Five members of the Queer Straight Alliance stood in front of the ASUNM Senate Wednesday to make their case for adding a queer resource center at UNM.
But by that time, the Senate was already sold on the idea, said ASUNM Sen. Joseph Colbert. The resolution skated through the vote 18-0-1.
“I felt like most people out there would be on board with it, because there is nothing controversial about a resolution that calls for a resource center for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender (people),” he said.
Passing a non-binding resolution through the undergraduate student government is only a first step. Jeffrey Waldo, spokesman for QSA, said the process to get a queer resource center will only get more difficult from here.
“GPSA still has to pass it,” Waldo said. “We have to ask for student fees. It is going to be way more complicated than this. But it is good to have the undergraduate student backing.”
What Waldo and his peers are asking for is a few rooms, a staff member and two work study students to run the center, similar to the basement room the Women’s Resource Center was given 37 years ago when they first started.
The resolution didn’t make it onto the GPSA agenda for Saturday’s meeting, but GPSA council chair Danny Hernandez said it should have no problem getting through the Senate in the next meeting.
“I think it is going to pass easily,” Hernandez said. “I believe GLBT issues are extremely important right now. We are on the cusp of getting more rights for GLBT people. I think a lot of people are hip to that.”
QSA already has the backing of the Women’s Resource Center. Director Sandrea Gonzales had already heard of the resolution’s success early Thursday morning. Gonzales has given the QSA her full support and has coached its representatives through the process, she said.
“There are always people who will say, ‘Why do you need your own center?’” she said. “Now that is a question that always gets asked. They are going to need to be
prepared. They are going to have to get that research pretty solid. They are going to have to give a good presentation about why UNM would benefit from having this center.”
The QSA, which has about 180 members, is drafting a proposal to give the student fee review board in early December to hammer out the budget needed for the center, Waldo said.
“The queer resource center would be focusing more on people who are actually in the closet, who are facing internal hate because their parents tell them they are wrong,” he said. “Kids are still being told that they are monsters. That they are going to go to hell and they can’t come out. Many people are not out. There are many closeted people on this campus that I know personally.”
At this point the QSA is student run and doesn’t have the resources to tackle those issues, Waldo said. The QSA has acted as more of a social network and older faculty and graduate students tend to shy away from it.
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With a resource center, the group would be better equipped to network and work in the residents halls to get “GLBT information out there in to students’ own private, horrible closets,” Waldo said.
But more than anything, the creation of the resource center would validate the QSA’s and others’ struggles, Waldo said.
“UNM’s creation of this would be like a stamp of approval that our identity is real and issues are real, and it is not just a lifestyle … that this does actually affect every facet of our lives,” he said.
And for such a cause, the Women’s Resource Center isn’t concerned about a queer resource center taking funds that would otherwise go to them.
“I am not really worried about that,” Gonzales said. “I just support it. I don’t feel like it is going to take anything away from us. I am probably more worried about the Legislature and Board of Regents than I am about another program. I think it is the program that needs to happen here.”
