Before this month, if you searched “St. Thomas University Queer and Ally Society” on Instagram, the only result would be an account that has been inactive for over two years.
Now, a new STU Queer and Ally (Q&A) account made an appearance announcing the relaunch of the formerly dead club.
Third-year great books student Cameron Rouse is the force behind the revamp of the new Q&A, which will make its return on Nov. 28 with their first event since the 2022 school year.
“STU is truly an incredibly magically lucky place to have such a diverse population of queer students,” said Rouse, the president of the society. “To be able to all come together and see one another … I think that community aspect is completely integral.”
Rouse said the first time they heard of the Q&A was during their campus tour before being a student, but once they entered their first year, the society was barely active.
It wasn’t until the second semester of their second year that they considered bringing the club back. Rouse said STU faculty member Christi Flood asked her if she would be interested in restarting the Q&A. The rest is history.
“She just put the bug in my ear and then I worked really hard to make sure when I was going to do it, it would be done right,” she said.
With the new society, Rouse aims to facilitate a space for students to meet each other and make connections in the community, but most importantly, they want to provide a space to celebrate queerness.
“The thing that we want to lead with is creating occasions for queer joy,” she said. “It can be incredibly difficult, especially in this political space right now … to just exist as a queer person.”
With the changes to Policy 713 last year, transphobic flyers making their way to New Brunswickers’ mailboxes and a sharp rise of anti-trans bills being proposed in the United States, being queer in 2024 has its challenges.
But with the Q&A, Rouse hopes to provide a space not just for listening and sharing, but a place to just have fun with others that have similar lived experiences.
“I think it’ll bring forth a lot of really sweet connections and hopefully helpful connections,” they said. “A first-year, can look to a fourth-year who had the experience of coming home for the first time after coming out in their first semester of first year and [ask], ‘how did you navigate that?’”
While STU currently has the Drop-In Centre and STU For You, which both have events for 2SLGBTQ+ students, Rouse said they saw room on campus for a student-led initiative like the Q&A.
Rouse said they are excited to get the Q&A started with their peers on the executive team.
“I’m an incredibly lucky person to be working with people who are so energized and share the same goals and see the same deficits on campus that we can help uplift. It’s an incredible privilege.”
One of the energized society executives working alongside Rouse is second-year student and society Social Media Manager Brizi Fabrizi. They also said working with the other executives has been a great experience.
“When you have the right people, anything feels possible and I think it’s the right group of people,” they said.
Fabrizi said they first heard about the Q&A after taking on the role as the gender and sexuality inclusion representative with STU’s student union. The by-laws for their position state they must meet with the Q&A once per month.
At the time, the society had already been inactive for two years.
“Because St. Thomas is such a queer school … I assumed that something like this existed. I just never really questioned where it was,” they said. “When I joined STUSU, I was like, ‘this is something that should definitely exist.’”
Even though they had a predominantly queer friend group in their first year, Fabrizi said they wished they had a club like the Q&A when they started at STU. Now, they are excited to provide that for other students going forward.
Fabrizi said word about the new club is already spreading fast.
“I can see the interaction with [the Instagram page]. People are excited about it and that’s really heartwarming to see.”
With the club’s first event coming up on Nov. 28, which is a group reading of graphic novel Fun Home by Alison Bechdel, Rouse has strong hopes for the future of the Q&A.
“My hope would be that somebody in five years could say, ‘oh, I met my best friend at a Q&A meeting,'” said Rouse.
“I really want to create a space that is standing and create a way so the Q&A never goes into retirement again.”
