Friday, November 18, 2011

GSC

"The Gender and Sexuality Center provides safe spaces for all members of the UT Austin community to explore, organize, and promote learning around issues of gender and sexuality. The center also facilitates a greater responsiveness to the needs of women and the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, and ally (LGBTQA) communities through education, outreach and advocacy." - The GSC home page

The GSC is a place that LGBT students can hang out, participate in LGBT programs and Orginizations, and to interact with the larger LGBT community at the university. As a physical space, the GSC includes a sitting area, a large table, and individual study cubicles. These spaces allow for interaction and a study area. The physcial space also includes a large collection of literature with topics ranging from coming out literature to LGBT themed films. The GSC as a entity is headed by Shane and Ixchel, who organize events and organizations presented by the GSC.

Analysis

The GSC is not only a physical representation of the LGBT community on campus, but it is also the most prominent example of how the university addresses the LGBT student's needs. It is a proactive step to address the various issues that could arise and provide support LGBT students. Also to be noted, the GSC is known by many LGBT students at the universtiy, it is a resource that many know of wether they go to the center or not. Not only that by there seems to be some straight individuals that know of the center as well. In effect the GSC is a well know resources on campus.

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