QSA Debuts New Mission Statement

Valentine’s day dawned cold and cloudy, but smiles were shining among the Harvard Queer Students and Allies board members as they walked together to the Queer Resource Center, rainbow ribbons pinned to bags and jackets, to vote on the organization’s new mission statement.

As part of their efforts to appeal to a broader range of students and help energize the political arm of the organization, the board voted unanimously on Sunday to change their official mission statement to include a broader range of identities, collaborate with other student groups, increase diversity within the QSA, and take political action.

“This isn’t just the QSA coming together, but all the communities we intersect with,” says QSA Co-Chair Marco Chan ’11. “And that could be anyone and everyone on campus who’s concerned with issues of marginalization.”

Chan says that the new mission statement reflects the group’s increased focus on empowering the gay community and other groups on campus to take action on their own terms.

“We want to open a conversation about how these identities affect people’s lives and how they have political implications, whether through legislation or how people treat you when you walk into a coffee shop,” says QSA Co-Chair Christian L. Garland ’10-’11.

FORMING ALLIANCES

In keeping with the goals of expanding the club’s membership, the new mission statement now includes the words “questioning and allied students” in addition to the list of “lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer students,” which formerly constituted the description of the organization’s membership.

“Having the word ally as part of the mission statement makes it more welcoming to anyone who wants to get more involved in social justice,” says the Women’s Events and Outreach Chair Lena Chen ’09-’10, who has been involved with QSA since her freshmen year in 2005.

She explains that stressing inclusivity in connecting stigmatized groups was important.

“The QSA has always been really good about opening its arms to whoever is interested,” says Chen, who is also a former Crimson magazine writer. “The major transformation over the last few years is that now it has a major political presence.”

A STRONGER POLITICAL IDENTITY

Garland says that one of the group’s new goals is to focus on the link between politics and identity in determining how people from different contexts and backgrounds experience stigmatization.

This is encapsulated in a new clause stating the QSA’s commitment to “the recognition of the marginalization that exists as the result of the intersections of stigmatized identities.”

“When you start considering people’s class, race, gender, gender identity, and social position in Harvard, you’re looking at a lot of political identities at once,” says Garland, a former vice president of the Harvard College Democrats.

Chan says that race and class have a significant impact on how people live in their queer identities.

“It acknowledges that there are a lot more queer people than just gay white guys,” Chen says. “Even if someone is queer-identifying, that’s not their entire identity.”

The new mission statement also includes goals for expansion and collaboration, stating that the QSA “seeks to promote community awareness of and action on the social, socioeconomic, political, educational, and cultural issues surrounding queer identities and sexualities.”

Chan and Garland say they added the words “action” and “socioeconomic” to stress their goal to engage in more political activism involving a wider range of the Harvard community.

Political Co-Chairs Emma Wang ’12 and Lucy C. O’Leary ’12 have developed three new positions and several projects geared toward achieving greater political action. The service chair will work with the Phillips Brooks House Association in the first collaboration between the two groups to create a queer-specific service program in the Boston area.

The campaign coordination chair will organize collaborative projects with other campus groups, and the media and outreach chair will publicize ongoing political events to QSA members.

“The emphasis on outreach the political committee is undertaking reflects a shift in focus for the whole organization,” Wang says.

In addition to creating new positions, the political committee is also working on collaborative projects with other student groups. They are planning Women’s Week with the Radcliffe Union of Students in March and movie screenings with different cultural groups. They are also coordinating this weekend’s IvyQ conference for Ivy League LGBT activists and a progressive soiree with the Harvard Dems later this month.

EXPANDING MEMBER INVOLVEMENT

In keeping with their new political and collaborative goals, QSA is also seeking to increase grassroots activism within the organization.

The final clause of the new statement emphasizes the importance of “membership-driven events and campaigns in collaboration with other groups, organizations, and institutions.”

Chan says that the words “membership-driven” stress a drive for the organization to undertake its efforts from the bottom up rather than the top down.

QSA member Bradley L. Craig ’13 says that the emphasis on membership will help the organization become more adaptive to a variety of projects. The objective is to have membership-driven action based on the different members’ interests, from transgender issues to gender neutral housing.

“I think the new structure enables members to dictate the focus and the motivation behind things that the board does, and that is reflective of the fact that the queer community as a whole does not have a concrete set of needs and concerns,” Craig says.

LOOKING FORWARD

Ryan R. Thoreson ’07, former co-chair of QSA (then known as BGLTSA) and currently on the board of the Harvard Gay and Lesbian Caucus, says that the new mission statement’s emphasis on inclusivity and collaboration is a step in the right direction for queer activism at Harvard and beyond.

“It reflects a change in the programming and a conscious change to reflect tangible efforts of the QSA and what they’re undertaking on campus,” Thoreson says. “The statement represents concerns and debates that have been happening for years. It’s representative of what people need the QSA to be by reflecting the short-term priorities and longer term evolution of the QSA.”

Chan says he is excited about this increased activity as a sign of gathering momentum for QSA.

“There’s an energetic spirit of change on the board, and everyone’s really dedicated to an inclusive community and being political in all definitions of the word,” he says.

But he says that this is only a first step in QSA’s goals for future years.

“Ultimately, this is really just setting the stage for longer term discussion and deliberation on the strategy for expanding our scope, choosing what’s important to us, and deciding what we’re going to do next.”

—Staff writer Alice E.M. Underwood can be reached at aeunderw@fas.harvard.edu.