Our History, Space, and Team

Reflections on our center name

As a center, we have an intimate understanding of how language can shape shift across time, place, and space. For example, amongst queer and trans communities language plays critical roles in ensuring individuals feel a sense of affirmation and community. Yet identity labels we use today such as queer and trans might not be reflective of identities labels our previous generations used and if we’re truthful there might even be students of our current generation who find tensions with these labels too. Even amongst women and feminist spaces there are often tensions about what language and discourse to center when discussing how to best advance women’s equity and gender justice. In the worst case scenarios, language can sometimes be leveraged to cause harm when free speech rhetoric is manipulated to damage our communities rather than engage in dialogue across difference.

We share these reflections because we want to acknowledge the fluid nature of language while also acknowledging the need to be intentional with the language we use.

In this way, our center naming as the Gender PLUS (+) Sexuality Resource Center is reflective of these understanding. In many different ways, our center strives to expand who we are and who we serve. Much like queer communities have adapted the (+) to signify that there are a host of other ways you can identify and still belong; we acknowledge that embodying this (+) is a central part of our work thus an essential part of our naming as a center. The (+) also stands for the intersections of our identities and how they can shift and interact with each other. We serve marginalized groups in gender and sexuality spaces and therefore acknowledge that race, indigeneity, disability, religion, body size, and many other aspects of our identities add so much more to our experiences of the world.