Lora Luquet
Arts and Living Editor
Peter Gorham sits in a rocking chair on the porch of Varnado Hall. He has just returned from the Varnado Field Day and looks tired.
Gorham is a freshman graphic design major, and so far, thoroughly enjoys being a part of the Department of Fine and Graphic Arts.
“I love how inclusive it is. I love how everyone is super nice, super creative,” Gorham said. “I literally see a lot of different people who are just completely different, and it’s just really cool to see people like that come together.”
Gorham attended a Student Government Association meeting on Monday, April 5, with a group of friends to propose some LGBTQ inclusive events for Northwestern State University to consider.
“My friend Tabatha Bowlin saw my post on Instagram. I took a screenshot of NSU’s post about the Trans Day of Visibility, and I thought, hey this is really cool, and she was like, yeah, that is really cool, but it would be cooler if NSU did more things for the trans community and the LGBTQ community,” Gorham said. “Me, her, and a bunch of other people got together, and we went to the SGA meeting to propose that they do more.”
Gorham was nervous about speaking at the meeting at first, but overall, the experience made him more confident in NSU’s inclusivity.
“There were about five or six of us who went, so, there’s like a sort of power in numbers,” Gorham said. “Everyone there was super kind. They listened to us. They had me go up to the podium and explain my idea to them and the people over WebEx.”
Gorham was partially inspired by a friend who attends Louisiana Tech University. His friend is a part of a student-led group for transgender students and one of the events held by this group is a clothing swap.
“Trans people bring clothes that they don’t wear anymore, and they trade it. I have a lot of feminine clothes that I don’t wear anymore, and I know trans women who might want to wear it,” Gorham said. “If trans women have masculine clothes that they don’t want to wear, they could trade it to trans men. I think it would be really helpful for NSU to do something like that.”
In the future, one of Gorham’s goals at NSU is to start a group for transgender students himself.
“We definitely have enough people behind it to start the club, and even if we have to meet outside in the yard, we will, because we all think it’s really important.”
