We are committed to providing culturally relevant and efficient programs and services designed to foster successful transition, retention, persistence, achievement and graduation of scholars.

Future Events

We are continually planning events to help us come together. Check back often to see what's coming up!

Signature Events

  • Qhort

    Qhort is a way for students new to WSU to create their own cohort. Qhort is a way to meet new friends, connect with LGBTQ+ faculty and staff and learn more about LGBTQ+ campus and community resources

    Q*Hort Events are typically held at the beginning of each semester, as part of welcome events. 

  • Queer History Month

    LGBTQ+ History Month was founded in 1994 in the U.S. by Rodney Wilson, an openly gay high school teacher in Missouri. Wilson gathered community and national leaders, including educators, in the quest to dedicate a month to celebrating and teaching LGBTQ+ history. In 1995, the National Education Association endorsed LGBTQ+ History Month at its general assembly. In 2009, President Barack Obama declared LGBTQ+ History Month a national history month.

    The month of October was selected because it is within the academic calendar year and created space to acknowledge existing observances during the month, including the anniversaries of the first and second LGBTQ+ marches on Washington (1979 and 1987, respectively) and National Coming Out Day (established Oct. 11, 1987, during the second LGBTQ+ march on Washington). LGBTQ+ History Month now also includes International Lesbian Day (Oct. 8), International Pronouns Day (Oct. 19), Spirit Day (Oct. 20), Asexual Awareness Week (Oct. 17 – 21) and Intersex Awareness Day (Oct. 26).

    Queer History Month
  • InQueery Symposium
    inQueery 2024

    InQueery 2024

    "No Pride in Genocide": Queer Politics in the Wake of Palestine

    As military attacks on Gaza have accelerated over the last year, national and global protests against occupation and genocide have also amplified. A common sight at these protests are signs that declare: No Pride in Genocide

    InQueery 2024 Symposium Overview

    4:00-4:10 p.m. Welcome Remarks and Introduction

    4:15-5:45 p.m. 3 Concurrent Panels/Breakout Rooms 

    5:45-6:00 p.m. Break (Zoom meeting ends; return to same meeting ID)

    6:00-7:00 Keynote: Sa’ed Atshan, “Queer Palestine and the Empire of Critique”

    Webinar ID: 930 7887 6206
    Passcode: 722016

    This year’s InQueery Symposium calls for work that considers the intersections that are at the heart of this slogan. “No Pride in Genocide” implicitly expresses queer solidarity with Palestinians, but it is also a provocation to consider the connections between queer, feminist, and anti-imperialist politics. The slogan performs a queer kind of refusal. It is a rejection of settler colonialism, occupation, and genocide on the one hand; but it is also a refusal of instrumentalization and a literal weaponization of queer identities in the service of empire’s brutal violence. As Palestinian and queer studies scholar (and InQueery keynote speaker this year) Sa’ed Atshan reminds us: “Queer liberation cannot be realized while colonial subjugation persists” (Queer Palestine, 222). Atshan’s work and the symposium in general aim to highlight the untenability of gay tunnel vision—at all times, but especially in this moment. No pride in genocide is another way of saying not in our name. This year’s symposium thus calls for work which reminds us that queerness—both as a theoretical analytic and political project— must contravene forever war. Queer and feminist projects of liberation can never be compatible with roadblocks, checkpoints, and the bombing of schools and hospitals.

    2024 Keynote

    Dr. Sa'ed Atshan

    Dr. Sa'ed Atshan (د. سائد عطشان)

    Tuesday, October 15 | 4 p.m. | Zoom

    Dr. Sa’ed Atshan is Associate Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies and Anthropology and Chair of the Department of Peace and Conflict Studies at Swarthmore College.

    Atshan is the author of Queer Palestine and the Empire of Critique (Stanford University Press, 2020). He is also the coauthor, with Katharina Galor (Judaic Studies, Brown University), of The Moral Triangle: Germans, Israelis, Palestinians (Duke University Press, 2020). The German translation of The Moral Triangle is entitled Israelis, Palästinenser und Deutsche in Berlin: Geschichten einer komplexen Beziehung (De Gruyter, 2021). Atshan and Galor also coedited the volume, Reel Gender: Palestinian and Israeli Cinema (Bloomsbury, 2022). 

    His forthcoming book, Paradoxes of Humanitarianism: The Social Life of Aid in the Palestinian Territories, is under contract with Stanford University Press in their Anthropology of Policy Series.

    This annual event brings in guest speakers to create an intellectual space for intersectional and interdisciplinary conversations that center issues around gender, race, sexuality, and identity. 

    This event is hosted in partnership with the LGBTQ+ Center and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. 

  • Lavender Graduation
    Lav Grad

    Lavender Graduation is a time to celebrate and recognize our LGBTQ+ graduates. We welcome students graduating from all levels at WSU: undergraduate, graduate, and professional students.

    Lavender Graduation participants will receive a special stole as a token of our appreciation and to celebrate all that our students do for our community. Students, faculty, staff, friends, and family are all invited!

    You can learn more about the history and tradition of Lavender Graduation from the Human Rights Campaign.

    Lavender Graduation 2024

    April 19, 5-7PM
    CUB Jr Ballroom

    Register by April 14

  • Queer Archives
    Photograph from Andrew Whitver, part of the "Higher Ground" exhibition (1984).

    Photograph from Andrew Whitver, part of the "Higher Ground" exhibition (1984). 

    Higher Ground Exhibition

    Closing Reception

    Thursday, October 10th 5:30-7:30
    Ground Floor, Terrell Library MASC (Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections)

    The Washington State University Queer Archives invites you to join us for our closing reception, celebrating a curated collection of artwork and ephemera from local artists and community members. This exhibit highlights queer history and experiences specific to the Palouse region in Southeastern Washington. The event will also feature a roundtable discussion with some of the artists. 

    Exhibit contributors: Lily Haven, Bryan Storm, Alec Logan Smith, Keegan Baatz, Danielle Mitten, Mars Cantrell, Laurence Haener, Lillian Adkins, Miriam Akervall, Alex Connors, Sean Sullivan, Lotus Norton-Wisla, Bridgette Costa, Mary Welcome, Sara St. Clair, Fran O’Farrell, Chlo Duttry, and Andrew Whitver.

    Learn more about the WSU Queer Archives.

    Organized in partnership between the WSU LGBTQ+ Center & WSU Libraries Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections. 
    Curated by June T. Sanders & Josie Cohen-Rodriguez

    For questions and inquiries, email: june.t.sanders@wsu.edu & josie.rodriguez@wsu.edu