Eastern Michigan’s Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay and Transgender Resource Center did the first-week thing on purpose. The Eastern Echo reported BBQueer for Thursday, September 10, 5 to 7:30 p.m. on the Student Center patio: barbecue with vegetarian options, music, drag performances, drag bingo hosted by Jadein Black. Intern Elliot Gray said the point was to start the year with a room full of people. Senior Wendy Pulido Rodriguez, who has gone every year she has been on campus, said it made a rural kid feel like Eastern was a place you could stay.
That is a cookout. It is also a map. The center sits in Student Center 354. It has games, a library, free gender-expressive clothing, weekly STI testing with Get Yourself Tested, and a free binder and bra exchange. If your campus ran a similar night and you only ate, you missed the inventory.
The first week is a door, not a brand
Gray’s quote in the Echo is the one to keep. Some students arrive already plugged in. Some are questioning, closeted, new to the town, or just looking for a table that does not require a speech. BBQueer is built so you can take a plate and not perform. Drag bingo starts after people have food. There is no minute-by-minute program. That is a design choice, not sloppiness.
We already wrote how the first weeks of fall actually work and a plain checklist for judging a campus LGBTQ office. Those pages assume you can find the office. EMU put the office on a patio with a grill so you would not have to hunt a room number while carrying a tray.
If your campus has no cookout, copy the sequence anyway. Public, timed, outdoors or in a lobby, food that does not require an RSVP form, and a staffer who will say the room number out loud. A rainbow graphic on Instagram is not that sequence.
Steal the menu, not the mascot
Here is EMU’s list, reduced to things you can ask for on your own campus:
- A named room with hours, not “by appointment only” forever.
- Clothing you can take without a counseling session. EMU’s free gender-expressive rack and binder/bra exchange are the adult version of a lost-and-found.
- A testing partnership that shows up weekly, not once during Pride Month. Get Yourself Tested on a schedule is a health service. A bowl of condoms at a mixer is a prop.
- A library you can sit in. Gray and the Echo both mention games and puzzles. That sounds small until you realize you need a reason to be in the room when you do not want to talk yet.
- Clubs that meet in the same room so the org directory is not the only on-ramp.
Small-college centers often have one staffer and a closet. Fine. The question is whether that closet has a door students can find in week two. Pulido Rodriguez came from a place where difference was not celebrated. The cookout was the proof the building existed. The room is what you go back to in October.
Write down what your center actually hands out. If the answer is “stickers and a list of off-campus therapists,” you have a brochure, not a center. Ask for the clothing, the testing date, and the hours in writing. Student affairs understands inventory questions. They stall on vibe questions.
Other campuses are running the same week
New York schools published fall calendars this month. NYU’s LGBTQ+ Center put a Stonewall Inn mixer for graduate and professional students on September 16, and a drag night on September 23. Brooklyn College advertised an LGBTQIA+ book club and an Out! on the Quad resource fair covering health, housing, internships, and legal services. Columbia still points at being home to the first gay student organization in the country, plus a trans resources page. Manhattan University, a Catholic campus, lists support for LGBTQ+ Jaspers and an alumni network.
Those are not EMU. They are evidence that September programming is not a luxury item. A resource fair on a quad is the same idea as BBQueer with worse food: you walk up, you take a card, you learn the office has a location.
If you are a first-year, pick one event this month that includes a table from health services. Mixers are optional. The table is the support resource. If you are a senior who already knows everyone, go anyway and stand near the table. First-years copy where the seniors stand.
What to do on Monday
Do not wait for your campus to invent drag bingo.
- Find the room number. If the website only has a Google form, email and ask for the door. Screenshot the reply.
- Ask three inventory questions: clothing, testing, hours. You want dates, not mission language.
- Put one recurring thing on your calendar — a weekly test clinic, a book club, a quiet hours block in the center. Recurring beats a single cookout.
- If there is no center, start with the org paperwork, but steal EMU’s public-event trick first. A patio is cheaper than a constitution fight.
Jadein Black told the Echo that BBQueer works because it is joyful and accessible, including for people who have never been in a drag room. That is the support-resources version of orientation. Struggle will find you. The center’s job in week two is to give you a plate, a room number, and one free thing you can carry out so you have a reason to come back.
If your campus skipped the cookout, the list still stands. Room. Hours. Clothing. Testing. A person who will say the door number without making you come out in the lobby. That is the whole resource.
