Remaining true to its mission as a diverse, student-centered and globally-engaged public university, Long Beach State (CSULB) continues to break social and academic ground as it adds for the first time to its course catalog a queer studies minor beginning next year.
After being granted approval by the Academic Senate, the queer studies minor will be made available for students to declare by next fall, with courses in the subject already being offered to students this year. An 18-unit minor housed within the Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies (WGSS) Department, it will require students to enrolled in both an Introduction to Queer Studies and Queering Gender course, with additional courses to be added from across the university catalog.
Developed with overwhelming support from the WGSS department in conjunction with the LGBTQ Task Force on campus, creating the minor program felt like the next logical step for the university. Considering its backing by the university and ties to an already queer-friendly community, the faculty behind the minor program could not be more thrilled for what could become of the program once it begins.
“We have many students who have been anxiously awaiting the beginning of this program,” said Jennifer Reed, Associate Professor in the WGSS department. “One of the things this does is make queer studies a public word and concept. Even for students who do not identify as queer, it is crucial to have [it] as part of their education. [It gives them] access to ideas that challenge heteronormativity, or the unquestioned ways that heterosexuality as an institution shapes all of our lives in so many unacknowledged ways.”
Despite Long Beach being well recognized as an openly queer-friendly city, the issues of discrimination and homophobia still plague members of the LGBTQ community across the nation. With CSULB progressing forward with this program, students are hopeful that queer studies programs such as these will help students become more educated about the queer community and will eventually move people to a greater acceptance and understanding of what it means to be a member of the LGBTQ community.
“I really believe that giving students the opportunity to take classes focused on queer studies will offer students the chance to get a deeper understanding about what it means to be ‘queer,’” said Rudy Mendoza, a communication studies major at CSULB. “Hopefully, the knowledge gained in these classes can be utilized as tools towards ending hate and gaining acceptance for the queer community. Considering the presence of the queer community in Long Beach, students at CSULB will undoubtedly gain the knowledge to understand a largely misunderstood community.”
In addition to providing students with fascinating information on uncharted course material at the university, students hope that having a queer studies minor program will serve as an additional support system for LGBTQ community on campus. While there is no doubt that both straight-identifying students and LGBTQ-identifying students will equally learn about the subject in a way they have not explored before, each will have the opportunity to examine, process and adapt the material to their own lives very differently.
“I feel the outcome of the learning in these classes would differ between straight students and LGBT students,” said Angela Castelli, a liberal studies major at CSULB. “For me, just learning from close friends of mine of what it is like to be gay and how it’s affected their day-to-day lives changed my views forever about issues like gay marriage. I don’t see it as a political issue anymore; I see it as an equality issue. I hope LGBT students would benefit from the support the courses could provide and hopefully the support from their fellow classmates.”
Regardless of sexual orientation or personal affiliation with the LGBTQ community, having a queer studies minor and queer studies courses acts as a catalyst in advertising the message of acceptance and understanding of the queer community— something not only the university faculty are proud of, but the students who support the program as well.
“I am proud to be a student of a university as progressive as CSULB to offer courses in queer studies,” said Mendoza. “In doing so, CSULB is recognizing a community that is not only significant here in Long Beach, but also across the country.”