After Auburn's Pride Center closed, LGBTQ students are struggling to find support and resources.
Ian Oriol owns Coffee Mafia, a popular Auburn coffee shop. As a part of the LGBTQ community, he feels its important to have inclusive spaces now that Auburn closed its Pride Center this fall.Whenever Eric Burkholder, an assistant professor at Auburn University’s physics department, feels “out of sorts,” as he says, a student will point to a pillow in his office that reads, “The horrors persist but so do I.
“I feel like we were given false hope,” Burkholder said. He said he thinks the space itself didn’t violate the law, but the name of the space “drew heightened attention,” so “out of an abundance of caution,” it was closed. “It was a safe space for LGBTQ students to hang out in between classes where they could be with others like them,” Grimes said. “They could relax, not have to worry about any judgment or feeling unwelcome on campus.”
“It’s a very red school in a red city in a red state,” Grimes said. “There are a lot of people that make homophobic jokes, transphobic jokes, even around people that they know are queer, because they just don’t care.” Burkholder said LGBTQ people now need to go off-campus or work with organizations such as Pride on the Plains, which hosts Pride events and drag shows regularly at local parks and bars, to find public celebration and community.
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