The History of UCLA's LGBTQ Studies Program

Written by Cami Miceli | Layout by Nick Griffin, Shay Suban

UCLA has been involved in the field of queer studies for over half a century, and today its students have access to what is known as the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Studies (LGBTQS) Program. Not to be confused with a department, this program offers a minor in LGBTQ Studies, as well as two annual conferences: QGrad in the Fall (organized by and for graduate students) and QScholars in the Spring (organized by and for undergraduate researchers). One unique feature of the QScholars Undergraduate Research Symposium is that the organizers, the student organization called QScholars, hold workshops prior to the conference to help the students whose abstracts have been accepted to develop their presentations. These workshops are usually run by students from QGrads@ UCLA, the student organization that works on the graduate conference.

The program recently celebrated its twentieth anniversary, although the history of queer studies at UCLA is much older. In fact, the first class UCLA offered on a queer topic was taught in 1976, by English professor Peter Thorslev. The class, “Gay and Lesbian Literature,” set a precedent for the way the LGBTQS Program operates today. The way things stand now, no professor teaches exclusively within the LGBTQS Program. Rather, they have commitments to other departments, such as English and Musicology, which are often prioritized over the LGBTQS Program.

This is the case for Professor Mitchell Morris, who served as the interim chair of the LGBTQS Program last quarter, while Professor Alicia Gaspar de Alba was on leave. (Prof. Gaspar de Alba has since resumed her position as the head of the program.) Prof. Morris’ main department is Musicology, so the number of courses he can teach for the LGBTQS Program is limited by what his department requires of him. Still, he has succeeded in teaching some incredible classes, such as “Queer Cultures After Stonewall: Sexual Dissidence, Performance, and Community in the 1970s.”

Such distinctive courses are typical of the LGBTQS Program. Since every teacher is coming from a different field, they each have something unique and valuable to offer students — not to mention, it makes for an interdisciplinary approach to the field of queer studies. For instance, Prof. Gaspar de Alba creates engaging coursework that combines her dedication to LGBTQS and Chicanx studies, including courses entitled “Chicana Lesbian Literature” and “Queer Noir.”

Regardless of its synthesis of multiple subjects, the LGBTQS Program has found a home under the Division of the Humanities. This categorization is largely due to the context in which the program was founded. In 1997, Professor James A. Schultz became the first Director of the LGBTQS Program. However, his training was not as a scholar of queer studies but of German medievalism.

“As you can imagine,” Prof. Schultz said, “there aren’t a huge pool of students clamoring to be German medievalists. I began to think of something else I could do that might affect more students. . . and I’d known a lot of gay historians, so I proposed teaching an introduction to lesbian and gay studies in the Women’s Studies program, and they were very eager to have it.”

That was in 1995, back when Prof. Schultz was still teaching at the University of Illinois. After transferring to UCLA, Prof. Schultz’s job positioned him in such a way that he was able to teach half of his classes for Germanic languages and the other half for queer studies. He remained involved in the LGBTQS Program until his retirement this past year, acting as head of the program and then as interim director, and always teaching the introductory course.

“It’s really a body of learning now, and people don’t often realize it’s there,” Prof. Schultz said about the LGBTQS Program. “I wish people knew more about it. . . Even in the 1950s, UCLA was doing really important research in this field, more than any other school in the country.”

For instance, Evelyn Hooker was a research psychologist on campus whose work in the 1950s helped destigmatize homosexuality. She was one of the first allies in a position of power to actively defend queer folks, by demonstrating that being gay is not a mental illness. Her experiment involved comparing the mental health of homosexual and heterosexual men, which ultimately resulted in no discernable difference. The fact she was a UCLA alumna gives the university a foundation on which to continue its endorsement of queer-related studies.

Prof. Schultz believes this history is something in which UCLA students should take pride. Moreover, by participating in the LGBTQS Program, students are upholding a long tradition of queer studies and research, which can be quite beneficial for the world at large, by expanding people’s worldviews and working to destigmatize queer identities.

“For some students it’s important because it’s part of their own identity,” explained Jessika Herrera, the former Student Affairs Officer for the LGBTQS Program in charge of helping students officially declare the minor. “It’s kind of like learning your heritage, so to speak, or your culture. But I think for others it’s important to understand the history of struggle and the fact that the struggle remains. Although there have been advancements, there have also been setbacks.”

“We were a little late in founding an official program, I think,” admitted Morgan Woolsey, a full-time lecturer with a splitappointment between Musicology and LGBTQS, “but UCLA has been involved. . . since the 70s, teaching courses and things like that.”

Sure enough, before the LGBTQS Program was established, queer-related courses were made available at UCLA. In addition to the queer literature course offered in 1976, the Gender Studies Program sponsored various queer-themed classes, such as the course entitled “Introduction to Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Studies,” first taught in 1992.

