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HISTORY
AND FACTS
- In
the early 70's, GLBT staff, faculty, and students formed
GALA-the Gay and Lesbian Alliance--which began offering
support and advocacy for GLBTI campus members.
-
The GLBT Chancellor's Concerns Committee was formed in the
mid-80's and began to address various equity issues for
GLBT students, staff, and faculty at UCSC and UC-wide.
-
The GLBT Resource Center was formally opened in November
1997.
- By
2002, the GLBTI Resource Center is staffed by a full-time
Director, Deb Abbott, MA, MFT, a 75%-time Program Coordinator,
Tam Welch, MFA, and by several student staff.
- In
2004, the GLBTI Resource Center was renamed after beloved
gay sociology professor, the late Dr. Lionel Cantú
Jr.
- The
Lionel Cantú Center GLBTI Resource Center is located
at Merrill College and is open Monday through Friday throughout
the year.
- The
Lionel Cantú GLBTI Resource Center's permanent annual
budget is $83,000, with $73,000 for staff salaries, $8,000
for overhead costs, $1,000 for student workers, and $500
for programs.
- Out
of 351 colleges, students have ranked UCSC as the #1 public
university for GLBTI acceptance. (Princeton Review, 2003)
History
Out
in the Redwoods: Regional History Project
1990-1999
The Nineties
1980-1989
The Eighties
July 24, 2006 Remembering UCSC Chancellor Dr. Denice Denton
1990-1991
We invite the first lesbian sorority from southern California
to visit and sleep over at the GLBT Resource Center...we watch
some great films and stay up all night!
Emily Pullins, Pulli005@tc.umn.edu,
UCSC alumna
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I
attribute much of my inner strength and desire to continue
with Queer Activism to the political savvy and worldliness
of the UCSC community. I know that sounds a bit lofty, and
it is. But you need only to be in the midwest for a short
while to realize that there are things explored in Santa Cruz
that are unique, cutting edge, and occasionally enlightening.
This is a perspective that I hope others will agree with.
The opportunities provided at UCSC for thinking meaningfully
and acting effectively are not to be missed.
Enormous
changes were occurring in the GLBT community in California,
and in the country as a whole from 1989-1991. The community
was exploding in size due to the new phenomenon of "identity"
politics, or coming out. The losses that were occurring, however,
seemed equally large. The death of so many people so close
to us, particularly gay men, due to the HIV epidemic caught
this community on fire. I came out in the midst of intense,
frenetic Queer Nation/Act Up activism, ever increasing death
tolls, and lesbian feminist growing pains. There is a sad,
strange truth to the notion that the HIV epidemic actually
built the GLBT community. So, it followed that activism was
part and parcel with our group activities. We did kiss-ins
at the Capitola Mall and the Boardwalk, for example. Some
participants went further, one in particular, organizing another
underground activist group that put on protests that were...ahem...shall
we say a little more in your face? One of these was, perhaps,
the most memorable political experience I will ever have.
Someone
had scrawled a hideous hate message on the door of the GLBT
Resource Center. There was a growing list of hate crimes on
campus that were recognized by the more savvy handful of the
"underground" queer activists. They rallied with
other cultural groups to organize a "spur of the moment"
protest just below Bay Tree Bookstore. What happened that
afternoon was more than memorable --- it was brilliant.
The
"underground" activists spent the night putting
fliers around campus. At noon, when most of the classes ended
on campus, they had organized a group of students to hand
out fliers protesting Hate Crimes at key large-size classrooms.
The protest rally was to be held only minutes later, just
below the Bay Tree Bookstore. "Stop the Hate!" was
the rallying cry, and it brought hundreds of students together
within only a few minutes. In 1990, Vito Russo was teaching
at UCSC as a guest lecturer. You might know of his work, one
of the first scholarly queer books, and the first book on
queers in film. Vito Russo gave a stirring speech that united
the audience. "HIV does not discriminate," he said.
The gift of the disease, he argued, was its power to unify
us across those things which divided us. And we needed to
unify to fight the growing trend of hate crimes on our campus.
The
next speaker was Gary, a feminist gay student who gave yet
another brilliant speech on our need to unify. The last speaker
was our campus president. "Right now," she said,
"in an office at the library, they are voting on whether
or not UCSC should consider having an Ethnic Studies Program."
