Events
Upcoming events
Lunar New Year First Friday with Santa Cruz Mahjong Club
Building Brotherhood with the Khalil Center
Honoring Our Relatives: Amah Mutsun Botanical Illustrations
Annual events
The Lionel Cantú Queer Resource Center hosts a vibrant lineup of annual events that honor queer and trans lives, histories, and futures. These events are open to all and provide opportunities for students to connect, reflect, celebrate, and build community throughout the year. From our festive Trans & Queer Fall Mixer to the meaningful Lavender Graduation, each tradition is rooted in care, joy, and collective liberation. Whether you’re new to campus or nearing graduation, the Cantú’s events offer welcoming spaces to gather, learn, and thrive.
Trans Queer Fall Mixer
The Trans and Queer Fall Mixer has become a beloved annual welcome (back) event as a way of rainbowfying the new academic year. The event is held at the beginning of Fall Quarter and includes a resource fair, refreshments, drag, and other fabulous festivities. The event is particularly exciting for the new and incoming first-year and transfer students.
QTBIPOC Orientation
QTBIPOC Orientation is an annual welcome event where students can come together to find community, resources, and celebration of their intersectional identities. It’s a space to feel more connected at UCSC and learn about the resources offered right on campus! The orientation offers community-led teach-ins, racial and ethnic affinity spaces, and powerful conversations that correlate with the given theme for that year. QTBIPOC Orientation is also a space where you can meet new folks and learn about how you can take pride in your identity as you start the new school year!
Communi-Tea
Communi-Tea is a casual tea party held at the Cantú where visitors can enjoy crafting, conversing, and a cup of hot tea! Some activities we’ve hosted in the past include jewelry making, slime, karaoke, crochet, and much more. Check in with our interns, newsletter, or @cantuqueercenter on Instagram for upcoming events and dates!
LGBTQ Pool Day
Every year during spring quarter the Cantu hosts an LGBTQ Pool Day in collaboration with Athletics and Recreation! Come down to the pool and have a blast in the water with inflatables, music, and snacks. Keep an eye on our Instagram and newsletter for the upcoming theme! All are welcome.
Mother Earth Drag Extravaganza
The Mother Earth Drag Extravaganza is an annual event hosted at the Seymour Center, in collaboration with the CoCo. Support the art of Drag and celebrate our planet, with plenty of performances, singing, poetry reading, and much more! We encourage you to dress up in your finest and explore the exhibits at the Seymour Center, as well as the amazing local performers. There will be catering and tabling by multiple campus organizations. Come down, and dance the night away!
Bay Area American Indian Two-Spirit Powwow with AIRC
In 2019, The Cantú established a programmatic partnership with the UCSC American Indian Resource Center with an annual commitment to partner together and bring UCSC students to the Bay Area American Indian Two-Spirit (BAAITS) Powwow, held in San Francisco every year. In addition to providing transportation to students to make sure they can attend this special event, the centers collaborate to do teach-ins and education around the meaning of Powwows as well as Two-Spirit and other expansive gender identities in American Indian cultures. This event is important because it serves as a reminder that gender-expansive people have always existed and have meaningful roles in many traditions outside of a U.S. colonial context, and most importantly serves as a reminder that so long as we are on this land, we should always honor, center, and uplift American Indian ways of knowing, celebrating and being in community.
Lavender Graduation Celebration
For over 20 years, The Lionel Cantú Queer Resource Center has been proudly celebrating and honoring the accomplishments of graduating students at UCSC. At the annual Lavender Graduation Celebration, graduates of all academic levels and programs are celebrated in a uniquely queer way. Friends and family are invited to cheer on graduates, and there are keynotes given from guest speakers as well as student speakers.
Additional annual events
- Trans Day of Remembrance and Resistance
- NorCal T-Camp
- LGBTQ+ Advocacy Day