Following the 1969 Stonewall uprisings in New York City, the United States saw a rise in the gay liberation movement. The fight for equality made its way to the University of Michigan’s campus with students joining the Gay Liberation Front and the Women’s Liberation Movement. 

In 1970, the GLF and the Radical Lesbians organization on campus petitioned the university to host a Midwestern conference on homosexuality. President Robben Fleming’s denial of that request sparked several protests across campus.

In response, U-M created the Human Sexuality Office in 1971, becoming the first university to establish an office dedicated to supporting gay and lesbian students. Jim Toy and Cynthia Gair, members of the GLF and Radical Lesbians, were the first staffers hired to serve as coordinators for the new office. 

“If someone comes to us and says that they’re being kicked out of school because they’re gay, we want to be able to do something to help them,” Toy said.

In addition to peer advising, the Human Sexuality Office secured access to mental health counseling for LGBTQ+ students, provided access to a 24-hour “gay hotline” and trained students to be part of a speaker’s bureau that went to classes and campus events to share their experiences and “humanize the LGBTQ+ community.”

“The whole university community is generally misinformed about gay people by the mass media and by the gay stereotype. We can start making the straight community aware of the reality of what it means to be gay,” Gair said. 

In 1972, the Human Sexuality Office petitioned to include “sexual orientation” in the Regents’ Bylaws as a category protected from discrimination, a proposal that finally passed in 1993. 

The Human Sexuality Office grew over the years and changed its name to the Lesbian Gay Male Programs Office in the 1980s. In 2008, the office became known as the Spectrum Center to reflect the expansive community they work uplift and support. 

— Katie Kelton, The University Record

Tags:

• LGBTQ+
• Spectrum Center