The following individuals have curated exhibits about queerness at Humboldt State University. Their exhibits can be found by selecting a tab at the top of each page, such as "Queer Religion @ HSU", and then selecting a specific exhibit, such as "Alumni, Professors, and Students". By providing the curators' brief autobiographies shown below, our goal is to further acknowledge our individual and collective identity, and to articulate the personal investment that we hope is expressed through our individual exhibits. 

 

Emily Carlson

Emily Carlson is a graduating Senior at HSU. She has attended this school for five years and has almost achieved her Bachelor’s degree in History on the World History pathway, with a minor in Multicultural Queer Studies. She identifies as a cisgender queer white female and grew up in the East Bay Area of California. Humboldt County has been the most beautiful home she could have ever hoped for. The ancient forest here has had an immeasurable impact on her, and she has deeply appreciated the supportive, quirky community only found in Humboldt.

 

Grace Conroy

Grace is a third-year student at Humboldt State University, majoring in Critical Race, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. She identifies as an intersectional feminist and aims to be mindful of her social positionality and privileges affecting her everyday life; specifically in order to understand and resist interlocking systems of oppression. As a daughter, a sister, an aunt, and a partner, she attempts to remain patient, kind, and understanding. One day she hopes to be a guidance counselor for junior high school students, focusing on positive sex education, systems of privilege and oppression, and queer-related identity exploration. 

 

Ani Glenn

 

 

Ani Glenn attends Humboldt State University as a junior studying Critical Race Gender & Sexuality Studies with a pathway in Multicultural Queer Studies. As a self identified Queer Intersectional Feminist, she enjoys the outdoors, drinking tea, DIY projects, ceramics, and traveling whenever she has the chance. After she graduates, she hopes to work in the field of positive Sex and Health Education, specifically at the university or international level, and maybe even attending Grad school one day.

 

Jeffrey Hassman

Jeffrey Hassman was born and raised in Bakersfield CA and is currently studying English at Humboldt State University with the intent of becoming a High School teacher. In what spare time he can find he likes to write any and all genres or styles with a specific interest in cheesy noir and bad poetry.

 

Doni Ledesma

Doni Ledesma has been a student at Humboldt State University since August 2012. During her time on the campus she has taken multiple courses involving Women's studies, including a course focusing on memoirs written by queer women. She graduates with a bachelor's degree in Literary Studies and a minor in Communication in May 2017.

 

Julia Long

Julia Long is a Business Administration major at Humboldt State University. This is her third year at HSU. She writes fiction and is considering paralegal/legal work, event planning, and directing films as possible future careers. Originally from Michigan, she found Humboldt State by Googling 'schools in the forest in California' or something along those lines.

 

Marissa A. Lopez

Marissa Ashley Lopez is a Critical Race, Gender and Sexuality Studies Major with a pathway in Multicultural Queer Studies and a Native American Studies Minor. They are a Queer/N'Deh/Two-Spirit, writer, musician, activist, the Queer Community Building Coordinator for the MultiCultural Center, Queer Resource Center Intern, Bias Education Initiative Intern, and intersectional feministá working to disseminate information and empower others to be a part of the conversation. They hope Queer At HSU goes on to capture the Queer narrative in all its fabulousness and frustration and contribute to the develpoment of an institutionally funded "Queer" Resource Center. They plan to continue documenting the narratives of Queer and Two-Spirit folks and contribute to Queer/Two-Spirit theory.

 

Wynter Louise

Wynter Louise is a junior at Humboldt State University who prefers she/her or they/them pronouns. She identifies as a queer feminist. As an English major with an emphasis on literary studies, Wynter hopes to be able to bring an intersectional lens to all aspects of literature. Her favorite television show is Jessica Jones, and she spends a majority of her free time on the internet, with her cat Jezebel, or with friends. Queer @ HSU has a special place in Wynter’s heart, as she hopes that it will help incoming queer college students make their decision regarding which college to attend.

 

Jade M.

A senior with a focus in Literary Studies, Jade aspires to go to graduate school where she will pursue her love of history and literature by becoming a librarian with a concentration in archive management. As a person from a marginalized group, she sees the need for more representation both in the collections and resources created in libraries and archives. Jade hopes that as an archivist she will be able to uncover, preserve, and provide access to documents and collections that shine a light on the many things that people of color have done in history that do not get talked about. Jade wholeheartedly supports both learning and knowledge creation, and wishes that by reading her work people feel inspired to discover more. 

