stonewall Center.
Just the third campus center of its kind when it launched in 1985, Stonewall aims to provide a sense of community, as well as cultural and educational programming and resources, for LGBTQ+ students. According to the nationally recognized Campus Pride Index, it’s working: UMass has been named one of the most LGBTQIA+-inclusive schools with a perfect score for the past 11 years.
Now, almost 40 years after its inception, The Stonewall Center has become a staple of the UMass community.
Nearly Four Decades of Advocacy
The Stonewall Center was established as an administrative office in Student Affairs, following a series of discriminatory incidents and a study of the campus climate that recommended the start of the program.
This center was only the third to ever be established on a college campus, behind the University of Michigan and the University of Pennsylvania. After renaming twice, the organization is now officially known as “The Stonewall Center: A Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Queer, Intersex, and Asexual (LGBTQIA+) Resource Center” — but most just call it “Stonewall.” It is located within Crampton Hall, in the Southwest Residential Area.
Genny Beemyn, Ph.D., is currently the director of the center, and also the coordinator of the Campus Pride’s Trans Policy Clearinghouse. They have published and spoken on the experiences and needs of trans college students and wrote some of the first articles on the topic.
“When I became the director 16 years ago, the Stonewall Center, like what we now call LGBTQIA+ centers nationwide, was focused more on sexual identity issues than gender identity issues,” Beemyn says. “Now a lot of our work, especially when it comes to advocacy, involves supporting trans students.”
That work has included adding gender identity to the school’s nondiscrimination policy; creating gender-inclusive housing and restrooms; advocating for trans students to use the name they go by on non-legal documents; and including pronouns on course rosters.
Most of the trans-inclusive policies that UMass is known for today resulted from the Stonewall Center advocating for them. We could not have gotten any of these policies implemented without some great institutional support, but I am proud that we initially raised these issues and helped make these changes happen.
Beemyn says
Inclusive Mission, Intersectional Vision
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The main mission of the center is to provide support, resources, programming, and advocacy for the LGBTQIA+ community and allied students, faculty and staff at UMass Amherst and the Pioneer Valley.
“For LGBTQIA+ students, I would say that we are a place where you can find support and community through the many groups and programs we sponsor or help organize,” Beemyn says. “For cis, heterosexual students, I would say that many of our events are designed for all students and that we sponsor educational events to help non-LGBTQIA+ students become more knowledgeable about and better able to support LGBTQIA+ people.”
The center strives to educate the campus and local community about heterosexism, genderism, various forms of oppression and the intersections of identities and oppressions.
“We have specific programming for all groups/identities like queer and trans students of color, asexual students, and people in the bi/pan community,” says Dora Berg, a student worker at the Stonewall Center. “These identities are often the most marginalized and overlooked so I love that we've put effort into making those groups seen and celebrated.”
The center collaborates with departments and organizations across campus to encourage student development, learning and leadership. It offers a wide range of services and programs, including offering everything from poetry and craft nights to twice monthly HIV/STI testing and educational workshops to a low-key, support space for students.
“There are so many different ways to get involved,” Berg says. Students can “swing by to just check out an event for five minutes or set up camp in the center and do your homework for a few hours.”
Further Stonewall resources include hotlines, emergency support, bias reporting, a police liaison, confidential advocates, support groups, gender-inclusive restrooms, religious groups and access to a queer-focused media library. The center also provides a comprehensive guide for name changes, so students and community members alike can navigate the sometimes-overwhelming process of changing their name and pronouns.
Berg explains the center can help with everything from “health insurance to changing your name on SPIRE, so if you ever need help with something on campus related to your Queer identity, let us know.”
Mentorships and Positive Friendships
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Beyond its ongoing events and resources, The Stonewall Center offers a peer mentorship program. Returning LGBTQIA+ students can sign up to be mentors to provide friendship and be role models for their mentees.
Mentees are typically first-year LGBTQIA+ students. To assist with personal and academic growth, mentors provide guidance and support while being an outlet for additional resources and information for mentees.
Berg explains how Stonewall consistently works to ensure that students have a community to connect with, even during the COVID-19 pandemic, when it provided two semesters of entirely online programming.
“I am so proud of what we were able to do while everyone was stuck at home in terms of still making sure students were able to have a Queer community to connect to,” Berg says.
A Place for Everyone
With such a strong and meaningful history, what does the future hold for the Stonewall Center?
“I would like to see us advocate for further institutional changes in support of trans students, particularly nonbinary students; to be able to expand our efforts to educate the campus to improve the climate for LGBTQIA+ students; and to continue to build community among LGBTQIA+ students, especially parts of the community that are the most invisible and marginalized, such as queer and trans students of color and asexual and trans students of all races,” Beemyn says.
“I personally love that there is a place for everyone at the Stonewall Center,” Berg says. “I think community building will always be one of our top priorities and it’s something we will continue to focus on in the future.”
Stop by The Stonewall Center from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, and check out its calendar and social media platforms to keep up to date on upcoming events.
