As the Queer+ Honors Caucus meeting starts, students enter the room and grab a sticker with their preferred pronouns. Their backpacks — some bare, some decorated with pins of all colors of the rainbow — hit the floor and coursework is forgotten. For the next hour, they will learn about and celebrate their unique identities.
The Queer+ Honors Caucus, or QHC, is a student-run LGBTQ+ serving club, created during the previous school year. Second-year interdisciplinary studies major and club community director Isa Webster said the goal of QHC is to provide a space within the Honors College that emphasizes the importance of queer professionals and academics in an inclusive environment.
While there are other LGBTQ+ serving clubs on campus, such as IRIS and oSTEM, what makes QHC unique is that one of its core tenets is intersectionality, Webster said.
“A lot of organizations dedicated to queerness do care about inclusion and diversity for all,” Webster said. “But it’s something that is so central to QHC that I feel like we really do create a home for everybody that struggled to find it elsewhere.”
QHC first started with about eight students from the honors college. They were inspired by their service learning course, Coming Out in Prime Time, and with the help of their club advisor Ryan Dawkins they created a club of their own.
“We want to be involved,” third-year pharmacy major and club event planner, Sun Helen said. “We’re passionate about it, obviously, and it just kind of led to us making our own space based on what we saw, what we wanted and what we didn’t necessarily get from other places.”
Khufu Holly Jr., a second-year biomedical engineering major and the club secretary, said that they saw a need for a queer club within the honors college because there seemed to be no place for queer students to come together and be themselves.
Holly said that they hope that all members feel a sense of acceptance at QHC.
“For me personally, it’s an amazing thing to be around all these people, these incredibly smart people, incredibly talented people and see all of them develop and become more themselves,” Holly Jr. said.
Instead of having a hierarchy, QHC is led by an executive board. The club’s senior members divide responsibility evenly between them in a horizontal power structure.
“We work together to create something that we all feel equally empowered in,” Webster said. “That’s something that we hadn’t seen ever before in USC.”
QHC meetings vary from social gatherings to educational seminars, where they invite professionals to talk about LGBTQ+ theory and health equity.
Second-year Educational Director and psychology major, Ramona Birch said that some of her favorite memories are from QHC’s educational meetings.
Last year, QHC collaborated with the Black Honors Caucus in an educational event. Associate professor in the Department of History and the College of Arts and Sciences, Dr. Bobby J. Donaldson, came to speak to both organizations about his role in the civil rights movement as a gay Black man. QHC also hosted an LGBTQ+ health meeting, where an associate professor in the Arnold School of Public Health, Emily Mann, came to speak at a queer poetry event during poetry month.
“Being able to see people genuinely interested in learning more both about the history of their identity and then also how they can sort of expound upon it or live comfortably with it” Birch said. “I feel like is my favorite thing to see during our events.”
While it is based in the honors college, QHC is open to any USC student .
“Most of us are honors students,” Helen said. “But we’re trying to do stuff with the community, and obviously you don’t need to be an honors student to help out and have a big impact.”
QHC hosted its first event of the school year on Aug. 23: a Welcome Back Bash. Helen said they were happy to see so many freshmen attend and begin to make friends within the club.
“That’s exactly what I love to see. Just our purpose being fulfilled,” they said. “And I just really hope to see that momentum keep going this year.”
Birch and Webster said that they both want the organization to have a name for itself and be a permanent part of USC.
“I want it to still be here,” Webster said. “I want it to have a group of eight or nine people…who are so dedicated to making a safe space for everybody that they create something out of nothing like we did.”
QHC hosts meetings on Wednesdays at 7 p.m. in the honors college. You can find out more or sign up to join on QHC's Garnet Gate profile.