MSU center renamed to be more reflective of LGBTQA+ community

<p>“Our center is a student-centered campus resource that works to celebrate, affirm, and empower LGBTQA+ members of the Michigan State University community,” says Beal. “We are the hub of LGBTQA+ life on campus, a home away from home. We also provide trainings, workshops, consultation services, and educational programs for all of campus.</p><p>“But at the end of the day, our whole job is making sure that LGBTQA+ students know that they are whole and perfect and complete exactly as they are and that we celebrate who they are and everything they do on our campus and beyond.”</p><p>Why the <a href="https://lbgtrc.msu.edu/about/name-change.html">name change</a>, Jesse? And why now?</p><p>“We have been asking for this name change for a while. Our students have been asking for this name change for even longer. The running joke among the student population is that it's a typo of some sort, and so students love to troll us about our persistent typo in LBGT Resource Center. The truth of it is, when the name was created that the acronym was less static than it is today. Right now, there's a particular order that is more common and understood to be correct. That wasn't the case 15 years ago when we named our center. There is some mythology around that part of why the B is further up in the acronym; it was to center bisexual folks. And that's great. We don't want to give up that part of our mission. We will do the work of supporting bisexual, pansexual, and fluid communities, but we think we can do that with a name that's more inclusive.</p><p>“In addition to this, centers around the country have been moving to the gender and sexual diversity model for center names to get away from the acronym because the acronym is inherently exclusive. We're always adding new vocabulary for folks to better describe their experiences of gender and sexuality, which is a good thing. Because LGBTQA+ people have only been talking about ourselves in public for a relatively short period of time. But the acronym gets longer and longer. T