Even today, many classes are cross-listed between LGBTQ Studies and Gender Studies. This is not surprising, as the two fields have a lot in common. Yet despite this overlap, they are not interchangeable. While the LGBTQS Program is underneath the Humanities umbrella, Gender Studies is under the Division of Social Sciences. This affects the sources from which each field draws, as well as the manner in which material is studied.

In terms of the overlap between Gender Studies and LGBTQ Studies, Prof. Morris explained, “We think of LGBTQS as complementary to Women’s Studies, rather than the same. They can be strongest if they have their own tracks and can talk across that to one another.” Yet, he emphasized, “We just don’t have the same historical tradition we work from. [We] cite different books [and are] after a different set of questions.”

As an example, Prof. Morris posed the following question: What gender does a fetish have? To him, this demonstrates how sexuality can be autonomous from our understandings of gender.

As for its name, the LGBTQS Program started off in 1997 with only three letters, denoting lesbian, gay, and bisexual identities. The very next year, the T for transgender was added, and the Q for queer joined it just a few years ago.

“The LGBTQ+ acronym is infinitely expandable — and why shouldn’t it be?” Prof. Morris replied. “We certainly don’t believe things are fixed in any particular way. So why not leave it deliberately diverse to indicate other identities and practices and ways of being that may very well come into this picture?”

The flexibility of the program’s name demonstrates the staff and faculty members’ commitment to serving their students and keeping up-to-date with changing attitudes and identities.

As Jessika explained, “The minor is designed a little bit like a dialogue. There is always a risk that a program like LGBTQS that’s identity-focused could potentially drift into areas where it’s not inclusive, but I think the faculty try to rely a lot on what their students tell them. . . not always because it is their lived experience, but because a lot of their work involves learning about other people’s lived experiences. I think because of that they are more than happy to listen to students.”

True to this, the staff and faculty members are one of the main reasons why the LGBTQS Program is as effective as it is. From the get-go, the program was spearheaded by staff members — people who do not primarily teach — who thought UCLA should have more resources to serve the queer community. And those who teach the classes today are, more often than not, open to discussions with their students.

Jessika concurred and said, “I think one of the strengths of the program. . . is truly the teaching. I hear a lot from students who come to talk to me, who will share wonderful stories about experiences with faculty in various courses, and sometimes it’s taking a course with one of our faculty that motivates them to formally declare the minor.”

However, despite the wonderful resources the LGBTQS Program offers, a relatively small amount of people take advantage of its resources. In fact, the number of people in the minor at any given point in time usually fluctuates between twenty and thirty.

“I think we have a little bit of trouble getting the word out that we’re a program that exists,” said Jessika, “[and] that we’re an entity separate from the LGBT Center ... because we’re a program, we might not be as visible — we don’t have rainbow flags flying everywhere, you know. I think because of that, it’s a little harder for students to find their way to their minor.”

Students interested in the LGBTQS Program and the courses it offers are welcome to reach out to staff members or stop by Haines A9, colloquially known as the Lavender Ballroom. Fittingly, its walls are painted a pale purple, and there is a mural at one end depicting various aspects of the gay rights movement, from the homophile movement in the 1950s to the more unflinching riots such as the New Year’s Eve protest of the Black Cat bar in Silverlake.

Faithful to this tradition of social change, the people involved in the LGBTQS Program want their courses to have a lasting effect on their students.

As Jessika worded it, “All of the faculty really approach LGBTQS from the standpoint of, ‘It’s not merely information that you learn or material that’s meant to exist esoterically.’ The purpose of studying LGBTQ-related issues is to actually use them to the advantage of the community and. . . to champion for things like rights, basic human rights.”

This might be why one of the requirements for the LGBTQS minor is a capstone service learning course, which helps students earn hands-on experience working at an LGBTQrelated community organization. Thus, the minor’s structure reflects each faculty member’s dedication to serve the LGBTQ+ community beyond the classroom.

And of course, the students involved in the program are similarly dedicated to the material, whether or not they plan to complete the minor.

“We see a lot of students who initiate,” Jessika remarked. “The students are very motivated to engage with this scholarly material in very meaningful and active ways. For many students, choosing to declare the minor is a very important decision to them personally; they feel very invested in it. There’s a lot of motivation for students to take advantage of some of the opportunities than students in other majors, where they’re doing it just to have a major and be done with [it].”

Anybody interested in learning more about queerness in an academic setting is encouraged to check out the courses offered by UCLA’s very own LGBTQS program. More often than not, the classes are open to everyone, minor or no minor. Additionally, they change every quarter, so if nothing particularly eyecatching is listed one month, it is a worthwhile investment to check back in during the next bout of class sign-ups. Whether the class is on a well-loved subject or on a previously unheard of topic, there is something for every student to gain by getting involved!

As Prof. Morris put it, “Knowledge provides you with more autonomy, and with more autonomy, we can help humans to flourish. And if we’re not in the business of helping humans flourish, then what are we doing?”

For more information on the LGBTQS program, resources and information are available on the program’s official website: lgbtqstudies.ucla.edu.