Feminist magazine tours campuses with talks on race and gender, taking a page from Turning Point USA

A feminist magazine is touring college campuses nationwide to host discussions on race, gender, and sexuality, stepping into a growing void as Republican-led efforts restrict how those topics can be taught.

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In February, organizers with Lux began to tour colleges nationwide, hosting discussions about identity on campuses where instruction on these topics has been restricted or banned. The forums aim to resist campus censorship, including the crackdown on college diversity, equity, and inclusion programming and the suppression of pro-Palestine student activism, according to Lux editor-in-chief Sarah Leonard.

“Our sense was that politicians are going around, trying to strip the students’ ability to learn about things like gender, race, and sexuality,” Leonard told The Advocate. “If schools are not going to be able to offer an actual education to students, we are going to go on tour. We’re going to talk to students, and we’re going to fill in those gaps as best we can.”

The specifics of these discussions vary by school and are often planned in coordination with student groups. Leonard said many LGBTQ+ student organizations have shown particular interest in the discussions, as support for LGBTQ+ inclusion from colleges themselves has become more limited.

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“There’s just a lot of activity to take care of each other [and] make good spaces,” she said. “It’s really not supported by the adult infrastructure around them.”

The Guardian broke news of the campus tours last week, describing it as an inversion of campus debates hosted by the conservative group Turning Point USA, led by the late Charlie Kirk, who was murdered last year. “It’s important to stand and resist,” Nya Jacobson, one of the magazine’s organizers, told the news outlet.

In the discussions, students learn about the history of issues like deportation, feminism, and anti-trans bathroom and sports bans as they relate to current government efforts. Students also discuss their own experiences related to these topics.

“It’s such a joke to me that all of these commentators call students ‘snowflakes’ when the right is trying to ban the use of certain words,” Leonard said. “It’s our job to step back and look at it in this larger history to help people see where these issues are coming from.”

With increased public attention, Leonard said more student groups are reaching out to Lux to host discussions, and that the team is working to expand its national reach in the near future. By doing so, Leonard hopes to safeguard critical discussions on campuses and meet the needs of students left to seek them out.

“It took real struggle to ever be allowed to teach those things,” Leonard said. “So we feel like we're part of defying this effort to keep us from talking about the things that affect us and the things that affect students.”

This article was written as part of the Future of Queer Media fellowship program at The Advocate, which is underwritten by a generous gift from Morrison Media Group. The program helps support the next generation of LGBTQ+ journalists.