LGBTQ+ Studies at Michigan Universities Shine Light on Overlooked Queer History

From communications classes to entire LGBTQ+ majors, students have an array of options

Published: September 12, 2024 | Last Updated: September 18, 2024

In an election year where LGBTQ+ identity is politicized and often at the center of debate, education on LGBTQ+ issues is critical. Many Michigan universities are offering LGBTQ+ courses and educational opportunities to combat a wave of assumptions and hurtful rhetoric.

The University of Michigan, Michigan State University, Grand Valley State University and Eastern Michigan University all offer some form of LGBTQ+ or queer studies minors. However, each school’s course offerings and resources vary.

Grand Valley’s on-campus connection to the LGBTQ+ community is hard to miss. The university features the Milton E. Ford LGBT Resource Center, which resides in the Kirkhof Center, a student engagement hub right at the center of campus.

Grand Valley Program Director of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies Dr. Julia Mason said the center’s location is intentional. “It has a very visible physical presence; it's not like some campuses where centers are sort of tucked away or in a basement,” she said. “It's a beautiful, bright space and centrally located. I think that says something about how Grand Valley values the work that they do and the importance of making that space welcoming.”

From history to psychology, Mason said the university features LGBTQ+ courses in general education and across different majors to expose those who might not have originally considered LGBTQ+ topics to new ideas. “By offering courses at an introductory level and upper division level, it allows us to sort of meet students where they are,” Mason explained. “The students in that intro class, they may be in there because it fulfills a particular gen ed category, but then they get really interested and excited. Or, for some students, it's something they hadn't been able to think about academically in their high school or K-12, particularly because of the environment that we’re in.”

Grand Valley isn’t the only university with LGBTQ+ opportunities across different fields of study. Nadine Hubbs, a women's and gender studies and music professor at the University of Michigan, said the sheer number of openly LGBTQ+ professors and instructors across the entire campus inspired the creation of the minor and how it’s be structured.

Hubbs said that LGBTQ+ topics are interdisciplinary. To pursue a minor in LGBTQ+ studies at Michigan, a student has to complete five courses related to the topic, but the way in which they go about doing this is up to the individual. Much like Grand Valley, courses in other fields with a connection to LGBTQ+ topic can apply. Post baccalaurete, students can embark on a similar process to earn a graduate level certificate.

Offering these programs brings awareness to LGBTQ+ history, Hubbs said. “Students should know that LGBTQ+ people have a history,” she said. “We have been a people without a history.”

Hubbs added that understanding the history of constructed identities of LGBTQ+ individuals has changed over time is “good training” for any student. “It's really good training for any historian to take LGBTQ+ studies to get what it means when we say, ‘the past was different,’” Hubbs said. “As I always tell my students, historical difference is just as big as cultural difference. We can't presume that we understand these folks from our own self-understanding, and we must not.”

This challenging of societal constructions of identity that is core to Michigan’s program can have students “stretching their brains” and questioning the labels they present with, but in the end, it leaves students with a richer and freer understanding of sexual identity, Hubbs said.

Over at Eastern Michigan University, a course focused on queer communication — led by an instructor who understands firsthand the challenges facing the community — has been put back on the fall schedule after a five-year hiatus. A renewed interest in the topic — and the right instructor becoming available — has set the stage for its return.

Instructor Lee Schwab believes the course’s return is well-timed, given the current political climate. “This class couldn't come back at a better time, when we're facing a litany of state legislators across the nation proposing bills to suppress LGBTQ+ communication,” Schwab said. “A big part of LGBTQ+ communication is our expression, right? So, state legislators trying to propose bills to limit gender-affirming care for minors and for adults is keeping the whole community suppressed in that way.”

When it comes to the kind of collaborative conversations central to Schwab’s course format, maintaining a safe environment is a two-way street. Schwab said that the space created in their classes is often defined by the eagerness of their students to discuss these topics. “I think the students we have today are more politically engaged than ever before,” Schwab said. “They want to talk about their identities, they want to talk about where they fit in the world. I think this class offers a space to have those conversations about the suppression we're facing and the liberation we're moving towards.”

Schwab said that while the nature of their classroom is collaborative, their own queer experience provides intention and understanding as they navigate wide-ranging conversations. “Higher education can be a hard place to navigate for anybody, but I think as someone from the LGBTQ+ community, I have a stronger sense of how students may feel isolated,” Schwab said. “Whether it be in the classroom or they come from a conservative hometown, I think the queer experience helps.”

“I'm very happy that it happened we were able to bring back the course and that I was able to be a part of it as a young queer teacher,” Schwab added. “These are the issues that are really important to me and I know are really important to the students.”

Philosophy and communication sophomore Jason Folk had Schwab for a previous class and is currently enrolled in the the LGBTQ+ communications course. Folk said that their background in communications mixed with Schwab’s carefully curated environments made taking this course an “obvious choice.”

“As an openly queer person, we are faced with these sort of interactions, whether pro or anti, on a daily basis,” Folk said. “This was what was so enlightening to me about communications in the first place — when you get an explanation of these everyday phenomena and how they interact with us, it just allows us to basically interact and understand the world in which we live in better.”

Folk said a course like this shows LGBTQ+ individuals varying viewpoints that allow them to live their lives with more safety and understanding. “So often simply talking about being queer is, if not criminalized, just frowned upon or just doesn't take place,” Folk said. “Being able to unwrap the sort of rhetoric that queer people face every single day both internally and externally and get that explanation of why things are the way they are, I think ultimately is going to be extraordinarily enlightening.

Knowledge offers a defense against bigotry and fear, he noted. “When you're a young queer person the world seems terrifying,” he said. “But being able to understand the background processes of the way it works, ultimately, as a queer person, both brings me more comfort and security in the world we live in but also a greater ability to interact within that system.”