 

Ren Martin

Ren is a Critical Race, Gender, and Sexuality Studies major with a minor in Ethnic American Literature at Humboldt State University. An aspiring English teacher, Ren’s goal is to introduce students to perspectives that are often ignored, including that of queer-identified authors. It is her hope that prospective students will see her work on the Critical Race, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Department and want to attend Humboldt State University. 

 

Katherine Ohrbom

Katherine Ohrbom is an English major at Humboldt State University class of 2016. Her academic interests include 20th century American literature, gender and feminist theory, and LGBT/Queer studies. Outside of class, she enjoys sewing, cats, and talking about gender and feminist theory, and LGBT/Queer studies. After graduation she plans to pursue a single subject teaching credential in English.

 

Emily Owen

Emily is an Environmental Studies major at Humboldt State. She currently writes for The Lumberjack and hopes to eventually do something that positively impacts the world.

 

Alejandra Palafox

Alejandra is a Chicana/Latina, Lesbian, Twin, Christian, First-generation, Working class who stands by all these identities as her social positionality. Who went through experiences to understand that every single identity is vital to her. Each identity contains a struggle, that leads to a story.

 

Erin Scofield

Erin Scofield is currently working on her Bachelor Degree at HSU majoring in English Writing Practices with a minor in Studio Art. Erin is currently the Sales Manager for Planet Teas, a local tea company based in Humboldt, coordinating the social network and client relationships. In her free time Erin focuses on her writing, pottery, photography, painting, music, animal rescue, and activism within her community as a self identified queer intersectional feminist.

 

Joshua Valencia

Joshua Valencia has been a working advocate with Queers and Allies of the Residence Halls at Humboldt State University. He provides information and raises awareness on Queers living in the residence halls. His educational background in Queer and Alliance council has given him an ideal perspective to fight for Queer recognition for students living on colleges campuses. He has help organized events on campus with Queers and Allies to support identity matters such as trans, lesbian, gay, and bisexual to fight queer oppression in the residence halls.  The one thing in world he enjoys is preparing and mentoring Queers and Allies who are living in the residence halls at Humboldt State University, based on his experiences he knows how it is to be queer living in the prison cells at Humboldt State University.

The following individuals have been crucial to the creation of "Queer at HSU". We are so grateful for their direction, knowledge, and assistance.

 

Janet Winston

Janet Winston is a professor of English and faculty in the Critical Race, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Department at Humboldt State University. She has designed and taught courses in sexuality studies since the early-1990s. As a graduate student, she taught the University of Iowa’s first permanent gay and lesbian literature course, and in 1998, as a visiting assistant professor there, she taught “Diverse Sexual Communities” as part of the new Sexuality Studies program. As an assistant professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, she created VCU’s first lesbian literature course, “Lesbian Texts/Queer Theories,” only the second permanent course in LGBT studies ever offered at VCU. In 2007, she co-led a collaborative effort to create a cross-racial, cross-class, and cross-gender coalition of faculty, staff, and students to fight homophobia and transphobia on Virginia’s college campuses. With colleagues from VCU, Virginia State University, the American Association of University Professors, and Hollins University, she helped launch “Network Virginia: Building LGBT Coalitions for Change on Campus”—a Ford Foundation grant-funded conference held at the University of Virginia, which inaugurated the state-wide organization Network Virginia. At Humboldt State University, she served as the first faculty advisor for the student-initiated and student-run Eric Rofes Multicultural Queer Resource Center, has served on the Curriculum and Advisory Committees for the Multicultural Queer Studies minor, and teaches “Queer Women’s Lives.” She advocates for the University to fund a Queer Resource Center with professional staff who understands the ways that race/ethnicity, class, sexuality, and gender identities intersect and shape students’ experiences on campus. She identifies as a white, middle-class, cis-gender, queer Jewish woman.

 

Cassie

Cassie is a graduate student of English in the Literary and Cultural Studies Pathway. She is the T.A for Professor Winston’s WS370 course. She is interested in Asian American fiction, Queer literature, Feminist theories and narratives that explore mixed-race identity. 

 

*A very special "thank you" to Carly Marino and the Humboldt Room!

Photo credit: Ruby Townsend Photography