Former Queer Space club member Shoup Shoup scouted signatures at LAC’s join a club day to jumpstart the revival of Queer Space.
Shoup is currently president of the geology club, vice president of club senate and a geology Major. She was a member of Queer Space before it disbanded early 2019.
“I haven’t been involved in Queer Space in a few semesters. But I think the last couple of semesters people transferred and it didn’t really get picked up. I didn’t see them tabling or doing anything so I just assumed the club had disbanded,” Shoup said.
“I saw that they didn’t have Queer Space this semester, I think it’s an important resource to have on campus. Even if it’s not like a super active club, I think it’s important to have it as a resource where people can message each other or find out things on campus going on.”
Former vice president of Queer Space, LBCC alumni, and safe sex advocator Benjamin Lomeli was at join a club day, answering questions and debunking common misconceptions students may have had about sex.
“I graduated in 2017 so when I was here we had Queer Space, which was the only LGBT club on campus. We invited Bienestar to come and do a presentation on safe sex and now I’m working for that same organization hoping to build relationships at Long Beach City College again and hopefully support students here who want to bring back Queer Space,” Lomeli said.
Lomeli mentioned how past members who transferred from LBCC, went on to pursue other opportunities.
“I think a large part of it falls on the school itself. The school should be responsible for creating spaces that are stable for LGBT students. I don’t think Long Beach City College has made the effort to create infrastructure for that. I mean, we were pretty well supported but there’s only so much that students can do. At some point, the school has to step in and support us as well,” Lomeli continued.
The Bienestar advocator went on to explain the process of starting a club, the number of signatures required and the average number of members needed to attend club meetings to keep it alive.
“There was a time where we had about twenty plus students coming to our meetings, we would organize rallies, we would organize campus events like open mics, we were well connected with the mayor of Long Beach, the center. Yeah, we were pretty active when we were here,” Lomemi said.
Shoup’s responsibilities with the geology club and club Senate took up most of their time so there was no time to participate in any of Queer Space’s activities or meetings.
Shoup has been interested in starting up an instagram page or an email that will notify people who are interested about resources or LGBT related events.
I probably can’t do all that by myself so maybe next semester we’ll have like a big, good group of people that want to be involved in building it,” said Shoup.
Political science major Audrey Ridenour gave her opinion on the possible return of Queer Space.
“I’ve heard about it. I never really got to connect with the Queer Space group. It was pretty short lived, everybody graduated is what I heard. So I was looking forward to it when I heard that they are gonna have it, I’m really excited,” Ridenour said.
If Queer Space returns to LBCC, the club will have the find an advisor and a president to represent the club.