Queer Activist Students Hosted Unprecedented Joint Meeting Last Sunday

This post was submitted by new TNG Editorial Assistant, Gem, on behalf of herself, Travis Ballie, and the students involved in organizing with Equality, Campus Style organizing.

As I walked out of the Equality, Campus Style meeting on Sunday the president of the Howard University queer organization stopped the lead coordinator of the meeting, Travis Ballie, to say to him: “My name is Travis Ballie, and I’m here to recruit you!” Needless to say, I also was very impressed by the amount accomplished in our short but sweet two hours allotted to meet and discuss LGBT student organizing amongst DC colleges and universities in the midst of the beautiful Sunday afternoon we had last weekend. Details of the meeting are below the fold.

The following is a chunk of an email I received from Travis recapping the meeting a couple of days later:

“We discussed the logistics of hosting marriage equality forums both on our respective campuses and planning an off campus event on marriage equality. E-board members of campus LGBTQ organizations or individual activists on LGBTQ issues were in attendance from American, George Washington, Georgetown, University of Maryland, Catholic, and Howard & Bowie. Efforts are being made to reach out to Gallaudet and U.D.C. for future meetings. In addition, Michael Crawford & Kellan Baker, affiliated with D.C. For Marriage & Join The Impact respectively, were also in attendance. A representative from Gays & Lesbians Opposing Violence (GLOV) was also present at the beginning of the meeting to introduce GLOV to attendees and to educate us on recent hate crimes against LGBTQ people or those perceived to be LGBTQ in the area... We reviewed discussions from our 1st meeting, namely that:

“1) Greater coordination and communication is needed between different LGBTQ campus groups in the D.C. metropolitan area and,

“2) In the face of a marriage equality bill up for a vote in the D.C. council any month now, our organizations need a common strategy to help maintain a marriage equality victory in D.C. when that moment arrives.

“Members in attendance were generally receptive to the idea of working on marriage equality, but many mentioned that marriage was not quite the most pertinent issues in their opinions. Other members in attendance acknowledged that sentiment and made clear that in the long term, the developing mission of our organization is much more than marriage equality. The coordinator of the meeting, Travis Ballie of AU, mentioned that we are in the process of laying out a plan to increase coordination between universities on LGBT issues as well as provide resources (e-board training, financing, networking events, etc.) for LGBTQ campus organizers in the area to take advantage of.”

More logistics have been covered from there, but this recap is really being posted to update any one who may have missed the meeting and also to encourage ANY young people in DC interested in working with queer DC college students and their allies to get involved. If you have any questions or want additional info, feel free to email equalitycampusstyle@gmail.com.

As a side note, I’ve noticed based on the comments of a recent post that we have a lot of people under the umbrella of the TNG community that are frustrated and want something to be done when it comes to organizations designed to work for our rights. To that, I say: Less talk. More action.