She described at length the struggles that minority students
had encountered in attempting to have administration simply
consider the idea of establishing Ethnic Studies.
By
this time, the entire crowd was hell bent for collective change.
We all walked to the library --- right then, no planning,
no provisions --- and lived in the lobby for several days.
There were small workshops, encounter groups, and rushed meetings
among the student groups that participated. The diversity
of student organizations that made up our occupying force
was astounding. Progressive graduate students joined in, as
well. The administration was dumbfounded, and frankly, so
were the students who participated. After several days, a
list of 10 demands was presented to a group of top administrators.
While our representatives met with the administration, over
1100 students (10% of the student body at that time) marched
around the building and gave rally cries. One student who
had gone inside would later state that there was not a moment
in the negotiations when those rumbling cries could not be
heard by all. This was the beginning of new thinking about
how we could organize collective to meet shared goals on campus.
Most
of the demands were met.
We
learned, during that negotiation time, that there had been
a faculty member a few years before who had killed himself
because of his sexual identity. Vito Russo died not much later,
and Gary passed away just prior to his graduation from Kresge
in 1991. Perhaps it is more clear why the antagonism between
gay men and lesbians, once a "traditional" norm,
was dissolving all around us. Much of the time, queers felt
that there wasn't time or privilege for such separatism. The
issues seemed to unite us with their urgency --- death as
an outcome of discrimination was first and foremost on the
minds of many.
There
were many groups active at the GLBT center during this time,
but we managed to work together on a number of events, programs,
and actions. The women's group attempted to stay apolitical
in the hopes that we could build an accommodating, open-minded
space. There were regular early-evening coming-out discussions,
and then weekly or bi-monthly meetings in which a topic, such
as safer sex, biphobia, or sex positivism were discussed.
Sometimes meetings were easy, sometimes they were hard. I
would bicycle down the mountain in the dark, often thinking
intensely about who I was and what I wanted in this so-called
queer life. Some of the things said then are still pulling
on me today, some ten years later.
There
were issues discussed in that center that were incredibly
important at the time, and I would later learn, were on the
cutting edge of political and ideological debates for the
late 80s. For us, they seemed like every-day issues. These
included:
- Dealing
with grief over the loss of our gay family members and friends
- Sexual
abuse and sexuality
- What,
how, and when dykes can get sexually transmitted diseases
- Sex
clubs in SF for women
- Pornography
vs. eroticism
- Racism
in the GLBT community
- Gay
men who were active as queer feminists
- Labeling,
as in, "I don't need to fit your category as lesbian
or whatever"
- Advocacy
for the "new" GLBT Studies
- Transvestism
and body politics --- transexuality, but primarily the issue
was the wave of male-to-female transexuals entering
- the
lesbian community. FTMs were not on the map for us at the
time.
- The
extraordinary sex-positive work happening in San Francisco
trickled into our community and our discussions (there was
more interest in leather, S/M, and sex play than there was
concern about pornography in our group at that time, it
seemed to me)
- Growth
of the Bisexual Politic movement
- GLBT
Arts (film, photography, and other media), such as the art
show that we put on in the center for Pride Week. We had
some wonderfully active artists in our community at the
time.
- The
role of Feminist Theory in Queer Politics (no queer theory
at that time)
- GLBT
History - much of it very new to us, and more being uncovered
every week
If
some of these topics seem mundane to you, keep in mind that
many of them were completely new to us, and either titillating
or unnerving, depending on where you were coming from.
I wrote all of this down primarily for the new students who
come into the GLBT Resource Center at UCSC. Know that your
space has been lovingly fought for, maintained, and filled
by fellow queers for many years. The meetings and discussions
there seem, perhaps, not so important in the grand scheme
of things. Know that they are. The work you are doing can
change people's lives and perceptions, especially your own.
Your organizing and social skills will be sharpened. The issues
will change with time, and perhaps the focus or identity of
that center will change, too. But what you are doing today
makes a difference, for yourself and others, tomorrow.
Emily
Pullins, Pulli005@tc.umn.edu,
UCSC alumna
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